When to Trust Your Intuition

Hey, Bruce! That’s another brilliant insite You’ve got here. I’ve got something to share around the topic, too.

That statement about “experienced intuition” seems true to me. At least in my experience. A decade ago or so, while studying works of K. G. Jung, I came to envision intuition as a supercomputer constructed upon a “black box” principle. We [human beings] input a tremendous quantity of information into our brain on a non-stop basis. It’s coming through our sensors (like eyes and ears), then it’s being processed through our 2-nd signal system, too (identification of words and possibly other encoded signs). The bigger part of the intake process is subconscious or unconscious, with most of the information flow being filtered out of our conscious focus. We can see what happens when those filters are broken in case of autism, for example. Ever seen that beautiful “Rain Man” movie with Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise? But “filtered out” doesn’t actually mean “ignored”, “unrecognized” or “plain forgotten”. In a “black box” of the unconscious, the information is still being processed, sorted, partially interlinked with various other bits, contextually analyzed, and calculated at enormous rate. Enormous, I mean it. Famous “Deep Blue” machine is a primitive counting frame, comparing to this.

The problem is, we do not normally have free access to the filtered out content. But we do have a spontaneous partial output from that “black box” supercomputer system. K. G. Jung used to position intuition as one of the four main functions of human psychic, on par with functions processing feelings, thoughts, and perception signals (there are actually seven of those functions in total, but those four are involved in shaping a type of character in K. G. Jung’s psychological typology system). This is just to underline an importance of intuition in a human life. In the model above, intuition is nothing but an output of the “black box”.

Extended access to “black box” output is possible, and it is being researched by transpersonal psychology and practiced in psychoanalysis (which is nothing but a dialogue between patient’s and analyst’s unconscious parts of mind). Shamans and yogs are probably using special techniques to pass the gates between consious and unconscious, getting extended access to “blackbox”, too. The trick is in changing state of mind itself, though meditation, special praying techniques, transe, mystic rituals, drugs, etc. Even classic regressive hypnosis has something to do with it, though I am not aware of any academic research in that matter. And finally, there is a perfect legitimate way to contact the “blackbox”, which is to sleep and see some dreams. Like Mendeleev did, right on the night when he saw his periodic table of elements in a dream. He’s not the only example, of course.

That “extended output” is not necessary in everyday life. We can actually get a lot from our intuition as it is. But the rule of thumb is forming the right question (making a valid inquiry). By focusing on a particular problem, preferrably by bearing it in mind for several days or so, we can feel some intensive work is going on somewhere at the outskirts of our conscious mind. Then when we least expect it, the answer pops like out of nowhere, sometimes. And yes, as it is a “supercomputer”, it needs some proper input data to make any useful output! Mendeleev would never visualize his periodic table if he didn’t knew the laws of chemistry like his five fingers. And without thousands of experiments all over known chemical materials, would he ever feel the regularity that he later researched and opened to the world?

So I would generally agree with Bruce. We can get the best and most reliable results from our intuition when we use it throughout our area of expertise. “Expertise” and “experience” are closely related words, and that’s for a good reason. After studying a wider variety of cases we can use more statistically true data to produce more reliable conclusions, and to model more realistic outcomes of any particular situation. That’s how all the science works. I bet our supercomputer “black box” intuition works roughly the same. However, it is not enough to have all the details on a particular case we’re trying to study. To make a proper “input” we have to understand the meaning of these details deep enough, too. That is, we have to be aware of all possible bits of context regarding those quants of information that our “black box” process. Which leads us again to the “area of expertise” factor I mentioned, but this time with underlining the role of a decent theoretic knowledge on the subject.

Here is an example. I have pretty good intuition in general, but I don’t cook much. I have neither theoretical knowledge about making salads, nor practical expertise. Now I’m standing here and trying to understand how much salt I should throw in to finish my surprise for an International Women’s Day. Chances are that without following the exact recipe I’m going to ruin it all, rest assured as I’ve already tried that before. But my wife, for example, would be capable to brilliantly guess the exact amount without ever cooking this particular salad ever before, and without reading the recipe. How so? By a “black box”! With a single glimpse of an eye, she calculates every bit of detail I didn’t even know would matter. The degree of freshness of those salad leaves, how much juice they give out to dilute the salt and how fast, how it would taste with olives and this particular oil I used in that particular quantity, oh, and all of that regarding the size of these chicken slices etc. With all that stuff going on in her head, it wouldn’t be possible for her to explain how she made the calculations, because these went silently and instantly even for her, i.e. on a subconscious level. She only inputs the data (an almost done salad image), makes an inquiry (how much salt?) then but in a second gets an amazing result (that much, my dear, but only if this goes on a table right now, or use that much less salt if it goes on the table several hours later).

Damn, that intuition “let me guess” stuff is awesome, but almost exclusively when it’s used in a particular person’s area of expertise. That was instead of a conclusion, I guess. If you do not like the salad example, I could probably feed you a whole dozen of others, concerning market indexes, medical diagnosis, negotiations outcome, choosing a place to buy a house, employing an important cadre, understanding animals etc. Sorry for spamming so many words for such an obvious matter though. I’ve just noticed there are no comments under this article yet. Proves it’s righteousness, I guess.