GEB part two

I finished the second (and final) part of "Godel, Escher, Bach" last weekend. Originally I was thinking about all the clever things that could be said about the book but now I don't think there is much value in doing so. The one thing I can say is that this book was vital in luring me out of my mental rut of technical reading. In short, I recommend this book to everyone.

It's hard to express in words exactly why I believe this book is such an important read. Ironically, that is one of the major themes from the book. It deals greatly with holism vs. reductionism. I can see quite patently that the whole of GEB is greater than the sum of it's chapters.

Should you decide to read GEB I suggest that you read the entire work. Due to its length it's probably one of the most half-read books of our time. Many of the people that recommended the book to me said things like, "It's a great book! Though I only read the first (x) pages". Strangely enough I did meet one person who said they read the entire work in 18 hours straight.

No matter how long it takes if you stick with it you will be rewarded many times over. It took me 3 months and I confess there were indeed times in which I felt I was understanding very little. However, time after time, I would reach a point where things started weaving together in the sort of "Eternal Golden Braid" that I believe Hofstadter intended. I venture to say that, while you may indeed walk away with completely different insights about the book's "meaning", your experience will be quite similar.

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"But you don't have to take my word for it..."
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Lanier's Well-Tested Conjecture

Something has been eating at me for the last few days since Jaron Lanier's article Long Live Closed-Source Software! first came through my feed reader. I couldn't put my finger on it at first but maybe after letting the thoughts percolate a bit through my mind I'll be able to dig it out by the time I'm done here.

On the surface I guess the reason I was initially bothered by the article was the fact that I came across it while thumbing through my slashdot feed. Honestly, it's probably more my fault for reading /. in the first place (I get really annoyed when I see articles that seem as if they are begging for attention).

It wasn't until I finally got around to reading it that I realized it was something I needed to consider. If you make exception for phrases like "there's a reason the iPhone doesn't come with Linux" it seems as if Lanier makes several valid points. Later in the article he even makes statements that make him appear sympathetic with the open source movement. So he can't be all bad, right? Though, again, that wasn't what has been itching me as I don't tend to get too stirred up by those sorts of issues.

What really gave me a sour taste was the idea that he would be in any position to judge innovation based by his "evidence". Personally, examples like the iPhone seem ridiculous when its basic functionality is comprised of nothing more than things that I have wanted on my phone since the late 90s. The trick that will make billions for Apple is that they have done it a fashionable way. To say that it doesn't come with Linux wouldn't even be true if you consider many of the web applications on which the iPhone experience relies are are indeed running on Linux and open source. Though it wouldn't have been as catchy, Lanier should have directed his statement towards the Linux community if that was indeed what he was hinting at, "the iPhone doesn't come with [the ideals commonly expressed by the Linux community]". I guess I was wrong--that does sound catchy!

But how do communities innovate? How does one even recognize that innovation? I'll tell you how--not very easily. Let me continue along those lines and explain that I'm more accustomed to hearing people talk about innovation long after the particular innovation in question has actually been innovated. I studied Spanish golden age literature in College. For some strange reason though it wasn't called golden age literature at the time of it's writing. I even see a parallel in the field of music strangely enough. I played in several bands whose prime preceded the dawn of YouTube and MySpace, that is to say their existence is presently only in my mind (and a few other minds). I wouldn't even say our music was innovative but I do feel that in the hundreds of shows we played I was exposed to innovation through the people we encountered. Few of those bands are still around today in any form yet these underground cultures are alive all over the country. They share with each other through tours and festivals and now more than ever with the advent of communities such as Last.FM. I don't want to spend much more time on this particular topic so suffice it to say:

When people call the iPhone innovative it gives me much the same feeling as when one of my hip-hop aficionado friends from Spain considers Coolio to be innovative.

I only mention Spain because I lived there for a year and a half and those situations came up far too often. The idea is simply that the majority of Spanish teens are too far removed from hip-hop culture to make any judgement on west coast music from across the ocean (they would be, however, more knowledgeable on hip-hop from Iberia). The only thing they ever experience from the US, in my opinion, is culture that happens to be profitable. I believe Lanier's definition of innovation borders dangerously close with "it's popular ergo it matters".

I just don't buy the any statement that claims the open source movement doesn't innovate. People innovate, period. Closed source projects fail as commonly (and for many of the same reasons) as open source projects. The vast majority of closed source software is miserable in much the same manner as the sundry projects on [Insert your favorite repository here] are. It's just too simple to think of examples and counter examples for any theorem that aims to prove a function of Open/Closed sourcedness to innovation. Surely things are more complex than that.

GEB part one

I just finished part one of Godel, Escher, Bach and I can honestly say it's been an exciting experience. I was first introduced to GEB by some friends at RubyConf. A week later at the local erlounge again it was commended. Since I had been reading a lot of pure tech books lately so I decided I would give GEB a shot. It's true that it's a book that 10 people could read it and each come to 10 different (valid) conclusions as to the purpose of the book.

Highlights for me thus far

• The carollian dialogues between the Tortoise and Achilles. Especially the one which demonstrates the difficulty of trying to use logic and reasoning to defend itself.
• The chapter on recursion. I think it's safe to say that most people that enjoy hacking on code would find this particular chapter enjoyable.
• The numerous correlations between seemingly disjoint subjects. Obviously the book treats the relationship between G, E and B with special consideration but there are correlations on many more levels. You find yourself on the same page dealing with the intrinsic meaning of symbols and abortion, for example.

It's been some of the most challenging pages I've read in a while. I typically only have a few hours a week to spend with GEB and it's taken me several weeks to get 275 pages into the book. Ironically the most challenging part of the book thus far has been the Preface. I guess it shouldn't be that surprising when you consider the task of describing GEB holistically.

I would recommend this book to anyone who feels like they have been too intensely focus on one mental task too long. Often I find myself doing just that since it seems to be my forte. The various puzzles have been a nice trip outside the mental box (Strange Loop) I've placed myself in.

Recommendations for reading GEB

• Attempt all puzzles. The completion of many of the puzzles is not of much importance in the scope of GEB. The mental exercise is of far greater value.
• When you find yourself breaking out of a Strange Loop try and explain it to someone else. Here's something I came up with last night as I explained the Dual Nature of Formal Systems:

Imagine a chess board. Legal moves can be represented in algebraic chess notation (illegal moves could be represented as well). For example Scholar's Mate could be represented as:

1. e4 e5
2. Qh5?! Nc6
3. Bc4 Nf6??
4. Qxf7# 1-0

Now since Godel showed us that formal systems (in this case the allowed moves in Chess) can be mapped onto Number Theory you could imagine being able to create equations for entire chess matches that could be derived mathematically. What if something so simple as converting all the numbers in the various expressions were converted to base 26 and represented by the English alphabet. Since I'm already in the state of imagining atrocious coincidences I might as well imagine that upon transposing the numbers the letters reveals an entire book about the legal chess moves. Better yet, what if the book was not about legal chess moves but illegal! That would indeed be a Strange Loop.