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Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award

A metaphorical fugue on minds and machines in the spirit of Lewis Carroll

"Every few decades an unknown author brings out a book of such depth, charity, range, wit, beauty, and originality that it is recognized at once as a major literary event. This is such a work." -- Scientific American

GEB is a unique insight into the nature of "I," self, soul, and consciousness, centered on a notion that its youthful author dubbed "strange loop," inspired by the twisty self-referential construction invented by logician Kurt Gödel, whereby a sentence asserts its own unprovability. The book's chapters alternate with Bach-like contrapuntal dialogues between whimsical characters (especially Achilles and the Tortoise), and each dialogue's intricate structure exemplifies the notion being discussed in it, thus creating indirect self-reference (a fact unsuspected by the characters). The book, filled with analogies, wordplay, humor, and mind-twisting prints by M. C. Escher, has inspired generations of bright students to study cognitive science and the philosophy of mind.

Innehållsförteckning levererad av Syndetics

• Preface to GEB's Twentieth-anniversary Edition(P-1)
• Overview(p. viii)
• List of Illustrations(p. xiv)
• Words of Thanks(p. xix)
• Part I GEB
• Introduction: A Musico-Logical Offering(p. 3)
• Three-Part Invention(p. 29)
• Chapter I The MU-puzzle(p. 33)
• Two-Part Invention(p. 43)
• Chapter II Meaning and Form in Mathematics(p. 46)
• Sonata for Unaccompanied Achilles(p. 61)
• Chapter III Figure and Ground(p. 64)
• Contracrostipunctus(p. 75)
• Chapter IV Consistency, Completeness, and Geometry(p. 82)
• Little Harmonic Labyrinth(p. 103)
• Chapter V Recursive Structures and Processes(p. 127)
• Canon by Intervallic Augmentation(p. 153)
• Chapter VI The Location of Meaning(p. 158)
• Chromatic Fantasy, And Feud(p. 177)
• Chapter VII The Propositional Calculus(p. 181)
• Crab Canon(p. 199)
• Chapter VIII Typographical Number Theory(p. 204)
• A Mu Offering(p. 231)
• Chapter IX Mumon and Godel(p. 246)
• Part II EGB(p. 275)
• Prelude ...(p. 285)
• Chapter X Levels of Description, and Computer Systems(p. 285)
• ... Ant Fugue(p. 311)
• Chapter XI Brains and Thoughts(p. 337)
• English French German Suite(p. 366)
• Chapter XII Minds and Thoughts(p. 369)
• Aria with Diverse Variations(p. 391)
• Chapter XIII BlooP and FlooP and GlooP(p. 406)
• Air on G's String(p. 431)
• Chapter XIV On Formally Undecidable Propositions of TNT and Related Systems(p. 438)
• Birthday Cantatatata ...(p. 461)
• Chapter XV Jumping out of the System(p. 465)
• Edifying Thoughts of a Tobacco Smoker(p. 480)
• Chapter XVI Self-Ref and Self-Rep(p. 495)
• The Magnificrab, Indeed(p. 549)
• Chapter XVII Church, Turing, Tarski, and Others(p. 559)
• Shrdlu, Toy of Man's Designing(p. 586)
• Chapter XVIII Artificial Intelligence: Retrospects(p. 594)
• Contrafactus(p. 633)
• Chapter XIX Artificial Intelligence: Prospects(p. 641)
• Sloth Canon(p. 681)
• Chapter XX Strange Loops, Or Tangled Hierarchies(p. 684)
• Six-Part Ricercar(p. 720)
• Notes(p. 743)
• Bibliography(p. 746)
• Credits(p. 757)
• Index(p. 759)