Intuition is the ability to make decisions based on an unconscious analysis of the situation and existing experience. Intuition is activated at moments when logical reasoning is not enough. The basis for intuition is life experience, empathy, and rich imagination.
Intuitive clues arise instantly even when there is a lack of information regarding the phenomenon or process to understand it.
Intuition is not the opposite of logic. Together, both phenomena create an opportunity for intellectual creative activity. This is facilitated by maximum concentration on the task at hand, freedom from stereotypes, the ability to switch to other activities, and a comfortable environment.
What is intuition
This is Intuition / B. G. Meshcheryakov, V. P. Zinchenko / Large psychological dictionary - the ability to quickly understand or learn something using feelings without the need to think or apply logic.
Intuition works when you have a bad feeling or when you are faced with a difficult choice and accidentally make the right decision. Typically, intuition is subjective, manifests itself spontaneously and, as it may seem, regardless of your opinion. However, it occurs more often than you might think.
For example, the survey by M. Maidique. Decoding intuition for more effective decision‑making / Harvard Business Review of 36 executives showed that 85% of them rely on it when making decisions. There is also a study by R. Nalliah. Clinical decision making – choosing between intuition, experience and scientific evidence / British Dental Journal that dentists use instinct even more often than they should.
History of the concept
The first use of the word intuition was found in a text in the late 15th century. Until the 17th century, intuition meant "mental contemplation"; “the act of contemplating, examining, or testing”; “a glance or examination of something.” All of these values are now obsolete.
In the 17th century, scholastic philosophers began to use the word in its modern meaning, as in the following context: "spiritual perception or direct knowledge attributed to angelic and spiritual beings with whom vision and knowledge are identical."
More common ways to use "intuition" are:
- Intuition as a special property of genius.
- Intuition as a designation for the mysterious “sixth sense”.
- An unjustified belief or guess.
How does intuition work and why does the brain need it?
Today, science considers intuition to be a complex instrument of consciousness, which is born from the interaction of the senses, mind and experience and plays a significant role in cognition and decision making.
Throughout our lives, the brain notices patterns, connects facts and phenomena, and creates patterns based on them. Most often this happens unintentionally and unconsciously.
Intuition works on such associations. It provides subconscious emotional information before we make a conscious decision, and helps us avoid wasting unnecessary resources on thinking. This is how we learn to predict a variety of things, including the consequences of our actions and the behavior of other people.
In fact, this is a different M. Pigliucci. Answers for Aristotle: How Science and Philosophy Can Lead Us to A More Meaningful Life is a method of knowing and thinking that is similar to instinct. Although intuition is not always accurate, it works very quickly and does not require much concentration.
At the same time, we are characterized by M. Hutson. 8 Truths About Intuition / Psychology Today both giving intuitive beliefs more weight than they should and undervaluing them. For example, we often trust our first impression, which gives rise to prejudice. Or we abandon the initial correct decision, considering it spontaneous, in favor of an incorrect one.
What does a startup have to do with it?
A startup is a risky business. You can spend all your money, time, health, strength and “shoot into the void.” In a startup, no one guarantees your success. You are a pioneer. The risks are maximum. Therefore, in order to slightly increase the likelihood of success, it will be useful for you to listen to the voice of Intuition.
For example, you are an investor. We studied the project from all sides. In all respects, the project should succeed. And the team is excellent, and the idea is alive, there is even proven demand. Invest, scale and exit with a profit. The mind says - come on! My instincts tell me - don’t interfere! And indeed, six months later, the founder of the project is diagnosed with lung cancer in the last stage. At the time of the decision, the diagnosis was not known, but the disease already existed and was progressing. Chuika knew about this and squeaked quietly, but the voice of Reason overshadowed it with its authority. The investor lost money.
I wrote about my startup experience in this article.
Should you trust your intuition?
Scientists say Lufityanto G., Donkin C., Pearson J. Measuring Intuition: Nonconscious Emotional Information Boosts Decision Accuracy and Confidence / Psychological science that intuition can help you make a decision that you will not doubt later.
For example, Dutch psychologists in 2006 concluded that intuition works well when many factors need to be taken into account. They found out Dijksterhuis A., Bos MW, Nordgren LF, et al. On making the right choice: the deliberation‑without‑attention effect / Science (New York, NY) that those who used their gut when buying a car or home were 2.5 times more likely to be satisfied with the purchase than those who spent a long time comparing advantages and disadvantages. Experts have called intuition “thinking without attention.”
But this does not mean at all that you need to abandon rational thinking.
Intuition may be wrong as it creates M. Pigliucci. Answers for Aristotle: How Science and Philosophy Can Lead Us to a More Meaningful Life are only preliminary hypotheses that need to be tested. The Sixth Sense relies heavily on emotion, and its predictions are often subjective. For example, our instincts can be clouded by negative childhood experiences, complexes, fears, and mental trauma. In addition, intuition is unlikely to be useful in areas in which a person does not understand. Or in poorly predictable areas, such as the global economy.
The accuracy of intuition depends on many things, and everyone must decide for themselves whether to rely on it. Considered M. pigliucci. Answers for Aristotle: How Science and Philosophy Can Lead Us to a More Meaningful Life, that the instinct gives the most accurate clues when we allow it to work freely: we do not reason and act “on autopilot.”
Why doesn't a person use his sixth sense?
What is intuition based on? This feeling is made up of emotion, spirit and logic. It is these components that are the guide along the path of life. In most cases, we do not respond to internal cues. Man is designed in such a way that he constantly doubts, fears, worries, reasons, and this prevents him from hearing himself.
As an example, remember how you wanted to dance or sing, learn to play the guitar, or open your own business. But the thought flashed through your head, “what if it’s a failure,” and you didn’t even try to do anything. In the first case there was intuition, in the second - reason. As a rule, we all choose what is considered reasonable, that is, we refuse to take risks even when we essentially have nothing to lose.
The brain creates a barrier in the mind, trying to protect a person from the unknown and incomprehensible to him. He warns that there may be a negative result, thereby restraining his owner, not giving him the opportunity to try something that he cannot yet understand. And this approach is logical. Intuition, on the contrary, is a desire, a desire for the best, a passion that makes you not stop there and constantly move forward.
There are situations when it is worth giving feelings and sensations a chance, turning off common sense and logic for a while. You just need to do as your inner voice says, trust your body and soul. Despite everything, it is there and is desperately trying to reach the “control center” located in the head.
How to develop your intuition
Scientists' knowledge about intuition is still at the level of theory and hypotheses, but there are several tips that can help.
Reflect
Take time to think: when you don't have to do anything and you can think about what is happening or might happen. This will help establish more connections, including non-obvious ones, between people, events, facts, your own feelings and thoughts. This is where journaling, walking, meditation and mindfulness practices come in handy.
Listen to physical sensations
Intuition may not be obvious. For example, a feeling of heaviness or butterflies in the stomach. And all because in the intestines there are Hadhazy A. Think Twice: How the Gut's “Second Brain” Influences Mood and Well‑Being / Scientific American about 100 million neurons. It is even called the “second brain.”
Of course, this doesn't mean the digestive system can think. But it does affect your mood. For example, it may reflect negative feelings through physical discomfort. Such signals may indicate intuitive anxiety. So sometimes it’s worth listening to such sensations.
Also, experts from the UK are confident Dunn BD, Galton HC, Morgan R., et al. Listening to your heart. How interoception shapes emotion experience and intuitive decision making / Psychological science that a person’s intuition largely depends on how well he monitors his heartbeat. For example, an increased heart rate means emotional arousal, which can also be considered a signal.
Develop yourself
Everything you do improves M. Pigliucci. Answers for Aristotle: How Science and Philosophy Can Lead Us to a More Meaningful Life your gut feeling. Reading, sports, communication, entertainment, work - everything becomes part of the “sixth sense”. And the more experience you have in a particular area, the better your intuition will work in this area. Therefore, if, for example, you want to “read” other people, communicate more and study psychology.
Sighted
Let me give you an analogy with vision. Let's imagine that people do not have the ability to see, let's say all people are blind. Then the appearance of a sighted person is considered a miracle. A sighted person has an additional competitive advantage over a blind person. The same is true with the work of Intuition. The ability to work at the level of Intuition provides a person with significant competitive advantages. A person sees (feels) something that others do not see. Therefore, it is so important to develop this sense in yourself, along with other senses such as vision, hearing, smell, touch and others.
Predictive models
How did this division of intelligence appear in living beings? Most likely, from the vital need of these creatures for predictions. Any predator needs to be able to accurately predict where it will land as a result of a jump, otherwise it will miss and be left without food.
Akella missed the mark, he can no longer be our leader
The Jungle Book by R. Kipling
The same can be said about his sacrifice. If the object of a predator's hunt can itself predict where the pursuer's jump is directed, then it is quite possible that he will be able, by adjusting his behavior, to escape and stay alive. As a result, we can view each hunt [including] as a competition between versions of the predictive intelligence unit. Whose version predicts better, faster and more accurately is the one who survives.
However, an individual’s intelligence cannot do without just one predictive model for all immediately surrounding predators (or herbivores) if he wants to predict everyone well at once. This means that a set of models is needed, and this in turn requires the correct comparison of each predictive model with the observed phenomenon of the surrounding world. Then the division of individual behavior is also supplemented with cognitive functionality .
Let us also note that the result of the model’s prediction is expressed non-verbally, in the form of a certain feeling of correctness that is difficult to express in words. For example, the correctness of the throw or the correctness of the choice.
What does all this have to do with intuition? The most direct. Let us recall such signs of intuition as non-verbality [in the form of a certain sensation] and a correct forecast of what will happen in the future. Thus, a certain part (if not all) of the manifestations of intuition can be safely attributed to the work of a very archaic, but extremely useful subdivision of the intellect in constructing and selecting predictive models of the world surrounding the individual.
Architecture of Intelligence
To understand what the nature of intuition is within the framework of the theory of the evolution of intelligence, let us first consider the historically established architecture of human intelligence postulated by TEI.
Since we can judge the intelligence of living beings mainly by its manifestations, and the manifestations of intelligence themselves in their totality give rise to behavior, it would be quite appropriate to divide the manifestations of intelligence according to the various sources of an individual’s behavior. TEI proposes to divide intelligence into 5 large sections, fundamentally different in their functionality.
This:
- instinctive behavior
Historically, the most ancient division of human intelligence is responsible for following the unchanging strategic goals of an individual’s life, strictly determined by his biological species.
- reflex behavior
The division of intelligence responsible for typical responses. It is very efficient, but not very intellectual. Its typical manifestation is accompanied by the motto: “First we did it, then we thought.” In situations where you need to react quickly and have no time to think, it comes in handy, for example, when you need to instantly pull your hand away from the fire. It is not innate, like instinctive, but acquired during the life of an individual.
- individual behavior
This division of intelligence is responsible for a set of typical reactions and habits that make the bearer of intelligence recognizable in addition to his appearance.
- communicative behavior
The division of intelligence responsible for how and in what manner an individual communicates in a group. For example, when you need to determine who will be in charge in the group and whether this is fair, how to coordinate your actions with other members of the group, how to warn them about danger or how not to pass the group by lucrative perks, and much more related to relationships in the group.
- reasonable behavior
This division is associated with abstract logical thinking. What we are actually accustomed to traditionally calling intelligence.
However, if intelligence is only a product of abstract logical thinking, then what about the other divisions? This is where TEI proposes to expand the definition of intelligence so that it covers all the divisions mentioned above. You can look at this in more detail in the article “The Evolution of Intelligence: The Beginning.”
Let us immediately note that the idea of dividing intelligence according to the sources of an individual’s behavior is not new, you can read about it, for example, here, the only difference is in the number of sources entered.
