A Nuanced Article on Intuition

[Loisenman]

I am making my 1997 paper on intuition readily available on the web. It has been difficult to get. It is relavant to all realms of knowledge, not only science--including politics.

"TOWARDS AN UNDERSTANDING OF INTUITION AND ITS IMPORTANCE IN SCIENTIFIC ENDEAVOR"
(Lois Isenman, Perpsectives in Biology and Medicine, 3, (1997), 395-403.)

Download pdf: http://people.brandeis.edu/~lisenman/Perspectives.pdf

SUMMARY: Intuition is defined as a bridging function that brings to awareness information that is beyond voluntary recall yet has the potential to impact thought and action significantly. It brings the power of the unconscious mind with its associative processing, its speed, and its ability to process multiple items in parallel into conscious thought. The unconscious often expresses itself in images or metaphors that present a multilayered, richly textured, and very often surprising understanding of the object under consideration. For example, early in my investigation of intuition, in response to the question, "What is intuition?" after a moment of searching, the phrase "a blink of the eye" came to mind. Several other images followed as well.

In scientific work, intuition perhaps more often brings the power of the unconscious mind to bear on conscious thought by suggesting analogies to other systems which share illuminating similarities and differences with the system under consideration. The unconscious mind appears to have access to logic-like as well as more clearly associative processing modes. Indeed, sometimes the only apparent difference between intuitive processing and conscious rational processing of information is that intuitive processing is much faster. The potential role in intuition of feeling, a non-rational capacity for fine discrimination, which is much faster than thought, is also explored using another personal vignette. The last sections of the paper examine the limits of intuition in scientific inquiry.

weblog: Intuition In-depth: Bridging Science and Spirituality
http://intuition-indepth.blogspot.com


Lois Isenman
Resident Scholar
WSRC
Brandeis University

[greyl]

1. Have you read Gladwell's "Blink" ? nt

[charlie]

4. Answered on her blog

http://intuition-indepth.blogspot.com/2007/02/my-unwitting-relationship-to-malcolm.html

Seems the question should be put to Gladwell - has he read Loisenman?

[Loisenman]

5. Blink

I sure have and I feel fairly sure that Gladwell read my paper before he wrote it.

http://intuition-indepth.blogspot.com/2007/02/my-unwitting-relationship-to-malcolm.html

here is what I think of Blink

http://intuition-indepth.blogspot.com/2006_12_01_archive.html

[Straight Shooter]

2. 'The Gift of Fear' by Gavin de Becker

An excellent book which explains the intuitive process as a means of recognizing danger and acting appropriately.

Also, The Intuitive Edge, by Philip Goldberg. Very down-to-earth and reasoned book on intuition. Absolutely one of my favorites.

Congratulations on choosing an oft-misunderstood subject. :thumbsup:

[Tellurian]

3. The intuitive factor has also been labeled innate intelligence,,

you're just born with it because of hyper-developed senses guiding your thoughts.