Hofstadter - what a mind. So perhaps we're fascinated by the inevitably incomplete, and our interaction with music forms a kind of strange loop - very roughly "freckled" - but in that case does humanity play for a cosmic ethnomusicologist?
BTW, have you ever read "Time: A Traveler's Guide" by Clifford Pickover?" He uses music as more of a major plot element, but it's one of the most enjoyable books about modern physics I've ever read. A few people of the board could probably chime in on that too ;-)
Here's a brief summary of GEB if someone hasn't read the book. And tangetially related... auditory illusions.
I'm unable to post comments as well, so my apols., this is living large...
The problem with being unable to post comments is because the "include HTML?" is turned off to discourage spammers. Not sure what I think about that, since I often want to include URLs myself, so I've taken to just pasting in the URL without its hyperlink anchors.
Meanwhile, I'll plug another Hofstadter book I'm really fond of: Le Ton Beau de Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language --which is about Translation, sort of (well, it's about Everything, because it's Hofstadter...). Jaw-droppingly excellent.