When Should We Discard Explanations That Are Intuitively Appealing - Essay Example

Intuition Reliability Intuition is a source of confusion for most people, this is because we chose to follow it,believe it and it ends up leading us the wrong way. At other times, one may be right based solely on following his/her intuition. Safe to say, intuitional judgment may work in or against our favor. Intuition is said to be the thing that one knows or believes to know not based on facts but purely on feeling. Intuition is emotionally based. This knowledge is based on an innate feeling rather than mindful reckon (Bastick 19). Intuitive reasoning is not completely dependable as it is at times misleading. Intuition is right in most of other times, though. The dilemma comes in knowing when to actually accept this reasoning based purely on feeling, otherwise called ‘guts’, or to just ignore it and go for the hard facts. Thus, there is a question whether we should discard explanations that are intuitively appealing or not. According to Gillman, in his book of luck, he speaks of intuition being in support of reason and without working against reason at all (20). In saying so, we can choose to retain explanations that are intuitively appealing. There have been cases where intuition has proved to be the friend of reason but still it falls short of what it actually is. Intuition Based Explanations that are acceptable Intuitive Attitudes and feelings: attitudes and feelings that are innate are able to create a quite reliable trend of behavior. They are able to forecast a way in which a person will behave at a later time in the future; the analyzed attitudes. However, when a person is asked to examine his/her attitudes before displaying them then this won’t foretell his/her ensuing behavior. They will consciously examine him/her ruling out the intuitive factor. Comprehending Personality Traits: Human beings do not fall short when it comes to social intelligence; instead, they have a tremendous amount of this. For instance, if people were shown short clips of teachers in a class, it is likely that their evaluations would be somewhat similar, based on their intuition, to those of the teacher’s actual students. Instantaneous appraisals of a person’s characters are, thus, usually proved true, therefore, making them as good as the long-term impressions. Intuition and being in touch with our own bodies: Intuition, being an emotional reaction, is usually an expression of what our bodies are experiencing or otherwise feeling. This makes them a firsthand expression of what is actually happening to us, quite believable. It is usually the mind which is in sync with the body by interpreting what our bodies are feeling. This leaves no actual room for errors. Learning non-Consciously: Human things learn how to do something without actually knowing we are doing it. We see something being done and with no intention of finding out how this thing is done our minds, though, are able to emulate this and we can actually be able to do the particular task. A good example is how people subconsciously decide that one food store is more favorable than the other. This way, they learn intuitively, without actually knowing it, to avoid the other store and instead keep going to the one that is more favorable. Non-Conscious memory: Intuitively, human beings actually retain information which they do not intentionally call to mind. The brain happens to store memory that one has no recollection of ever putting in mind; it happens subconsciously. In the case of brain-damaged patients, they claim to not remember anything and have no recollection of even who they actually are. But they do things; have abilities they cannot explain acquiring, like speaking Chinese. All this is usually stored in the subconscious. The Woman Intuition: Women are said to be very good at interpreting emotions off any communication. They perceive deceit very well and are undefeated when it comes to decipher relative authority and command. All this, they do by just following their instincts. Proficiency and Skills: Once a person has learned the know-how of a certain thing, it comes naturally and becomes innate to them, that they just know how to do it without actually thinking about it. In chess, a great player can make an instantaneous move without being able to knowingly examine the consequences of the move and it turns out right. This way he knows just the thing to do. There are also Japanese experts who are able to identify the sex of chicks at just a day old. The sex of chicks is usually hard to place as their sexual organs are similar. These Japanese experts cannot even themselves explain how they do it, they are just good at it without actually making an effort. Intuition is thus not solely an unreliable source of explanation, but one should be able to fully understand where it is successful when used. Even in understanding the right moments to and instances to put into practice our instinctive judgment; it is also advisable for one to also be able to know when our intuition can lead us off track. Intuition Based Explanations that are not acceptable Abilities: We, as human beings, usually put a lot of belief in the things we can actually do. Safe to say, people are overconfident in their abilities. According to Janet Metcalfe, people actually believe in their proficiency at something, think they have the right answer to all of the questions, have the solutions to all of the problems, and think they know it all when the reverse is actually the truth (Aronson 181). Having the Insight of why we do things: Our intuitions will always tell us we know why we do certain things and why we steer clear of others. They will also have an answer to why things happen the way they do. But the truth is usually the opposite (Slote 64). Human beings cannot explain why certain things happen in the certain way they do and at certain times. We, instead, try to justify and put reason to all of our actions. Intuition here is, thus, deemed misleading and a poor informer. Interviews: people have the tendency to think they cannot go wrong with interviews, that they can instinctively tell when a person is lying. The opposite is true; one cannot completely trust their instincts when it comes to ruling information of being either true or false. Instead, investigators should implement the lie detector to suspects and an employer should also use an aptitude test, the results are more trustworthy this way (Antonakis, Cianciolo and Sternberg 24). Risk: People are usually intuitively afraid of things that are less likely to harm them and put themselves at risk of those that could actually cause harm to them. For instance, one will probably avoid getting in the water for the fear of getting bit by a shark but instead go swimming in a place that harbors the risk of drowning. Illusory Correlations: We always try to find patterns even in the most impossible situations. The same way human beings tend to find an explanation to everything, they also try to relate events with each other instinctively while those two actually bear absolutely no relation to each other. Predicting our behavior and Feelings: It is in fact impossible and out of our reach to predict how we will react to a certain situation. We cannot predict how we will react emotionally after something has happened and cannot tell what we will do subsequently. Our instincts, once again, are proven unreliable in such a situation. It is, thus, evident that one cannot clearly rule that all information based on intuition is either reliable or otherwise unreliable. It is all about knowing the situations in which intuition works and those in which it just cannot work. For instance, a situation where a mother stands up to testify for her son whom the evidence clearly rules to be guilty. Despite her testimony that she knows her son, which is obviously based on intuition, she is usually mistaken. A judge is well-informed and knows better as his knowledge is based on facts; and it is doubtful he can actually take this intuitive explanation into account and make a ruling based on it. This is just anecdotal evidence, which is as defective as it gets (De Paul and Ramsey 98). Conclusion Reason sees to it that no explanations are accepted if not accompanied by hard facts, feelings and emotions are no exception (Chall 120). This deems intuitive explanations irrelevant and calls for them to be discarded. They say that intuition is based on the subconscious and that is not the active part of the brain and is instead passive. This defies all sense of reason and all intuitive claims should be disregarded. This is, however, wrong as scientists though backing up their big bang theory with logical explanation, there is still no hard evidence that the Earth was created from a sudden explosion that occurred at a certain point in the universe which contained all the matter from which Earth and the rest of the universe was formed. This theory cannot just be disregarded due to the lack of a definite way to prove how true it is. This also goes for the intuition; intuitive explanations cannot just be disregarded for the lack of a way to prove if they are an actual representation of the truth. It is also not ascertained that all explanations made intuitively should not be discarded. Some should and some should not. Some situations actually need the intuitive nature of human beings to be able to get past. Other situations, would actually go wrong, or lead to an off the beam judgment or decision. Works Cited Antonakis, J., A. T. Cianciolo, and R. J. Sternberg. The Nature of Leadership. New York: SAGE, 2004. Print. Aronson, D. Evidence-Based Technical Analysis: Applying the Scientific Method and Statistical Inference to Trading Signals. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, 2011. Print. Bastick, T. Intuition, How We Think and Act. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, 1982. Print. Chall, L. P. Sociological abstracts. California: Sociological abstracts, Vol. 50, (2002): No. 3 De Paul, M. R. & Ramsey, W. M. Rethinking Intuition: the psychology of intuition and its role in philosophical inquiry. Mary Land: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998. Print. Gillman, S. Secretes of Lucky People: A study of the laws of good luck. Self Help. 2008 Slote, M. An Empirical Basis for Psychological Egoism. Journal of Philosophy, Vol.62, (1964): no18. Read More