One of MyHeroes . Daniel C. Dennett is a philosopher specialising in the study of consciousness, "mental content," free will and how minds work. His work is distinctive for the way it draws on modern biological (evolutionary, ethological) and technological (engineering, computing) knowledge to support and elaborate philosophical theory. Another trademark is his use of incredibly imaginative and often witty IntuitionPumps , to great effect.
This passage from Consciousness Explained is where the phrase "odd hack" comes from:
This vision of the mind is resisted by many philosophers despite being a straightforward implication of the current received view (among scientists and science-minded humanists) of Our Place in Nature: we are biological entities, designed by natural selection, which is a tinker, not an ideal engineer. Computer programmers call an ad hoc fix a "kludge"--to rhyme with Scrooge--and the mixture of disdain and begrudged admiration reserved for kludges parallels the biologists' bemusement with the panda's thumb and other fascinating examples of bricolage, to use Francois Jacob's term. The finest inadvertent spoonerism I ever heard was uttered by the linguist Barbara Partee, in heated criticism of an an acknowledged kludge in an AI natural language parser: "That's so odd hack!" Nature is full of odd hacks, many of them perversely brilliant, but although this is widely appreciated, its implications for the study of the mind are often found repugnant by philosophers since their traditional aprioristic methods of investigating the mind are relatively powerless to explore phenomena that may be contrived of odd hacks. There is really only one way to study such possibilities: with the more empirical mind-set of "reverse engineering."
ip: 193.61.84.99 summary: diff-major: 1 text: One of MyHeroes. Daniel C. Dennett is a philosopher specialising in the study of consciousness, "mental content," free will and how minds work. His work is distinctive for the way it draws on modern biological (evolutionary, ethological) and technological (engineering, computing) knowledge to support and elaborate philosophical theory. Another trademark is his use of incredibly imaginative and often witty IntuitionPumps, to great effect. This passage from /Consciousness Explained/ is where the phrase "odd hack" comes from: This vision of the mind is resisted by many philosophers despite being a straightforward implication of the current received view (among scientists and science-minded humanists) of Our Place in Nature: we are biological entities, designed by natural selection, which is a tinker, not an ideal engineer. Computer programmers call an ad hoc fix a "kludge"--to rhyme with Scrooge--and the mixture of disdain and begrudged admiration reserved for kludges parallels the biologists' bemusement with the panda's thumb and other fascinating examples of /bricolage/, to use Francois Jacob's term. The finest inadvertent spoonerism I ever heard was uttered by the linguist Barbara Partee, in heated criticism of an an acknowledged kludge in an AI natural language parser: "That's so odd hack!" Nature is full of odd hacks, many of them perversely brilliant, but although this is widely appreciated, its implications for the study of the mind are often found repugnant by philosophers since their traditional aprioristic methods of investigating the mind are relatively powerless to explore phenomena that may be contrived of odd hacks. There is really only one way to study such possibilities: with the more empirical mind-set of "reverse engineering." languages: lastmajor: 3 oldmajor: 2 diff-minor:Changed: 3c3
< This vision of the mind is resisted by many philosophers despite being a straightforward implication of the current received view (among scientists and science-minded humanists) of Our Place in Nature: we are biological entities, designed by natural selection, which is a tinker, not an ideal engineer. Computer programmers call an ad hoc fix a "kludge"--to rhyme with Scrooge--and the mixture of disdain and begrudged admiration reserved for kludges parallels the biologists' bemusement with the panda's thumb and other fascinating examples of /bricolage/, to use Francois Jacob's term. The finest inadvertent spoonerism I ever heard was uttered by the linguist Barbara Partee, in heated criticism of an an acknowledged kludge in an AI natural language parser: "That's so odd hack!" Nature is full of odd hacks, many of them perversely brilliant, but although this is widely appreciated, its implications for the study of the mind are often found repugnant by philsophers since their traditional aprioristic methods of investigating the mind are relatively powerless to explore phenomena that may be contrived of odd hacks. There is really only one way to study such possibilities: with the more empirical mind-set of "reverse engineering."
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> This vision of the mind is resisted by many philosophers despite being a straightforward implication of the current received view (among scientists and science-minded humanists) of Our Place in Nature: we are biological entities, designed by natural selection, which is a tinker, not an ideal engineer. Computer programmers call an ad hoc fix a "kludge"--to rhyme with Scrooge--and the mixture of disdain and begrudged admiration reserved for kludges parallels the biologists' bemusement with the panda's thumb and other fascinating examples of /bricolage/, to use Francois Jacob's term. The finest inadvertent spoonerism I ever heard was uttered by the linguist Barbara Partee, in heated criticism of an an acknowledged kludge in an AI natural language parser: "That's so odd hack!" Nature is full of odd hacks, many of them perversely brilliant, but although this is widely appreciated, its implications for the study of the mind are often found repugnant by philosophers since their traditional aprioristic methods of investigating the mind are relatively powerless to explore phenomena that may be contrived of odd hacks. There is really only one way to study such possibilities: with the more empirical mind-set of "reverse engineering."