I first read it about 25 years ago, and while I didn't understand much of its philosophical arguments, I remember the experience as a sheer delight. Since then, i've read it at least twice more, and enjoyed it every time ( and understood it better):

- It's the best explanation by far (for a non-mathematical reader) of Godel's theorem and its philosophical implications.

- It's a theory about what is consciousness and how it arises, but unlike most such discussions, genuinely interesting and even playful.

- It's an argument for what is called 'strong AI'. Given the author's view of consciousness, he makes a strong argument for why he believes conscious computer programs are possible.

- It's a great introduction (again for the math-challenged) to formal systems, mathematical proofs, and what was called the Entschiedungsproblem (who can resist finding out what a word like that means?) :-)

- It's tantalizing glimpses of the world of western classical music and painting and some interesting parallels he draws between them and his theory of consciousness.

- It's a set of delightful dialogs (in the style of Lewis Carroll) about all the above.

For me, it was one of my formative experiences, and the one thing I got from it at the time was that there was more to computers than writing Pascal programs. It helped that I came to this book as the proverbial tabula rasa, knowing nothing about classical music, painting, formal systems or philosophy for that matter, but I really think most people here, even those who know a lot about these things, will enjoy and learn from it.    

The only things that I can compare it to are more literary, but "Breakfast of Champions", "Foucalts Pendulum" or "Infinite Jest", aren't out of order.

They are all products of brilliant, obsessive, minds making a concerted effort to explain what they can see above the clouds.

As much intellectual ego that gets bandied about between computer programmers, its nice to keep a humbling base where you can actually see that no matter how smart you think you are, that there are people who are way way way smarter than you and actually have the dedication, skill and expertise to try to help you understand what they have spent their life learning.

Make sure you don't neglect its contrary twin: Emperor's New Mind. (The entire dialectic between these two books is something straight out of G.E.B.)

I haven't read GEB, but I loved reading the Emperor's New Mind by Roger Penrose. It's a little all over the place, going from non-periodic tiling patterns to quantum mechanics and relativity, all to argue against the case for strong AI.

I think he meant a book which as "been around".

I've read it twice and found it awesome each time. You get more out of it reading it again. (One wonders: does it continue to be so? :)

What's even more cool is the bibliography in the back. The books are starred according to how useful the book was to the writing of GEB. So it's safe to say that the book and the pointers it has to other books is a treasure trove of wonderful ideas.

Also, Douglas Hofstatder's "I Am A Strange Loop" is a little more accessible and is all about consciousness, if that part of Godel, Escher, Bach interests you.

I highly recommend this book for stretching your brain and doing some higher-level thinking.

Not 100% sure if that torrent is legit, but I've had the mp4 files on my harddisk for a few months now. I also can't imagine why anyone would go through the trouble to fake this particular torrent so enjoy !

   Grading
    There are no grades for this course.

I'm 150 pages into the book and it's quite interesting but I've seen a lot of the stuff elsewhere. What I find incredibly cool is how he connects different subjects with concepts he's explaining.

I get a feeling that GEB is about materialism (of philosophy of mind) and I am actually not very impressed by it now (through my limited reading). But may be if I am successful in keeping an open mind (I would try my level best) and digest some of it (by ocw and reading) I may change my mind.

That being said, why is this on HN? The link is from 2007. The book is even older.