Intuition Example?

[Wright]

Hi there,

 

Does anybody have a good example of Intuition overriding reason as a better WoK in a certain event?

 

 

Thanks

[Thrashmaster]

In an emergency, people follow their gut instead of using reason. Some might say that it is 'reasonable' to have self preservation during a fire... and yet, some intuitively rush into the burning building. 

[Vioh]

Hi there,

Does anybody have a good example of Intuition overriding reason as a better WoK in a certain event?

Thanks

 

I think you shouldn't think of intuition & reason as 2 distinct ways of knowing. This is because I would define *intuition* as some kind of bridge connecting between our 'instincts' & 'reasoning'; i.e. when we're using our intuition, we also use a bit of our reasoning based on what we currently know about the world. Thus, intuition is an extremely important process in the scientific method. It's very often the case that we use our intuitive thinking when we set up a hypothesis for an experiment. For example, back in the day, Aristotle saw that when he pushed something, it moved. But when he stopped pushing something, it stopped. He then claimed that F = mv. So he basically used his intuition to hypothesize that the force should be proportional to velocity. Of course, he was wrong. And too sad that he, being a philosopher, didn't even bother to design a good experiment to test this hypothesis. However, it's important to note that intuition helps us to quickly hypothesize about something, thus is probably an important part of the scientific method.

 

Another case where we see the intuition is 'better' is the case about the axioms of Euclidean geometry. Nobody can prove these axioms using reasoning. In other words, it is intuition (by looking at the world around us) that helps us to set up these axioms. And the thing is, these axioms are true. Therefore, intuition is clearly a better way of approaching this knowledge rather than reasoning as in some form of mathematical proofs.

 

Intuition can also helps people to quickly understand a concept. Let's take the Higg's field for example (btw, the Higg's boson was confirmed to exist in 2012, leading to the Nobel prize for Peter Higgs & Francois Englert, thus Higg's field truly exists). To a physicist, the Higg's field can interact and give the mass to a particle by changing the energy (i.e. changing the spin) associated with the particle. Now this is very advanced physics & no layman can understand this concept. that's why a physicist often explains to laymen the interaction of the Higg's field with particles as some kinds of objects going through a space filled with molasses. This is basically an analogy thus can provide the general public an intuitive picture of reality. Even though this intuitive picture is not technically correct, it still does a very good job of helping people to quickly understand a concept.