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Gödel, Escher, Bach: A Mental Space Odyssey
by noteworthy at 10:57 am EDT, Jun 7, 2009 |
Navigate the mind-expanding universe of Gödel, Escher, Bach with MIT OpenCourseWare: What do one mathematician, one artist, and one musician all have in common? Are you interested in zen Buddhism, math, fractals, logic, paradoxes, infinities, art, language, computer science, physics, music, intelligence, consciousness and unified theories? Get ready to chase me down a rabbit hole into Douglas Hofstadter's Pulitzer Prize winning book Gödel, Escher, Bach. Lectures will be a place for crazy ideas to bounce around as we try to pace our way through this enlightening tome. You will be responsible for most of the reading as lectures will consist primarily of motivating the material and encouraging discussion. I advise everyone seriously interested to buy the book, grab on and get ready for a mind-expanding voyage into higher dimensions of recursive thinking.
Check out the video lectures. From the archive, on Hofstadter: What do we mean when we say "I"?
Freeman Dyson: After Gödel, mathematics was no longer a single structure tied together with a unique concept of truth, but an archipelago of structures with diverse sets of axioms and diverse notions of truth. Gödel showed that mathematics is inexhaustible. No matter which set of axioms is chosen as the foundation, birds can always find questions that those axioms cannot answer.
Dr. Nanochick on the Geek Test: I feel truly geeky because I can think of something that should have gotten me geek points that wasn't on the list -- owning the "Real Genius" DVD and reading "Gödel, Escher, Bach."
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RE: Gödel, Escher, Bach: A Mental Space Odyssey
by Lost at 9:26 pm EDT, Jun 7, 2009 |
noteworthy wrote:
Navigate the mind-expanding universe of Gödel, Escher, Bach with MIT OpenCourseWare: What do one mathematician, one artist, and one musician all have in common? Are you interested in zen Buddhism, math, fractals, logic, paradoxes, infinities, art, language, computer science, physics, music, intelligence, consciousness and unified theories? Get ready to chase me down a rabbit hole into Douglas Hofstadter's Pulitzer Prize winning book Gödel, Escher, Bach. Lectures will be a place for crazy ideas to bounce around as we try to pace our way through this enlightening tome. You will be responsible for most of the reading as lectures will consist primarily of motivating the material and encouraging discussion. I advise everyone seriously interested to buy the book, grab on and get ready for a mind-expanding voyage into higher dimensions of recursive thinking.
Check out the video lectures. From the archive, on Hofstadter: What do we mean when we say "I"?
Freeman Dyson: After Gödel, mathematics was no longer a single structure tied together with a unique concept of truth, but an archipelago of structures with diverse sets of axioms and diverse notions of truth. Gödel showed that mathematics is inexhaustible. No matter which set of axioms is chosen as the foundation, birds can always find questions that those axioms cannot answer.
Dr. Nanochick on the Geek Test: I feel truly geeky because I can think of something that should have gotten me geek points that wasn't on the list -- owning the "Real Genius" DVD and reading "Gödel, Escher, Bach."
I own the Real Genius DVD. I love it. I just bought Godel, Escher, Bach and... I can't fucking understand it and I feel stupid. Its not that its totally above me and I could never approach it. Its just that... for the same reason I've never finished Gravity's rainbow: its full time work understanding it. So I own it. But man... I doubt I will read it within the next few years. Sheesh! |
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Undertaking a Brutal Mental Space Odyssey
by noteworthy at 10:24 pm EDT, Jun 7, 2009 |
Dr. Nanochick on the Geek Test: I feel truly geeky because I can think of something that should have gotten me geek points that wasn't on the list -- owning the "Real Genius" DVD and reading "Gödel, Escher, Bach."
Jello: I own the Real Genius DVD. I love it. I just bought Godel, Escher, Bach and... I can't fucking understand it and I feel stupid. It's not that it's totally above me and I could never approach it. It's just that ... for the same reason I've never finished Gravity's Rainbow: it's full time work understanding it.
Martin Schwartz: Science makes me feel stupid too. It's just that I've gotten used to it.
Nassim Taleb on Umberto Eco's library: Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. The library should contain as much of what you do not know as your financial means, mortgage rates, and the currently tight real-estate market allows you to put there. You will accumulate more knowledge and more books as you grow older, and the growing number of unread books on the shelves will look at you menacingly. Indeed, the more you know, the larger the rows of unread books. Let us call this collection of unread books an antilibrary.
John Lanchester: A common criticism of video games made by non-gamers is that they are pointless and escapist, but a more valid observation might be that the bulk of games are nowhere near escapist enough. If I had to name one high-cultural notion that had died in my adult lifetime, it would be the idea that difficulty is artistically desirable.
Roger Ebert: I did not much connect with the film [Antonioni's "L'Avventura"] when I saw it first -- how could I, at 18? These people were bored by a lifestyle beyond my wildest dreams. When I taught the film in a class 15 years later, it seemed affected and contrived, a feature-length idea but not a movie. Only recently, seeing it again, did I realize how much clarity and passion Antonioni brought to the film's silent cry of despair.
Milton Glaser: If you have a choice never have a job.
Michael Lewis: Just as all humans are not ordinary, all human waste isn't ordinary, and the waste of Russians is no exception.
Peter Trachtenberg: Everybody suffers, but Americans have the ... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]
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Gödel, Escher, Bach: A Mental Space Odyssey
by Dr. Nanochick at 12:00 pm EDT, Jun 7, 2009 |
Ooo...can't wait to check these video lectures out! Thanks Noteworthy! Navigate the mind-expanding universe of Gödel, Escher, Bach with MIT OpenCourseWare: What do one mathematician, one artist, and one musician all have in common? Are you interested in zen Buddhism, math, fractals, logic, paradoxes, infinities, art, language, computer science, physics, music, intelligence, consciousness and unified theories? Get ready to chase me down a rabbit hole into Douglas Hofstadter's Pulitzer Prize winning book Gödel, Escher, Bach. Lectures will be a place for crazy ideas to bounce around as we try to pace our way through this enlightening tome. You will be responsible for most of the reading as lectures will consist primarily of motivating the material and encouraging discussion. I advise everyone seriously interested to buy the book, grab on and get ready for a mind-expanding voyage into higher dimensions of recursive thinking.
Check out the video lectures. From the archive, on Hofstadter: What do we mean when we say "I"?
Freeman Dyson: After Gödel, mathematics was no longer a single structure tied together with a unique concept of truth, but an archipelago of structures with diverse sets of axioms and diverse notions of truth. Gödel showed that mathematics is inexhaustible. No matter which set of axioms is chosen as the foundation, birds can always find questions that those axioms cannot answer.
Dr. Nanochick on the Geek Test: I feel truly geeky because I can think of something that should have gotten me geek points that wasn't on the list -- owning the "Real Genius" DVD and reading "Gödel, Escher, Bach."
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Gödel, Escher, Bach: A Mental Space Odyssey
by Lost at 9:29 pm EDT, Jun 7, 2009 |
Gödel, Escher, Bach: A Mental Space Odyssey
Summer 2007
Gödel, Escher, Bach: A Mental Space Odyssey.
Gödel, Escher, Bach: A Mental Space Odyssey. (Image by Justin Curry and Curran Kelleher).
Course Description What do one mathematician, one artist, and one musician all have in common? Are you interested in zen Buddhism, math, fractals, logic, paradoxes, infinities, art, language, computer science, physics, music, intelligence, consciousness and unified theories? Get ready to chase me down a rabbit hole into Douglas Hofstadter's Pulitzer Prize winning book Gödel, Escher, Bach. Lectures will be a place for crazy ideas to bounce around as we try to pace our way through this enlightening tome. You will be responsible for most of the reading as lectures will consist primarily of motivating the material and encouraging discussion. I advise everyone seriously interested to buy the book, grab on and get ready for a mind-expanding voyage into higher dimensions of recursive thinking.
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