THE ANATOMY OF INTUITION

(Daniel Cappon, M.D.)

Intuition - the archetypal jewel in the crown of human intelligence.

The four parts to the intuition phenomenon:

A. The capacity or ability to intuit - an innate component of general intelligence.

B. The accessing variables, which tap and trigger the process. Prime amongst the 'running gear' is for one to be steeped in a field of information - and then to be able to 'de-focus'. Another accessing technique is to be able to ask 'what if?'

C. The process itself, which is entirely silent and unconscious. This can only be inferred through application, and observation of any resulting effects (or by studying the differences between intuitives and those who do not so practice.

D. The sources, or determinants, of any individual's intuitive capacity (genetic inheritance, environmental background, personality, personal experience and expertise).

"Intuitive capacity spans the way you look and see and hear - being perceptive - to understand the meanings of things. The range of expertise runs from the basic level of estimating time passage; to higher levels of cognitive or ideational skills, such as foresight; the highest level reflects ability to divine the meaning of things and to perceive general laws."

Input Skills: (passive)

a) perceptual closure on insufficient time (subliminal effect)

b) perceptual closure on insufficient definition (see through the snow)

c) perceptual recognition (to find that which one is looking for from a mass of data)

d) positive perceptual discrimination (ability to distinguish between things observed)

e) negative perceptual discrimination (ability to recognize what is absent from the field under view)

f) synthesis - or 'Gestalt' insight (putting together the whole from components)

g) time flow estimation (to know where things are at, based on time lapse)

h) 'quick' memory - relative recall ability.

i) passive imagination - ability to generate images at will.

j) psycho-osmosis - ability to recognize material not formerly in awareness (suggestion of species collective memory)

Output Skills: (which must be activated by an outside event)

a) active imagination (a usable 'menu' of experiences from which to draw insight)

b) anticipation, or foresight (the ability to guess (know) what will happen next)

c) optimal timing of intervention (essential skill of survival and success)

d) the hunch - the quantum leap to the solution, which can be subsequently proven via 'connect-the-dots' logic.

e) the ‘choice of best’ method - the above hunch prove-in.

f) the choice of best application of a discovery - the difference between the inventor and the technologist.

g) the hindsight that uses empathy and identification in order to divine the cause of things - this is the ability to put oneself in the place of another or to identify so closely with a person or object of the past as to come to understand its laws of operation (Salk - virus; Einstein - light)

h) associative and disassociate matching, or the synthesis of cognitions - what fits, what doesn't (detective's skill)

i) seeing meanings via symbols (the cross and crown)

"Vision, being the modality of primary, primitive thinking, is at the core of intuition. Vision is the language of sleep, dreams, fantasy and imagination - is culture free, universal and conveyed at light speed. Vision packages more information than all the other senses combined, and dominates the interaction of the other senses, and best forms the playing ground of usable experience."

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