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A few quotes towards the end of GEB:

> I see no barrier imposed by Gödel’s Theorem to the implementation on computers (or their successors) of types of symbol manipulation that achieve roughly the same results as brains do.

And a distinction between intelligence and consciousness:

> It is entirely another question to try and duplicate in a program some particular human’s mind—but to produce an intelligent program at all is a more limited goal.

And then:

> Gödel’s Theorem doesn’t ban our reproducing our own level of intelligence via programs

That is pretty hard to square with "GEB argued that AI couldn’t achieve intelligence without first mastering Gödelian self-reference."

A bit more introspective:

> I think that the process of coming to understand Gödel’s proof, with its construction involving arbitrary codes, complex isomorphisms, high and low levels of interpretation, and the capacity for self-mirroring, may inject some rich undercurrents and flavors into one’s set of images about symbols and symbol processing, which may deepen one’s intuition for the relationship between mental structures on different levels.


I've used concepts from GEB a lot in my thinking about how LLMs.

On self-referentiality and the MU Puzzle: https://matthodges.com/posts/2025-04-21-openai-o4-mini-high-...

On Gödelian limits of prompt-safe AI : https://matthodges.com/posts/2025-08-26-music-to-break-model...

On the blurry line between pattern matching and reasoning: https://matthodges.com/posts/2026-08-19-bongard-problems/

I'm glad that the author of this post ends with:

> What’s left? Consciousness

because when I've read (and re-read) GEB, I find the book to be much deeper than just a threshold for conversational intelligence.


Another theory is that it borrows from Seven Heavens.¹

¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_heavens


An Aristotelian Critique of “The Lazy Song”


Both Aristotle and Sokrates would grant the song one point: The demand to be productive every waking hour is not a moral truth. The boss and the father do not own the day. The problem is what the song puts in the space gained. It clears out the obligations, then it stops short of asking what the free day is for.


Sokrates: being lazy has no virtue. Plato: being lazy has no virtue. Aristotle: perhaps it's funny?


I would thoroughly enjoy an entire podcast of this genre.

...

A Cartesian Critique of "Fireflies" by Owl City

...

A Humean Critique of "I Gotta Feeling" by The Black Eyed Peas


Then ask an LLM. I'm serious, if you like the style. This article, despite the disclaimer, is almost certainly LLM-written. It's one of many ephemeral blogs that have been cropping up on HN lately and that post single-theme content with striking regularity.



I read GEB cover to cover and haven’t stopped thinking about it for years. Not a brag, a nudge that it’s not impenetrable and more people should read it.


I’m working on it every day during lunch break. Good old hardcopy.


GEB is not a difficult read. It is delightful!

It is a popular science book which catches the vibe of mathematical logic in an excellent way. It is not a textbook, nor a piece of research. It's all vibes, but high-quality vibes. If you are in the right headspace it can be really inspiring!


I read it cover to cove back in the day and enjoyed it. But I'm not sure more people should read it today.

If they do and enjoy it, good for them! But many parts haven't aged all that well.

However, I can still very warmly recommend 'The Pleasures of Counting' to this very day.


What hasn't aged well? I don't think any of it is dated to any particular time period.


I read it on my honeymoon 25 years ago. That book sticks with you.


Are you still married?


finally we shall be able to answer the age old question - does Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid stick with you better than a spouse!


Godel, Escher, Bachelor?


I thought the recommended honeymoon reading was Knuth’s _Surreal Numbers_


I had my copy signed by Prof Hofstadter; a treasure to this day. Led to a maths degree, years of organ playing classes, a career in software, and a Zen practice going on 20 years. And I'm pescatarian. I even wrote a few haiku when my babies were little. Hmm, time for another listen to a Tocatta and Fugue.


It's been years since I cracked open a copy, maybe I should give it another shot.


If you want to get to the meat of the issue, without the extraneous stuff, you might also tackle: Godel's Theorem Simplified.

https://www.amazon.com/Godels-Theorem-Simplified-Harry-Gensl...


The extraneous stuff is honestly fabulous, IMO of course. Just being able to listen to a four part fugue sensibly is a rare but accessible pleasure. And amusing dialogs as an instantiated dialectic for showing the truth synthesized from apparent opposites, is a great pedagogical learning.


Extremely agree. The extraneous stuff is what makes the book magical.


A few years ago I published BIDEN: Binary Inference Dictionaries for Electoral NLP, based on this idea - https://matthodges.com/posts/2023-10-01-BIDEN-binary-inferen...


No. Very bad economic numbers in August before a midterm is not a cunning political optics move.


I'm surprised by the conspiratorial comments here like this is some sort of 4D chess move. *It's not.*

This is chickens coming home to roost from US actions in Iran, with tariffs, and other things introducing economic uncertainty.

As you alluded to; this is terrible for Republicans in power. And quite useful for Democrats.


It doesn’t matter whether it is a good move; just whether they think it’s a good move.


They don’t. They aren’t faking the BLS numbers as an electoral strategy. No one at WH or NRCC or CLF are rubbing their hands together as if this is all according to plan.


Do humans not have access? https://dl.acm.org/openaccess


It seems that the "open access" is more marketing than something reality based they actually want to do.

https://dl.acm.org/openaccess ---> So how to access the content? Do I have to register or what? It the "open access" only for academic org's people or for everyone in the world?

https://dl.acm.org/ ---> Okay, nice simple search field without loggin in, but when you try to search something, you get thousands of results, even if you search specific author and the exact name of paper, you will get hundreds of results and the thing you want is buried somewhere on page 247. Filters of authors, years etc. are for Premium subscription. But just googling the thing finds the link to ACM... And want to get the actual PDF? Hope it says "free access"...


Nobody uses their search anyways.

Google scholar has become the way to search papers (which is somewhat worrisome). What people want from there is a download for all the stuff that does not list an author copy. Open access IMHO is just a reaction to the fact that mostly you would not need a subscription anyhow. Now the authors are paying upfront or universities are paying flat for all their researchers. The problem is now the incentives are not increasing the number of subscriptions but increasing the number of papers published.


So will LLMs have premium-tier access or basic-tier access?


it is open like open in openai


Made my day. Thank you! I have to remember that. Best thing I have read in the entire day.



> From January 1, 2026, all ACM publications will be published Open Access (OA), free to read, share, and reuse in the ACM Digital Library.


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