Review of 'Intuition pumps and other tools for thinking' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
Another brilliant discussion from Dr. Dennett about consciousness, evolution and free will.
I don't find the conceit of the intuition pump as compared to a thought experiment, or in some cases, an analogy especially interesting, but it is fascinating and exhilarating to read the discussion from someone who thinks about what he thinks about for a living. I have read Dennett on free will before and sometimes found the intricacies to be beyond me, but chapters 65-73 here, perhaps because of the "intuition pumps" used, were unusually enlightening. Highly recommended.
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Part of the edge of this writing comes from the critical environment in which these topics have been discussed, and to some degree from the author's own ego, which one suspects is large. One possible negative side effect is the chapter entitled "Three species of Goulding" which attacks Stephen Jay Gould's logical errors. Dr. Gould, and his theory of …
Another brilliant discussion from Dr. Dennett about consciousness, evolution and free will.
I don't find the conceit of the intuition pump as compared to a thought experiment, or in some cases, an analogy especially interesting, but it is fascinating and exhilarating to read the discussion from someone who thinks about what he thinks about for a living. I have read Dennett on free will before and sometimes found the intricacies to be beyond me, but chapters 65-73 here, perhaps because of the "intuition pumps" used, were unusually enlightening. Highly recommended.
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Part of the edge of this writing comes from the critical environment in which these topics have been discussed, and to some degree from the author's own ego, which one suspects is large. One possible negative side effect is the chapter entitled "Three species of Goulding" which attacks Stephen Jay Gould's logical errors. Dr. Gould, and his theory of punctuated equilibrium, were fairly widely attacked during his lifetime. The attacks seemed over the top at times (I recall one memorable diatribe attacking Dr. Gould's father's politics), probably because of his celebrity, the popularity of his books, and that his theory was attractive to some creationists. Since he died in 2002, I think he is now a fairly soft target, and the way that the material in chapter 9 is presented is unnecessarily harsh.