The Nature of Intuition

I'd love to answer this question, but I'm confused about it myself. I always assumed I had good intuition, but I'm not sure.

 

I've tried answering this in other threads, but I was more naive about the Jungian model, then. In his view, it's kind of a narrow pipe from the subconscious that feeds us the results of predicting changes in things both concrete and abstract. I'm not sure how to relate that to my experiences, currently. I used to relate it to images and feelings, but I get the feeling that is Si. If I come up with anything good I'll let you know.

 

I'm not sure about Ni, but my Ne allows me to see connections and relations between all sorts of novel things. The connections I make often form a central part of my humor, which only other iNtuitives understand on regular basis. My intuition helps me see the whole and how everything is related; this leads me to form abstract, universal ideas. Intuition gives me a broad perspective, rather than a specific, sensory rooted perspective.

 

Good description.

 

Perhaps Ni is the "live studio audience" of the gods.

 

I won't discus Ni and Ne, since I feel that I don't have enough information about that yet.

For me intuition is the ability to see patterns and connections where others don't, making leaps of logic based on a hunch that two seemingly unrelated things could be related in a specific way that might not be obvious to everyone. I had a professor that used to explain control theory giving examples from real life, like the way that body regulates insulin levels, or the way human walks, or seeing that the way that human cell utilize electric signal can be explained by various ways to someone who knows very little about human cells and the way they work but knows a lot about something else, like electrical engineering in this case.

Intuition for me is more than a gut feeling, it's trusting my previous experiences, even when I can't explain them fully. The older I get and the more people that I meet, and the more things I read, see and experience, the sharper my intuition gets to be.

 

for me intuition is "knowing things you can't know", "seeing things that are very hard to see".

But it is hard to know where it comes from. If you see someone and you instinctively know that there is something wrong with that person, where did this information come from? Is it a knowing that falls out of the sky or is it because you saw something in his expression that warns you and helps you to make a connection with the problem they may have. But how do you make that connection than, is it because you have experienced something like that in the past or does it fall from the sky?

For me, I think it work like this. I know things that are not obvious because I feel different inside. When I see someone who is sad (but doesn't talk about it), I start to feel sad too. When I enter a room and there was a fight, I feel it in the air. I try to figure out who someone is on the inside by how they make me feel, how I feel when I think about them and what images relate to that. For me things don't drop from the sky and I have to be calm inside to be able to see the signs; like a blank paper, you can't write something on a durty paper. I think MBTI calls this Fi...

 

Intuition is knowing something without being able to explain how you know it. Like knowing it's going to rain that day despite the sky looking clear. Or knowing that going out with x person would not a good idea. It's just a feeling, and it could be (and probably often is) wrong, but I think it would be a mistake not to at least consider it, because equally it might be right and it could tell you something useful.

 

I think of intuition this way. Someone else looks at a problem and tries to see how it formed. They look at it from A to B to C, trying to see each step that pushed the problem along until it became the full blown monster that it is. I jump around with it. I take bits and pieces of the whole issue and examine them, and quickly throw out the useless pieces. I just know what matters and what doesn't. I don't concern myself with the detail, I see the "heart of the position" to coin a chess term. I work things in a non-linear manner, and discard much of the useless detail. This, to me, is what intuition is. It's not magical, it is just unconventional.

 

According to these folks:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Kahneman
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Hawkins
it's just the way the human brain reasons by pre-wiring and readjusting predictive patterns (interpolated sensing). Also means inherent superstition.
But the judging functions (F/T) are even worse:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descartes'_Error
so don't expect to find truly reasonable people anytime soon. That's why I sometimes think that only Sensing makes sense.

 

I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that! I lived the sensor life for years......just say NO! At least for me.....

 

As I understand it, in MBTI terms intuition is a future-orientated process of perception that seeks to find and create patterns amongst seemingly unconnected concepts and ideas. It is subconscious in nature and so works in a holistic and abstract fashion.

Extraverted iNtuition works divergently, it starts with one concept/idea and tries to generate multiple possibilities from and alternatives to that concept.

Intraverted iNtuition works convergently (which apparently isn't a real word. =/ ), it scans multiple concepts and ideas and distils them down to their one connecting principle (or "archetype").

 

According to wiki it is a real word:

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/convergently

 

If you are at peace with your intuition you will know that it is never wrong and will never steer you wrong.
When we fight our intuition or blame it for errors in judgement it means we're lying to ourselves.

It helps just to be honest with it. Like, if you meet a guy and the attraction is amazing but your intuition is shaking a finger at you. You know the whole thing is going to be a complete disaster but you go ahead and do it anyway. That's your choice and it's fine. But later on don't say, "I guess my intuition was right all along." It's always right!

Intuition to me is like having a built in friend who does all the work and I take all the credit!

 

I understand intuition as a part of my emotional logic. I don‘t know what could be nature of it, but by the light of a nature I feel it like when atmosphere of two emotional intuitions reaches one point it can built common intuition which can achieve new common understandings between two people. Probably that‘s why it is so difficult to understand one another from two words sometimes.

But I feel that I am using my intuition not just in emotional understanding of each other, I feel that I am using it when I am learning new languages or I am trying to use not just foreign, but my native language to express myself. Could be that there are many different sorts of intuition, but I can not talk much about it, because I haven‘t read it anywhere, I am just using my intuition that I could understand my intuition hihihi

 

Vilayanur Ramachandran's speech here:

http://www.ted.com/talks/vilayanur_ramachandran_on_your_mind.html

Discussed how there is a gene used to separate our senses from one another. He mentioned that it typically doesn't completely separate the senses.

There is a disorder called synesthesia that hardly separate the senses at all. A very interesting take on what intuition is.

That part starts around 17:45 in the vid above.

 

I've lot a lot about how cognitive functions might somehow correlate to physical brain functions. This is a hypothesis I like to toy with.

So, the brain is made up of neurons, whose electrical signaling interactions supposedly facilitate cognition. These neurons have connections with each other called synapses in order to communicate, like how I communicate to you through this internet connection. If memories and information are somehow stored inside the neurons, then it would make sense that the more synapses connecting neurons, the more easily unrelated information stored in separate neurons can be connected in order to form abstract concepts, new ideas & meanings etc. This is how people have those "aha" moments, but I think it can also lead to jumping to false conclusions. I think its the function of intuition that was responsible for developing languages in the early phases of evolution.

All of this could be bogus, or maybe have a sliver of valuable truth in it, but either way, these kinds of ideas are prime examples of the handiwork of my intuition.

Perhaps the feeling of this music video can explain intuition in a way that the thinking of my words did not. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qdm2CivRX0&feature=fvw"]YouTube- Feist "Intuition" Music Video[/ame]

 

Well the digital method has not been able to yet produce an applicable all-encompassing model for how our brain operates. Perhaps qbits and the field of quantum mechanics can assist in understanding some of the seemingly convoluted mess we encounter when it comes to the complex functions of neuroscience and linking that to everyday life.

Of course, this is all speculation by someone that doesn't have a clue an any of those fields. Maybe someday

*crosses fingers*

 

There was recently a study that demonstrated an MRI difference between subconscious and conscious recognition of a concept. This can be done by flashing things on a screen faster than the mind can process consciously. (The timing is pretty predictable)

Unconscious thought tend to light up many parts of the brain simultaneously in separate clumps. About 30 milliseconds after subconscious processing, there is a secondary 'flash' of activity in which neurons connected at vastly far parts of the brain all light up in concert. This timing corresponds with 'conscious recognition'.

The question would then be what might distinguish sensory consciousness from intuitive consciousness in the neurological model. My hypothesis is intuition connects flashes from different parts of the brain than from sensory stimulus. In a way, is it just another form of forming consciousness from areas of the brain other than those we describe directly as sensory? That is, is a subtractive approach to defining intuition sufficient?