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Summary: When Martin Gardner needed a replacement . . .
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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Summary: Many, many, many topics
Review: In this collection of articles from his days as a regular with "Scientific American," Hoftstadter covers everything from self-referential statements (like this one), the Rubik's Cube, nuclear proliferation, the prisoner's dilemma, sexist language, fonts, and more. Surprisingly, most of these topics become intertwined throughout the work (in fact, one of Hofstadter's goals). It's amazing as he runs the gamut, and you see the connections being built!
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Summary: Douglas delights again with this romp through reality.
Review: In true Hofstaderian form, this book is a fascinating journey through the world of self-reference. By combining topics from science, literature, and the arts, the author
draws his readers through an intricate maze of subtle
humour and startling insights. One cannot help looking at the world through new eyes after reading this masterpiece.
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Summary: Better than GEB?
Review: Perhaps it is sacrilege, or stretching things a bit, but in my view this book tops GEB. Admittedly, I have read GEB several times, so maybe somebody who hasn't read GEB won't get the full benefit of Metamagical Themas. Here are my reasons for my opinion: 1) Hofstadter doesn't spend so much time being cute. Sure, all the jokes in GEB were funny, but they can get old, especially when you're going through the book a second time trying to delve deeper into an idea. 2) The variety of topics. Everything from Chopin to self reference to nuclear proliferation. Yet as the title might suggest, a common thread runs through all the topics. Hofstadter emphasizes this with his addendums to the original articles; he also has several new essays. 3) A great summary of Hofstadter's views on AI. If you read GEB and weren't really sure what he's about, reading the new Achilles and Tortoise dialogue, "Who shoves whom around in the careenium?", will clear things up. It did for me. Also, there's an article on Hofstadter's criticisms of the approaches that have been taken by AI experts (up to 1985, when the book was written). In summary, GEB was an amazing work that was diluted to make it more palatable to non-technical people. Metamagical Themas is Hofstadter at full strength.
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Summary: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Review: This collection of essays previously published as a column in Scientific American is very uneven. There are some true gems like he discussion of the game Nomic in which rule changes are part of ordinary play or the sections on self referential sentences. Basically everything is readable, but not all chapters make much sense. Some parts are really bad. In chapter 5 he wonders why one can judge the intellectual content of magazines by their cover, not seeing the obvious solution that these magazines try to attract different audiences. He spends some time discussing the prisoners dilemma and he get's it completely wrong. He argues that a rational person would know that other rational persons would think along the same lines and therefore act the same way. So a rational person can use this knowledge to influence another person. This is complete bogus of course. People are rational when they act rational, if I cooperate in the prisoners dilemma, I am not changing the definition of rationality, I'm simply irrational. Hofstadter also discusses Axelrod's famous computer tournaments. A more realistic view on the topic is provided by a review of Axelrod's book by Ken Binmore. That review can be found on the web. The book is still valuable for the good parts, but one should read the book with a sceptical eye. Hofstadter is a layman on many things he discusses, and sometimes this shines through. Another problem is that some issues like the cold war anren't really interesting anymore. People who like Hofstadter will surely like it and find enough pearls to make the buy worth it though.
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Summary: Brilliant and Thought Provoking
Review: This collection of Hofstadter's columns from Scientific American provides wonderful reading. One of the gems is his simple, but brilliant analysis of the Prisoner's Dilemma. The usual analysis notes that the Nash equilibrium is for both players to defect. Hofstadter notes (correctly) that if both players are rational, then because the game is symmetrical, both players will choose the same strategy. So, the only choices are for both to cooperate or both defect. Since both cooperating has a higher payoff than both defecting, the rational strategy is to cooperate. The Nash equilibrium isn't relevant because it considers pairs of strategies which are impossible if both players are rational, i.e., the pairs where one player defects and the other cooperates. Hofstadter notes that many people when presented with the above argument still say that they would defect. His descriptions of his attempts to reason with his friends and the results of the lottery he conducted (he told readers of his column they could send in entries for the lottery, but the more that entered, the smaller the prize would be) are, as he says, amusing, disturbing, and disappointing.
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Summary: One of the best non-fiction books I have read
Review: This is a great book by Hofstadter.It encompasses many topics ranging from viral sentences to nuclear annihilation.His explanations are second only to Asimov.Definitely must be read.
Rating:
Summary: One of those books
Review: This is one of those books (like GEB) that you could own for a lifetime and refer to at random and always learn a new tidbit or be taken on a new tangent. A book that feels like being in someone elses mind (again like GEB). Excellent and worthwhile. I give it four (instead of five) stars only because the truly great books take you into someone else's mind and leave you thinking it was your own...
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Summary: This is a review of Metamagical Themas.
Review: This is the first sentence in a review of Metamagical Themas. This is the second sentence, pointing out that in the context of a book review, the form of self-reference is almost as clumsy as it is in the story "This is the title of the story, which is also found several times in the story itself", which can be found in the book under review. This sentence expresses its authors opinion entirely when it says: "Metamagical Themas is a diverse, and brilliant book, with content matter ranging from the self-reference form exhibited in this review, to music and artificial intelligence." In clarifying the previous sentence, this one points out that the subtitle of the book at issue "Questing for the Essence of Mind and Pattern" describes the underlying theme of the book, as pattern is applied to the wide range of topics presented therein. This sentence attempts to finish the review, but fails. This sentence attempts the same as the previous sentence, and, although it succeeds in becoming the second-to-last sentence in this review, it nevertheless fails. Finally, the end has been reached, and to all appearances in a non-self-referential manner (until a sentence clause contained in brackets at the end of the sentence spoils its claims of glory)
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Summary: Hofstadter's approachable collection
Review: When I was in high school I discovered the joys of reading Martin Gardner's "Mathematical Games" column in Scientific American. After a few years of pleasure he was replaced by someone else who (among other things) wrote on the joys of Rubik's cube and I found myself wasting weeks of time and filling notebooks with my quest to explore and solve the cube. That columnist was Douglas Hofstadter, who brought the same skill at sharing his enthusiam for his topic that created the amazing, mind shattering 'Godel, Escher, Bach'. His column, that occupied the same place as "Mathemetical Games", was called "Metamagical Themas" (looking closely at those two names will tell you a lot about Douglas Hofstadter) and lasted for 13 issues. This book is a compilation of those columns, each with a new endnote by Hofstadter and some letters received by the magazine and his reply. Together they cover a large range of topics while keeping to the central concerns of most of Hofstadter's work; consciousness, patterns, music, language and computer systems. The combination works superbly. This volume is much more easily approached than 'Godel, Escher, Bach' while raising similar questions in the mind of the reader. For those that have read the earlier work there is not just the joy of more of Hofstadter's writing on diverse topics but the sheer pleasure of discovering another dialogue involving Achilles and the Tortoise. I find it hard to define the set of people who would enjoy this book, but it would be a large and varied one.
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