Do experts dislike GEB because it covers material they think is obvious and/or because they think it’s wrong? Or because non-experts keep talking about it to them?
Because—so I understand, and I am not an expert—they think it is wrong. Not by any means an undifferentiated heap of nonsense from beginning to end, but wrong enough, in the bits that the naive go geewhizgollygoshwowgeehay over and think they learned something from.
I recall the late Torkel Franzén, undoubtedly an expert, having some strong criticisms of it on sci.logic back in the day, but I don’t remember details.
I spoke with my supervisor in college, a composer, about this. He’s made some attempts at reading Hofstader, and said he found that the sections about music were just uninteresting and obvious to a trained musician.
I’ve read Hofstader’s article on the music of Chopin, and found it interesting, but not particularly new.
I think you have to get a fair amount of training in music theory before it’s that uninteresting and obvious, though, which most of the audience of the book isn’t going to have. There may be some readers to whom all of the sections were uninteresting and obvious; I suppose it’s just not the book for them. (I stumbled across it when most of the material was still new to me, which is probably the best time to read it.)
Do experts dislike GEB because it covers material they think is obvious and/or because they think it’s wrong? Or because non-experts keep talking about it to them?
Because—so I understand, and I am not an expert—they think it is wrong. Not by any means an undifferentiated heap of nonsense from beginning to end, but wrong enough, in the bits that the naive go geewhizgollygoshwowgeehay over and think they learned something from.
I recall the late Torkel Franzén, undoubtedly an expert, having some strong criticisms of it on sci.logic back in the day, but I don’t remember details.
I spoke with my supervisor in college, a composer, about this. He’s made some attempts at reading Hofstader, and said he found that the sections about music were just uninteresting and obvious to a trained musician.
I’ve read Hofstader’s article on the music of Chopin, and found it interesting, but not particularly new.
I think you have to get a fair amount of training in music theory before it’s that uninteresting and obvious, though, which most of the audience of the book isn’t going to have. There may be some readers to whom all of the sections were uninteresting and obvious; I suppose it’s just not the book for them. (I stumbled across it when most of the material was still new to me, which is probably the best time to read it.)