Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking

by Daniel C. Dennett

Overview

“The best new book I’ve read.”—Richard Dawkins, New York Times Book Review

Over a storied career, Daniel C. Dennett has engaged questions about science and the workings of the mind. His answers have combined rigorous argument with strong empirical grounding. And a lot of fun.

Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking offers seventy-seven of Dennett’s most successful "imagination-extenders and focus-holders" meant to guide you through some of life’s most treacherous subject matter: evolution, meaning, mind, and free will. With patience and wit, Dennett deftly deploys his thinking tools to gain traction on these thorny issues while offering readers insight into how and why each tool was built.

Alongside well-known favorites like Occam’s Razor and reductio ad absurdum lie thrilling descriptions of Dennett’s own creations: Trapped in the Robot Control Room, Beware of the Prime Mammal, and The Wandering Two-Bitser. Ranging across disciplines as diverse as psychology, biology, computer science, and physics, Dennett’s tools embrace in equal measure light-heartedness and accessibility as they welcome uninitiated and seasoned readers alike. As always, his goal remains to teach you how to "think reliably and even gracefully about really hard questions."

A sweeping work of intellectual seriousness that’s also studded with impish delights, Intuition Pumps offers intrepid thinkers—in all walks of life—delicious opportunities to explore their pet ideas with new powers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393240689
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	04/29/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	512
Sales rank:	526,601
File size:	6 MB

About the Author

Daniel C. Dennett (1942–2024) was University Professor Emeritus at Tufts University and the author of numerous books, including Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking, Breaking the Spell, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, and Consciousness Explained.

Table of Contents

Preface xiii

I Introduction: What Is an Intuition Pump? 1

II A Dozen General Thinking Tools 17

1 Making Mistakes 19

2 "By Parody of Reasoning": Using Reductio ad Absurdum 29

3 Rapoport's Rules 33

4 Sturgeon's Law 36

5 Occam's Razor 38

6 Occam's Broom 40

7 Using Lay Audiences as Decoys 42

8 Jootsing 45

9 Three Species of Goulding: Rathering, Piling On, and the Gould Two-Step 48

10 The "Surely" Operator: A Mental Block 53

11 Rhetorical Questions 55

12 What Is a Deepity? 56

Summary 58

III Tools for Thinking About Meaning or Content 59

13 Murder in Trafalgar Square 61

14 An Older Brother Living in Cleveland 65

15 "Daddy Is a Doctor" 68

16 Manifest Image and Scientific Image 69

17 Folk Psychology 73

18 The Intentional Stance 77

19 The Personal/Sub-personal Distinction 86

20 A Cascade of Homunculi 91

21 The Sorta Operator 96

22 Wonder Tissue 98

23 Trapped in the Robot Control Room 102

IV An Interlude About Computers 107

24 The Seven Secrets of Computer Power Revealed 109

25 Virtual Machines 133

26 Algorithms 140

27 Automating the Elevator 143

Summary 148

V More Tools About Meaning 151

28 A Thing about Redheads 153

29 The Wandering Two-Bitser, Twin Earth, and the Giant Robot 157

30 Radical Translation and a Quinian Crossword Puzzle 175

31 Semantic Engines and Syntactic Engines 178

32 Swampman Meets a Cow-Shark 180

33 Two Black Boxes 184

Summary 197

VI Tools for Thinking About Evolution 201

34 Universal Acid 203

35 The Library of Mendel: Vast and Vanishing 205

36 Genes as Words or as Subroutines 214

37 The Tree of Life 217

38 Cranes and Skyhooks, Lifting in Design Space 218

39 Competence without Comprehension 232

40 Free-Floating Rationales 234

41 Do Locusts Understand Prime Numbers? 236

42 How to Explain Stotting 238

43 Beware of the Prime Mammal 240

44 When Does Speciation Occur? 244

45 Widowmakers, Mitochondrial Eve, and Retrospective Coronations 247

46 Cycles 252

47 What Does the Frog's Eye Tell the Frog's Brain? 256

48 Leaping through Space in the Library of Babel 258

49 Who Is the Author of Spamlet? 260

50 Noise in the Virtual Hotel 267

51 Herb, Alice, and Hal, the Baby 271

52 Memes 274

Summary 277

VII Tools for Thinking about Consciousness 279

53 Two Counter-images 281

54 The Zombie Hunch 283

55 Zombies and Zimboes 288

56 The Curse of the Cauliflower 296

57 Vim: How Much Is That in "Real Money"? 299

58 The Sad Case of Mr. Clapgras 302

59 The Tuned Deck 310

60 The Chinese Room 319

61 The Teleclone Fall from Mars to Earth 330

62 The Self as the Center of Narrative Gravity 333

63 Heterophenomenology 341

64 Mary the Color Scientist: A Boom Crutch Unveiled 347

Summary 352

VIII Tools for Thinking About Free Will 355

65 A Truly Nefarious Neurosurgeon 357

66 A Deterministic Toy: Conway's Game of Life 359

67 Rock, Paper, and Scissors 370

68 Two Lotteries 375

69 Inert Historical Facts 378

70 A Computer Chess Marathon 384

71 Ultimate Responsibility 393

72 Sphexishness 397

73 The Boys from Brazil: Another Boom Crutch 401

Summary 406

IX What is it Like to be a Philosopher? 409

74 A Faustian Bargain 411

75 Philosophy as Naïve Auto-anthropology 414

76 Higher-Order Truths of Chmess 418

77 The 10 Percent That's Good 425

X Use the Tools Try Harder 429

XI What Got Left Out 431

Appendix: Solutions to Register Machine Problems 433

Sources 445

Bibliography 451

Credits 461

Index 463

Editorial Reviews

Dennett (philosophy, Tufts Univ.; Consciousness Explained) thinks of intuition as ideas that have a central place around which other ideas hang. His phrase, "intuition pumps," refers to the philosopher's tools used to push such ideas to their limits. He argues that intuitions are either pushed aside and replaced with new ones, or they survive and become even more firmly rooted. According to Dennett, some of these tools are formal (the reductio ad absurdum), others are informal (various rhetorical fallacies), and still others resemble thought experiments. He introduces these general philosophical tools and then moves to a discussion of topics in which he is well known, such as evolution, consciousness, free will, etc. The author's weakness is lack of analysis; however, the concept of intuition pumps is in general provocative and makes for an entertaining intellectual appetizer. VERDICT Dennett shows himself again to be both avuncular to the curious and confrontational with opposing scholars. General readers and professionals should find him most engaging.—James Wetherbee, Wingate Univ. Libs., NC

Library Journal

"One of the most original thinkers of our time."

Science - Michael Shermer

"Our best current philosopher. He is the next Bertrand Russell. Unlike traditional philosophers, Dan is a student of neuroscience, linguistics, artificial intelligence, computer science, and psychology. He’s redefining and reforming the role of the philosopher."

Marvin Minsky

"The sharpest, cleverest, most stylish prober of how issues of human consciousness interconnect today with evolutionary theory."

Philadelphia Inquirer - Carlin Romano

"Cloaked in the breezy, familiar trappings of a self-help book, Intuition Pumps is in actuality a dark mirror of that genre—a field of rabbit holes designed to leave the reader with more questions than answers, and wiser for the long and indirect journey."

Jason Gots

"Once in a blue moon an analytic philosopher comes along who redeems his subdiscipline by combining professional persnicketiness with a romantic spirit, a vivid imagination, and a sense of humor…One of our most original and most readable philosophers."

Richard Rorty

"A philosopher’s box of tools for the musing mind."

Nature

"Perhaps America’s most widely read (and debated) living philosopher. . . . [Intuition Pumps is] a lively primer on the radical answers Mr. Dennett has elaborated to the big questions in his nearly five decades in philosophy"

New York Times

"An excellent introduction to Dennett’s body of thought."

Boston Globe

"“[Dennett] is a master at inventing tools for thought— metaphysical jokes, fables, parables, puzzles, and zany Monty-Python-like sketches that can help thinkers feel their way forward."

Daily Beast

Narrator Jeff Crawford’s tone of wonder makes this lengthy book sound fresh and interesting from start to finish. The philosophy he’s reading may be down-to-earth, but without his likability and palpable affection for these ideas, it could have sounded esoteric or mechanical. Instead, the book comes off as a lively guide to higher-quality thinking. It sounds warm and engaging because of the author’s peppy writing, especially the examples that draw on his college teaching or on fascinating realms of life. The book’s message is uplifting: Throw out your habits and assumptions and approach problems from new angles. Become a nimble thinker and feel more alive, more competent in life. T.W. © AudioFile 2013, Portland, Maine

NOVEMBER 2013 - AudioFile