How accurate is human intuition?

Intuitive thinking refers to a form of thinking that directly understands the essence of things without being bound by some fixed logical rules. Intuitive thinking has the characteristics of swiftness, directness and instinctive consciousness. Intuition, as a psychological phenomenon, runs through daily life and scientific research.

Intuition can be divided into broad sense and narrow sense: broad sense intuition refers to a psychological phenomenon including direct cognitive, emotional and will activities, that is, it is not only a cognitive process and cognitive way, but also an emotional and will activity. Intuition in a narrow sense refers to a basic way of thinking of human beings. When intuition is regarded as a cognitive process and way of thinking, it is called intuitive thinking.

Intuition or narrow intuitive thinking is a rapid identification, keen insight, direct understanding of the essence and comprehensive overall judgment of things, new phenomena, new problems and their relationships that suddenly appear in front of the human brain. In short, intuition is direct perception.

Compared with analytical thinking, intuitive thinking has the following six characteristics:

1, directness, that is, the subject directly obtains the overall understanding of things without going through the step-by-step analysis process, which is the most basic and remarkable feature of intuitive thinking;

2. Rapidity means that the result of thinking is produced very quickly, which makes the thinker unable to make a logical explanation of the process;

3. Jumping, in the cognitive process, analytical thinking is displayed step by step in a conventional way, and once intuitive thinking appears, it will get rid of the shackles of the original convention, leading to rapid jumping and gradual interruption of the cognitive process;

4. Personality is related to the knowledge, experience and thinking quality of the thinker, showing intuitive individual characteristics;

5. Sense of certainty, when the subject draws a conclusion by intuition, the reason is clear and the consciousness is clear, which makes intuition different from impulsive behavior, and the subject has an instinctive belief in the correctness or authenticity of the intuitive result (but this does not mean canceling the necessity of further analysis and processing and experimental verification);

6. Possibility, illogical thinking is inevitable, which may be right or wrong, showing the limitations of intuitive thinking.

Although there are obvious differences between intuitive thinking and analytical thinking, their occurrence and formation are not contradictory. Intuitive thinking is to some extent the condensation or contraction of analytical thinking. On the surface, there is no indirectness in intuitive thinking, but in fact, intuitive thinking is the result of intensified assimilation or knowledge transfer.

It should also be noted that analytical thinking refers to logical thinking in psychology, so intuitive thinking is opposite to analytical thinking, that is, relative to logical thinking. In fact, thinking in images can be divided into routine and directness. When the author describes characters and plots, thinking is a process of gradually analyzing and synthesizing images, which is routine; When the author captures the image in aesthetic observation, it is often direct. Therefore, the analytical thinking we are talking about here refers to the conventional thinking that embodies certain steps or procedures. It can be abstract thinking or image thinking. The object or result of intuitive thinking can be abstract or intuitive. Direct thinking in images, also called "direct thinking" by Qian Xuesen, is a part of image thinking.

The basic content of intuitive thinking

The basic content of intuitive thinking refers to several different forms of expression contained in the process of intuitive thinking. Zhou Yicheng believes that the basic content of intuitive thinking includes three aspects: direct discrimination, intuitive imagination and intuitive inspiration:

Intuitive judgment. This is the rapid recognition, direct understanding and comprehensive judgment of objective things, phenomena, words and symbols and their relationships by the human brain. This ability is what we usually call thinking insight. For example, we think that a sentence is ideologically meaningless. We don't take the grammatical analysis of sentences as the intermediary, but directly perceive and judge. For another example, in class, it is often that the teacher has not finished explaining or the topic has just come out, and the students have understood it, because the conclusion, result or answer has been intuitively judged and displayed. These intuitive judgments are not analytical or step-by-step logical reasoning, but direct judgments and overall grasp of the problem.

(2) Intuitive imagination. Many times, the subject can't make the above intuitive judgment just based on the objects, symbols or situations he faces. The information provided by the outside world is insufficient and there are many blank spots. It is difficult to make a judgment based on these limited information, and a general judgment needs to be formed by imagination and speculation.

This is a change from the perception of objects, symbols and situations to the activation of brain representation and the combination of imagination. In order to establish scientific hypotheses, scientists often need to fill the gaps in reality through fantasy, imagination or conjecture. For example, Newton invented calculus, which once benefited from his intuitive imagination of geometry and motion; However, in the process of establishing special relativity, Ince imagined that people traveled at the speed of light, and in the process of establishing general relativity, he imagined that light would bend through elevators, and so on. So is the intuition of beauty. In aesthetic observation, without perceptual imagination, mountains are mountains and water is water, and beauty can never be found.

(3) intuition. That is, when intuitive judgment and intuitive imagination failed to solve the problem, occasionally at a certain moment, he was inspired by another kind of information other than what he thought, thus solving the problem. This inspiration includes both the information contained in the physical carrier and the information contained in the written carrier. There are many examples of such intuitive inspiration in scientific discoveries and inventions. For example, Lu Ban, a well-known craftsman in ancient China, was inspired by the silk thatch that cut his hand and invented the saw. Newton also found clues to solve the problem of gravity from the fall of apples, and so on. There are also many examples in Chinese learning. For example, when students see the topic of a composition, they are often inspired by a text they have learned and quickly get the general idea of the article; Another example is writing articles such as expressing meaning by things and analogizing things, in which intuitive inspiration is the key link. Intuition is closely related to association and analogy. It is actually looking for similarities between two things.

The three basic forms or types mentioned above are difficult to be completely separated in the actual intuitive thinking process, and they are often combined in a unified thinking process. Among them, the most basic performance is intuitive judgment, and intuitive imagination and intuitive inspiration always appear in the form of judgment.

Intuitive thinking is a psychological phenomenon. It not only plays an extremely important role in the critical stage of creative thinking activities, but also ensures people's life activities and delays aging. Intuitive thinking can be consciously trained and cultivated.

Training and Cultivation of Intuitive Thinking

Relax: gently place the index finger of your right hand on the right side of your nose to create a comfortable feeling of taking a warm bath; Still lying on your back staring at the clear sky; To relax yourself. This is beneficial to the improvement of right brain function.

Memory: Memorizing the beautiful and pleasant scenes in the past as vividly as possible plays a positive role in promoting the function of hippocampus, which is responsible for storing memories in the brain. Training time is 2-3 minutes.

Imagination: imagine the future prospect you want according to your own wishes. Then I vividly imagine the way to success. Do it with your eyes closed at first, and do it with your eyes open after you get used to it. The above three methods should be adhered to once a day for about three months.

Listening to classical music: Listening to Mozart's music and being in direct contact with his feelings will sharpen your intuition. China music, such as Concerto of Butterfly Lovers and Autumn Moon in Pinghu, is most suitable for calming down the grumpy mood as the accompanying sound when thinking about problems.

Use your fingertips: play marbles, etc. , the most need for rapid breaking force, can cultivate "second intuition".

Free association: Imagining white clouds floating in the air as various images can improve the functions of logical thinking in the left brain and memory storage in the hippocampus, thus improving the concentration of thinking.

Hold chopsticks in your left hand: try it for two days first, rest for one day in the middle, continue for another two days, and persist for about a month.

Read in the bookstore: Even if you are busy, you should take time to visit the bookstore. Keep a close eye on the bibliography to infer what is written in the book.

Challenge the seemingly impossible: sometimes, when you are cornered, inspiration will suddenly appear. This is a hopeless situation. Don't be afraid of hard work, but dare to challenge.

Back to childlike innocence: recalling the songs and games played in childhood and vividly describing the scene at that time are helpful to enhance the function of hippocampus, the source of memory.

In ancient China, the focus of health preservation was to rest the mind, which did not mean that the mind was absolutely quiet, otherwise the mind would decline and even lead to Alzheimer's Harmo's disease. Only by using God can your mind be full of vitality.