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Kimpatsu
7th October 2002, 12:37
Given what Kaiso wrote about intuition, and how to foster it, I thought that fellow Shorinji Kenshi might find this article (http://fp.bio.utk.edu/skeptic/Rationally_Speaking/02-10-on_intuition.htm) interesting.
What are your views on the nature of intuition? To what extent do you think it can be nurtured, or are there limits to intuition that are set at birth?

Steve Williams
7th October 2002, 23:56
Sorry but I don't believe in "intuition".

But I do believe in "reading the situation".....

This could be said to be intuition by those who do not see the whole picture.


For example (A very simplistic example):

I walk into a pub/bar, and immediately walk out again.... because I had a "feeling" that it was not a place I should be....

Some could say it was intuition....

I would say it was because I saw all faces turn to see me, I saw the lack of females in the bar (all males drinking is generally not a "safe" bar), I saw the group of "locals" by the bar, I saw another group of "locals" near the door.... etc......

Lots of clues, if you can see them, do not make it great intuiution....



Seems the person from your link has the same idea
This means that it is possible to improve one’s intuition by working in the same field for years, accumulating so much experience that our brain eventually tends to transfer part of the processing to the subconscious: we suddenly seem to “know” the answer, almost before we can formulate the question.
Except he still calls it intuition, not learned responses..... or perhaps that is intuition?


Very tired now... going to bed. :D

Kimpatsu
8th October 2002, 00:10
Originally posted by Steve Williams
Sorry but I don't believe in "intuition".
But I do believe in "reading the situation".....
But that is intuition, sensei. It's not psychic. That's what Max Pigliucci was getting at.
Kesshu.

tony leith
9th October 2002, 12:37
If I remember the textbook defintion/discussion of intuition, Kaiso didn't just confine himself to talking about concrete situations you might find yourself in, he talked about trying to have a systematic understanding of the world so as to have better basis for right action in almost any given set of circumstances. I suppose where this shades over into 'intuition' as it might more be commonly understood is where this process of appraisal/evaluation is undertaken subconsciously e.g where you decide that somebody is about to intiate a fight and do something about it.
This wouldn't necessarily be jo chu mawashigeri - one of the best examples I know of the use of 'intuition' concerns a friend, who was making his way home with his dad. They ran into a bunch of young lads going the other way. The friend of mine is one of the most formidable fighters I know, and he went on yellow allert - just as they were about to pass the lads, his dad piped up with 'Merry christmas', which defused the situation, a brilliant application of the psychological level of initiative..

Tony Leith

shugyosha
9th October 2002, 17:12
i dont believe in intition, i feel it, and sometimes follow it, but
like most of the modern men, intoxicated by useless rational though
i often think :oh thats just in my mind

now an example, i feel that a close relative is calling me,
weeks later, i call her, to realise that she just came out from the
hospital.
that is nothing to do with seeing the whole picture, no human can
see the whole picture, but our rational mind think that the reality
is limited and therefore that we can fully understand it by logic.

in indian belief, intion is bases on the third eye shakra, between
the eyebrows. men and women (few) who develop this shakra (often with
kundalini or tantra yoga) have a deeper sixt sence or intuition that
normal peaple, much deeper.

to nurture intuition is dificult for a man in an industrial country
because you are always polluated with useless tough about money, job,
material matter wich lead to block the energy flooding to this shakra.
also qi gong and advanced taoist martial artist follow the same pattern than indian yogi. they call it raised the kan and the li.

also i will always remember a funny memory when i was kid, i was in the judo change room i looked to the direction of my sensei whom i could only see the head from the back, wondering if it was her.
although the room was crowdy, she instantly turn her head to look straight at me. she had felt my presence.
since then i never met this kind of sensei in dojo.
sometime while i watch train i try to concentrated on a evil thought toward the sensei to make him/her look at me. but it doesnt seem to work :(

Steve Williams
9th October 2002, 20:53
Originally posted by Kimpatsu

But that is intuition, sensei. It's not psychic. That's what Max Pigliucci was getting at.
Kesshu.

Thats the whole point.

When you say "intuition" then people automatically think "Psycic ability"......




BTW.... just Steve, not Sensei.... (don't feel the need for rank.... at least not now ;) )

Kimpatsu
10th October 2002, 00:33
These days, people look at linoleum and think, "psychic"...
From the New Oxford Dictionary of English:

The ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning.
No mention of psychic abilities, there, but:

Origin: Late Middle English (denoting spiritual insight or immediate spiritual communication).
Professor Pigliucci's argument was that there's no "psychic" dimension to intuition; we're just circumventing the usual step-by-step thought process.
Not that any of this helps with a commonly-understood definition that's grounded in rationality... (New emoticon showing little man throwing up his hands in despair... ;) )

Eastwood
10th October 2002, 15:23
This post grows out of the discussion on the Kiai thread, so you might want to look at that thread for its engagement with the idea of intuition around the topic of chakras.

Quote from David Dunn (from kiai thread):
"We can call those places `chakras', but why bother? The reductionist sciences of anatomy, physiology, epidemiology etc have given us a far greater understanding of the throat and lungs, and moreover given us treatments for them, and ideas of how to prevent disease in them. I prefer to say 'throat' because at least that alludes to the great body of knowledge about them. To call them energy is in one sense a truism (Einstein demonstrated that matter and energy are the same thing), but is a mis-use of a very well understood characteristic of nature.
[quote continued]
Tony is right to call it 'pseudoscience'. If the chakras are measurable, then why haven't they been detected? If they are not measureable then they cannot be the subject of rational inquiry and belong in the realm of theism. Does discovering more about the world or ourselves include increasing our store of false ideas?"

What I get from Kaiso's encouragement to kenshi to develop their sense of intuition is to develop their ability to find patterns rapidly (faster than the blunt machine of scientific proof can act). In some cases, that means instantly, so one can move before one has time to think, "I'd better defend myself." In other cases, it means changing training methods before some large-budget study comes along that we can rely on.

Scientists tend to claim that they can prove things because they find constant conjunctions of events, and based on that argue that one thing causes another. Kant says there is no rational reason to believe in the idea of causality, but that people use it in order to think rationally. The best attempt I know of to solve this modern dilemma is Roy Bhaskar's (an Oxford U. philosopher) rejection of the notion of constant conjunctions of events, and replacement of the idea of causality with one more akin to the idea of reasons (as in, "I had a reason to jump back."). This approach saves scientists from contradiction, and simultaneously offers us the possibility of a rational account of daily life. It also accords with the experience that Shorinji Kempo (and other disciplines) give us that what helps us is very seldom a matter of proof, but a matter of pattern-grounded intuition and proper action based on that intuition.

That said, I agree that skepticism can preserve us from wasting our time on things that don't help. But as everyone can attest who has left the shelter of their Sensei and begun to practice somewhere far separated from one's seniors, there is no better way to improve than to follow one's intuition, and practice. Intuition is what sold us on Shorinji Kempo in the first place. It's what lets us choose how to listen and respond to our teachers. It's what let's us overcome what we don't know about teaching. It works because we begin with a vast fund of knowledge from our teachers, and so we can see a lot of patterns, we can use intuition.

It works better than science (without denying science's value). And we have our teachers and all their generations of teachers to thank that we have such a rich field of patterns from which to learn and develop ourselves. That field of not-merely-scientific knowledge was developed in an era that saw chakras as a source of insight.

Here's my first point: If chakras, or anything, appears to a person trained by good teachers to be a valuable way of improving that person's training, then it probably is. (even if it turns out to have overshot the mark)

Subsequent practice may bring even more helpful ways of practicing as the advanced kenshi pursues practical research. Then chakras, or anything, may be abandoned for the better thing. Or maybe no better thing will appear. But if that kenshi fails to pursue the intuition that has drawn his or her curiosity, then the kenshi is taking the slow way, intentionally.

This brings me to my second point: Demanding proof before one follows one's (adequately trained) intuition is destructive of one's own intuition, and so is not the way that Shorinji Kempo teaches us to develop. Intuition doesn't wait. That is not its role. That role is reserved appropriately for skepticism (Maybe we need a thread on that). ;)



I guess I should answer the question this thread began with -
The main limits on our intuition are the ones we assent to.

Hmm, this post is loooong. My apologies.

Kimpatsu
10th October 2002, 16:05
Michael (Clint),
If you're going to quote someone, please use the quote function. It makes posts much easier to read.
TIA.

Eastwood
10th October 2002, 21:04
please use the quote function

Yes, I discovered the quote function yesterday, but I didn't realize I could cross quote among threads. Mea culpa.

Kimpatsu
11th October 2002, 00:00
No problem.
Hey, what's the "mea culpa"? Are you Catholic?
:cool:

David Dunn
16th October 2002, 12:56
I just wanted to make a contribution to this thread. I thought that the article originally posted by Kimpatsu was very interesting.
The role of intuition in scientific discovery has been has much maligned in favor of the importance of rationality in everyday life and human relationships. Worse, the two (intuition and rationality) have often been considered as opposites, as defining different types of mental activity, and even different kinds of people. Just think of Star Trek’s Mr. Spock: the quintessential rational entity, yet completely incapable of both emotions and intuitions.

I think that intuition is crucial to scientific development. If someone studies a particular area in great depth, and tries to get at the nitty-gritty, then after a while they become very intuitive about that area. A colleague once said that leaps of logic were needed to make a breakthrough. Without that inspiration I doubt if we would develop much. That same colleague also said that when you get to the top of a mountain, it is easy to see better routes up.

At the same time, the results arrived at may often be counter-intuitive, even paradoxical, to a person who had not studied that subject. If you reason with a beginner to kempo that one of the purposes of kamae is to offer a target, they may look at you like you're crazy. What becomes intuitive through study may well go against your instinct. I think counterposing intuition etc to reason is a mistake.

David

Kimpatsu
16th October 2002, 13:00
OK, this time I'm going for broke: I agree 1,000,000% :p
Seriously, though, it's this antagonistic viewpoint: either you're rational or intuitive, that's the very problem. What's wrong with being both? The two aren't contrastive; they're complementary. Pity most people don't see it that way.
Kaiso certainly did, though.
Kesshu.