Society, Intuition and Logic
 

Has society elevated logic over intuition because logic attempts to provide an explanation of things where intuition doesn't? Does that make logic better than intuition or is it just a natural preference of people to assume it is a higher form of intelligence because concepts are now expoundable (meaning we are able to demonstrate our own intelligence through explanations, mathematical terms and formulas and scientific theories). Does the pedagological demonstation of intelligence stroke are egos so much that it causes us to overvalue logic and undervalue intuition?

Re: Society, Intuition and Logic
 

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Has society elevated logic over intuition because logic attempts to provide an explanation of things where intuition doesn't? Does that make logic better than intuition or is it just a natural preference of people to assume it is a higher form of intelligence because concepts are now expoundable (meaning we are able to demonstrate our own intelligence through explanations, mathematical terms and formulas and scientific theories). Does the pedagological demonstation of intelligence stroke are egos so much that it causes us to overvalue logic and undervalue intuition?

[/ QUOTE ]Just the fact that you can share logic with others and they can understand it, makes it better then intuition.

Re: Society, Intuition and Logic
 

What you call intuition is what I call poorly formulated logic. Give me the well formulated version any day.

Re: Society, Intuition and Logic
 

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What you call intuition is what I call poorly formulated logic.

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That's not necessarily accurate. Maybe what you call intuition is in fact poorly formulated logic, but most people use it to refer to something different (though there is some overlap, of course).

Logic is tremendously valuable, but the OP isn't complete nonsense. People do sometimes try to use logic when it's not relevant, and "illogical" shouldn't be the universal pejorative that it is now.

Re: Society, Intuition and Logic
 

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What you call intuition is what I call poorly formulated logic.

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That's not necessarily accurate. Maybe what you call intuition is in fact poorly formulated logic, but most people use it to refer to something different (though there is some overlap, of course).

Logic is tremendously valuable, but the OP isn't complete nonsense. People do sometimes try to use logic when it's not relevant, and "illogical" shouldn't be the universal pejorative that it is now.

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I like your post. I guess its in a similar vein to what I've been thinking about.

Before this book I was reading expounded more on the marvelous capability of people's intuitions I really only knew 3 things about intuition: 1) some claim it is a type of gestalt (a psychological term for putting things together from numerous random cues) 2) the ancient Yogi masters said it was the highest form of intelligence because its smarter to just know something than it is to have to break things down to understand them (if you think about it intuition doesn't cost us anything physically, but analysis some think has a wear and tear cost on your brain) and 3) from personal experiences say playing poker I can see the value of intuition.

But the book I am now reading calls intuition "the least controversial of our paranormal abilities". I'd never considered intuition paranormal but apparently it is linked to telepathy, precognition, deja vu, telekinesis, after death communications and remote viewing to name some of the few thinking abilities it relates to.

Here are 2 interesting excerpts from Dr Morse's <u>Where God Lives</u> book.

1."Here is what Richard Gregory, professor of neuropsychology and director of the Brain and Perception Laboratory in Bristol, England, has to say about intuition: "It is sometimes thought intuitions are reliable, and indeed, we do act most of the time without knowing why or what our reasons may be. It is certainly rare to set out an argument in formal terms, and go through the steps set forth by logicians. In this sense, almost all judgments and behaviors are intuitive. The term is used in philosophy to to denote the alleged power of the mind to see certain self-evident truths. The status of intuition has declined over the last century, perhaps with the increasing emphasis on formal logic, explicit data and assumptions of science."
It is precisely for this reason that all of the specific components of intuition are, in themselves, poorly understood and often dismissed or ignored. We have forgotten about intuition. It is no longer an important part of modern life, or so we think."

2. "Yet intuition is the cornerstone of personal safety. Gavin de Becker (a security expert mentioned earlier in the book) feels that intuition is your most important line of defense against personal assault. De Becker says, "Intuition connects us to the natural world and to our nature. Freed from the bonds of judgment, married only to perception, it carries us to predictions we will later marvel at.
It may be hard to accept the importance of intuition because it is usually looked upon by thoughtful Westerners as emotional, unreasonable, or inexplicable. Husbands often chide their wives about feminine intuition and do not take it seriously. We much prefer logic, the grounded, explainable, unemotional thought process that ends in a supportable conclusion. In fact, Americans worship logic, even when it's wrong, and deny intuition, even when it's right."

The book has another couple of highly interesting paragraphs relating all this to NDEs but I think this is enough to discuss.

Re: Society, Intuition and Logic
 

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Logic is tremendously valuable, but the OP isn't complete nonsense.

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Close enough though.

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People do sometimes try to use logic when it's not relevant, and "illogical" shouldn't be the universal pejorative that it is now.

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Yes it should.
Non-logical is a separate area though - "why did you jump when the bang happened?" "why do you like sausages?" "why don't you like Oprah?" "why did you call him for all your chips?" may all have non-logical answers. Iow, our response was likely not logically arrived at. We will often be able to use logic after the fact to see if our "intuitive" choice was a useful or valuable one.

The last one is tested all the time. After a person makes 100 bad calls we don't say "oh, but they are good calls because his intuition says it is" we say "he has crappy table sense."

Logic trumps intuition, even though there are times when intuition is all we have to go on. If a person starves to death because they have a hunch that sausages are poisonous we don't say " yep, gotta go with that intuition. good on ya.".

A fair chunk of a poker players pay comes from people believing their intuition is delivering good messages. good salesman tap into our intuitions, good politicians likewise.

luckyme

Re: Society, Intuition and Logic
 

society values logic over intuition because logic is reliable where intuition is not.

In some cases, intuition may be 'a logical deduction' done at a subconcious level. In other cases, intuition is nothing more then a guess, a feeling or a random notion.

I was talking to a OBGYN about intuition recently. Apparently a lot of people have intuition about what sex a baby will be. She actually started paying attention not only to her intuition about her patients but also to the predictions of her patients.

It turns out that intuition about the sex of a baby ends up being right about 50% of the time.

You can see the value of intuition.

Re: Society, Intuition and Logic
 

Quote: Logic trumps intuition, even though there are times when intuition is all we have to go on. If a person starves to death because they have a hunch that sausages are poisonous we don't say " yep, gotta go with that intuition. good on ya.".

A fair chunk of a poker players pay comes from people believing their intuition is delivering good messages. good salesman tap into our intuitions, good politicians likewise.

Your answer luckyme is rife with your current modern perception and culture. In every circumstance logic does not trump intuition. Intuition sometimes goes places where logic cannot.

Another excerpt from the above cited book:

"Intuition is the power of obtaining knowledge that cannot be acquired either by inference or observation, by reason, or experience," says the Encyclopedia Britannica. "As such, intuition is thought of as an original, independent source of knowledge." Also from the encyclopedia: "Intuition is designed to account for just those kinds of knowledge that other sources do not provide." The book goes on to say that primitive man had paranormal abilites, remote viewing being one of them, that allowed him a survival advantage. They believe that remote viewing is what helped the Asians cross the Aleutian Island chain to North America.

Re: Society, Intuition and Logic
 

Splendour... I have a number of problems with what that book said.

but first:
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from personal experiences say playing poker I can see the value of intuition.


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Poker players are often making quick logical deductions and calling it intuition. They are responding to cues that they may even have trouble rationalizing. That doesn't mean its 'magic' or 'paranormal.' For instance, if a person breaks a pattern, you may subconciously recognize that something is different even if you haven't figured out what it is. You may then decide that a player is very strong because of this change. Because you can't articulate the change, you call it 'intuition' when in reality you are simply processing information readily available to your senses.

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But the book I am now reading calls intuition "the least controversial of our paranormal abilities". I'd never considered intuition paranormal but apparently it is linked to telepathy, precognition, deja vu, telekinesis, after death communications and remote viewing to name some of the few thinking abilities it relates to.


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This should have been the first sign that this book is fluff.

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"It is sometimes thought intuitions are reliable, and indeed, we do act most of the time without knowing why or what our reasons may be. It is certainly rare to set out an argument in formal terms, and go through the steps set forth by logicians. In this sense, almost all judgments and behaviors are intuitive. The term is used in philosophy to to denote the alleged power of the mind to see certain self-evident truths. The status of intuition has declined over the last century, perhaps with the increasing emphasis on formal logic, explicit data and assumptions of science."


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The key to me is, "we do act most of the time without knowing why or what our reasons may be"... that doesn't mean that there are not REASONS and that we are making short hand deductions that may or may not be logical. But I quoted that SOMETIMES intuitions are reliable. Along with that comes the notion that SOMETIONS intuitions are unreliable. It really depends on what criteria your mind is using to make its decisions. Its not magic or paranormal. Your mind is making deductions all the time LIKE a logician would make. The problem is that it often uses illogical foundations. Hence why intuition is often wrong.

Intuition is important at times because it is often faster then formally laying out a logical argument. It is reactive. That is why he stressed its importance in survival. The problem is that intuition doesn't easily differentiate between when its reacting logically to realistic cues and when its just guessing and has little value.

Intuition certainly still has its place. But I would question anyone who labels its value above reason and thinks its paranormal.

Re: Society, Intuition and Logic
 

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Your answer luckyme is rife with your current modern perception and culture. In every circumstance logic does not trump intuition. Intuition sometimes goes places where logic cannot.

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Regardless of whether it does or doesn't, it is logic we use to verify whether the intuition was useful/worth using/whatever. You haven't addressed my point. Please try.
Your claim that 'remote viewing' got the indians to america is a logical claim ( an incrediblby poor one, but who's being picky). essentially, "see, they used remote viewing and they got here, so remote viewing was 'right'". If they used remote viewing an ended up like lemmings, merely going over the cliff, we would logically conclude, "well, that intuition sucked".
Logic is the tool we use, just as you did above, to test intuition.

luckyme

Re: Society, Intuition and Logic
 

Actually Kurto people don't realize that while they are drawing logical conclusions some of the time they are actually using their intuitive senses almost constantly. Its just that people attach a greater consciousness to logical than to intuitive thinking. Under the 16 basic Jungian personality types there are Sensing Personalities and Intuitive Personalities. I believe the Intuitives are in the minority around 25 percent of the population while the Sensing is around 75 percent.

So you've got to wonder are some people's intuitions more reliable. If you look at psychological mediums and some poker spooks like Ted Forrest this would seem to be the case.

Here's an interesting contrast of Sensing and Intuitive:

http://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-p...-intuition.asp

Re: Society, Intuition and Logic
 

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Actually Kurto people don't realize that while they are drawing logical conclusions some of the time they are actually using their intuitive senses almost constantly. Its just that people attach a greater consciousness to logical than to intuitive thinking.

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What I'm saying though is that often times intuitive thinking IS logical. Its just not happening at the forefront of conciousness. Oftentimes, I may act intuitively at the spur of the moment. But, when asked to analyze, I can often deduce what factors led me to act a certain way. I can formally deduce what was happening 'intuitively.'

I can also sometimes deduce why my intuition was wrong.

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So you've got to wonder are some people's intuitions more reliable.

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I suspect they are. And there's probably a logical reason for it. Poker is an easy example. A good poker player may claim he uses intuition. In reality, he's played 1000s of hands, noticed patterns in people's behaviours and acts accordingly. He may not be able to articulate what he knows intuitively... but make no mistake, that intuition is simply a sharp mind reacting to the information about poker and people that its collected over many hours of playing.

Some people have poor intuition because they're making incorrect conclusions based on the information available or misinterpreting cues.

There's no need to bring in the paranormal.

Re: Society, Intuition and Logic
 

Well somewhere in all the logical and intuitive thinking stuff there is some type of variable for comprehension and for speed which I don't no if there's any data that measured this. There probably is somewheres. They study everything these days.

Intuition definitely seems faster it's just not as clearly comprehensible or as easily articulated as logic. I doubt logic trumps intuition because you use intuition more, intuition is used for personal safety and intuition and logic are used in conjuction so they're codependent. Its just you use logic for difficult problems that you spend the most time thinking about so we tend to obsess over the importance of logic.

Edit: then again isn't a hypothesis an inductive or intuitive type of thought that science then tries to prove is false. You start with the intuitive and end with the logical. Is that a correct interpretation of the testing of a scientific hypothesis?

If so then intuition is possibly more linked to creativity than logic is.

Re: Society, Intuition and Logic
 

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If so then intuition is possibly more linked to creativity than logic is.


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and the airplane that we decide is right, of all the hundreds that people had intuitions about, is the one that actually flies. That's a logical analysis. That's how you decide which plane is right isn't it. "good planes fly" "this plane flies" "therefore it's a good plane."
Or do you insist it's a good plane because you had such a strong intuition about it that you can ignore the scrap head on the prairie?

It's logic that we use to weed out all the crazy stuff that intuition throws our way. Sure, intuition is linked to creativity, but not nearly as much as people think ( do I have to put in the Edison quotes ).

luckyme

Re: Society, Intuition and Logic
 

I see what you're saying. We use logic alot to test things, but I'm starting to see logic and intuition like a pair of oxen. They can be yoked together and most of the time they are, but you can also take them apart to carry on different functions. Reminds me of men and women. Men carry the occasional really big job while women run around constantly with the little jobs. Society would be lost without either one, but how does the disparity of our perception of the value of each affect society? There's probably a billion problematical answers to that question.. [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img].

Re: Society, Intuition and Logic
 

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What you call intuition is what I call poorly formulated logic.

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That's not necessarily accurate. Maybe what you call intuition is in fact poorly formulated logic, but most people use it to refer to something different (though there is some overlap, of course).

Logic is tremendously valuable, but the OP isn't complete nonsense. People do sometimes try to use logic when it's not relevant, and "illogical" shouldn't be the universal pejorative that it is now.

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This sounds like a post written by someone who doesnt understand exactly what logic is. Can you give me an example to show me I'm wrong, tell me what you have in mind with this?

Re: Society, Intuition and Logic
 

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What you call intuition is what I call poorly formulated logic. Give me the well formulated version any day.

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Correct.

Re: Society, Intuition and Logic
 

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Quote: Logic trumps intuition, even though there are times when intuition is all we have to go on. If a person starves to death because they have a hunch that sausages are poisonous we don't say " yep, gotta go with that intuition. good on ya.".

A fair chunk of a poker players pay comes from people believing their intuition is delivering good messages. good salesman tap into our intuitions, good politicians likewise.

Your answer luckyme is rife with your current modern perception and culture. In every circumstance logic does not trump intuition. Intuition sometimes goes places where logic cannot.

Another excerpt from the above cited book:

"Intuition is the power of obtaining knowledge that cannot be acquired either by inference or observation, by reason, or experience," says the Encyclopedia Britannica. "As such, intuition is thought of as an original, independent source of knowledge." Also from the encyclopedia: "Intuition is designed to account for just those kinds of knowledge that other sources do not provide." The book goes on to say that primitive man had paranormal abilites, remote viewing being one of them, that allowed him a survival advantage. They believe that remote viewing is what helped the Asians cross the Aleutian Island chain to North America.

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LOL at your examples of poker players, salesmen and politicians. Do you get what you are implying? In each of those situations, the person who is relying on intuition is being fleeced. And you use that to conclude that intuition is good and important. Yeah, I mean, sure, I want YOU to rely on intuition. Heck, I'd rather you just relied on suggestion, that makes my job even EASIER.

Re: Society, Intuition and Logic
 

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Actually Kurto people don't realize that while they are drawing logical conclusions some of the time they are actually using their intuitive senses almost constantly. Its just that people attach a greater consciousness to logical than to intuitive thinking.

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What I'm saying though is that often times intuitive thinking IS logical. Its just not happening at the forefront of conciousness. Oftentimes, I may act intuitively at the spur of the moment. But, when asked to analyze, I can often deduce what factors led me to act a certain way. I can formally deduce what was happening 'intuitively.'

I can also sometimes deduce why my intuition was wrong.

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So you've got to wonder are some people's intuitions more reliable.

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I suspect they are. And there's probably a logical reason for it. Poker is an easy example. A good poker player may claim he uses intuition. In reality, he's played 1000s of hands, noticed patterns in people's behaviours and acts accordingly. He may not be able to articulate what he knows intuitively... but make no mistake, that intuition is simply a sharp mind reacting to the information about poker and people that its collected over many hours of playing.

Some people have poor intuition because they're making incorrect conclusions based on the information available or misinterpreting cues.

There's no need to bring in the paranormal.

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Of course some peoples intuitions are more reliable. I guarantee you that if you give me a genetics or anatomy or medicine question that I've never heard of before and do not know the answer to but ask me to take a quick guess, my intuition is going to be better than yours. Similarly, there are many areas in which your intuition would easily trump mine. Thats because intuition is trained. A physicists intuition for physics problems is much better than mine.

Havent you guys noticed how much better your poker intuition has gotten over the years?

Re: Society, Intuition and Logic
 

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I see what you're saying. We use logic alot to test things, but I'm starting to see logic and intuition like a pair of oxen. They can be yoked together and most of the time they are, but you can also take them apart to carry on different functions. Reminds me of men and women. Men carry the occasional really big job while women run around constantly with the little jobs. Society would be lost without either one, but how does the disparity of our perception of the value of each affect society? There's probably a billion problematical answers to that question.. [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img].

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Intuition is just shoddy logic. It is the rough draft, the first instinct, the random guess. You can often rely on solely intuition because your brain is pretty awesome and your rough draft is very often right. But if you want to go a step further and drastically improve your accuracy, you codify your intuitions and use a systematic approach to decision-making.

And we call that logic.

Re: Society, Intuition and Logic
 

Actually I think we left out some quotes. luckyme's quote starts with "a fair chunk and I think you're mixing his quote up with mine.

My point is that the intuition is an under appreciated area of intelligence that may also be more developed in some people and/or unconsciously under utilized by people in general. Probably the people with the best intuition parameters, the ones with the best intuitive sorting capabilities have the highest intuition.

Re: Society, Intuition and Logic
 

I think, Vhawk, that this is hitting 95% of it:
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Intuition is just shoddy logic. It is the rough draft, the first instinct, the random guess. You can often rely on solely intuition because your brain is pretty awesome and your rough draft is very often right. But if you want to go a step further and drastically improve your accuracy, you codify your intuitions and use a systematic approach to decision-making.

And we call that logic.

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I think what may seem 'magical' is that people have the ability to make rational decisions at a level they're not aware of. Some people can consistantly make accurate judgements about something using what they might call 'intuition' without understanding how they're coming to the decision.

I think the OPs problem is trying to say one is better then the other when, in reality, they serve different functions and should be valued differently.

Intuition is a snap deduction. It may or may not be based on relevent criteria. As you've said, only in hindsight can one determine if the intuition was useful. But intuition is useful in that it is often reactive to subtle cues that one may not yet have formally articulated. It may allow someone to sense danger even though you haven't put your finger on what cues are scaring you.

To type anymore I'll drift into rambling... [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]

Re: Society, Intuition and Logic
 

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I think, Vhawk, that this is hitting 95% of it:
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Intuition is just shoddy logic. It is the rough draft, the first instinct, the random guess. You can often rely on solely intuition because your brain is pretty awesome and your rough draft is very often right. But if you want to go a step further and drastically improve your accuracy, you codify your intuitions and use a systematic approach to decision-making.

And we call that logic.

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I think what may seem 'magical' is that people have the ability to make rational decisions at a level they're not aware of. Some people can consistantly make accurate judgements about something using what they might call 'intuition' without understanding how they're coming to the decision.

I think the OPs problem is trying to say one is better then the other when, in reality, they serve different functions and should be valued differently.

Intuition is a snap deduction. It may or may not be based on relevent criteria. As you've said, only in hindsight can one determine if the intuition was useful. But intuition is useful in that it is often reactive to subtle cues that one may not yet have formally articulated. It may allow someone to sense danger even though you haven't put your finger on what cues are scaring you.

To type anymore I'll drift into rambling... [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]

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Right. Logic is better than "the first 0.5 seconds of a logical decision" when you are judging solely based on accuracy and consistency. If you are judging based on "ability to avoid getting eaten by a bear" I think I'll take intuition.

Re: Society, Intuition and Logic
 

Why do you want to put up a shrine to logic? Is that your personal disposition talking?

Next time you're at a poker table you'll probably see both logic and intuition at work and in those funny little bluffing situations where you're flying in the dark I'd rather be holding onto a little intuition not just logic.

Take a look at Phil Ivey again sometime. His eyes darting all over the place. They don't dart for logic. They dart for all those subtle little cues he's trying to pick up that he feeds into his gestalt apparatus, his intuition.

So build your shrine but remember that codification is a boundary setter. Usually progress is about breaking the limits not setting 'em in stone.

Re: Society, Intuition and Logic
 

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Take a look at Phil Ivey again sometime. His eyes darting all over the place. They don't dart for logic. They dart for all those subtle little cues he's trying to pick up that he feeds into his gestalt apparatus, his intuition.



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Splendour -- if Ivey's eyes are darting about looking for INFORMATION. He then uses that information to make a LOGICAL decision. You even acknowledge that he's looking for SUBTLE CLUES. One doesn't take clues and GUESS. You use clues to make good judgements.... ie, you reason.

Intuition USES LOGIC. The problem with intuition is that it happens quickly, therefore, it doesn't also deduce based on good premises.

LOGIC/REASON IS like intuition but much slower for it takes the time to make sure that the reasoning is sound. Where intuition makes snap judgements quickly that may or may not be accurate.

When you need a quick decision, intuition is what you listen to. But its not the best way to make a decision when you have the time to work it out.

Re: Society, Intuition and Logic
 

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Why do you want to put up a shrine to logic? Is that your personal disposition talking?

Next time you're at a poker table you'll probably see both logic and intuition at work and in those funny little bluffing situations where you're flying in the dark I'd rather be holding onto a little intuition not just logic.

Take a look at Phil Ivey again sometime. His eyes darting all over the place. They don't dart for logic. They dart for all those subtle little cues he's trying to pick up that he feeds into his gestalt apparatus, his intuition.

So build your shrine but remember that codification is a boundary setter. Usually progress is about breaking the limits not setting 'em in stone.

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You keep referring to intuition and logic as if they are diametrically opposed or somehow competing with one another and you arent even listening to me when I explain that intuition is a subset of logic. Yes, at the poker table I will see both intuition and logic, which is exactly the same as saying at the poker table I will see shoddy logic, mediocre logic and superb logic (actually I wouldnt sit at a table with much superb logic going on).

PS. Every conclusion you come to and every point you are trying to make in this post is a logical one. Why are you so enamored with logic? Why do you use logic to make your points? Get over your logic obsession!

Re: Society, Intuition and Logic
 

I think I already mentioned that intuition and logic work together in my oxen post above addressed to luckyme.

I'm not pushing a position on logic/intuition as much as I am examining the nature of intuition and why society doesn't recognize it's important role throughout history.

Re: Society, Intuition and Logic
 

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Poker players are often making quick logical deductions and calling it intuition. They are responding to cues that they may even have trouble rationalizing. That doesn't mean its 'magic' or 'paranormal.' For instance, if a person breaks a pattern, you may subconsciously recognize that something is different even if you haven't figured out what it is. You may then decide that a player is very strong because of this change. Because you can't articulate the change, you call it 'intuition' when in reality you are simply processing information readily available to your senses.

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What you just described is modern psychology's understanding of intuition. Quickly processing subtle environmental cues is the process of intuition. I can't stress how important it is for a person to understand neo-cortical neurology to better understand any neurological phenomenon. The design of the neocortex is hierarchical in nature, and the higher the activity, the more the thought is understood by the individual (or so its thought, at least). Lower areas of the neo-cortical hierarchy are more sensitive to small changes in the environment because they are less subject to interpretation from other areas of the neo-cortex. That's precisely why logic can actually be inaccurate.

The neo-cortex is a feedback system, and the higher parts of the hierarchy are more reliant on feedback from other levels than the lower, as they receive no direct information from sensory input. The lower levels, however, receive input from both the higher levels (there is actually more connections going from the top to the bottom then there is going from the bottom to the top) and sensory organs. If you've ever watched that special on the man with 'The highest IQ in the world' that is a perfect example of how having excellent logic can be detrimental to one's ability to perceive reality accurately. My guess is that if you looked at his brain it would have a low cell count in the lower areas of the neo-cortical hierarchy.

Also, its important to mention that some people would naturally have better intuition than others. It all depends on the individuals particular neo-cortical arrangement. It's my guess that having a high amount of direct sensory to low-hierarchy connection/cell count AND having low-hierarchy to the highest levels of neo-cortical hierarchy connection count would result in individuals with phenomenal intuitive abilities.

I mean, there needs to be more research though. This whole field is very fuzzy, and very misunderstood. They need to start dissecting people's neo-cortex after they die (from causes that were not a result of brain trauma or degenerative diseases), while attaining as much personal information about these people while they are still alive and healthy.

*EDIT*

To whoever said intuition is just shoddy logic, you obviously don't know what you are talking about. Intuition is so much more than 'shoddy logic'. For some people it's more reliable than actually being logical. For others, its a lot less reliable. It really varies from individual to individual.

Re: Society, Intuition and Logic
 

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the ancient Yogi masters said it was the highest form of intelligence...intuition...is linked to telepathy, precognition, deja vu, telekinesis, after death communications...

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umm, yeah, good points

Re: Society, Intuition and Logic
 

Did anyone in this thread read Blink?

Re: Society, Intuition and Logic
 

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What you call intuition is what I call poorly formulated logic.

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That's not necessarily accurate. Maybe what you call intuition is in fact poorly formulated logic, but most people use it to refer to something different (though there is some overlap, of course).

Logic is tremendously valuable, but the OP isn't complete nonsense. People do sometimes try to use logic when it's not relevant, and "illogical" shouldn't be the universal pejorative that it is now.

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This sounds like a post written by someone who doesnt understand exactly what logic is. Can you give me an example to show me I'm wrong, tell me what you have in mind with this?

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1) How do you know your mother loves you? Would your relationship with her be enhanced by viewing it primarily through the lens of objective analysis? Or would such an approach miss something fundamental about the experience?

Interpersonal relationships are often rightly dominated by illogical (or "non-logical") thought. Of course some aspects of those relationships should and will be analyzed rationally, but logic simply can't grasp the nature of friendship and love; faith and intuition come much closer.

I don't know how often that kind of mistake is actually made -- there probably aren't many virtual androids out there who are determined to be completely objective about their friends and family.

2) A more common error can be seen in debates here and elsewhere on the internet: people go too far with their logical analysis and start trying to prove their axioms. They fail to give any credence to emotion, intuition, faith, etc., and so never consider the source of the building blocks for all of their arguments. Instead they get tangled up in some complex tautology involving logic and epistemology that just kills the discussion, because trying to explain where they went wrong is just [censored] impossible.

This is somewhat related to (1), in that it probably springs from people's failure to realize two things: logic doesn't speak to emotion, and emotion is relevant.

Re: Society, Intuition and Logic
 

Splendour, apparently, is talking about something very different, so don't conflate his arguments with mine.

Re: Society, Intuition and Logic
 

Thanks for your post. It was very informative.

Re: Society, Intuition and Logic
 

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Poker players are often making quick logical deductions and calling it intuition. They are responding to cues that they may even have trouble rationalizing. That doesn't mean its 'magic' or 'paranormal.' For instance, if a person breaks a pattern, you may subconsciously recognize that something is different even if you haven't figured out what it is. You may then decide that a player is very strong because of this change. Because you can't articulate the change, you call it 'intuition' when in reality you are simply processing information readily available to your senses.

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What you just described is modern psychology's understanding of intuition. Quickly processing subtle environmental cues is the process of intuition. I can't stress how important it is for a person to understand neo-cortical neurology to better understand any neurological phenomenon. The design of the neocortex is hierarchical in nature, and the higher the activity, the more the thought is understood by the individual (or so its thought, at least). Lower areas of the neo-cortical hierarchy are more sensitive to small changes in the environment because they are less subject to interpretation from other areas of the neo-cortex. That's precisely why logic can actually be inaccurate.

The neo-cortex is a feedback system, and the higher parts of the hierarchy are more reliant on feedback from other levels than the lower, as they receive no direct information from sensory input. The lower levels, however, receive input from both the higher levels (there is actually more connections going from the top to the bottom then there is going from the bottom to the top) and sensory organs. If you've ever watched that special on the man with 'The highest IQ in the world' that is a perfect example of how having excellent logic can be detrimental to one's ability to perceive reality accurately. My guess is that if you looked at his brain it would have a low cell count in the lower areas of the neo-cortical hierarchy.

Also, its important to mention that some people would naturally have better intuition than others. It all depends on the individuals particular neo-cortical arrangement. It's my guess that having a high amount of direct sensory to low-hierarchy connection/cell count AND having low-hierarchy to the highest levels of neo-cortical hierarchy connection count would result in individuals with phenomenal intuitive abilities.

I mean, there needs to be more research though. This whole field is very fuzzy, and very misunderstood. They need to start dissecting people's neo-cortex after they die (from causes that were not a result of brain trauma or degenerative diseases), while attaining as much personal information about these people while they are still alive and healthy.

*EDIT*

To whoever said intuition is just shoddy logic, you obviously don't know what you are talking about. Intuition is so much more than 'shoddy logic'. For some people it's more reliable than actually being logical. For others, its a lot less reliable. It really varies from individual to individual.

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Quickly, explain what you think logic is. I'm interested to know because so much of your position rests on this definition and from reading your post it seems like you have no idea.

Re: Society, Intuition and Logic
 

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What you call intuition is what I call poorly formulated logic.

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That's not necessarily accurate. Maybe what you call intuition is in fact poorly formulated logic, but most people use it to refer to something different (though there is some overlap, of course).

Logic is tremendously valuable, but the OP isn't complete nonsense. People do sometimes try to use logic when it's not relevant, and "illogical" shouldn't be the universal pejorative that it is now.

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This sounds like a post written by someone who doesnt understand exactly what logic is. Can you give me an example to show me I'm wrong, tell me what you have in mind with this?

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1) How do you know your mother loves you? Would your relationship with her be enhanced by viewing it primarily through the lens of objective analysis? Or would such an approach miss something fundamental about the experience?

Interpersonal relationships are often rightly dominated by illogical (or "non-logical") thought. Of course some aspects of those relationships should and will be analyzed rationally, but logic simply can't grasp the nature of friendship and love; faith and intuition come much closer.

I don't know how often that kind of mistake is actually made -- there probably aren't many virtual androids out there who are determined to be completely objective about their friends and family.

2) A more common error can be seen in debates here and elsewhere on the internet: people go too far with their logical analysis and start trying to prove their axioms. They fail to give any credence to emotion, intuition, faith, etc., and so never consider the source of the building blocks for all of their arguments. Instead they get tangled up in some complex tautology involving logic and epistemology that just kills the discussion, because trying to explain where they went wrong is just [censored] impossible.

This is somewhat related to (1), in that it probably springs from people's failure to realize two things: logic doesn't speak to emotion, and emotion is relevant.

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Of course logic speaks to emotion, what a silly, propagandized thing to say. This reminds me of how everyone thinks atheism and logic are "cold" and "cool" and "calculation" and "heartless."

:sigh: Logic is a process. Emotion is input. Logic takes your input, processes it, and gives you an output. I could think my mother loves me because she says she does, I know that historically most mothers love their children, she feeds me, she buys me clothes and takes care of me, lots of things. Or I could know that my mother loves me because she smiles at me and makes me feel good and hugs me and I can see loving looks on her face. These are emotional responses. BUT IT IS STILL LOGIC. I am LOGICALLY coming to the conclusion that, based on these emotional inputs, my mother loves me.

You guys seem to think logic is like a synonym for calculus or something.

Re: Society, Intuition and Logic
 

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This is somewhat related to (1), in that it probably springs from people's failure to realize two things: logic doesn't speak to emotion, and emotion is relevant.

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The girls that fall in love with abusers and child-molesters, etc. Would you say their intuition/emotion served them well? On what basis would you be able to say that? Would you base that on logical analysis or just wait for an emotion to come by with the answer?

Emotion tells us how we feel about something, it can't judge whether that feeling is getting a correct evaluation of the situation. People that get taken advantage of, even by a mother, can claim their emotions/intuitions were 'right' if they want, but the scars should prove otherwise, even though it's a mere logical conclusion.

It's "the wife is the last to know" or "my son wouldn't do that" situations that help illustrate this. Outsiders can see the manipulation of a gold-digger, say, because they are using logical analysis.

I like carrots, brunettes and convertibles. I get 'hunches' at the poker table that I act on ( people reading ones, not "my flush is rivering" ones). None of that is immune to logical analysis and in fact that is how I will judge whether my emotions are screwing me or not. If carrots constipate me, brunettes swindle me and convertibles cause bug-throat I may still be stuck with the 'liking' but now avoid the activity.

We can't help how we feel but we don't have to pretend that the hunches, intuitions or feelings are some mysterious source of deep wisdom. Slugs and barnacles react to their environment too, and some trout would have done better if the did a bit more hmmmmming before they snapped at the fly.

luckyme

Re: Society, Intuition and Logic
 

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Quickly, explain what you think logic is. I'm interested to know because so much of your position rests on this definition and from reading your post it seems like you have no idea.

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Logic and intuition are both (kind of) the same neurological function, but rely on different inputs and happen within different areas of the neo-cortical hierarchy. Logic is the phenomenon that occurs in the higher levels, which receives information from the lower levels but not directly from sensory inputs. The information higher levels receives is processed through the lower levels, so it is not PURE sensory information, it is interpreted and simplified sensory information.

Just think of the neo-cortex as a general learning algorithm. The same kind of stuff is happening everywhere, just different input is influencing every different level.

I hope that answers your question.

EDIT

Sorry, I have to add on to this thought. The reason why I suspect logic is a function of higher levels within the neo-cortical hierarchy is because of the type of cells that exist within the higher levels. Cells in the higher levels are generally fewer in number, but much larger in size. These cells also have a vast amount of connections running to all levels of the hierarchy. These cells are thought to represent conceptual thought. The highest levels of the neo-cortex is what distinguishes our cortex from those of other mammals, which is why some are led to this conclusion. Logic, for the most part, requires conceptual and symbolic thought which is what these large cells can provide.

Re: Society, Intuition and Logic
 

LOL. Sorry, I have to add another piece of information in for some people.

Things like crossing the street, using a tool, or using a remote can become intuitive activities even though our brain initially used logic and deduction to figure out how to do these things when we were young.

The reason for that phenomenon is that after a while, actions and thoughts that had to rely on the highest levels of the neo-cortex are able to move down, because neurons in the lower levels start recognizing the pattern more easily as they encounter it more. The motto "Neurons that fire together wire together" applies in this situation. That is why initially we have to use logic, but later these activities become simple intuitive acts that require little to no concentration to perform.

Re: Society, Intuition and Logic
 

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That is why initially we have to use logic, but later these activities become simple intuitive acts that require little to no concentration to perform.

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It's only intuitive if you get it right the first time you ever see and handle a remote. Otherwise it's a learned action like walking. Nothing to do with 'intuition'.

luckyme

Re: Society, Intuition and Logic
 

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That is why initially we have to use logic, but later these activities become simple intuitive acts that require little to no concentration to perform.

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It's only intuitive if you get it right the first time you ever see and handle a remote. Otherwise it's a learned action like walking. Nothing to do with 'intuition'.

luckyme

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I think you are using a different definition of intuition than I am.

1. direct perception of truth, fact, etc., independent of any reasoning process; immediate apprehension.
2. a fact, truth, etc., perceived in this way.
3. a keen and quick insight.
4. the quality or ability of having such direct perception or quick insight.
5. Philosophy.
a. an immediate cognition of an object not inferred or determined by a previous cognition of the same object.
b. any object or truth so discerned.
c. pure, untaught, noninferential knowledge.
6. Linguistics. the ability of the native speaker to make linguistic judgments, as of the grammaticality, ambiguity, equivalence, or nonequivalence of sentences, deriving from the speaker's native-language competence.

It seems to me that you are using the fifth definition of intuition, while I am using the first four. Intuition, particularly in the psychology community, is not defined as an act that is invented out of nowhere. In fact, actions and thoughts are never created from nothing. That's just silly. All action and thought is based off of something. Even our first actions and thoughts as infants are based off of innate genetically programmed behaviors. I think you would be hard pressed to find a psychologist that thinks otherwise.

Here is another way of putting it: Logic is conscious neurological behavior influenced by interpreted input. Intuition is unconscious neurological behavior influenced by interpreted input AND direct sensory information.