The intuition of NTs

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This is really interesting since almost all of the great thinkers of our time like Einstein and Tesla to name just two credit their intuitive feelings and not their intellect for providing them with insight.

That's just what I said I do. Instinct can point me in a general direction, but it takes hard work and logic to get where I need to go. Didn't Einstein say that genius was 99 percent perspiration and 1 percent inspiration?
And besides, arguments from authority carry little weight. Einstein and Tesla were experts in scientific fields, not human nature and behavior.

Thank you, postperson. Indeed, I'd lie if I said I feel bad for him. I did get sad at the beginning, but reliving all the humiliation, all his yelling at me when I was giving my whole life to the job and he knew it...I just feel a sense of peace and dignity to cross him every time on the corridor when he's putting his things together to leave. He could've explained to me calmly what I was doing wrong, he didn't need to scare the hell out of a 45 y/o woman who was giving her all and obviously cared immensely about doing a good enough job and pleasing him.

Back on topic, if NTs are so intuitive about each other, why are there so many divorces (mistakes in judging the potential chemistry of a certain union). If they're so much more perceptive than us of body language, hidden hints, nonverbal cues, etc...how come they keep getting disappointed in each other and surprised at each other's behaviors? If they're so good at weeding out the "weird", how come they're so bad at weeding out the abusive, the cheats, the infidels, the manipulative, the liars...?

I am strongly ret*d, yet I am able to learn from experience. How come NTs don't seem to learn from experience? My cousin was horrendously cheated by her ex husband (he cheated her in every way, not just with another woman but with money, etc.), he was a good-looking charmer-cheat. Yet after the horrible experience, she told me she's attracted to people who present a lovely, yet unreal, image of themselves. She still follows blindly people she can't trust with a dime.

And if companies know the sure way to bankrupcy is corruption and hierarchy and a closed-door policy (ie where an employee is not allowed to talk to a higher up beyond their direct boss), why do they enforce such a policy with all their might and defend it to the bitter end of the company and of themselves? What help is all their Theory of Mind, when all they achieve is to alienate the workers and make the workers care nought for the company?

Do you know an NT whose healthy, intact neurology (having a Theory of Mind) has served them to avoid huge relationship judgement mistakes? And I mean relationship as in management-employees, father-child, spouses, friends or whatever.

What's so good about being able to grasp intuitively the nonverbal cues of another at any given split second, if the end result is often huge relationship mistakes?

(Sorry for being so talkative these last couple days, my posts are usually much shorter)

Einstein and Tesla were both pretty poor scientists by most conventional standards and keep in mind that it's that 1% of the effort that usually pays off.

Huge relationship mistakes aren't due to a lack of intuition or even common sense, It is due to the laws of probablility which apply to everything in the physical world that can be measured.

I think a lot of what is taken to be 'social intuition' in NTs is actually a result of them being
more willing to initiate social relationships in the first place and being motivated to work on building them,albeit subconsciously in some cases.
The fact that so many relationships don't last in the end is probably proof that 'social
intuition' viewed as some kind a mystical power is only a myth and real relationships take
time and effort to develop.

I'd say it takes both.
But I think we're getting off-topic here. In regards to social interaction, the instinct, for me at least, is either just not there or just plain wrong. Most of my social interaction consists of what are essential little computer programs in my brain. Input goes in (a person talking), gets processed, and I am presented with the proper output (my response to the person talking). If the response I provide seems unsatisfactory, the program has to be adjusted. I understand, however, that most people don't operate this way, but it's all I know how to do. And intuitively interpreting how my responses, or output, is received is where I run into problems.
Instinct is like faith with me in that it's just not something I am capable of.

I see an NT colleague pursuing furiously another colleague for months, and not getting it that he's just not interested. Where's all the body language reading, the hint grasping, the nonverbal cues understanding? She's getting on his nerves with the constant "scolding" him for not being more attentive, visiting her in our office more often, etc., yet she still has no clue how annoying she is. How's this different from us Aspies going on about our special interests?

Intuition can't be used to process information since it originates from deep within and just often wells up whether we want it to or not. Most of us surpress intuitive feelings since they are socially 'unaccepted'. That doesn't mean that they are wrong or inaccurate just that we're afraid to act on them for want of appearing 'strange'.

I think cos so much of their social relating is based on deceit (or sugar coating, if you prefer, gilding the lily and the like), their relationships fail because of it, but that's all they know.

I think it's the other way around. "Normal" people seem to rely much more heavily on instinct and intuition and people like me are the ones that appear "strange".

Looking for a challenge, a foil, or someone to excel with her. Jerks, like crazy women, have the [initial] mating appeal of 'excitement'. It's not unlike why people climb mountains or BASE jump. *shrug*

I've not actually seen this happen? Might be filed under "a change is as good as a rest"?

There are some interesting ways "favourite" children are picked. Sometimes it's one aspect that they can identify with because it is in themselves. Occasionally the parent is repulsed by one aspect of the child that is in them, and they find that annoying to live with. Or it is something they hate about the other parent (especially if the other is estranged).

NTs look around and they see other people's blind spots too. The thing is it isn't necessarily so much blind spots outside them as inside them. Generally people don't take very good care of their "instincts", they let them get cluttered up with all sorts of debris and illogical junk. It isn't uncommon that these people are dreaming and inside those dreams their subconsciousness is SCREAMING at them to stop doing stupid things. At some level they notice the signs and even know, perhaps even somewhat consciously, what they are doing is messed up ((see that thread here about the woman with the estranged husband who she thinks is AS)). That's the point of Cognitive Therapy btw, to take a look at your inside map of the world and work out the inaccuracies.

If you can talk to and organize your intuition it is VERY powerful. I write software. I use intuition for this a lot, especially the long range design or "big picture" things. I have literally solved programming problems in my dreams.

Last edited by DwightF on 17 Dec 2008, 6:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I hadn't thought of what you guys mention, the prejudices and fantasies that accompany their intuition. This friend who ended up at a much worse job...maybe it was wishful thinking. Maybe they see more than we do but they're more entangled in their need to be lied to, to be sold an illusion, to hope, to believe, to think they've gotten lucky...

Einstein's wife did half the work. They both worked on the theory while in college together as doctoral students. They both failed their qualifier exams twice, and the school decided to award Einstein his doctoral degree because he was a man, and failed Mrs. Einstein. Einstein published the theories in papers having his name only. But he gave her the Nobel Prize money.

No one ever mentions this interesting history.

Frankly, the way that the theory of relativity ties together several concepts from different mental landscapes, it could only be the work of a woman, or a woman and a man both together.

There are things about the theory of relativity that were profoundly feminine thinking.

Albert Einstein never accomplished much on his own and wasn't known as that bright of a stick, apart from those early works he did with his wife as collaborator.

IMO it was her. And she ended up misdiagnosed with Schizophrenia and all that other Aspie crap.

They simply know better when and what to say. They intuitively know if that is appropriate.

they intuitively know that some words will be taken easy and provide context for futher comments on the part of the listener and they don't use those comments that will embarass the listener or put in a difficult situation for comments or just make the listener angry (unless they intend to). They exactly know when and how long to speak and about what. They are less likely to insult or embarass somebody unintentionally.