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Post Tue Oct 17, 2017 8:55 am

Re: Hey there,...

Meh, when I was a teenager, this book was still too new for us to get exposed to it, I'm afraid. Or maybe it just didn't make it into our region?!? :shrug:
Y'all make it sound like it was a school book, you know. Was it for you?
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Post Tue Oct 17, 2017 10:07 am

Re: Hey there,...

Hello Knacki,

Wow, that sounds really frustrating.

Funnily enough, even though I would be just the kind of person to stumble into the same "trap", with this book it didn't happen - I never wore myself down over those riddles. In fact, I brushed over trying to solve them so superficially, I didn't even remember the reader was asked trying to solve something for him/herself. Only after reading your post some memories of writing something on a piece of paper while reading that book came back.
I just never gnawed into them. Probably because I didn't start with it in school already but after I had started at university. (I'm 34, and the book fell into my hands something like 15, 16 years ago.)
During my first year a fellow student gave the book to me but frankly solving the exercises for the undergraduate seminars was more than enough for me and, already with my first go at the book, I decided to not give myself too hard a time. And just enjoy all those teeny-tiny "things" the author hid everywhere throughout the book. Which really already starts at the cover of the book. (At least both for the English and German version you see that wooden figure Douglas Hofstadter himself designed ( I think) and that, depending on the way you view it gives you the letters G, E or B. And he's playing with this letters (representing Gödel, Escher and Bach) all the time. The subtitle is "an Eternal Golden Braid" or, in German "Ein Endloses Geflochtenes Band", placing the initials into the order EGB.
And now look at the cover picture again, at the shadows on the left-hand-side and on the right-hand-side of the central figure. And when you try to get a very first overview of the book's structure, you see he divided it into two part, the first one called GEB, the second one EGB.
GEB.JPG
GEB.JPG (32.79 KiB) Viewed 17625 times


And you know, there might not be any "deeper" meaning in it, except self-reference (at least I don't remember anything right now). But this is one of the key-themes in the book itself and he did not just write a book about self-reference.
He wrote a book about self-reference that is self-referencing itself over and over and over and over ... again.


And something else that totally stuch with me from the very first time I had that book in my hands. Back then I was going through a phase in which I always looked through the section "Bibliography". Guess what I found within "Gödel, Escher, Bach" - there the following book is mentioned:
:bounce:
Gebstadter, Egbert B. : Copper, Silver, Gold: an Indestructible Metallic Alloy. Perth: Acidic Books, 1979.
A formidable hodge-podge, turgid and confused - yet remarkably similar to the present work. Professor Gebstadter's Shandean digressions include some excellent examples of indirect self-reference. Of particular interest is a reference in its well-annotated bibliography to an isomorphic, but imaginary, book.
:lol:

And I was just totally floored by the author's joy in writing. Hiding something like this in the bibliography where probably hardly anyone ever looks, anyway. And it's not just the two-layered self-referencing in the imaginary author's name, but also in the name of the publishing house: "Acidic Books" versus "Basic Books" where the "real" book was published.
And this publishing-house joke was kind of rescued into the German version as well (the author was very strongly involved in its translation), though they didn't managed the company name, they to get "corresponding" locations: The book "Gödel, Escher, Bach - Ein Endloses Geflochtenes Band" was originally published by a company based in "Stuttgart". They made the corresponding publishing house be based in "Hengstgart". Playing with the fact that "Stuttgart" might remind you of a "Stute", the German word for a female horse. And "Hengst" is German for "stallion".
And again, all those word-plays are more than just plays because they do illustrate one problem when translating. What should be given the most weight when you translate: The words of the sentence, the meaning of a sentence, the structure of a sentence or the impression this structure gives you?

Or, the third thing that always comes to my mind before anything else when I remember this book: My amazement when I was reading a dialogue about Bach's crab-cannon and only pretty much at the end realized that that dialogue itself had been kind of like written in crab-cannon-like form. That musical piece was translated into a spoken dialogue without any reference to any particular musical note, but by referencing the structure.

And this is what makes me totally high each time I just have a look inside GEB: The pure, utter, joy of the author when writing it.
(At least I perceive it as a great joy. The authour probably went through a lot of agony as well...)
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Post Tue Oct 17, 2017 3:23 pm

Re: Hey there,...

@taron
no, it was a gift by my brother in law.
Yes, it was way too early for me as well.

Maybe I'll give it a try again. Don't know if I still got this bastard ;) somewhere.

But I think this could be a nice theme, Chekwala.
On ipad I often draw with kaleidoscopic symmetry - or there is the app called amaziograph which painting tools are lousy but it has all kinds of pattern symmetry.
In verve, if you press 2xF4 and 2xF5 you have a simple endless mirrored pattern symmetry. With fluids up it's real fun. ;)
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Post Tue Oct 17, 2017 3:27 pm

Re: Hey there,...

I have seen a conference(s) at Paris Mai / june 2010 (Collège de France) by Douglas Hofstadter :)
The 9 june 2010
https://www.college-de-france.fr/site/s ... 9-2010.htm (3 files audio) sorry in French! :)
A very curious personnage! He speaks very well French! :shock:
poetry - music - phrases - game words...
La centralité de l'analogie dans le monde de l'esprit
The centrality of analogy in the spirit world

Same in English :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8m7lFQ3njk

PS The cover's volume 3D is very easy to make with Moi 3D! :)
(boolean operation "Merge")
Is beautiful that please without concept!
http://moiscript.weebly.com/ https://schmoll8.wixsite.com/magicavox
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Post Wed Oct 18, 2017 5:19 pm

Re: Hey there,...

Yes, Moi3D is great - I dont understand why Artist like Google Sketchup - I prefer Moi3D ;)
my system: intel7 - 2600k, gtx 970, dualboot windows 7 64 bit / ubuntu 14.04 lts
my deviantartpage: http://zeropainter.deviantart.com/gallery
my youtube channel: zeropainter - ok, there are only 2-3 very short videos

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Post Wed Oct 18, 2017 6:20 pm

Re: Hey there,...

@ Knacki: Thank you very much for telling me about amaziograph - I just googled it, it looks fantastic and like a lot of fun and I was very happy to see that there also is a version for Windows! :rock: c:! And thanks for the symmetry tip concerning Verve - I just tried that out and I am quite sure that I will spend many happy hours with this! c:!

@ Pilou: And a big thank you to you too, for providing that Hofstadter link (especially to the English version) and MoI3D. It seems quite interesting. But most of all - even though this is a bit late: A great, big thank you for introducing me to Julius Horsthuis - quite some time ago now, actually. I LOVE his videos!!! :shock: :bow: :shock: :bow:

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Post Wed Oct 18, 2017 8:16 pm

Re: Hey there,...

@Knacki: I just remembered something else: "Escape Motions" have developed a wonderfully looking app called "Inspirit", also centered on kaleidoscopic symmetry. I never got to try it out since it is only for ipad, but you might enjoy it?

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Post Thu Nov 02, 2017 11:18 pm

Re: Hey there,...

Hello, I just found this software while looking up research papers on simulating oil painting. I'm on an old mac, so I don't think I can run the software currently. Have you started a new build using a C based language yet? If not let me know, I'm working towards my computer science degree and would love to help.
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Post Thu Nov 02, 2017 11:29 pm

Re: Hey there,...

Ohohoh, yeah, the mac. Well, WELCOME first of all, and I'm sorry you can't already give it a try. However, I still have so much to learn about the mac. I've managed to somewhat get into XCode, but still just barely, really. Then I have to figure out how to deal with everything system related from the simplest things like file operations to actually opening openGL windows and dealing with system messages altogether. It's going to be one big journey and I yet have to work myself up into this intense mode. Once I'm somewhat inside, I'd love to pick your brain for sure! Thanks for that in advance! :beer:
To really simulate oil painting, you should likely go for a bit of a different concept, though. See, I did not set out to do that at all. No matter how Verve feels right now, it still isn't meant to "simulate oil". It just happens to feel that way. To really go for it, you should consider a particle based concept. I thought about it already, too. It has some distinct advantages and some equally special disadvantages, of course. The plus is the ability to really work with volumes of colors and various states of viscosity and the likes. The trouble will be resolution above all else. If you work somewhat localized and manage to come up with a bit of trickery, you might get around the potential coarseness of it all, though.

Anyway, thanks for joining and the beautiful offer. I already wish you all the best, of course! It's a wonderful field you chose and there's yet much to conquer! c:!
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Post Thu Nov 09, 2017 11:50 pm

Re: Hey there,...

I love Verve.

Hello, hi.

I just discovered Verve today on Borodante's YouTube channel and I was already really interested, but then I tried it myself and it just blew me away. I've been hunting for apps that played around with simulating traditional mediums, or should I say complex responsive brushes? I've tried Expresii, Painter (including Thick Paint), and I'm gonna try Rebelle 2 when I have the chance. Verve is my favorite though, hands down. Unfortunately though, my laptop is weak, and I can only comfortably paint at below 1000px resolution. (I'm gonna post my first doodle and write my GPU specs in the appropriate topics.)

Loving verve and saving for a better machine,
Supertrash
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