The intuitive lies

Lately, I have come across a lot of people talking about how good their intuition is and how quickly they can read and make accurate judgements on situations and people. I have no doubt that there are people that are very good at this but, most do not spend much time thinking about where this intuition comes from.

It is not some mythical ability provided by the universe, well at least not in how many people envisage it. It is based on experiences that have lodged themselves into the mind and body that when familiar patterns are recognised, feelings arise that say, I have seen this before.

However, the accuracy of the 'read' depends on the accuracy of the habitual memory created. For example, if one saw a short list of a few random names to read and then a week later was given a much longer list of names with the same names included and asked to pick out well known people, the person is very likely to remember and identify the random set as well known. Because they may get a feeling that they have seen the name before somewhere and therefore, they must be well known enough. This is the intuition playing tricks.

The brain likes to think fast and intuitive decision making is one of its go to tools as it is able to make snap judgements based upon past information. This conserves energy but it is only as good as the patterns it holds and its ability to judge the new pattern that enters experience. By enlarge, this is not a very accurate process as most people do not train repetitively enough to use it well.

A sports person like a tennis player however, may train and play over and over and with many different partners so they can intuit what their opponent may do next. It is like a probability calculator that can give them a slight head start on where the ball may be played. The opponent however will try to fool them and play unexpectedly as they know and use the same trick.

A professional cold reader for example has actively trained to pay attention to a range of indicators that will mean certain things and in combination can give a relatively accurate appraisal of a person. They can train so much that it becomes an unconscious competence and they no longer need to actively check each, their intuition kicks into gear. Most people do not train this way.

Most rely on a passive and imperfect understanding of their experiences to create a limited ability but, one that they rely on as it feels very correct. We are taught to trust our feelings but rarely do we consider their validity. Imagine mishearing the words of someone you care about and you think they have insulted you. You are likely to feel angry. But with clarification, you may realise you have nothing to be angry over, it was a communication error. The feeling was real though.

Untrained and insensitive intuition can make communication errors by both storing and recognising patterns poorly. The feelings arise still even though the read is incorrect. Rarely however do the people go far enough to discover whether their intuition is accurate however which means they also feel they have judged well.

Intuition can be a very effective method of evaluation especially when there are feeling of insecurity for personal safety. It means that one may be able to avoid a potentially dangerous situation as that is not the time to test accuracy of intuition, it is the time to remove oneself from the situation.

But, in non-threatening interactions and circumstances, it is generally better to slow the intuition down and let a little of the rational mind work to understand where the feeling actually comes from and whether it is warranted.

Many of the people I have come across talking about their 'high intuitive senses' seem to be people that struggle the most and almost invariably blame their problems on others. I think this is because their intuition that they put so much faith into is poorly calibrated and since they rely so heavily on it, they do not objectively step back and learn to understand what is going on.

The people that I know who use their intuition well however invariably use it as a tool that can provide a 'first sense' of a person or situation and then bring in their toolbox of rationality to explore further. In this way, they can identify the rights and wrongs of their intuition, effectively training it for future accuracy.

Feelings tend to trick us and the stronger the feeling, the more we think it is correct but, feelings lie and are dependent on a whole range of variables that are largely blind to us in that moment. It may only be in hindsight that we can recognise how poor they were but our emotions will step in again and use other tricks to protect our fragile egos.

We can lie to ourselves, our feelings do it to us each day.

Taraz
[ a Steemit original ]