Vim: How Much Is That in “Real Money”?

Vim is Dennett's invented term for a currency's supposedly intrinsic economic value apart from all exchange relations. He uses the analogy to challenge similarly isolated intrinsic properties in theories of consciousness.

Dennett's vim is a fictional intrinsic value attributed to a familiar currency beyond anything it can buy or exchange for. He uses this invented property as an analogy in criticizing accounts of qualia defined apart from every relation, disposition, cause, and effect. The argument asks what explanatory work an extra property performs once all the relevant functional relations have been accounted for.

The transferable question is whether a disputed term adds a distinction or simply declares that one familiar case has an inaccessible extra essence. Specify what would differ if the property were absent, and distinguish an unresolved theoretical claim from an operational measure. Dennett's analogy advances a philosophical position; it does not settle consciousness by experiment or imply that unmeasured experiences and moral concerns can be ignored.

When to use it

When a debate relies on an unspecified intrinsic essence beyond the relations or functions already described.

How it can help

Ask what a proposed extra property explains and whether the same criteria are applied to familiar and unfamiliar cases. Do not treat conceptual clarification as an empirical consciousness test.