The nature of Intuition | INFJ Forum

The nature of Intuition

zarcos

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Nov 27, 2015
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"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age." -H.P. Lovecraft

This reasoning seems consistent with Intuitives' propensity to understand more about the truths of themselves and the universe as well as all the potential implications compared to the relatively blissful ignorance of the Sensor worldview. Also do you believe Intuitive Introverts are more or less stable, psychologically speaking than Intuitive Extraverts, because I can see rationale towards either.

Questions? Thoughts? Queries? Theories? Quandaries? Theses?
 
The psychological intuition, like what MBTI references, I think is different from the kind of intuition Lovecraft is meaning. I think he means a thinker's intuition, or a kind of philosophic intuition. But I might be biased in my interpretation :)
 
Well a major theme in his writing was the danger of the unrestrained pursuit for knowledge. Intuition allows one to see the interconnectedness of reality and follow the threads of relation to come to a conclusion most would consider to be not meant for us to know.

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Well a major theme in his writing was the danger of the unrestrained pursuit for knowledge. Intuition allows one to see the interconnectedness of reality and follow the threads of relation to come to a conclusion most would consider to be not meant for us to know.

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While intuition is a powerful tool, this idea is a little to mystical. Modern research in cognitive psychology, while not able to account for everything intuition does (yet), has recognized the ability for unconscious process to run. As I believe Dr. Hummel might suggest, intuition is the minds ability to unconsciously run a series of algorithms to recognize and/or impose patterns on an otherwise under constrained world. This is to say that we aren't given a lot of information for logical deduction, so we must intuit (different sense of the word here) certain facts so we can reach conclusions at all. The best example I can think of is language acquisition. When you tell a small child what a bunny is, how are they supposed to know what you are talking about? Is it the white fluffy thing (object)? Is it the white fluffy thing being next to a tree (relation)? Is it the white fluffy ball on the white fluffy things back (part)? What people can do is impose certain heuristics, or, in other words, expect certain things to be more true. For example, what mommy is looking at is probably what she is talking about (joint attention). I won't go further unless you ask, but there is also whole object constraint, taxanomic constraint, mutual exclusivity, and lexical contrast. :m083: :m154:

The point is the brain automatically makes these assumptions. While they are powerful in the sense that they allow us to reach information that is not deductively entailed, they are also limited in their inaccuracies. More interestingly, to readdress your comment, it's not clear whether these imposed constraints are an actual feature of reality or not. Dr. Hummel almost certainly believes at least some of these are not a part of reality, and are only us imposing assumptions because we need to. In other words, there is no interconnectedness in these cases, we just think like there are. Personally, I'm undecided. There are important philosophical questions that must be answered before we can answer that question. I can explain further if you want, but I feel that I've droned on to long, lol. :m187:



I also find it interesting that, after typing that up and rereading your comment, how similar your description is to modern psychology's description. It is dreamy, but it isn't exactly inaccurate.
 
While intuition is a powerful tool, this idea is a little to mystical. Modern research in cognitive psychology, while not able to account for everything intuition does (yet), has recognized the ability for unconscious process to run. As I believe Dr. Hummel might suggest, intuition is the minds ability to unconsciously run a series of algorithms to recognize and/or impose patterns on an otherwise under constrained world. This is to say that we aren't given a lot of information for logical deduction, so we must intuit (different sense of the word here) certain facts so we can reach conclusions at all. The best example I can think of is language acquisition. When you tell a small child what a bunny is, how are they supposed to know what you are talking about? Is it the white fluffy thing (object)? Is it the white fluffy thing being next to a tree (relation)? Is it the white fluffy ball on the white fluffy things back (part)? What people can do is impose certain heuristics, or, in other words, expect certain things to be more true. For example, what mommy is looking at is probably what she is talking about (joint attention). I won't go further unless you ask, but there is also whole object constraint, taxanomic constraint, mutual exclusivity, and lexical contrast. :m083: :m154:

The point is the brain automatically makes these assumptions. While they are powerful in the sense that they allow us to reach information that is not deductively entailed, they are also limited in their inaccuracies. More interestingly, to readdress your comment, it's not clear whether these imposed constraints are an actual feature of reality or not. Dr. Hummel almost certainly believes at least some of these are not a part of reality, and are only us imposing assumptions because we need to. In other words, there is no interconnectedness in these cases, we just think like there are. Personally, I'm undecided. There are important philosophical questions that must be answered before we can answer that question. I can explain further if you want, but I feel that I've droned on to long, lol. :m187:



I also find it interesting that, after typing that up and rereading your comment, how similar your description is to modern psychology's description. It is dreamy, but it isn't exactly inaccurate.
Haha, I believe that a fair amount of supposedly "mystical" or "paranormal" phenomena is based in more scientific fact than we give them credit for but the esoteric and arcane terminology repels most rational people from delving into them too deeply. For example I believe empaths are real (I am one [emoji14]), in that some people might be able to subconsciously detect microexpressions, body language and chemical changes in others which may unintentionally trigger their own emotional response. Nothing magical but certainly interesting and abnormal. I also believe this to be related to Fe in some way.
 
Haha, I believe that a fair amount of supposedly "mystical" or "paranormal" phenomena is based in more scientific fact than we give them credit for but the esoteric and arcane terminology repels most rational people from delving into them too deeply. For example I believe empaths are real (I am one [emoji14]), in that some people might be able to subconsciously detect microexpressions, body language and chemical changes in others which may unintentionally trigger their own emotional response. Nothing magical but certainly interesting and abnormal. I also believe this to be related to Fe in some way.

I'm sorry, my use of the word mystical was misleading. I didn't mean mystical in the sense of paranormal. Dreamy is a better word. Hand waving would be another. I mean it is so broad and vague, that it would "not be incorrect" in a lot realities. To me that suggests that he was on the right track, but didn't have the science he needed. That's why I don't consider those older quotes very highly. Just because it's not wrong doesn't mean it is fact. Something may be true, but not factual (in the sense of actual in reality).

As for what you mentioned about empaths, I think the problem is in definitions. Empaths are often considered as a kind of telepathy. That cannot be accounted for in psychology and perception, and arguably in materialism (in certain examples like twin telepathy across the planet). Plus the bias that so many people lie about having general paranormal gifts. However, if you relax the definition of empath as you seem to accept, then I would agree with you, and by the mechanism you described. The way I see it is that a lot of people claim to have that ability. So, it seems at the very least that something is going on. It may be as simple (material) as you described, but something is going on. And that is interesting :m161:
 
Hmm, the quote seems pretty directly relatable to what I mentioned but maybe that's just by Ne getting carried away. I don't think Lovecraft meant exactly what I said but the concept is the same to me, idk.
 
And as for my mystical, dreamy diction, that is likely the result of drug use and poetic flair [emoji14]
 
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