jasonofthel33t
3 HN recommenders · recommended in 3 months, 2017–2021
1:02:34 · 557K views · Dec 2, 2012
The first lecture of an MIT course on Douglas Hofstadter's Godel, Escher, Bach, covering themes like self-reference, recursion and incompleteness. The full lecture series is on YouTube.
Recommended as a companion to reading the dense book.
3 comments from Hacker News
> "...interesting trend in our discourse..." > "...more and more moralizing and virtue signaling. So much ... "motivation porn"..." > "..aspirational message - imagine yourself rich, happy, driving a Lamborghini.." > "...too many people have come to see reading as a lofty..." > "reading is just a hobby" > "Making it into such a self-serious pursuit kills most of the joy." > "...you read books, we all read books. Everybody poops, and everybody reads books." WHAT?? This comment is apoplectic with contradictory statements and false beliefs. What could possibly be accomplished by it? It's an unapologetic rant on reading and writing on, of all places, one of the most text focused news and discussion sites on internet. Sheesh! Clearly, for some people reading is not just for entertainment, or 'joy'. And, clearly, for some of these people, their joy is also writing about reading (hence the OP). I do agree on one thing suggested by the response, though not said directly. Reading and Writing may converge into a bizarre infinite loop. If you find this maddening, rage inducing, then consider yourself warned! There is one book which you must not read. Dare I say it's name? YES! I DARE! Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter [1]. It is not an easy read for the shitter. You may even need the assistance of this MIT Open CourseWare video series on YouTube [2] about the book. Read this book at your own PERIL! Extreme brain expansion may occur. WHEW. (Now I'm going to site quietly and medit
I personally found it 'heavy'. There's a lot to think about and take in. As it's not like reading typical technical books or papers. There's a great charm/fun and cleverness once things fall into place. There's an excellent MIT course for it. All the Lectures on Youtube as well. [LINK] this video
MIT had a course on the book with recordings on YouTube. They’re great to watch as you work through the book: this video