Hehe, honestly I just assume everyone here has a copy of GEB (or has infused it into their being)
But yeah, I read TC's post as being less "you can't play music without formal theory" and more "taking a music appreciation class won't (solely) imbue you with the ability to play violin"
...nor would a course which provides a cursory pass over advanced concepts give you applicable (let alone employable) skills without at least a little of the manual labour needed to really feel the intuitions (?)
There probably _are_ some undiscovered clever ways to teach foundations such that you form useful or higher level synaptic links faster - but does seem you still need to then add some brute force to gain adequate fluency..
PS. I don't think that excludes the possibility of Ramanujans or Dizzy Gillespies existing - whether your hard work is unstructured or structured, top-down or bottom up, the key point is - beyond a superficial level there are eventually "no shortcuts"
But yeah, I read TC's post as being less "you can't play music without formal theory" and more "taking a music appreciation class won't (solely) imbue you with the ability to play violin"
...nor would a course which provides a cursory pass over advanced concepts give you applicable (let alone employable) skills without at least a little of the manual labour needed to really feel the intuitions (?)
There probably _are_ some undiscovered clever ways to teach foundations such that you form useful or higher level synaptic links faster - but does seem you still need to then add some brute force to gain adequate fluency..
PS. I don't think that excludes the possibility of Ramanujans or Dizzy Gillespies existing - whether your hard work is unstructured or structured, top-down or bottom up, the key point is - beyond a superficial level there are eventually "no shortcuts"