IIRC, the focus of the book is how systems made out of simple components can exhibit complex behaviours; in particular, how information-processing systems can come to develop self-awareness. A book on a very similar topic to GEB, which was _extremely_ important in developing my understanding of how the universe came to be, is "Recursive Universe", by William Poundstone, which I recommend very highly to everyone here. It's still in print, which is really good, because it's not as well known as it should (IMO) be. It uses an analogy with Conway's Life to explain how the large-scale structure of the universe can develop from a random initial state. Buy it now! Noel