Intuition is full of temptations. How can you refrain from announcing the solution to the problem that has come from nowhere as “sent from above”?
Intuition is often referred to as “ready-made knowledge”, which has the property of “suddenly” being placed in the head of a single individual. At the same time, they overlook the fact that this head has been "beating" for many years to resolve this particular problem.
How it works
Intuition is understood as the method of philosophical knowledge, and the peculiarity of perception, and the way of making decisions in critical situations, and the ability to successfully act in a situation of uncertainty, and even instinct. Having such an extensive context of action, it is necessary to clarify that “intuition” is, first of all, a cognitive process. True, it does not happen at all the way we are used to: I thought and thought and finally came up with it. The process proceeds "according to different rules": I thought and thought, thought and thought - I didn’t come up with it! And then suddenly bam - and decided!
When dealing with intuition, we have to admit that we do not yet know much about how the contents of our cranium work. The point is that a tiny fraction of information is processed at a conscious level. Not surprisingly, our unconscious contains much more information than we are able to notice.
It is safe to say that a person knows much more than he realizes! After all, constantly keeping any problem in the field of your attention is a serious stress! And, as philosophers like to say, a "ray of consciousness" requires energy expenditure no less than the notorious laser beam, so prolonged tension ultimately prevents the emergence of creative solutions. It is beneficial to switch to other activities and rest.
Promotional video:
As a matter of fact, intuition is distinguished from other types of cognitive activity primarily by the presence of an unconscious “incubation period”, the very “distraction from the topic” that creates the illusion of suddenness of the result obtained.
Trust your body
Traditionally, a distinction is made between bodily, sensual, intellectual and social intuitions.
Bodily (or physical) intuition. By and large, intuition is the ability to use “non-traditional” sources of information to solve a problem, specifically, one's own bodily sensations. It is not for nothing that the expression “trust your body” is popular in some areas of psychological assistance. People who use bodily intuition are doing exactly this - they listen to bodily sensations and, on their basis, draw conclusions and make decisions in those areas where it is customary to use other sources of information. For example, in matters of making a decision to buy shares on the stock exchange or in the field of relationships with other people.
The source of knowledge is also "bodily memory", a striking example of which are the unique skills of athletes and musicians. If you approach "consciously" to how the ball hits a football goal or a basketball basket, then this will result in at least many complex physical calculations. And a nonsense athlete calmly sends the ball to the target, guided exclusively by the intuitive bodily sensations accumulated in them. The situation with musicians is even cooler.
It is known in professional circles that the violinist is able to sense the change in musical tone by “measuring” a distance of tenths of a millimeter with the tip of his finger.
Premonition after the fact
Sensual, or emotional, intuition. As a matter of fact, this type of intuition is the most "famous", since it is familiar to almost everyone and even found reflection in such stable expressions as "sucking in the stomach", "a stone in the heart", "restless in the soul", showing manifestations of internal anxiety, which plays an essential role in matters of our security. This kind of intuition, perhaps, is also the most widely available in the form of all kinds of "premonitions". Indeed, it really happens in life that everything seems to be in order, but the soul is restless.
However, not everyone can trust such forebodings, and they notice these manifestations of anxiety, as a rule, after something has happened. And then everyone starts vying with each other to remember that they somehow did not feel so the day before, weaving in here a bunch of signs and prophetic dreams.
As a result, this kind of intuition is perhaps the most untestable, because it is for survivors. And after the fact it is difficult to distinguish the presence of premonitions from fantasies and the desire to become famous. Although it is known for certain that one of the passengers did not board the sunken "Titanic" at the last moment, guided by misgivings.
Insight collects puzzles
Intellectual intuition. In science, this type of intuition is considered as a complex of combined efforts of rational and sensory cognition, when an old reliable way of mastering the world with the help of symbols and images comes to the aid of intense intellectual work. If you carefully study the numerous examples of "insights" in the technical and scientific fields, it becomes clear that the "insight" contains a kind of symbolic "clue".
It helps to understand the essence of what a few seconds ago seemed just a heap of formulas, facts and results of calculations devoid of logic … It turns out that the constituent elements of insight have long been boiled in the creator's head, and intuitive insight only helped to solve the puzzle. It is not without reason that Robert Sternberg and Todd Labertus identified five “components” of creativity: knowledge of the issue, imaginative thinking skills, a gambling personality, intrinsic motivation and a creative environment.
In intellectual intuition, sometimes "subspecies" are also distinguished - professional, scientific and creative, although there is no special meaning in this subdivision. All three species are similar to each other like twins.
10 seconds without mysticism
Social intuition. The famous American psychologist David Myers in the book “Intuition. Opportunities and Dangers”also highlights social intuition, by which he understands a multitude of unconscious features of our perception of our own kind, different in origin. So, for example, to understand whether a certain person is dangerous for us and how he is configured, we manage to literally in the first ten seconds of communication.
Our conscious and unconscious assessments of a person often diverge - right up to the opposite. The more often we see a person, the more attractive he seems to us. We tend to attribute certain properties to a person, relying on factors unrelated to him, for example, the landscape against which we saw him.
Mystical intuition
For the sake of completeness, it is worth mentioning that the outstanding Russian philosopher Nikolai Onufrievich Lossky also singled out mystical intuition, by which he understood something like the highest form of intellectual knowledge in the sphere of "abstract ideas", like mathematical ones. In general, this type of intuition can be safely called "the rarest", because it is clearly accessible to several dozen people in history, most of whom have never crossed in time and space.
Wife or psychic?
Male and female intuition. Finally, consider the differences in the degree of intuition between the sexes. It would be more correct, perhaps, to talk not about male and female intuition, but about the varying degrees of its use.
Thus, numerous studies confirm that women are more “intuitive” than men. They associate this, as usual, with many female characteristics, including greater empathy, based on better recognition of a person's emotional state.
Life experience confirms that women more accurately determine whether one person loves another or pretends who of the two present is the boss and who is the subordinate, the interlocutor is lying or telling the truth. So all sorts of jokes about the "extrasensory" abilities of wives in determining the veracity of the "testimony" of the guilty spouses find concrete experimental confirmation.