What is intuition?

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Posting this here because I want a philosophical answer, (preferably a classical or traditional philosophical answer) although I would appreciate a modern scientific answer as well. What is intuition? I tend to rely on it a lot, not always but a lot, because I tend to overthink things. What exactly is this that I'm relying on?

Despite accompanying the same world, there is a great amount of variation when it comes to perception. Intuition is when someone knows something without using analytical reasoning. There are usually subconscious factors that come into play, we pick up on information but don't process it manually.

I suppose you could think of it like a camera, there are different settings. You could set the camera to manual mode, fine tuning different options to match the situation. However, there is also an option for automatic; where your camera makes certain calculations and adjusts the settings to what it perceives as the best fit. Of course, it's not always right, but it follows certain rules in attempt to give you the kind of photo you want.

Hmm. I'm not sure if that was the best comparison, so here's an example of when my intuition was correct. A few years ago I visited an old mansion. It was a public space that you could pay a small fee of admission to walk around. The previous occupants had died centuries ago, and it is now a tourist attraction. As soon as I walked in, I got a bad feeling about the place. It felt unhappy. Disturbed. There was something off. I'd been around old mansions before, but this place was different. Walking around I was uncomfortable. Yet it took a while to place why exactly I had this impression. One of the worst rooms was the servants' headquarters. When I walked in I felt almost guilty. As if I'd intruded on something personal, I knew that it was just my imagination but it felt as if I was being glared at. I got an overwhelming sense that something awful had happened in that room a long time ago. A part of me didn't even want to walk into the room.

Then a realisation hit me. It was the furniture. The previous family had clearly been wealthy, but miserable. Nothing matched, there was no personality to the rooms. Instead, it came across as though they had bought things for the sole purpose of showing off. To hide their pain. I tried to imagine people living there, but it was clear that it was all a front. This mansion had never been a warm welcoming home. Everything was too artificial.

As it turned out, I was right. I learnt more about the previous occupants. Driven insane by war. Incredibly distant family. Miserable. Disappointed mother, absent father. The family spent a great deal of time apart but kept up the appearance of the house and went to social events where they likely flaunted their wealth.

Creepy and scary are sometimes used interchangeably, but there's a difference. When something is scary it is usually an obvious threat. For instance, bears are scary because there's a chance they could attack you. Bears pose a tangible threat to your safety. However, creepy is a little more nuanced. A teddy bear with sharp human-like teeth is creepy. We know that logically a teddy bear is not dangerous. However, when one is juxtaposed with something that would otherwise be a threat (sharp teeth) the brain isn't sure what to make of it, so it feels uneasy.

The uncanny valley is a psychological phenomenon where the more human-like a non-human becomes, the more obvious its non-human like features. It creates a feeling of disturbance, it's creepy. On the one hand, it looks like just another person, but on the other there's something off about it. Now, in nature it is not unheard of for animals to disguise themselves as a different animal to sneakily attack them or to otherwise benefit from this deception. So there is some logic to feeling on-edge around something that isn't quite human.

Interesting, some people fear clowns, dolls and/or robots due to the uncanny valley. On a personal level, I heavily dislike realistic dolls (especially porcelain dolls or ones that look like toddlers) because I find their expressions deeply unsettling. As a kid, whenever I was sent to the headmistress' office, I usually threw the dolls she kept on a sofa outside of the office onto the floor. Or, at the very least turned their faces away from me. I knew that it was illogical, but I just couldn't stand to look at them with their unblinking eyes.

There are things we do without really thinking about them consciously. For instance, when we walk we don't tend to think about the process. It becomes second-hand nature. In comparison, there are things we do manually and with an analytical approach.

When people dream, it seems as though our brains are just throwing everything together. I often remember my dreams. They are usually bizarre. Sometimes I can pinpoint where a theme came from in my dream (e.g. thinking about something before going to sleep and dreaming about it) but not always.

Our instincts can come from different places. Young infants have a mammalian diving reflex. However, they tend to lose this around six months.

https://www.theinertia.com/health/the-m ... -in-water/

Instincts can either be inborn or learned from previous experiences. Someone might remind me on a semiconscious level of someone else who has previously caused me harm. I might instinctively feel hesitant and fearful of a person because of this. Unfortunately, this can potentially lead to unfair bias. Intuition isn't always correct.

Here's an example. I was bullied a lot growing up. These days sometimes people joke about punching me, towering over and acting like they're about to hit me in the face. I cover my face because that's my natural first reaction. This has offended some, because they're hurt that I think that they would actually do something like that to me. On one level, I am aware that they are just joking, but on the other it is difficult to essentially fight against my initial reaction since it is something I do without really thinking about it. Something that is so ingrained into my nature that it's difficult to not do.

Oh, and here's another. I was once physically attacked. During this attack, my arms were restricted. A few people sneaked up from behind whilst others approached at the front. If someone tightly grabs my arms without warning or sneaks up from behind, I naturally tense up. My instincts tell me that I am in danger. Admittedly I have freaked out before and punched people in the arm in a state of blinded panic. I have gotten better at regulating my emotions, but certain things can trigger flashbacks.

This is why I usually tell people to inform me first before hugging me, and if you do, please do not restrict my arms (unless you really have to). I don't tend to punch these days, but I might go into a state of panic and/or disassociate. Even before the attack I disliked having my arms restricted, but I especially hate it now. I'm trying to work on it. A pet peeve of mine is when someone does so because they think it will be funny to see me uncomfortable. Even when I tell them the reason behind it. I've had people tell me to just get over the attack, and I have actually made a lot of progress in moving forward and becoming more comfortable with physical contact. However, it's not something I can just "get over", it takes time.

In summary, intuition (to me) is something that you pick up on a subconscious level. Perhaps noticing a pattern or familiar situation and automatically feeling a certain way without thinking it through logically. I could be wrong though, so feel free to correct anything I wrote. Apologies for the length, you've probably gathered by now that I'm interested in this topic.

Hopefully this reply was of interest to you/useful.

I think that intuition is a sense of how we feel about things. It can be this undercurrent of unexpressed or unthought feelings that try to push us in a specific direction.

I think it’s important to consider one’s intuition, especially regarding issues of safety, but it’s not an infallible guide, either. It can be downright wrong. I think it’s at least as important to think things through than it is to “follow your gut,” but we don’t always have time to fully think things through which makes intuition come in handy from time-to-time.

In the best scenarios, I think we use both our thinking mind and intuition to make decisions.

Intuition is arises from unconscious thinking, which is based on past learning and experience. There is no ‘psychic’ or ‘spiritual’ component.

For instance, if asked for the square-root of 10 (~3.162278), most people would intuitively know that it is some value between 3 and 4, and likely closer to 3 than to 4. This is based on previously learning that 3x3=9 and 4x4=16, so 3.162278 x 3.162278 = 10 (close enough).

Some people (sober ones, anyway), when confronted with a stranger who seems to friendly too soon will intuitively suspect something is wrong with the person. Chances are Most likely that such a person is either desperate, lonely, or a salesperson. Less likely is that they are a pervert, a sociopath, or a space-alien.

Intuition can be dulled or silenced with alcohol, drugs, or intense emotional states. Any conclusions reached by intuition should be thoroughly checked out through conscious effort.

Intuition is the 6th sense that tells you that something isn't quite right or that something wouldn't be a good idea.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZjevnnkA20

Let's Start with a Brief Overview from Wiki as Mutually Understood by a Globe-Wide Group of Thinkers regarding 'What
is Intuition?'

"Intuition is the ability to acquire knowledge without recourse to conscious reasoning.[2][3] Different writers give the word "intuition" a great variety of different meanings, ranging from direct access to unconscious knowledge, unconscious cognition, inner sensing, inner insight to unconscious pattern-recognition and the ability to understand something instinctively, without the need for conscious reasoning.[4][5]"

"In the East intuition is mostly intertwined with religion and spirituality, and various meanings exist from different religious texts.[6]"

My Definition:

Intuition is Wholistic Intelligence That comes Best in the Freedom of Transient Hypo-Frontality (Flow) Providing
Greater Access to the Subconscious Mind as the Entire Brain becomes greater Lit-up in Flow taking us out of the
more Restrictive Areas of Mechanical Cognition otherwise known as Neo-Cortical Control.

Intuition takes advantage of the Whole Mind; whereas Reasoning alone, is much more restricting than what
Allows us to access so much more of our Subconscious Mind; the Sum of all our Experiences and Learning
plus what the Evolutionary History of our Species Brings to the Grander Table of Mind and Body Balance
Expanding; most definitely at greater advantage in Flow.

Generally Speaking, Eastern Philosophies 'see' Intuition as core to the Spiritual Realm of expanding Human
Potential that is generally speaking described as Flow too; in terms like Tao, and Wu-Wei, and Satori and
Even Yoga and Kundalini rising; so many other Metaphors for generally speaking the same destination
of Human Greater Potential in Flow Do Arise as what these Philosophies Describe as the pinnacle of
Human Evolution in just one lifetime far beyond just Instinct, and 'normal Cognition of Mechanical Cognition
in reasoning; of course it makes total sense as our Conscious Mind that We Direct With Reasoning of Thinking
With Intent is a very small part of the Entire Human Mind and Body in Balance including all of what is Subconscious
And Accumulated as Experience, and Learning, and Instinct both in our Lifetime and across our Genetic Evolution too.

If one wants to increase one's ability to expand one's Abilities to leap 'normal logic' with Intuition, one will spend a
Lifetime of Free Associating Experience and Learning opening up as many New Potentials as Possible; Specialization
may result in a Human Being who has most of his and or her Potential in the Intuition of playing Video Games as
A common restricted activity of Life, and an example many folks will relate to at least.

It's not surprising How Much Wisdom is associated with Intuition as that surely comes with Experience
And either a Colorful Life of New Opportunities for expanding Human Potential with the Intuition that Naturally
comes increasingly with that; or a rather drab 'black and white' life of specialization that just doesn't bring much
Real Magic of Original Creativity at all.

Getting Stuck in a rut; whatever the rut may be is a best way to Limit the Human Potential that Intuition does
Bring in the Fruits of Creativity and Productivity too.

Additionally, here i will say that this is Where Originally Creative Free Verse Poetry comes
from as it is an articulated written expression of Wisdom that comes with Experience and
Learning and The Grander Table of the Evolutionary History of our Species too; and a
Key once again is Finding Flow to Light up the Rest of the Mind as
that is of course Interrelated and Inseparable from the Body;
As there is No Balance of Mind that Brings Flow
Without Balance of Body too; at least
not for the Fuller Potential of it
as it comes for Free Now like this;
Friends with Gravity Now From Head to toe; yes, Free Dance Moving
Meditation in Flow works; Inertia-Free a Feeling/Sense that 'sees' no
limits now at least. Meh; before i made Flow a Practice of Life, i read
at a speed of about 3,000 Words a Minute; now it's 4,000 words a minute
as tested; meh,
about 20 times
faster
than
the Average
Human; surely
gives me an advantage
of Free associating even
Greater Human Potential
in the Future from now that is indeed now too.
It's really great as you may improve now in almost every
Athletic, Intellectual, and Intuitive Original Creative Activity With Productivity Soaring.
i don't have to make any Money to Survive so that is a Huge Distraction removed now too;
it is more difficult to do this when one is Slave to Any Thing or Any Person(s) or other 'Ideological Entity' too;
it is
Inherent
Human Freedom
As Expressed; yes, Freely.
And Now to why i am using "Heaven's on Fire"
by K.I.S.S. for the theme song of this is that Music
that Addresses the 'Human Shadow' (generally speaking
Lust and Aggression) additionally takes us out of restrictions
of Neo-Cortical Control Enhancing the Effect of Flow Even more;
So, in other Words, believe it or not listening to that Song Reading
This i will Read even that Much Faster In Focus of Flow; it really helps
as i Proof-Read what i write in Terms of 100,000 Words on Average a month.
Dancing While Listening to Meditative Music in Barnes and Noble, i typically finish a Book in Less
than an
Hour
for
FREE; hehe;
i 'cheap skate' in Flow
a lot but don't sell what i do, either...
Yep
"Angel's Fare
Heaven's on Fire"
Great! Now i have a title too!
And This iS How Intuition Works..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intuition

Many years ago I read an article discussing what made an expert outstandingly skillful over someone who learned by the books. There has been a trend over the past couple of decades to articulate with a binary key how to assess certain emergency situations. The idea is that if one could learn the key, one could be an expert. And, an employer could pay less for a less experienced person instead of the guy with 20 plus years.

The only example I remember had to do with a firefighter. Even though all the boxes for "safe" were checked, he called his personnel out immediately just before the fire "whooshed" into an inferno.

I would consider this an example of intuition. Some unconscious process gives your conscious mind a piece of useful information.

Plato would have argued that intuition is a faulty memory - plato thought, all ideas already existed in a pure, trancendental form, and people merely remembered them, when they had an idea...

Robert Pirsig went mad over how to create a scientific system of qualifying intuitions in science. He recovered, abd wrote a book about it. "Zen or the art of motorcycle maintenance".
In it, he describes a sense of "quality", i.e., the sense that one thingbor idea is better than another as a metaphysical thing, derived from tacit knowledge.

I am on a job currently that's got a lot of new technology - but I realized I can find my way around relying on the sense of how stuff works from things I toyed with decades ago as a teenager.
The new stuff doesn't work exactly like the old stuff, and I need to learn a lot, but there are some fundamentals that I seem to know intuitively.

A couple people I'd bring up because they seem to say something rather similar in different ways - Daniel Kahneman and his 'Thinking Fast and Slow' as well as Iain McGilchrist and his 'Master and his Emissary'. Khaneman is more strictly in the neuroscience, McGilchrist tends to flirt win Jungian language more, but they're both talking about major circuits of our brains that operate in different capacities.

The side that's always dealing with the outer world in real time and often has relatively narrow scope and thought horizon is one circuit, the other is more full-court vision, across time and space, and is grappling with the zoomed-out bigger picture of things. One of the things I really used to enjoy about Jordan Peterson's Maps of Meaning lectures was that he'd get deep into the weeds on symbolism, discuss concept like the 'all seeing eye' as relating to that other full-court view, and it at least seems like there are degrees that we have reach into that part of our own minds and other reaches of it that are distant or deep enough that we only see what it's chewing on in symbolic dreams.

But yeah - I'd generally agree with the notion suggested in various places above that intuition is different parts of your cognition talking to each other. Going somewhat in tune with the tarot thread someone broached a bit ago, Peter J. Carroll in his somewhat famous chaos magic manifestos Liber Null and Psychonaut actually made the claim that tarot 'divination' only worked if you shuffled slowly and a little, because you had to shuffle enough that your conscious mind lost track of it but not so much that your subconscious mind lost count, and this way your subconscious mind could use the cards to speak. I'm really not sure whether any of that works but I could see where he was going with that.

I think sometimes it is just pattern recognition. Particularly when it comes to recognizing dangerous situations.

Thanks for the PM.

I'm interested in genetic memory, a priori knowledge (Kant), and the trauma studies referenced in your video (e.g., shocking the rats' feet). I believe a degree of intuition is encoded in the prefrontal cortex from birth. Studies with babies show they are born with an intuitive knowledge of physics (time and space), and that they can interpret their surroundings prior to the development of a lexicon or cause and effect rational processing in the hippocampus or amygdala.

I call the "black box" of our subconscious "the editing room floor", meaning our cognition and Ego cut and delete the filmstrip of our experiences, allowing remnants to be swept away until they're required.

Energy fascinates me. Thanks for the reading recommendations. I may have a new special interest!