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Thomas Hobbes's *Leviathan* (1651) argues for the necessity of an absolute sovereign to prevent humanity's descent into a "state of nature," characterized by perpetual war of all against all. He contends that individuals, driven by fear of death and desire for peace, enter a social contract, surrendering their natural rights to a powerful, indivisible Sovereign. This Leviathan, whether a monarch or assembly, enforces laws and maintains order, as justice and property only exist within a civil society. Hobbes extensively details human psychology, the formation of reason, and the dangers of divided power—especially religious authority—concluding that peace and salvation depend on subjects' absolute obedience to the Christian sovereign, who is also the supreme pastor.
Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid explores profound connections between formal systems, self-reference, and intelligence through the works of mathematician Kurt Gödel, artist M. C. Escher, and composer Johann Sebastian Bach. It delves into concepts like Strange Loops and Tangled Hierarchies, demonstrating how self-referential structures lead to paradoxes and incompleteness in mathematics, art, and cognitive processes. Through analogies with formal systems, computer science, and molecular biology, the book posits that consciousness and intelligence might emerge from complex, multi-layered systems of symbols and rules that operate across different levels of abstraction. It ultimately questions the limits of formalizability and the nature of thought itself.