Major themes of the columns include self-reference in
memes, language, art and logic; discussions of philosophical issues important in cognitive science/AI; analogies and what makes something similar to something else (specifically what makes, for example, an uppercase letter 'A' recognizable as such); and lengthy discussions of the work of
Robert Axelrod on the
prisoner's dilemma, as well as the idea of
superrationality. The concept of superrationality, and its relevance to the
Cold War, environmental issues and such, is accompanied by notes on experiments conducted by the author at the time. Another notable feature is the inclusion of two dialogues in the style of those appearing in
Gödel, Escher, Bach.
Ambigrams are mentioned. There are three articles centered on the
Lisp programming language, in which Hofstadter first details the language itself, and then shows how it relates to
Gödel's incompleteness theorem. Two articles are devoted to
Rubik's Cube and similar puzzles. Many chapters open with an illustration of an extremely abstract alphabet, yet one which is still
gestaltly recognizable as such. The game of
Nomic was first introduced to the public in this column, in June 1982, when excerpts from a book (still unpublished at the time) by the game's creator
Peter Suber were printed and discussed. The index of the book mentions Hofstadter's recurring alter ego,
Egbert B. Gebstadter. ==List of Hofstadter's "Metamagical Themas" columns==