Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies
Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought
by Douglas R. Hofstadter, Fluid Analogies Research Group · first published 1995
55% recommend42% neutral3% critical
Why HN recommends it
Hofstadter's technical account of his AI research on analogy-making, built on toy domains like Copycat, Tabletop and Metacat. Suits hackers who want to understand high-level cognition; chapters 4-6 are a good start.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Readers of earlier works by Douglas Hofstadter will find this book a natural extension of his style and his ideas about creativity and analogy; in addition, psychologists, philosophers, and artificial-intelligence researchers will find in this elaborate web of ingenious ideas a deep and challenging new view of mind.
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…mind, in no particular order, and spanning both fiction and non-fiction: The Selfish Gene - Dawkins A New Kind of Science - Wolfram The Singularity is Near - Kurzweil Gödel, Escher, Bach - Hofstadter Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies - Hofstadter Atlas Shrugged - Rand The Fountainhead - Rand Nineteen Eighty-Four - Orwell The Trouble With Physics - Lee Smolin Time Reborn - Lee Smolin Ambient Findability - Peter Morville Emergence:…
on “Ask HN: What are the most thought-provoking books that you have read?” ↗I second this recommendation, though I suspect most people at HN have already read it. I can also recommend two other books by Hofstadter: Metamagical Themas, and Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies
on “The nicest math book I own” ↗…Gaudi's buildings have the same style. I think there is a lot of appeal in the organic style, it's a pity it's so rare. The computational properties of style are explored in Douglas Hofstadter's book "Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies" (I recommend it to any hacker interested in aesthetics or cognitive science, but it is not an easy read): http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465024750?ie=UTF8&tag=... Interestingly, computers can eventually…
on “Building a house for under $5000” ↗Douglas Hofstadter, Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies. This book will blow your mind. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluid_Concepts_and_Creative_Ana...
on “Machine learning toolkit” ↗I really liked GEB (as well as The Minds' I, and Fluid Concepts And Creative Analogies, the later being a more CompSci book) and was looking forward to I am a Strange Loop because it had been a while since Hofstadter had published anything. I was very disappointed and never finished it.…
on “Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid” ↗I think you might enjoy the book Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies, by Douglas Hofstadter [1]. The first chapter is on (what Hofstadter argues is) the fundamental nature of recognizing patterns in number sequences. [1] http://www.amazon.com/Fluid-Concepts-And-Creative-Analogies/...
on “A Quick Puzzle to Test Your Problem Solving” ↗His other non-GEB books are cool. I especially enjoyed Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies.
on “Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?” ↗Not the original commenter but I'd include: Vanity Fair by Thackeray Mr Johnson by Joyce Cary Lavengro and Romany Rye by George Borrow The Descent of Woman by Elaine Morgan Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies by Douglas Hofstadter et al. Identity Crisis by Ben Elton
on “The Good Soldier Švejk (2018)” ↗…I hadn't realized that Rehling's thesis was linked from the Waybacked version of his personal page, and that finally completes my collection!) You can also read Chapter 10 in Hofstadter's 1995 book "Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies" for a pretty solid overview. But yeah, seeing this project immediately reminded me of Letter Spirit, since it's basically a web editor for gridfonts.
on “Brutalita Sans: An Experimental Font and Font Editor” ↗…of the concept of “games” for example, yet that concept is able to contain such disparate variations without becoming absurd or impractical. See Douglas Hofstadter’s books “Surfaces and Essences” and “ Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies ”; Wittgenstein’s “Philosophical Investigations” also touches on this, as do many other reputable thinkers in philosophy of mind.
on “Billions of Sketches Reveal Hidden Cultural Variation in Human Concepts” ↗The other Hofstadter gem is Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies.
on “Gödel, Escher, Bach: an in-depth explainer” ↗it's not real AI. Read "Fluid concepts and creative analogies". If you ask a human, abc is to 123 as abd is to... The human would probably say 124. Ask watson the same and it would answer "jackson five".
on “Nick Szabo: "The Singularity" is an incoherent and religious idea” ↗Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies is a wonderful book. I wouldn't call the systems they build upon (such as lMetacat [1] and Tabletop [2]) "machine learning"... [1] http://science.slc.edu/jmarshall/metacat/ [2] https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/handle/2027.42/105891…
on “A Python implementation of formal systems from the book “Gödel, Escher, Bach”” ↗Cool! Drop me a line at greg at gregdetre dot co dot uk Fluid Concepts & Creative Analogies ch 4-6 are the best introduction to his modeling work. I can't recommend them highly enough.
on “Ask HN: What are you working on and why is it cool?” ↗I suggest reading "fluid concepts and creative analogies", it's a really great read.
on “The Strange Loop in Deep Learning” ↗