: not a blog

20 jan 07

Could you please elaborate on the concept of intuition? Is it real? Coincidence etc.

i once conjured up a theory: what appears to be intuition is actually deduction, but the quanta of logical steps of x following from y are so small and come so quickly that it all sort of smears together, and we end up "just knowing" something without being able to trace the path by which we arrived there. i still think this might be partially or somewhat true, and that intuition might also have something to do with reasoned thought, independent of language, taking very many logical steps very quickly -- more of them taken more quickly than would be possible via thinking in language, let alone via writing or speaking.

admittedly i held this theory when i was taking a lot of art classes, and silly behavior like this was encouraged. what's both extremely amusing and sort of tragic is that i went to see noam chomsky lecture at the university of maryland during this phase of my life (state university art department space cadet), and asked him a question about this (infinitessimal bits of deduction immitating intuition, or comprising intuition). he had no idea what i was talking about, and basically told me that this wasn't his department, and to go two doors down to "philosophy", or maybe even three doors down to "modern dance", and probably to just stay there without bothering the rest of the university or banging any gongs too loudly.

after the lecture, i had him sign the pick-guard of my fender telecaster -- he had no idea what that was, either. a photographer took our picture while i solicited an autograph, and later asked if i'd like to be sent the pictures. would i have! me and noam, chatting. no one needed to know it consisted of "what on earth is this thing?" "it's a pick-guard. sign it". as far as witnesses were concerned, it was about generative grammar and deep structures. but of course i never got the pics, even after i emailed that harpy of a woman repeatedly. typical. email is so easy to ignore. it's simply not the medium to use if you want something from someone who's reluctant to give it to you, or doesn't care enough to lift a finger.

back on topic: sometimes there will be a reasonable description of why a person knows a thing, but he won't be able to explain it, and so defaults to "it's just intuition". but with some closer examination a series of deductive steps might be uncovered.

but a lot of times i do think intuition is BS. someone might have some subconscious reason for picking an answer or a truth (they choose the red door because red is their favorite color), and then explain their decision by saying "intuition told me to pick the red door".

the most profound experience i've had with intuition is probably in delivering pizza, to tell the truth. sometimes, i'll be in an unfamiliar apartment complex, and something will just tell me where to turn. much more often than not, i'll end up right in front of the building i need.

nothing supernatural is going on here. after x months of pizza driving, i start to get a sense for how apartment complexes are laid out. it's also possible that i'm simply subconsciously remembering the layout from a previous visit. or maybe i'm only remembering the times when this has worked, because they feel remarkable. or maybe i'm driving so slowly that it doesn't matter where i turn.

perhaps intuition is something as simple as subconscious deduction. furthermore, perhaps if you practice conscious logical thinking, your intuition will improve.