Lainchan Book Club

Where we get together on the IRC to discuss a really good book every Wednesday. You will be required to read 100 pages a week, our meetings will be on the IRC at lit at 11PM UTC. Please RSVP with your IRC user name in this thread as well as any suggestions you have for our next book, or any comments you have on the book as you read it. A list of discussions questions will be posted each Tuesday before the meeting. The book we will be going through first is Gödel, Escher, Bach or GEB by Douglas Hofstadter. The paperback is relatively cheap, but here's the pdf anyways. https://www.physixfan.com/wp-content/files/GEBen.pdf For next Wednesday please read until the end of chapter IV

c4rdinal RSVPing I've always wanted to finish this book! thought it would be a great time to encourage each other to read it!

I haven't seen this book in years, I read it a long time ago. Thanks for the pdf!

Responding to your RSVP, will read and discuss indeed. This is a great idea as with larger and more interesting works, such as GEB, it expands the work even more by actively discussing it and exploring ideas and questions. We discussed this reading group on the lainchan irc, which is lainchan.org, port 6697, ssl only. You can use the web client here: https://lainchan.org/irc.html - Join the channel #/lit/ at the specified time (or join now and lurk). I go by the nick "user".

ding dong! It's bruz. rsvp

"sean" here. I ordered the paperback off amazon, estimated delivery by the 2nd-5th of may :( If i miss out on the first round ill catch up for the second one.

>>279 >If i miss out on the first round ill catch up for the second one. No excuses! Read the pdf until it comes.

This is cold, I joined the irc channel, so did you have a similar thread last week, or are we gonna read 100 pages until next wednesday?

>>281 We just started this. Read 100 pages until next wednesday.

I wish I had enough free time to follow along, this looks super cool

I think I'm gonna smoke some dank and read this soykaf. Gonna be gud

>>285 Same here, might try read along a bit but can't commit to serious discussion and also the time chosen also isn't convenient for me Hope you guys enjoy it

>>273 >>279 sean here again, I've got called into work to cover tomorrow night so I wont be able to make it for the book club :(. I've read up to Chapter V and I'm really enjoying it so ill make sure that i make the second round.

>>318 That's alright man, I'll see you in a week, when I complete them I will post the discussion questions in this thread so that everyone will have a chance to ruminate on them.

>Here is a small list of discussion questions I've written for the first few chapters of GEB if you'd like to add any questions, just reply to this post with the question OR just bring them up on the IRC on #/lit at 11 UTC. Questions: Chapter 1 -> Chapter 5 Godel Escher Bach 1. Do you think that MU is a system of the MIU system? Explain the reasoning behind the your conclusion? 2. With regards to "Sonata for Unaccompanied Achilles". Can you think of a word with ADAC spelled consecutively? 3. Hofstadter hints at some sort of deeper isomorphism in "Contracrostipunctus" what is the nature of this isomorphism? Discuss? 4. Of the four stories we have read thus far, which one is your favorite? Why? 5. Talk about the parallels you've seen in GEB and in your own experiments and adventures in computers, mathematics, biology, chemistry... and so on.

>>273 We have just completed our first week of book club, For week 2 please read from chapter V to the end of chapter VII. We will be meeting at the same time (11PM UTC) on #/lit/ at irc.lainchan.org If you haven't done the reading, show up anyways! it's a really good book and you'll probably learn something.

>>334 Is it possible for you or anyone to post the IRC logs?

>>331 thanks for the new wallpaper

>>334 Greetings, I hope everyone is excited for the second week of book club. Instead of preparing questions this week I think it might be interesting to have an open discussion about some of the concepts covered in the last few chapters. Particularly interesting to me is the structure of the Crab Cannon and how Hofstadter has begun to talk about genetics and DNA, just like last week we will also probably discuss the formal systems that were covered in the previous chapters. This week I will also remember to log the IRC conversation!

RSVPing as Ghanima, hope I can catch up in time

>>2483 It'll be tough to catch up at this point... But maybe someone should revive this?

Oh soykaf I love this book. How did I miss this thread the first time? Hope this gets revived.

>>2484 Aw soykaf, I didn't even look at the date posted. D: Massive bummer

How dead is /lit/? would anyone be interested in another one of these?

Online book clubs don't provide actual commitment and so usually fail.

>>2488 We'd have to organise mumble meetups I reckon