Dug a dusty old (and yet-unread) copy of
Gödel, Escher, Bach off my shelf this evening.
Read a few summaries and critiques of the text on Goodreads to see if I might fancy it. I was certainly intrigued by the overarching themes, philosophy of consciousness, speculation about general AI, and Hofstadter's usage of the arts to explain systems and concepts of mathematics.
But several users cautioned would-be readers that this is a book for a very specific audience - those who absolutely loves maths. And while I love math conceptually, I've no formal education in math or logic.
In an effort to prep myself for the text, I've been surveying the
Undefined Behavior YouTube channel which outlines concepts like The Halting Problem, Entscheidungsproblem, Axiomatic Systems, Peano Systems, Principle of Explosion, and other fundamentals. It's all fascinating stuff, so I have hope that I'll be able to handle Hofstadter's book.
Any suggestions for related prep lit or other ideas from the community would be much appreciated!
