I got about 200 pages in, and just could not continue with it. 'incomprehensible mess' would perfectly describe my sentiments.
As having taken undergrad/grad courses in logic and set theory, any interesting nuggets about recursion/completeness/incompleteness/etc that one could glean from GEB can much more coherently and succinctly be obtained from a proper book on logic/computability.
The counterargument would be that this book is meant as entertainment: from my experience with the first ~200 pages, it was a complete chore to read, as ideas were presented enigmatically and slowly, to the point of frustration. Granted, my attempt at reading it was almost a decade ago.
I had trouble getting through GEB because I felt like I couldn't quite grasp logic/set theory/whatever beyond the first section or so. It's good to hear that perhaps they're not as well-explained as I thought and that perhaps other avenues make it more accessible to me.
Do you have any suggestions where to start? Are there perhaps online 'starter kits' that would guide me through what courses/books/whatever to work through? I find that one of the most difficult parts of self-learning: there's often no clear syllabus available.
As having taken undergrad/grad courses in logic and set theory, any interesting nuggets about recursion/completeness/incompleteness/etc that one could glean from GEB can much more coherently and succinctly be obtained from a proper book on logic/computability.
The counterargument would be that this book is meant as entertainment: from my experience with the first ~200 pages, it was a complete chore to read, as ideas were presented enigmatically and slowly, to the point of frustration. Granted, my attempt at reading it was almost a decade ago.