Rating: 
Summary: Cute, but lacking deep thought
Review: Although relating many topics such as government, society, metaphysics, artificial intelligence, and other topics, this book (to me at least) fails to comment on any real deep philosphy. Upon the discussion of artificial intelligence, Hofstadter completely ignores the notion of emotion in AI, and ignores more specifically the emotions of greed and lust, that drives many people (such is the reason why if AI were to exist, man-kind would cease to exist.)He also fails to mention the notions of religion, and its implications to self-reference. In his discussion for Tit-For-Tat, Hofstadter also fails to mention that Tit-For-Tat is perhaps the most unrealistic scenerio in life, since many game winning algorithms exist. In essence, it is a thought provoker, but in the sense that it would be compared to a good crossword puzzle, while a real philosphy text would be paralled to solving a tough mathematical proof.
Rating:
Summary: Cute, but lacking deep thought
Review: Although relating many topics such as government, society, metaphysics, artificial intelligence, and other topics, this book (to me at least) fails to comment on any real deep philosphy. Upon the discussion of artificial intelligence, Hofstadter completely ignores the notion of emotion in AI, and ignores more specifically the emotions of greed and lust, that drives many people (such is the reason why if AI were to exist, man-kind would cease to exist.)He also fails to mention the notions of religion, and its implications to self-reference. In his discussion for Tit-For-Tat, Hofstadter also fails to mention that Tit-For-Tat is perhaps the most unrealistic scenerio in life, since many game winning algorithms exist. In essence, it is a thought provoker, but in the sense that it would be compared to a good crossword puzzle, while a real philosphy text would be paralled to solving a tough mathematical proof.
Rating: 
Summary: Essence of Mind and Pattern
Review: At any level of scientific comprehension, this book provides an intelligent subscription to pattern. Includes essays and 'conversations' on Alan Turing, and clear and relevant description of common and interesting science. The most valuable information is hofstaedter's creative description of thought.
Rating:
Summary: Essence of Mind and Pattern
Review: At any level of scientific comprehension, this book provides an intelligent subscription to pattern. Includes essays and 'conversations' on Alan Turing, and clear and relevant description of common and interesting science. The most valuable information is hofstaedter's creative description of thought.
Rating: 
Summary: I Wouldn't say it's better than GEB...
Review: But it's worth the money just for the chapter on "Nomic."Once you've read that bit, you can bring any fundamentalist or strict constructionist legalist to the mat.
Rating:
Summary: Serious Thinking about Thinking.
Review: Douglas Hofstadter is obsessed with the meaning of meaning and has been thinking about thinking for most of his life. His first book won a Pulitzer Prize, but for those of us who share his obsession with thought, meaning, pattern, and creativity, this one is even better. The words in this book could be read in a week. The concepts Hofstadter explores will keep your mind busy for months. You will find yourself reading for fifteen minutes, and then thinking and speculating for hours. I have never seen a book that does so much to spark the creativity and curiosity of the reader. The focus of the book is broad, almost maddeningly so -- Hofstadter jumps from Art to Logic to Science to Pattern with a speed and grace that leaves most people gasping. But as you read it, you will begin to see a common thread -- It is about how people think, and what the fundamental processes of thought and creativity might be, explored through as many manifestations of thought and creativity as Hofstadter can manage. And Hofstadter, lucky for us, can manage quite a lot. If you are interested in thought and creativity, in mind, soul, and pattern -- if "effing the ineffable" is one of your hobbies, as it is mine -- and you are going to buy one book this decade, then buy this one.
Rating:
Summary: Hofstadter did it again!
Review: Even if you haven't read Godel, Escher, Bach, you should definitely read this book. As with GEB, there's something here for everyone: music, math, logic, and so much more. Great discussions on Chopin and chaos theory.
Rating:
Summary: More accesible than 'Godel Escher Bach' review by P. Hancock
Review: Having been turned onto this amazing author by 'GEB', I approached it with some caution. GEB was like going to the cinema to see Arnie Schwartzenegger and wandering into a complex foriegn language movie without subtitles instead. Fascinating and deep. Metamagical themas is more accesible and fun, containing a series of short articles on a vast array of subjects. I have long regretted the fact that the 'renaissance man' cannot exist anymore, there is too much to know. After reading this book, DH comes close.
Rating:
Summary: Warning to Present-Day Readers
Review: I liked GEB, and found it to have been a great influence in my decision to pursue computer science as a career. Much of this later book is similarly good. However, the political commentary that is interwoven throughout the book, and there is much of it, has not aged well. Dr. Hofstadter was a proponent of the popular (at the time) "Nuclear Freeze" Movement. Dr. Hofstadter pauses the narrative of the text often to expound on his beliefs in nuclear disarmament, nuclear war, and his support for activists like Dr. Helen Caldicott. Not only is this (arguably) off-topic and distracting to the narrative, but it seems somewhat aged (and naive) in the context of later lessons of history. These diversions would hardly be more distracting, and anachronistic, if he stopped every few paragraphs to laud how wonderful a President that Jimmy Carter was (or Walter Mondale will be), and why we should all vote for him in the next election, or even what a great invention brown polyester Sans-a-Belt (TM) slacks are, and why we should all wear them. For example, we now know that this "Freeze" movement was influenced by the KGB, both via funding (cash, in U.S. Dollars, for full-page advertisements in the New York Times was air-lifted from Moscow in diplomatic pouches), and with personnel (lots of so-called "grass roots" local freeze groups were unknowingly populated by "agent provocateurs" who were members of the KGB. By way of analogy, imagine an "Inflation Freeze" movement heavily (and secretly) funded by corporations to influence labor unions by propagandizing such a movement as a grass-roots labor agenda. Consider the outrage among organized labor in response to a movement that used fear-mongering over inflation, economic recession, and potential job loss to pressure labor into rolling over and unilaterally accepting wage freezes and other labor concessions. Such freezes and concessions would be expected by management to be accepted without discussion or negotiation, including trying to correct present injustices, looking at the company's books, or verifying the future financial condition of the company. Look up the name "Lemuel Boulware" and the company "General Electric" for an example of how to negotiate in bad faith (and yes, I'm aware of the ironic connection to Ronald Reagan, see below). If a nuclear freeze was adopted without question or consideration, or without even a workable verification system, it would have frozen into place a very tenuous situation with Soviet SS-20's poised over Western Europe and with nothing to counter them (or if countered, a hair-trigger nuclear standoff). What happened was that Reagan and Gorbachev negotiated a workable, verifiable, and stabilizing disarmament treaty that pulled back the SS-20's (and the U.S. missiles in Western Europe) and established a framework for realistic future treaty verification (leading to the establishment of a joint flyover program known as "Open Skies"). It was ironic that a individual recruited by Lemuel Boulware as a spokesman for GE would find GE Boulwarism and bad-faith "take it or leave it" negotiating tactics used against the United States by the Soviet Union. President Reagan's response, to approach from a position of mutual strength and dignity, and assure mutually-agreeable and verifiable terms, was almost pure anti-Boulwarism. Very few people discuss, let alone advocate, a "Nuclear Freeze" today because the lessons of history have shown such a movement to be naive, tantamount to unilateral disarmament, driven mostly by emotion and FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt), infiltrated by foreign influences not in our best interests, intended by our adversaries as bad-faith negotiations, and substantially overcome by later events.
Rating:
Summary: Warning to Present-Day Readers
Review: In the days before Scientific American changed its focus, Martin Gardner wrote the long running "Mathematical Games" column. When he decided to move on to other projects, Douglas Hofstadter was asked to carry on in his place. Hofstadter was up to the task and in an homage to his predecessor and in keeping with his unique vision, he promptly changed the title of the column from "Mathematical Games" to the anagram of "Mathematical Games": Metamagical Themas. For the short time the column ran, it was my personal favorite. Minds with the grasp of language, music, mathematics and humor are rare things. Hofstadter's work here is as crystalline in its beauty as it is fiendish in its play.
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