<< In a word, GEB is a very personal attempt to say how it is that animate
beings can come out of inanimate matter. What is a self, and how can a self
come out of stuff that is as selfless as a stone or a puddle? What is an "I",
and why are such things found (at least so far) only in association with, as
poet Russell Edson once wonderfully phrased it, "teetering bulbs of dread
and dream" - that is, only in association with certain kinds of gooey lumps
encased in hard protective shells mounted atop mobile pedestals that roam
the world on pairs of slightly fuzzy, jointed stilts?
GEB approaches these questions by slowly building up an analogy that
likens inanimate molecules to meaningless symbols, and further likens selves
(or "I"s or "souls", if you prefer - whatever it is that distinguishes animate
from inanimate matter) to certain special swirly, twisty, vortex-like, and
meaningful patterns that arise only in particular types of systems of
meaningless symbols. It is these strange, twisty patterns that the book
spends so much time on, because they are little known, little appreciated,
counterintuitive, and quite filled with mystery. >> -- Hofstadter, Preface to Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid, 20th Anniversary Edition.

I think that many people would find that repulsive because it is even more extreme than thoughts of mortality. To know you will die is one thing. To see that you are in some ways not really alive (at least not alive in the way that you intuitively feel you are) is much more difficult to take. The first reaction is denial, which takes many forms. But I have the opposite reaction. I want to study it again and again.

I'm also glad you questioned Turing's suicide. I haven't done any research, but it appears very suspicious that someone taking cyanide would go to the trouble to put in in an apple.