Should intuitive thinking be considered positive or negative?

[Jonzun]

Yesterday I was having a discussion at work with management regarding what strategies I will take further in my career based on the experiences I've had at my workplace so far, where the management described my thoughts as being very intuitive. Initially I was apprehensive to accept my ideas as intuitive seeing as I'm someone who prefers to have evidence before making a conclusion, but thinking further into it I've realised that actually a lot of my ideas are based on intuitive thinking; especially when reading my posting history here it's evident I write a lot of long winded posts attempting to rationalise people's behaviour without ever sourcing anything or giving concrete evidence. Although a lot of my reasoning is based instinct by attempting to empathise with other's experiences and establishing abstract connections with my own observations of personal experiences, I realise that these connections can be incredibly unreliable (the sluthate thread is a great example of when making generalisations based on personal experiences can go horribly wrong).

I did a little bit of reading regarding this question last night and found it interesting how intuition is perceived in philosophical and psychological schools of thought; for example in many variations of Buddhism intuition is considered an important aspect of enlightenment (I'm sure @Sanic can give a better overview on this than I possibly could) yet Western psychologists like Jung argued that intuitive thinkers are those who are likely to attempt reconstructing the world to fit their own abstract perception of reality. That in itself is my primary concern, in that by thinking intuitively and attempting to understand others I'm unconsciously and unfairly applying labels on to others as a way of explaining their behaviour to fit into my own constructed view of reality.

What do you think guys, is intuitive thinking an avenue to establish a deeper understanding of each other or a way for people to project their own distortions of reality onto others?

 

[LordCustos3]

Negative.
Think about how much evil was perpetrated because someone had a "Feels, Not Reals" worldview.

"In order to commit atrocities, you must first believe absurdities" - Voltaire.

"Why did you kill the Asperpedia Four?"
"It 'felt' right"

 

[RobeeSonee]

Positive in that its part of survival instinct. To a degree, it is positive and a strength, because without it, you could miss something incredibly obvious and get yourself killed. Or fired in this case. So I say from an evolutionary standpoint, its essential.

However, intuition does not scale, while actual knowledge does. You can feel out why someone or something is the way it is, but it is better to actually investigate to form a conclusion. Intuition is something that has to be tempered. Intuition grows stronger with knowledge, and can improve your instincts. Intuition is stupid and ugly, but its important to survival, whether that be passing on genes, achieving success in careers, or outrunning mountain lions. Perception of the world includes your perceived means of survival/thriving.

From a societal standpoint, it can lead to some tragic cases of solipsism, as intuitive thinking is not inherently bound by objective logic. Intuition is the ground of cliche and stereotype, which do not reflect the true nature of the world around us. In that regard, it is not only negative, but detrimental.

So yes with a but, no with an if.

 

[Pikonic]

Intuition is like envy, we're going to have it. What's going to make it positive or negative is how you deal with it.
Look at envy, no person on this planet has never felt envy. What you do about it can be a positive thing, like the Jewish view on it over Christian view. Christians view it as a sin no matter what but the Jewish see it as "if you're jealous of material things, but you're an honest man who works harder so you can have those material things, than it's a good thing." When I was 7 my friend got these cute purple sneakers and I was jealous, so I saved money and worked for my grandparents so I too, could buy my own purple sneaker.

Acting on your emotions is normal, because to act on them is to have them.

"Why did you kill the Asperpedia Four?"
"It 'felt' right"

What about when what feels right actually is right in the end? Vince Wilfork didn't have to stop and pull that woman out of the flipped Jeep after the Colts game. He did it because it felt right to him. The man who helped me recently get my car unstuck did it because it felt right. They didn't take the time to list all the possibilities of their actions.
That woman in the Jeep could've had a spinal cord injury, Vince could have paralyzed her! (But if Vince left her there, the blood in her head could cause a clot.)
I'm a stranger, I could be a pickpocket or a serial killer! (but if he assumed I am and I'm not, he just abandoned a good person in need.)
They just went with their gut and they were right to do so.

I'm not saying Custos is wrong, and if I could give two ratings I would agree and disagree, because yes, sometimes going with your gut is negative, a man drowns because he tried to save another drowning man. Or, like, war and shit. There's also positivities in it as well.

We are human, we are not computers that think and act on only logical conclusions. That can be a good or a bad thing, there is no one answer because human emotion is what makes the world non binary.

 

[Yog-Spergoth]

As a person who does act on his intuition a lot of the time, I also agree that it can be both.

Intuition is great for quickly processing scenarios that you're already familiar with, or that only have minor variance. A lot of our mental processes happen behind what David Kahneman termed the "closed door", where we're constantly processing and sifting through data but we're simply not aware of it. Intuition is kind-of the mind's way of telling you that it's come to a possible best course of action, even if the active-processing part of your brain doesn't really know why.

Where intuition falls down is novel situations, or situations where you don't have complete information. That's where active-process is undoubtedly better, as you can weigh and consider the priority of different pieces of information. Like everyone else said, the only real answer is both. Your intuition should be trusted, if it's trustable, but the discerning part of your mind should always be ready, and even willing, to challenge any conclusion you come to if the evidence points the other direction.

On a more personal note, I like acting on intuition. It honestly feels amazing when you have that one day, or hour, or second, where you just 'click' and start to do things nearly effortlessly. It's like you just know what you're supposed to do, at least for that little bit. The downside is that when intuition is wrong, it tends to be really, really wrong. Some of the dumbest decisions I've ever made have been because I went with my "gut" and my gut was apparently out of commission. Still, intuition can be pretty invaluable.

 

[Marvin]

Where do you get your weed?

Because that sounds like some dank shit son. Hella dank, even.

 

[Jonzun]

Where do you get your weed?

Because that sounds like some dank shit son. Hella dank, even.

Haha, my dealer doesn't really know what he's selling but I'm pretty sure it's Blue Cheese. Gives you a pounding headache in the morning but a trenches worth in my MFLB easily lasts 3 days so I'm not complaining

Back on topic you guys have bought up some really interesting points. I definitely agree with @LordCustos3 in that intuitive thinking can be used as an unreasonable justification for atrocities against nature. Chris is actually a fascinating example to focus on, in that he's someone who due to his disability finds it difficult to process and express emotions yet acts almost always on instinctive feelings. If Chris was on some level capable of reason, I'm pretty certain he wouldn't have carried out a large percentage of the stupid shit he has done.

On the flipside though I liked @Pikonic 's example of when intuitive acts have led to positive outcomes. The analogy of a man drowning trying to save another drowning man I found interesting, in that although the wrong action to take it would have been justified with a good reason; to help someone in need. Whereas Chris' intuition tells him to mace people whilst protesting about blue arms, another person's intuition tells them to help someone whose car has broken down. I guess on some level acting on intuition exposes your true inner nature (or exposing what's really going on behind the closed door as @Yog-Spergoth pointed out), which although it may not be a good thing to always act out upon can be helpful in achieving a deeper level of self-awareness.

As @RobeeSonee said, actual knowledge is far better at forming a truthful conclusion. However by accepting and acknowledging your intuitive thoughts, you can then use actual knowledge to inform and improve your intuitive thinking to give a more accurate judgement of the reality of a situation.

 

[Pickle Inspector]

It's a good starting block since I guess it represents subconscious feelings about any given subject but you have to back it up with logic and knowledge otherwise you might be biased or outright taken advantage of.

Adverting is a good example since they'll do whatever they can to make people want to buy their products and will do subliminal things that you might not first consider if you are just going on your gut feeling like in America for a while (I'm not sure if it's still like this) they sometimes had people with a posh English accent sell products because many considered that accent more authoritative sounding.

Another example is a lot of stores use scents and music to lure in shoppers and other subtle things can change how you feel about things like politicians will often try and look as tall as they can.

Spoiler

 

[QI 541]

It depends. Mostly on how good your intuition is.

 

[Holdek]

If your brain runs on two engines, conscious thought and subconscious thought, with conscious thought resulting in reason and subconscious thought resulting in intuition, it's good to balance both. Don't rely too much on either one, as that reduces your thought capacity.

 

[Sunny-D]

The good thing about subconscious thought is it can work a lot faster than conscious thought, and it supposedly notices tiny, trivial things that your conscious mind doesn't pick up on. So, what people think is intuition in some cases could be your mind acting on something that your subconscious noticed - something being intuitive doesn't necessarily mean it's not based on a logical reaction to something, only that it's a logical reaction to something that your conscious mind wasn't aware of. The important thing, though, is how you react when your subconscious fucks up and your intuition is proven wrong. If you hold onto an intuitive belief despite evidence otherwise, then it can be negative.

 

[Osaka Seafood Concern]

When the brain is at a crossroads, it seems it will usually draw on life experience from minor social interactions to major perception changes to try and ascertain an intuitive decision. Not to say there's not some predictive element in our subconscious either, it just may be possible self reflection might work to try and intellectualize a lot of our intuitive decision making.

 

[Holdek]

An interesting book related to this topic is Malcolm Gladwell's Blink.

 

[Hyperion]

As someone who is Intuitive I have a strong feeling that none of you have any idea what you're talking about.

 

[John Furrman]

One time I thought I was being followed and ignored that feeling and left my car in the apartment parking lot of the apartment of the friend I was hanging out with. The person following me also parked in the same lot. Probably shortly after I entered my friend's building, they busted into my car and stole my radio. Luckily I had my passport on me, as I had just came straight from the air port after a vacation abroad, and was eager to see my friends. Ignoring my gut feeling costed me more than just physical possessions in that situation, I was pretty upset over it and still worry about it happening again to this day. Hell, worse has happened since that.

Don't ignore it I guess was the lesson I took from it. The thing about a degree of paranoia is that you only have to be right, once.

 

[autisticdragonkin]

I would say that intuitive thinking is negative because it cannot be scrutinized. It is essentially just a box that you put information into and get an output but you have no idea what is going on inside of it. I prefer methodical thinking since I know exactly what the process is and can thus easily find a flaw if need be