Maschinen, Intelligenz und Selbstbezüglichkeit - Gedanken zu einem Bestseller (Q1090667)

... Wake as well. This note is a draft version of a lecture given in Hannover at the end of 1985 on the logico-philosophical foundations of machine intelligence over and against \textit{D. R. Hofstadter}'s Pulitzer- prize-winning book: Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid (for the reviewer's evaluation of GEB: EGB see Zbl 0457.03001. The author of the paper under review concurs in several of Hofstadter's Theses concerning what only appear to be contradictions between the world of brains and intelligence and the world of machines. Included are interesting discussions of Turing's halting problem, Gödel's incompleteness theorems, the central role of self-reference in limitative logic and the concept of creativity. Nevertheless, language translations of characters such as ''Tante Colonia'' will always fall short of the original ''Aunt Colony''. Further, the author has not noticed the curious similarity of terms between D. R. Hofstadter's Dr. Earrwig, Dogmap, quark, ricercar, etc. and James Joyce's earlier Earwicker, dogmad, quark, riverrun, etc. in Finnegans Wake; see the reviewer's letter in the James Joyce Quarterly 19, No.3, 359 (1982). Indeed both books have a cyclic structure triggered by a novel octagrammaton. Ironically, Hofstadter is even mentioned in Finnegans Wake. We are told to read his readings (not his writings). This reviewer looks forward to faithful German translations of Hofstadter's book and Finnegans...