Every once in a while I read a truly awesome book.  I am talking about a book that conveys concepts and ideas that move me to think about things in a new ways, a book that opens up new worlds of thought.  I just finished such a book called Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, the Pulitzer Prize winning book by Douglas Hofstadter.  The book was written over 30 years ago, but its concepts are as relevant today as they were in 1979.

The book describes the works of composer Johann Sebastian Bach, artist M.C. Escher, and mathematician Kurt Gödel, and how their concepts influenced Hofstader’s theories on intelligence and AI.  GEB (as it is popularly known) is a tour de force in laying down inter-related concepts in music, art, math, logic, computer science, biology, physics and human intelligence.  The central concept aside (which is an awesome theory on its own), the book is amazingly informative on, and brings all of the above mentioned subjects, to life.  I want to download Bach when I get back from vacation and discover his brilliance Hofstader describes.  I want to get a book on the works of Escher.  I want to learn more about music theory.  But most of all I want to let the ideas in the book settle in.

Wandering London today I found myself thinking through the end of the book, where Hofstader lays down his final arguments and summarizes the book.  I found myself thinking about the nature of human intelligence.  It is quite obvious to me that I will be think about this book for quite some time.

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