Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
An Uppsala ACM Student Chapter Evening Seminar Series based on the book
Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid --- A metaphorical
fugue on minds and machines in the spirit of Lewis Carroll
by Douglas R. Hofstadter.
Seminar Series Leader: Faron Moller (fm@csd.uu.se)
Time:
Thursday evenings, 19.00-21.00 (starting September 11).
Place:
Polacksbacken, House 1 , Room 1:246.
This seminar series is suitable for participants from any discipline.
There are no formal prerequisites beyond possession of the book
(in either the English or the Swedish edition)
and a firm interest in reading it.
There is the possibility for PhD students to receive course credits
for participating.
The topics covered include (in no particular order):
-
logic and set theory;
-
self-reference and paradoxes;
-
formal systems and metamathematical reasoning;
-
propositional and predicate logic;
-
truth, proof, and meaning;
-
Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometry;
-
consistency and completeness;
-
mechanical vs human reasoning;
-
natural vs artificial intelligence;
-
recursion and recursive function theory;
-
Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems;
-
abstractions, translations and isomorphisms;
-
holism vs reductionism;
-
mechanisms for self-reproduction;
-
Church-Turing thesis.
These topics will be defined and analyzed precisely not only within the
context of logic and metamathematics, but also within music, art, philosophy,
theology, linguistics and genetics.
Details of the seminar series are as follows:
- There will be 11 double seminars, one per week over 11 weeks.
These will take place on Thursday evenings in weeks 37 to 47.
- Each seminar will be directed by a different participant.
(The series leader will direct the first few seminars.
Thereafter, he shall be looking for volunteers!)
- Directing a seminar involves presenting a 20-30 minute
report on a reading unit (dialogue + associated chapter),
and directing the subsequent discussion (by having specific
questions ready dealing with difficulties or interesting
aspects encountered in reading the unit.)
- Every other participant should have compiled questions for
the reading unit prior to the seminar.
These are to help drive the discussion.
- In the case of students wanting PhD course credits,
some further written report will be required.
Series Schedule:
(All meetings start at 19:00 precisely and last 2 hours,
with a break.)
-
Week 37: Thursday September 11
-
Introduction: A Musico-Logical Offering (Faron Moller)
-
Unit 1 (Faron Moller)
-
-
Three-Part Invention
-
The MU-puzzle
-
Week 38: Thursday September 18
-
Unit 2 (Faron Moller)
-
-
Two-Part Invention
-
Meaning and Form in Mathematics
-
Unit 3 (Jakob Engblom)
-
-
Sonata for Unaccompanied Achilles
-
Figure and Ground
-
Week 39: Thursday September 25
-
Unit 4 (Dan Johnsson)
-
-
Contracrostipunctus
-
Consistency, Completeness, and Geometry
-
Unit 5 (Lars Thalmann)
-
-
Little Harmonic Labyrinth
-
Recursive Structures and Processes
-
Week 40: Thursday October 2
-
Unit 6 (Gustaf "Gaffe" Naeser)
-
-
Canon by Intervallic Augmentation
-
The Location of Meaning
-
Unit 7 (Stina Svensson)
-
-
Chromatic Fantasy, and Feud
-
The Propositional Calculus
-
Week 41: Thursday October 9
-
Unit 8 (Elham Zolphonoon)
-
-
Crab Canon
-
Typographical Number Theory
-
Unit 9 (Faron Moller)
-
-
A Mu Offering
-
Mumon and Gödel
-
Week 42: Thursday October 16
-
Unit 10 (Faron Moller)
-
-
Prelude . . .
-
Levels of Description, and Computer Systems
-
Unit 11 (Gustaf "Gaffe" Naeser)
-
-
. . . Ant Fugue
-
Brains and Thoughts
-
Week 43: Thursday October 23
-
Unit 12 (Roland Bol)
-
-
English French German Suite
-
Minds and Thoughts
-
Unit 13 (Aida Vitoria)
-
-
Aria with Diverse Variations
-
BlooP and FlooP and GlooP
-
Week 44: Thursday October 30
-
Unit 14 (Robert Ottenhag)
-
-
Air on G's String
-
On Formally Undecidable Propositions of TNT and Related Systems
-
Unit 15 (Ram Gupta)
-
-
Birthday Cantatatata
-
Jumping out of the System
-
Week 45: Thursday November 6
-
Unit 16 (Kai-Mikael Jää-Aro)
-
-
Edifying Thoughts of a Tobacco Smoker
-
Self-Ref and Self-Rep
-
Unit 17 (Kai-Mikael Jää-Aro)
-
-
The Magnificrab, Indeed
-
Church, Turing, Tarski, and Others
-
Week 46: Thursday November 13
-
Unit 18 (Jakob Carlström)
-
-
SHRDLU, Toy of Man's Designing
-
Artificial Intelligence: Retrospects
-
Unit 19 (Faron Moller)
-
-
Contrafactus
-
Artificial Intelligence: Prospects
-
Week 47: Thursday November 20
-
Unit 20 (Cons Âhs)
-
-
Sloth Canon
-
Strange Loops, Or Tangled Hierarchies
-
Six-Part Ricercar (Jakob Engblom)
Faron Moller, Computing Science Department, Uppsala University
(fm@csd.uu.se)