Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking

Written by Daniel C. Dennett

Narrated by Jeff Crawford

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 listeners 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 listeners 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 powers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio
• Release date: May 6, 2013
• ISBN: 9781480512214

Daniel C. Dennett

Daniel C. Dennett is the author of Brainstorms, Elbow Room, and Consciousness Explained. He is currently the distinguished arts and sciences professor and director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University. He lives in North Andover, Massachusetts, with his wife and has two children.

Reviews for Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking

[Michael · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Intuition Pumps is a book about many things, mostly thinking about thinking. Dennett covers many fascinating intuitions of thought and so the book is well worth a read. However, I found the book a bit incoherent in parts - there are a lot of passages in this book that are in Dennett’s other book From Bacteria To Bach and Back and they fit better there than here.

[Carlos Salinas · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Seemed to me too much of a wandering conversation that was hard to follow.

[steve02476 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A lot of fun to read, and super thought-provoking. I need to read more of Dennett's stuff.

[point5a · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Boring and bad Writing Style. Don't look for thinking tools! this book is more about thought experiment.

[dlmorrese · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This offering from Daniel C. Dennett brings the reader to a few interesting philosophical points, but takes a lengthy and indirect route to get to them. Many of the destinations provide perspectives on the idea of consciousness — whether it is an exclusive characteristic of Homo Sapiens or if machines can acquire it. Interesting question, but between distractions to side issues and belaboring the obvious along the way, it's easy to get lost.

[nbmars · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book is a collection of Dennett’s “favorite thinking tools,” which he generously shares with us because “thinking is hard.” His favorite techniques are what he calls “intuition pumps,” which are thought experiments designed to elicit solutions to, or at least deeper understanding of, complex or arcane problems. They are, in a sense, a philosopher’s version of Aesop’s fables. Dennett’s peculiar contribution to the technique is to:

“…consider the intuition pump to be a tool with many settings, and “turn all the knobs” to see if the same intuitions still get pumped when you consider variations.”

Using clever examples, Dennett shows how computers perform logical manipulations through simple deterministic steps without having to “understand” what they are doing. He explains clearly how biological evolution through natural selection operates without an Intelligent Designer. In his words, Nature has achieved competence without comprehension.

The book ranges over issues in psychology, computer science, biology, and physics. For example, Dennett employs insights from all of those sciences to throw light on the problem of “free will” and how a better, more sophisticated definition of the concept shows how it can operate in a deterministic world.

Despite the abstruseness of its subject matter, the book is written in a lucid yet impish style.

This is a book well worth reading.

(JAB)

[tlockney_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Lots of good stuff in here, particularly if you can overlook Dennett's particular fascination with pushing his personal philosophy, which is really what the book is about (despite the supposed subject matter you might think it covers based on the title, the marketing, or any descriptions of the book you might find online). Of course, I happen to agree with Dennett on the majority of subjects, from what I've heard so far, so I enjoyed it. :~)

[kcshankd · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Daniel Dennett has been churning out amazing books and arguments for decades, but this is his best and most accessible to the lay person. Dennett _does_ philosophy, right there on the page in front of you, and explains it in jargon-free prose that any undergraduate could understand. This a book outlining how to best think like a human.

"Thinking is hard. Thinking about some problems is so hard it can make your head ache just thinking about thinking about them."

Dennett then gives us dozens of tools to use, tricks to try, and false flags to be wary of before ending up at his favorite hard problems - free will and consciousness. These arguments have been made before in _Consciousness Explained_ and _Freedom Evolves_, but this time they come with a prep course on working through the arguments.

"'It's inconceivable.' That's what some people declare when they confront the 'mystery' of consciousness, or the claim that life arouse on this planet more than three billion years ago without any helping hand from an Intelligent Designer, for instance. When I hear this, I am always tempted to say 'Well of course its inconceivable _to you_. You left your thinking tools behind and you're hardly trying."

This is a readable approach on how to try.

[freelancer_frank · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a book about thought experiments. Dennett uses the notion to cover many of his philosophical ideas and to elucidate their connection with those of Richard Dawkins. He distinguishes between correct and biased thought experiments and gives details of both. This distinction could have been explored further, especially considering that Dennett's agenda is to largely support his own work with examples.

[cdogzilla · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Some books aim to popularize philosophy, others do philosophy -- this does both. Some books raise questions, some raise questions and give answers, still others raise questions and challenge the reader to offer answers while giving guidance on how to avoid traps and survey of answers given already -- this does all of the above.

If this book has a flaw, it's that it might predispose one to not want to discuss theories of consciousness, free will & determinism, evolution vs. ID, and a host of other topics until the other party to the conversation has read it -- but this can, and should be resisted (if such a feeling arises) because perhaps the best way to think about these topics and to learn and explore while doing so would be to attempt the exercises Dennett proposes, to accept the challenge of being able to explain what you're doing with an argument understandably, to anyone, to ensure you've given it the proper amount of consideration yourself.

Despite doing his best to use conversational English, Mr. Dennett, by necessity, uses the language of philosophy that might still cause anyone who hasn't at least taken a 101 course to blanche a bit. I'll admit myself to having to go back and re-read passages a couple times to make sure I was understanding the terms and his use of them, but I suspect most anyone who would be drawn to this book anyways would not struggle.

If anything, in his aim to be personable and make the concepts accessible, he might be spending a little more time than some would consider humble talking about his own contributions to the field. ("And then there was the time I knocked a famous linguist off his game with this question ...", "And, this other time, at philosophy camp, I ... " if you know what I mean.)

Seriously though, this is probably now the 'go-to' book I would recommend to anyone thinking about studying philosophy, or who maybe studied a little, and wants to get back into the habit, or who just wants to think about ways to think and argue well.

Highly recommended as a companion read to Sam Harris's "Free Will" for a more balanced and rounded consideration of at least how to think about compatibilism.