[rmidthun]

Strongly disagree.

I Am a Strange Loop spends an entire chapter of Hofstadter informing us how he is better than everyone else because he hears Bach better than everyone else. And this attitude fills the book, I found it very obnoxious and am not sure why no else mentions it.

There are at least two places in the book where he talks about an interesting point, then realizes it is a rehash of something from a previous book. And aside from the self-congratulations (did you know being a vegetarian makes you more of a person?), anything interesting in this book was done better in a previous book.

I would recommend The Mind's I instead. It's a collection of stories and essays from most of his influences, see what Turing, Lucas, et al. actually said.

[iamnothere]

He also spends a chapter trashing Searle, in a way that seems a little unnecessarily vindictive.

I still enjoyed it. It's not for everyone, but I found that his meanderings served to break up the seriousness of the subject in a way that made for an easy read, much easier than GEB.