OT: best book in years

[Martin Maney]

John J. Lee <jjl at pobox.com> wrote:
> "Michael Peuser" <mpeuser at web.de> writes:
> [...]
>> Hofstadter: Goedel Escher Bach

> Even better hospital reading material: Metamagical Themas.  Fantastic
> stuff.

At the risk of ticking someone, I'd have to suggest that the
Metamagical Themas columns are his slightest work.  Or perhaps we
aren't disagreeing if you wanted to suggest something lighter as better
for the circumstances.

GEB remains my favorite Hofstadter as a book to sit down and read from
end to end.  For something that's a weightier distraction, his _Fluid
Concepts and Creative Analogies_ is a fascinating look at the reaserach
work he and his co-conspirators were engaged in all those years.

Branching out to nearby places in meme-space (and books I have at hand
so as to cite correctly), Hofstadter and Dennett's _The Mind's I:
Fantasies and Reflections on Self & Soul_ "explore[s] the meaning of
self and consciousness through the perspectives of literature,
artificial intelligence, psychology, and much more."  Hey, how can you
not love a book that includes pieces by Jorge Luis Borges, Raymond Smullyan,
Stainslaw Lem, and John Searle... and many more?

Thinking of and fetching those titles made me think of Dennett's
_Consciousness Explained_ and _Darwin's Dangerous Idea_, about which I
will say little but that I found them both engrossing, stimulating, and
provoking; they are also somewhat relevant to programs and systems
design, perhaps most directly for the vision of the true _vastness_ of
design-space.

Hmmm.  Guess I won't need to go to the library this weekend after all
unless those CDs are due back...

-- 
Remember the refrain:  We always build on the past;
the past always tries to stop us.  Freedom is about stopping the past,
but we have lost that ideal.  -- Lawrence Lessig