Gödel, Escher, and Bach
Gödel, Escher, and Bach was the last book I read from this list. In hindsight, I’m glad that I read all those other science books beforehand, as they served as primers for this one. When I first started this book, I had a general interest in STEM, but I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do. I was torn between math, physics, and computer science. This book got me interested in a specific field of STEM: artificial intelligence.
The author introduces a proven claim in mathematics: Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem. Basically, the theorem states that if you try to mechanize the process of knowledge seeking, by constraining it to a finite set of rules that can be followed by a machine, there are truths out there in the abyss of math that you cannot prove or discover. Only humans, not machines being constrained to finite actions and rules, can discover and prove them.
This got me thinking about whether or not there are other things that a computer cannot do, no matter how clever we are when building them. And just being in the mindset of pondering intelligent computers led to me messing around with small-scale AI and neural networks on my own computer. Soon after my reading I started college, and as a result, I had to choose a major. With thoughts of computers fresh in my mind, and a growing interest in artificial intelligence, I knew right away what to pick.
Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24113.G_del_Escher_Bach
