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Daniel Dennett: Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking

After reading How to Make Mistakes and How to Criticize with Kindness, a reader sent in a link to this video of Philosopher Daniel Dennett speaking at Google. Dennett is the author of the faboulous Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking.

Dennett deploys his thinking tools to gain traction on … 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.”

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