As the author mentions at the bottom of the article, the title is a reference to the book "Metaphors We Live By" [0], which essentially lays out the idea that a very significant portion of modern language is really just metaphors, even when we don't realize it. Super interesting book, for anybody interested in those kinds of things!

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Metaphors-We-Live-George-Lakoff/dp/02...

GEB was a considerable waste of time and contributed nothing to my understanding of intelligence or AI. The time would have been be better spent elsewhere.

If you want to understand Godel's proofs then I recommend the book "Godel's Proof" by Ernest Nagel and James R. Newman:

http://www.amazon.com/Gödels-Proof-Ernest-Nagel/dp/081475837...

Instead of Hofstadter's GEB, read some of his papers, e.g., "Analogy as the Core of Cognition" http://prelectur.stanford.edu/lecturers/hofstadter/analogy.h...

But there are others who have focused longer on analogy, e.g., George Lakoff:

"Metaphors we Live by"

http://www.amazon.com/Metaphors-We-Live-George-Lakoff/dp/022...

"Where Mathematics Come From: How The Embodied Mind Brings Mathematics Into Being":

http://www.amazon.com/Where-Mathematics-Come-Embodied-Brings...

"Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things"

http://www.amazon.com/Women-Fire-Dangerous-Things-Lakoff/dp/...

> Metaphors aren't something that are easy to avoid in writing. Their purpose is to illustrate a concept; if you aren't illustrating a concept, you generally don't need a metaphor.

Don't discount metaphors -- they're a critical part of everyday communication because our conceptual system is largely metaphorical. We think in metaphors. They're the concepts we live by. They're the abstractions that help us relate and understand.

For an in-depth perspective, read George Lakoff and Mark Johnson's classic "Metaphors We Live By" (http://www.amazon.com/Metaphors-We-Live-George-Lakoff/dp/022...). Here's Peter Norvig's review of it: http://norvig.com/mwlb.html .