Quotes from book
Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid

Douglas Hofstadter

Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, also known as GEB, is a 1979 book by Douglas Hofstadter.

Douglas Hofstadter photo

“Relying on words to lead you to the truth is like relying on an incomplete formal system to lead you to the truth. A formal system will give you some truths, but as we shall soon see, a formal system, no matter how powerful—cannot lead to all truths.”

Douglas Hofstadter book Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid

Source: Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid (1979), Chapter 9: "Mumon and Gödel"

Douglas Hofstadter photo

“Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law.”

Douglas Hofstadter book Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid

Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid (1979)

Douglas Hofstadter photo

“Reality includes creating every real connection and reference.”

Douglas Hofstadter book Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid

Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid (1979)

Douglas Hofstadter photo

“One of the basic tenets of Zen Buddhism is that there is no way to characterize what Zen is. No matter what verbal space you try to enclose Zen in, it resists, and spills over. It might seem, then, that all efforts to explain Zen are complete wastes of time. But that is not the attitude of Zen masters and students. For instance, Zen koans are a central part of Zen study, verbal though they are. Koans are supposed to be "triggers" which, though they do not contain enough information in themselves to impart enlightenment, may possibly be sufficient to unlock the mechanisms inside one's mind that lead to enlightenment. But in general, the Zen attitude is that words and truth are incompatible, or at least that no words can capture truth.”

Douglas Hofstadter book Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid

Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid (1979)

Douglas Hofstadter photo

“This type of paradox is quite characteristic of Zen. It is an attempt to "break the mind of logic."”

Douglas Hofstadter book Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid

This statement refers to a koan
Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid (1979)

Douglas Hofstadter photo

“Below Every Tangled Hierarchy Lies An Inviolate Level”

Douglas Hofstadter book Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid

Source: Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid (1979), Chapter 20: "Strange Loops Or Tangled Heirarchies"

Douglas Hofstadter photo

“The proverbial German phenomenon of the verb-at-the-end about which droll tales of absentminded professors who would begin a sentence, ramble on for an entire lecture, and then finish up by rattling off a string of verbs by which their audience, for whom the stack had long since lost its coherence, would be totally nonplussed, are told, is an excellent example of linguistic recursion.”

Douglas Hofstadter book Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid

"Recursive Structures and Processes"
Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid (1979)

Douglas Hofstadter photo

“Perhaps the most concise summary of enlightenment would be: transcending dualism. … Dualism is the conceptual division of the world into categories … human perception is by nature a dualistic phenomenon—which makes the quest for enlightenment an uphill struggle, to say the least.”

Douglas Hofstadter book Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid

Source: Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid (1979), Chapter 9: "Mumon and Gödel"

Douglas Hofstadter photo

“The "Strange Loop" phenomenon occurs whenever, by moving upwards (or downwards) through levels of some hierarchial system, we unexpectedly find ourselves right back where we started.”

Douglas Hofstadter book Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid

"Introduction: A Musico-Logical Offering"
Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid (1979)

Douglas Hofstadter photo

“No reference is truly direct—every reference depends on some kind of coding scheme. It's just a question of how implicit it is.”

Douglas Hofstadter book Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid

"Six-Part Ricercar"
Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid (1979)

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