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* RunningGag: This dialogue, repeated, at least, some variation of, thrice; on pages 62, 200, and 724.

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* RunningGag: RunningGag:
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This dialogue, repeated, at least, some variation of, thrice; on pages 62, 200, and 724.


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** Also, in page 731 each of the characters (Babbage, Crab, Tortoise, Achilles, and the Author respectively) say "The grounds are excellent!" at the beginning of each line followed by Achilles saying "Yes, I know. One even might say the grounds were execellent."

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%%* DoorStopper

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%%* DoorStopper* DoorStopper: This book has well over 700 pages.


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* LeaningOnTheFourthWall: In the final dialogue "Six-part Ricercar" the characters suspect their world could be fictional in a dialogue before they are absolutely sure of that.
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* PortalPicture: In "Little Harmonic Labrinth," the lower levels of stories are entered by entering pictures by drinking pushing potions.
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--->''Achilles'': Lovely! Only I'm puzzled by one thing. It seems to me that in your song, the last line is--\\
''Crab'': Sans design?\\
''Achilles'': No ... What I mean is, without rhyme or reason.

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--->''Achilles'': --->'''Achilles''': Lovely! Only I'm puzzled by one thing. It seems to me that in your song, the last line is--\\
''Crab'': '''Crab''': Sans design?\\
''Achilles'': '''Achilles''': No ... What I mean is, without rhyme or reason.
Tabs MOD

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misuse


* ToBeContinued: The two Dialogues Prelude... and ... Ant Fugue are, well, two sections of a separated story. The end of the former ends with [=TTortoise=] [[[YouMakeMeSic sic]]], while the latter begins with Achilles and [=CCrab=] [[[YouMakeMeSic sic]]], using "ATTACCA" [[note]]in music, an instruction meaning "continue straight on without a break"[[/note]] as a guide.

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* ToBeContinued: The two Dialogues Prelude... and ... Ant Fugue are, well, two sections of a separated story. The end of the former ends with [=TTortoise=] [[[YouMakeMeSic sic]]], [=TTortoise=], while the latter begins with Achilles and [=CCrab=] [[[YouMakeMeSic sic]]], [=CCrab=], using "ATTACCA" [[note]]in music, an instruction meaning "continue straight on without a break"[[/note]] as a guide.
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%%* AuthorAvatar

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%%* AuthorAvatar* AuthorAvatar: In the final dialogue, the characters figure out that they're fictional characters in a dialogue, and the author, Douglas Hofstadter, himself appears in the dialogue and talks about the book he's writing — the very same book the dialogue is included in.
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* ShapedLikeItself: "Church-Turing Thesis, Tautological Version: Mathematics problems can be solved only by doing mathematics."

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Moving to YMMV.


* FunWithAcronyms: The chapter "Contracrostipunctus", which contains an acrostic which itself contains an acrostic.

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* FunWithAcronyms: FunWithAcronyms:
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The chapter "Contracrostipunctus", which contains an acrostic which itself contains an acrostic.



* GeniusBonus: Despite the cross-references referred to on this page, there are numerous others which are harder to spot; in fact, [[http://www.faqs.org/faqs/books/hofstadter-GEB-FAQ/ there are pages about the numerous]] [[http://www.nada.kth.se/~kai/lectures/geb.html references in each chapter]].
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* NewhartPhonecall: the "Sonata for An Unaccompanied Achilles".
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Marked ZC Es.


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!!!The Dialogues contain examples of:

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!!!The

!!The
Dialogues contain examples of:



* AuthorAvatar

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* %%* AuthorAvatar



* DoorStopper

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* %%* DoorStopper



* GratuitousForeignLanguage: French and Latin.

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* GratuitousForeignLanguage: French and Latin.Latin are frequently used in this manner.



* InstructionalDialogue

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* %%* InstructionalDialogue



* PaintingTheMedium

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* %%* PaintingTheMedium



* StealthPun

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* %%* StealthPun



* VariantChess

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* %%* VariantChess
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trivia goes on the trivia page


* TranslationCorrection: When Hofstadter heard that there was a real Bach goblet, he edited the French version of GEB to make the depiction of the book's goblet the same as the real one.
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* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_incompleteness_theorems Gödel's incompleteness theorem]]

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* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_incompleteness_theorems org/wiki/Gödel%27s_incompleteness_theorems Gödel's incompleteness theorem]]
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* HarassingPhoneCall: Achilles begins the dialogue "Air on G's String" by telling the Tortoise about an obscene phone call he received in which the caller merely shouted twice before hanging up, "Yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation!" When the Tortoise teaches him about quines, he realizes that the caller was stating a logical paradox.
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[[quoteright:281:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/geb_egb.jpg]]
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* LogicBomb

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* LogicBombLogicBomb: The book shows how Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem does this to mathematics.
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* MusicalThemeNaming: Every dialogue is named after a piece by JohannSebastianBach, or a pun on one.

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* MusicalThemeNaming: Every dialogue is named after a piece by JohannSebastianBach, Music/JohannSebastianBach, or a pun on one.
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* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldbach%27s_conjecture Goldbach's conjecture]]
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* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantor%27s_diagonal_argument Cantor's diagonal method]]
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* PunnyName: The coppers Silva and Gould.

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* PunnyName: The coppers Silva and Gould.Gould, as well as the ant collective Aunt Hillary.
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* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeno%27s_paradoxes Zeno's paradoxes]]

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-->''Achilles'': Say, don't you play the guitar?\\
''Tortoise'': Fiddle. It makes a big difference, you know.\\
''Achilles'': Oh, well, it's all the same to me.
* SchrodingersButterfly

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-->''Achilles'': -->'''Achilles''': Say, don't you play the guitar?\\
''Tortoise'': '''Tortoise''': Fiddle. It makes a big difference, you know.\\
''Achilles'': '''Achilles''': Oh, well, it's all the same to me.
* SchrodingersButterflySchrodingersButterfly: The book uses several of these, nesting several layers of drama. In the dialogue "Little Harmonic Labyrinth," Achilles and the Tortoise are on an airship and start reading a book about themselves. The bad news is that the story doesn't "pop back" all the way to the last level, and the initial story is still left hanging. The good news is that the Tortoise and Achilles can move up to a previous level using popcorn.


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* SickEpisode: "Sonata for Unaccompanied Achilles," a dialogue for one in which Achilles is telephoned by the Tortoise, who is apparently suffering from a headache. (The readers only get Achilles' side of the conversation.)
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''Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid'' by Douglas Hofstadter is an intricate and complex study of Strange Loops, MetaConcepts in general and their connection to self-awareness and intelligence. Each chapter is separated from the next by a short fictional piece in the style of Creator/LewisCarroll, which exemplifies the theme of the following chapter.

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''Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid'' by Douglas Hofstadter is an intricate and complex study of Strange Loops, MetaConcepts in general and their connection to self-awareness and intelligence. Each chapter is separated from the next by a short fictional piece in the style of Creator/LewisCarroll, which exemplifies the theme of the following chapter.
chapter. The drawings of Creator/MCEscher and the Surrealist paintings of Creator/ReneMagritte are used as illustrations.
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* InNameOnly: By the author's own admission (in the Overview), the dialogue "Chromatic Fantasy, And Feud" bears "hardly any resemblance, except in title, to Bach's ''Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue''."
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* SignificantAnagram: [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Winograd Terry Winograd]], author of SHRDLU, becomes "Dr. Tony Earrwig" in the dialogue "SHRDLU, Toy of Man's Designing."
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* TuringTest: Parodied in the final chapter, where Alan Turing and Charles Babbage each try to prove that the other is a computer invented by them. Turing insists on calling it a "Babbage test."
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Fixing some entities


* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gödel's_incompleteness_theorems Gödel's incompleteness theorem]]

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* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gödel's_incompleteness_theorems org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_incompleteness_theorems Gödel's incompleteness theorem]]



* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euclid's_theorem Euclid's Theorem]]

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* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euclid's_theorem org/wiki/Euclid%27s_theorem Euclid's Theorem]]



* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church–Turing_thesis The Church-Turing Thesis]]

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* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church–Turing_thesis org/wiki/Church%E2%80%93Turing_thesis The Church-Turing Thesis]]

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Mathematical and logical concepts discussed in this book include:
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gödel's_incompleteness_theorems‎ Gödel's incompleteness theorem]]
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epimenides_paradox‎ The Epimenides paradox]]

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Mathematical and Mathematical, logical and computer-science concepts discussed in this book include:
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gödel's_incompleteness_theorems‎ org/wiki/Gödel's_incompleteness_theorems Gödel's incompleteness theorem]]
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epimenides_paradox‎ org/wiki/Epimenides_paradox The Epimenides paradox]]



* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Euclidean_geometry‎ Non-Euclidean geometry]]

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* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Euclidean_geometry‎ org/wiki/Non-Euclidean_geometry Non-Euclidean geometry]]



* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stack_(abstract_data_type)‎ Stacks]]
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propositional_calculus‎ Propositional Calculus]]

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* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stack_(abstract_data_type)‎ org/wiki/Stack_(abstract_data_type) Stacks]]
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propositional_calculus‎ org/wiki/Propositional_calculus Propositional Calculus]]


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* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quine_(computing) Quines]]
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church–Turing_thesis The Church-Turing Thesis]]
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Mathematical and logical concepts discussed in this book include:
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gödel's_incompleteness_theorems‎ Gödel's incompleteness theorem]]
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epimenides_paradox‎ The Epimenides paradox]]
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euclid's_theorem Euclid's Theorem]]
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Euclidean_geometry‎ Non-Euclidean geometry]]
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recursion Recursion]]
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stack_(abstract_data_type)‎ Stacks]]
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propositional_calculus‎ Propositional Calculus]]
* UsefulNotes/FermatsLastTheorem
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* OurGeniesAreDifferent:
** In the dialogue "Little Harmonic Labyrinth," Genies are allowed to grant wishes, but not wishes about wishes, which are known as meta-wishes. Meta-Genies (who come from Meta-Lamps) are allowed to grant meta-wishes, but not wishes about meta-wishes, which are within the authority of Meta-Meta-Genies. The word "Djinn" is generically used to designate Genies, Meta-Genies, Meta-Meta-Genies, and all others in {{GOD}} (which [[RecursiveAcronym stands for "GOD Over Djinn"]]).
** In the chapter "Typographical Number Theory," "djinn" is an undefined term used in place of "natural number" in setting out the five [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peano_axioms Peano postulates]], with "genie" taking the place of zero.
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''Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid'' by Douglas Hofstadter is an intricate and complex study of Strange Loops, MetaConcepts in general and their connection to self-awareness and intelligence. Each chapter is separated from the next by a short fictional piece in the style of Creator/LewisCarroll, which exemplifies the theme of the following chapter.

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!!!The Dialogues contain examples of:
* AllJustADream: The Subjunc-TV dialogue is All Just A Hypothetical Situation.
* [[AllThereInTheManual All There in the Index]]: For example, to find where the true end of ''Aria with Diverse Variations'' is, search for 'typos'.
* ArcWords: "RICERCAR".
* ArtificialIntelligence: Discussed.
* AuthorAvatar
* BreatherEpisode: The interlude "English French German Suite", consisting of Lewis Carroll's poem "Literature/{{Jabberwocky}}" in three languages, taking place between two chapters of theories on how the human mind works.
* CulturalTranslation: Several have been approved by the author.
* DoorStopper
* {{Foreshadowing}}: Looking at the semantic network on page 370 reveals a lot about the latter half of the book.
* FunWithAcronyms: The chapter "Contracrostipunctus", which contains an acrostic which itself contains an acrostic.
** RICERCAR and CEGABBAB ("Babbage, C(harles)" backwards) show up in the last chapter.
* GeniusBonus: Despite the cross-references referred to on this page, there are numerous others which are harder to spot; in fact, [[http://www.faqs.org/faqs/books/hofstadter-GEB-FAQ/ there are pages about the numerous]] [[http://www.nada.kth.se/~kai/lectures/geb.html references in each chapter]].
* GoldSilverCopperStandard: ... Well, okay, not really. But the words "Copper", "silver", and "gold" appear (in that order) in several places.
* GratuitousForeignLanguage: French and Latin.
* HereWeGoAgain: The ending, which also [[spoiler:makes the entire book into a FramingDevice for itself]].
* HiddenInPlainSight: The answers to the puzzles in "Sonata for An Unaccompanied Achilles." Not only [[spoiler:is the answer explicitly used in the text]], it is also [[spoiler: the two puzzles ''make up the entire word'']].
* InstructionalDialogue
* {{Koan}}: On a whole bunch of baffling ones.
* LogicBomb
* {{Metafiction}}: Some stories are so extremely meta that they have no content other than discussions of themselves discussing themselves discussing themselves ad infinitum, usually indirectly.
* MusicalThemeNaming: Every dialogue is named after a piece by JohannSebastianBach, or a pun on one.
* NestedStory: "Little Harmonic Labyrinth", which [[spoiler:actually ends while still one level "down"]].
* PaintingTheMedium
* PublicDomainCharacter: Achilles and the Tortoise, from the Greek philosopher Zeno (who also himself appears).
* PunnyName: The coppers Silva and Gould.
* RecursiveAcronym: "GOD" in "Little Harmonic Labyrinth" (short for "GOD Over Djinn").
* RecursiveReality. In so many ways.
* RunningGag: This dialogue, repeated, at least, some variation of, thrice; on pages 62, 200, and 724.
-->''Achilles'': Say, don't you play the guitar?\\
''Tortoise'': Fiddle. It makes a big difference, you know.\\
''Achilles'': Oh, well, it's all the same to me.
* SchrodingersButterfly
* ShesAManInJapan: The Tortoise is referred to as male in the original, but the French word for tortoise is the feminine ''tortue''. Hofstadter, who is interested in the phenomenon of unconscious sexism in language, was delighted when this was pointed out, and gave the French translators the go-ahead to make the Tortoise a female character.
* SelfDeprecation: A book about "metal-logic", called ''Copper, Silver, Gold: an Indestructible Metallic Alloy'' is mentioned in the dialogues. The Crab says that it's "filled with strange Dialogues about many subjects, including molecular biology, fugues, Zen Buddhism, and heaven knows what else." Achilles responds that "probably some crackpot wrote it". The book is also listed in the bibliography, where it's called "a formidable hodge-podge, turgid and confused". Indeed very little praise is given to its author, Egbert B. Gebstadter.
* SelfFulfillingProphecy: Commented on if a psychic who could determine the minds of other people was allowed to choose his or her jury if accused.
* SpoiledByTheFormat: The Tortoise and Achilles discuss using {{Filler}} to counteract this problem. [[invoked]]
* StealthPun
* SubvertedRhymeEveryOccasion: In one of the dialogues, the Crab puts on a record of himself singing "A Song Without Time or Season." Here's how it goes:
-->A turner of phrases quite pleasin',\\
Had a penchant for trick'ry and teasin'.\\
In his songs, the last line\\
Might seem sans design;\\
What I mean is, without why or wherefore.
** This is [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] almost immediately:
--->''Achilles'': Lovely! Only I'm puzzled by one thing. It seems to me that in your song, the last line is--\\
''Crab'': Sans design?\\
''Achilles'': No ... What I mean is, without rhyme or reason.
* TextbookHumor: Well, the text wasn't all that serious to begin with, but you have to wonder when Hofstadter describes the DNA of a feline as CATCATCATCATCAT...
* TitleDrop: In the form of BookEnds.
* ToBeContinued: The two Dialogues Prelude... and ... Ant Fugue are, well, two sections of a separated story. The end of the former ends with [=TTortoise=] [[[YouMakeMeSic sic]]], while the latter begins with Achilles and [=CCrab=] [[[YouMakeMeSic sic]]], using "ATTACCA" [[note]]in music, an instruction meaning "continue straight on without a break"[[/note]] as a guide.
* TranslationCorrection: When Hofstadter heard that there was a real Bach goblet, he edited the French version of GEB to make the depiction of the book's goblet the same as the real one.
* TheTreacheryOfImages: Subverted--one character takes the pipe out of the Magritte painting and smokes it.
* VariantChess
* ViewersAreGeniuses: The dialogues, especially, conceal mathematical jokes that aren't explained in the text. For example, in a spoof of UsefulNotes/FermatsLastTheorem, the Tortoise claims to have found a counterexample in which the exponent ''n'' is "the only positive integer which does not occur anywhere in the continued fraction for pi". Mathematically inclined readers will know that, while the famous constants ''e'' and sqrt(2) have highly patterned continued fractions, that for pi is quasi-random, so the Tortoise's claim is of no help at all in finding the value of ''n''.
* YourPrincessIsInAnotherCastle: A unique version of a fake ending which takes place ''after'' the actual ending.
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