Intuition pump

Intuition pump

An intuition pump is a term coined by Daniel Dennett for a thought experiment structured to elicit intuitive answers about a problem. In Dennett's book "Consciousness Explained" he uses the term pejoratively to describe John Searle's Chinese Room thought experiment, describing it as designed to elicit intuitive but incorrect answers by formulating the description such that important implications of the experiment would be difficult to imagine and tend to be ignored.

In the case of the Chinese Room argument Dennett argues that the intuitive notion that a person manipulating symbols seems inadequate to constitute any form of consciousness ignores the requirements of memory, recall, emotion, world knowledge and rationality such a system would actually need to pass such a test. "Searle does not deny that programs can have all this structure, of course," Dennet says, "He simply discourages us from attending to it. But if we are to do a good job imagining the case, we are not only entitled but obliged to imagine that the program Searle is hand-simulating has all this structure - and more, if only we can imagine it. But then it is no longer obvious, I trust, that there is no genuine understanding of the joke going on."

Dennett has also used the term in a positive sense to describe thought experiments which facilitate the understanding of or reasoning about complex subjects by harnessing intuition.

ee also

* Philosophy of Mind
* Consciousness

External links

* [http://www.edge.org/documents/ThirdCulture/r-Ch.10.html Dennett, D.C., "Intuition Pumps", pp.180-197 in Brockman, J., "The Third Culture: Beyond the Scientific Revolution", Simon & Schuster, (New York), 1995.]


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужно сделать НИР?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • intuition pump — Derogatory term for a thought experiment, especially one seeking to support a view by means of an analogy that is superficially compelling but more fundamentally doubtful. For example, one might compare all human action to the mechanical… …   Philosophy dictionary

  • Intuition (knowledge) — Intuition is apparent ability to acquire knowledge without a clear inference or the use of reason.It is the immediate apprehension of an object by the mind without the intervention of any reasoning process [Oxford English Dictionary] Intuition… …   Wikipedia

  • Daniel Dennett — Daniel Clement Dennett Full name Daniel Clement Dennett Born March 28, 1942 (1942 03 28) (age 69) Boston, Massachusetts …   Wikipedia

  • Chinese room — If you can carry on an intelligent conversation using pieces of paper slid under a door, does this imply that someone or something on the other side understands what you are saying? The Chinese room is a thought experiment by John Searle which… …   Wikipedia

  • Thought experiment — A thought experiment (from the German Gedankenexperiment ) is a proposal for an experiment that would test a hypothesis or theory but cannot actually be performed due to practical limitations; instead its purpose is to explore the potential… …   Wikipedia

  • Brainstorm machine — In the philosophy of mind, the Brainstorm machine is a thought experiment, or intuition pump , described by Daniel Dennett, to show that it is not possible to intersubjectively compare any two individuals personal experiences, or qualia, even… …   Wikipedia

  • Qualia — (pronEng|ˈkwɑːliə) is an unfamiliar term for something that could not be more familiar to each of us: the ways things seem to us [ [http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/quinqual.htm Dennett, D. Quining Qualia ] ] . They can be defined as qualities …   Wikipedia

  • Twin Earth thought experiment — The Twin Earth thought experiment was presented by philosopher Hilary Putnam in his 1973 paper Meaning and Reference and subsequent 1975 paper The Meaning of Meaning , as an early argument for what has subsequently come to be known as semantic… …   Wikipedia

  • Mary (Gedankenexperiment) — Marys Zimmer ist ein philosophisches Gedankenexperiment, das Frank Cameron Jackson 1982 in seinem Artikel Epiphenomenal Qualia vorgestellt und 1986 in seiner Abhandlung What Mary Didn t Know erweitert hat. Das Argument, das durch dieses… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Darwin's Dangerous Idea — For the PBS documentary, see Evolution (TV series). Darwin s Dangerous Idea   …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”