> When Hofstadter was 35, he had spent his adult life studying a subject
First, a nitpick - the book was published when he was 34, and he was even younger when he wrote it.
But the main point is that the post is clearly talking about people who have spent the entirety of a lifetime studying an area, not someone who has spent their adulthood so far studying the subject.
And Hofstadter clearly hadn't devoted the entirety of his adulthood up to age 34 studying the subjects of GEB. The quoted passage says that his formal study had been in particle physics.
I disagree with your assessment of what the main point is. I don't think anyone else is interpreting it that way, and can confidently assert that the error is entirely on your end.
Moreover, Hofstadter's study of physics isn't unrelated to his study of intelligence. I personally got a degree in physics to study language and intelligence, because the way physicists use language, analogy, and simple concepts to understand the world is particularly effective and interesting. So I can tell you first-hand that they are related. In fact, anyone who studies philosophy is probably making a serious mistake to not study physics first.
> I don't think anyone else is interpreting it that way, and can confidently assert that the error is entirely on your end.
The post is very clear that it's talking about expertise in the sense referred to in my comments (which, as also indicated in my comments, I don't fully agree with):
"Rule #1: Prefer books by experts in the field
The best nonfiction books I have read have invariably been by folks who spent their lives researching that particular issue. A couple of books in this category immediately come to mind: Why We Sleep, The Language Instinct, Gödel Escher Bach.
Positive indicators of this in a blurb may include “Professor in [field directly related to the book’s topic]”, “Long-time researcher in [field directly related to the book’s topic]”.
Note how they say "Professor in" and "Long-time researcher in".
The way you're using a term, a 21 year old can have "spent their life researching the topic" if they've been focused on it over the previous three years.
You don't need to focus on these kinds of semantic quibbles if you want to miss the point. You can do that directly.
Albert Einstein was 21 when he published his first paper, and 26 when he published his best. Please tell me that he didn't spend his life researching physics, even then.
First, a nitpick - the book was published when he was 34, and he was even younger when he wrote it.
But the main point is that the post is clearly talking about people who have spent the entirety of a lifetime studying an area, not someone who has spent their adulthood so far studying the subject.
And Hofstadter clearly hadn't devoted the entirety of his adulthood up to age 34 studying the subjects of GEB. The quoted passage says that his formal study had been in particle physics.