Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking MP3 CD – Unabridged, April 8, 2014

Dennett is obviously a very smart person. He knows a lot about his field, which includes studies of technology, consciousness and free will. The problem with the book is the problem with most of Western philosophy: it gets into questions that are SO abstract that they lose almost all their relevance to the real world. Those of us who prefer more pragmatic lines of philosophy are left thinking "so what" in a lot of places. The title implied (at least for me) that this would be a 'tool box' type of book. Not quite. Lots of mental experiments about impossible scenarios, for instance.Why 3 stars and not 2 or 1, then? Like I said, Dennett is very smart, and the book got me thinking even after I abandoned it. If you like this type of abstract meandering, maybe you'll like this. Otherwise, I'd recommend sticking to past and current stoics and people like Sam Harris for discussions about consciousness and free will.

Dennett's recent offering is accessible and enjoyable to read. The title suggests that it covers the topic of thinking tools. However the book doesn't include very many general-purpose thinking tools. Those that he does offer are quite basic. I liked the idea of a "boom crutch" as a malfunctioning thinking tool, though. Most of the book is devoted to thinking tools that are useful to budding philosophers interested in free will, consciousness, zombies and Searle's Chinese room. Dennett spends a lot of time on his misguided critics. The David Chalmers and John Searle of the world. Alas, I can't take the opinions of these guys seriously. Dennett's side won these battles decades ago, AFAICS. There's quite a bit of material on consciousness. Finally, Dennett has a big section on free will. The controversy over free will mostly seems like a battle over what the term "free will" means. Terminology is important, but it's hard to get as excited as Dennett does over this debate. Dennett gives plenty of examples where more than just terminology is involved. However, I don't really see it - most of the real disagreement on this topic arises out of the issue of what the term "free will" means. I think that Dennett has been mostly overtaken in the "thinking tools" department by the new rationalists. For the most part, their tools are more interesting, advanced and general purpose than the ones Dennett offers here.

A really good book, and recommended for as much as you care to get out of it. Note that a good bit of content is recycled from Dennett's earlier work. The concept, thesis and delivery are excellent, though some sections feel thinner than others and it becomes easy for the mind to wander off in later sections. While good when a book challenges the mind to wander, these were more of the sort where a shallow pool triggers a thirst for deeper waters.

I am a lay-reader, probably wouldn't qualify to attend any of Dennett's classes. I first discovered Daniel Dennett in "The Mind's Eye"; a long time passing. And his fluency with the English, Greek, Chinese, (or is it Japanese) and Computer (et al.) languages is, at least, intimidating. I find Dennett a master in use of metaphor and his stories significantly restructure my "deep structure" meanings. I've read most of the first half of the book straight through. Now I'm fishing, letting chapter titles hook me into reading the chapter, or moving on (around 1 hr at a sitting). I'm looking for those chapters on how to "overwrite" the "patterns and cycles" installed in me without my "conscious or unconscious" awareness. I find it a great book for the curious at heart, and a good book for those of us who find ourselves awake in the middle of the night for reasons we cannot explain.

I found myself flipping back through the pages, looking for the core ideas that interconnected the fairly short chapters. This author definitely did some thinking, way more than average for most academic texts. The ideas were there, so I was not disappointed. This text has some hidden ideas, which is more than what most books can say. Maybe not everyone would find the same ideas, but there were hints of concepts like a 'coherent brain' and 'psychic people' --- but these New-Agey type concepts were selected carefully, and only underpin the more advanced, although less lexical interpretations of the text. The lexical interpretation is perhaps the most major interpretation, and would involve a lot of inferencing and referencing of --- I suppose --- the entire body of reasoning, including all kinds of things that aren't obvious outside of core academia. For reasons like this, this book is not really easy to pick up or put down --- in a good way. I originally assumed this text to be simplistic, with a few good ideas, perhaps original ones. What I came away with was something far different: a real, whole-cloth approach to life, from a real, authentic mind.While some of his opinions are on the abstruse side, and the text certainly seems dense to some if not all readers, like Aristotle, there is cohesiveness and content, in spite of the obstruction. Basically the only thing better than this in philosophy is a book of aphorisms, or perhaps something even more intelligent (or more likely, more concise), if that is possible. I suspect this guy could take some lessons from Strunk & White, but like all philosophers, he's above par for his chosen game. I don't regret reading this book, and that says something. I think I set a high standard, and this text basically exceeded mine.If someone wants a slightly more original core concept, I recommend The Dimensional Philosopher's Toolkit or other books by Nathan Coppedge, but it's a close call. Dr. Dennett may be an easier read for most audiences, and largely comes off as more intelligent, however that might be interpreted. However, Dennett's specialty is the cognitive sciences, which I'm afraid has a kind of liberal-artsy reputation recently. In other words, it doesn't influence logic or metaphysics as directly as it might.That's my critique. Overall, good review, good book, worth reading. Conventional in places (= high marks) to the highly unconventional mind (that is, young, ambitious college-bound people), but original and authentic in its intelligence in general.

Dennett has one of those amazing minds that search various avenues of interest and sheds light on things from unusual angles. It's not light reading but nothing of worth is obtained without some effort.

Dennett is good at clearly explaining some difficult topics in philosophy, such as free will and consciousness, and the related science of evolution. His intuition pumps are clever little thinking tricks that are like tools for sculpting better arguments. There is precious little originality however, if you've read his other books. So while I enjoyed his book immensely, I just cannot give it the full five stars.

This is a useful compendium of techniques to achieve clarity and focus when trying to understand complex issues and to weed out fluffy thinking and smokescreens. Witty and erudite. It's not just a manual of tools. It tackles and illuminates key questions like free will, evolutionary theory and the nature of consciousness.

I particularly enjoyed the sections on evolution (profound) and register machines (fun).Highly recommended to anyone who would like to think better!

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