I am rediscovering my love of Hofstadter’s Gödel Escher Bach (aka GEB) through a deep reading group on Clubhouse. This week was Chapter X, Levels of Description. Re-reading this prior to and with the room, I realized that my initial reading of this all those years ago (40?!?) was very likely the genesis of one of my key wonderings, Layers of abstraction, the cost of convenience, and the commoditization of experience.

From chess, to management, to programming, chunking of information, fractals and the cost associated with learning and execution, this chapter covers a lot of ground. Hardware vs. software? Yep, that’s in there as well.

Yeah, I love this book. And this deep reading group, and the people who are in it. And, for that matter, I’m really starting to appreciate Clubhouse, even if their server does seem to get overloaded quite frequently.