From: Spike Jones (spike66@ibm.net)
Date: Mon Sep 28 1998 - 21:50:33 MDT
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote:
> Where are the da Vincis, the Rembrandts, the Bach or Mozart, the Homer or
> Shakespeare of this age?...
wow! this was a very thought provoking post . thanks!
mr. yudkowsky, you may relate to this story. when i was in college, my
modern physics professor often referred to hofstadter's escher godel
bach, an eternal golden braid. being a busy engineering student, i did
not look up the reference at the time, but a year after graduating, i found
a copy and started reading. it absolutely floored me. i was so freemed,
i immediately read it again straight thru. i later decided that of all the books
i have ever read, this one had the biggest impact on me.
recently i wondered about setting up a website where people could
post an answer to the question: "if one book, which, and why?"
i would allow people to interpret the question however they liked,
then answer it. as i looked into what would be required, it occurred
to me that someone else might have already thought of this, so i
did some surfing and sure enough, such a site already exists. so,
i looked it over. out of curiousity, i checked to see if anyone else
had picked hofstadter's escher godel bach, an eternal golden braid.
i found one person had picked egb. it was the person who
had authored the website! {8^D
extropians, if one book, which, and why? spike
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