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 with perfect technology. Philosophy of mind is the branch of Philosophy that studies the nature of the Mind, Mental events Mental functions mental properties A thought experiment (from the German Gedankenexperiment) is a proposal for an Experiment that would test a Hypothesis or Theory An intuition pump is a term coined by Daniel Dennett for a Thought experiment structured to elicit intuitive answers about a problem Daniel Clement Dennett (born March 28 1942 in Boston, Massachusetts) is a prominent American philosopher whose research " Qualia " (ˈkwɑːliə is "an unfamiliar term for something that could not be more familiar to each of us the ways things seem to us" It is based on a device described in the film Brainstorm, in which the visual experience of one individual is fed into the brain of another. Brainstorm is a 1983 Science fiction film directed by Douglas Trumbull and starring Christopher Walken and Natalie Wood (in her According to Dennett in Quining Qualia:
“ Suppose [that] there were some neuroscientific apparatus that fits on your head and feeds your visual experience into my brain. With eyes closed I accurately report everything you are looking at, except that I marvel at how the sky is yellow, the grass red, and so forth. Would this not confirm, empirically, that our qualia were different? But suppose the technician then pulls the plug on the connecting cable, inverts it 180 degrees and reinserts it in the socket. Now I report the sky is blue, the grass green, and so forth. Which is the "right" orientation of the plug? Designing and building such a device would require that its "fidelity" be tuned or calibrated by the normalization of the two subjects' reports--so we would be right back at our evidential starting point. The moral of this intuition pump is that no intersubjective comparison of qualia is possible, even with perfect technology. ”
- Daniel Dennett, Quining Qualia
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