Thread: Are feelings and intuitions a valid source of knowledge?

Just going to post this table real quick for the sake of making it easier to conceptualize Intuition and Emotions on Conscious vs. Unconscious

A logical left brain without intuition lacks foresight! The deficiency of foresight is why we are in a huge environmental mess. Plastic bottles? Great for business. You think they planned to drown the sea in plastic? No one saw it coming. Our entire culture thinks almost solely with the left brain. Without engaging in that creative right brain - we are deficient in foresight.

Actually, with the logic of the intuition you stated before (which was superb until this moment with foresight), it sort of comes back being contradicting. Intuition itself, in order for it to not have any reaction, or to be void less of emotion, it doesn't necessarily become a catalyst or a fuel for foresight. Foresight is based on what will be or what will be needed for the future, and with need comes the Ego. The voice of ego is something that has a sense of urgency, and with foresight, the ego will have more control over that because of "need."

Intuition is not sustained by need, it is focused on the present. It does not worry about what happened before or what will occur sooner or later in the future. An easy example is just finishing a project without worrying too much on having enough resources or whatever. You just do it, you don't question it, it just happens with little to no cognitive processing.

Now, a lot of people think listening to intuition is dangerous. Its not dangerous, its more dangerous to ignore it. Almost all of formal education is geared for the left. We don't really study emotions in school. And we sure as hell didn't understand our own emotions as students. So I can understand why there's a lot of mistrust when it comes to following intuition. "I followed my heart and now my heart is broken!".

Foresight becomes a need due to a lack of awareness to solve a current situation/problem. It's how the unconscious or just the ego in general would use quantitative measures to make predictions that can justify a solution to some type of lack, be it:

- Do this right now

- You need to do this

- Or anything based on fear if one doesn't achieve something urgently or as soon as possible

Voice of intuition is patient, the ideas come by quick without you being able to process and analyze/justify it. With this, having a "lack" of intuition does not mean you don't have foresight. The ego would be more suited (at least have a larger role) with foresight since it has urgency from the lack that comes with needing something/someone/etc. . Intuition would create models of potentials one can take and much more, and the Ego, based the current situations of the present, it's making a call to action for something more suited to solve the problem as it deems fit

So think of Intuition as a Shotgun and Ego as a sniper rifle. Intuition has the expansive awareness while Ego (or conscious if you want to use that instead) shoots for whatever seems practical for the given situation.

Intuition is just saying, "Just putting these out there for you to play around with, I won't try to persuade you though."

Ego is saying, "Crap, which seat should I take?!?!?!"

The real problem is people are confusing emotions with intuition.


Following intuition = good. Following emotions = bad. Emotions are reactions! Basing an important decision off a fleeting emotion can be really really bad. I mean, tomorrow you might feel completely different!

Not necessarily, especially if you discussed about being self-reflective of your emotions being a good thing. So it's really about how people use Emotions based from reactions and aiming for a balance between Ego and Intuition. Become fixated with intuition, that sees things as simultaneously eventually might make the ego want to start sequencing the thoughts vertically (as in scale of importance).

So it's a matter of having more time seeing things "horizontally," or things of equal value a bit longer to presumably be with one's "intuitive" self.

Unfortunately, people trying to follow their own intuition end up following fleeting temporary emotions. But the more you spend time on self-reflecting your feelings the more you can spot the difference. Intuition is not fleeting.

The idea behind temporarily fleeting emotions is for one to focus on the present without giving much thought, to essentially be an "intuitive being" that's more focused on inspiration rather than what negative emotions can create ( the need to accomplish, achieve, or get something).

When you start becoming "self-reflecting," you are embracing the role of the Ego that aims to justify and quantifies your self of self, a concept of yourself and your identity. It's a matter of being aware (observing without critical thought) to become more shifted into intuition, not self-reflecting, huge difference there. Which is why one of the most practical ways to presumably become more with intuition, meditation (at least mindful meditation) focuses on the present. Which is why the concepts behind it teaches one to not linger on one thought for too long, but instead just observe and become aware of what's happening. It's not lending faith or investment that would entice one to have reactions.

Intuition can be a form of knowledge, but it isn't hesitant to inform us. Emotions is a form of knowledge that informs us in a different way based on urgency, or the reactions that are occurring.

Are they valid? That's based on how the ego tries to justify that (and with mental filters and all, one could be disregarding something that probably would've been beneficial if they had a better accumulation of experiential learning.

• Having a call to action based on positive feelings usually might lead you into better scenarios. (Ego)
  
• Having a call to action based on negative feelings (anxiety, anger, hatred, things that are usually byproducts of Fear that Ego has with "you need to do this now or else!") usually leads one into worse scenarios. (Ego)
  
• Just being aware (not lending too much focus on one thought and having cognitive processes with reasoning) usually leads to something more into intuition.
  
  

That intuitive feeling can be described as "the feeling that you know or understand something prior to putting it in words". This intuitive feeling is never 'anger' 'hatred' or even 'passion'. Its simply that subtle feeling of knowing.

People tend to have a misconception that "I have a feeling" with intuition leads to some conclusive possibility (note with conclusive involves having cognitive processing already accomplished). But you're not going to know before having cognitive processes of reasoning and rationalizing (thinking). Once the processes are run through, that's when one starts thinking and comes to realization of the potential that intuition made us "feel" something is going to happen that led us to go about how to reach the solution. Intuition has alternative possibilities, but not the actual pathway of reasoning for Ego or Conscious to conceptualize why the alternatives are solutions.

So, because intuition is wrapped up in spiritual circles, some people conclude its the folly of religion and anti-logic and anti-science. Its not anti-science because its not anti-logic. Its simply how the right brain packages and delivers information. Lots of scientists follow their intuition when setting up experiments. And because intuition is not the experience of anger or hatred, it has nothing to do with any self-righteous fundie casting judgement on another.

Again, how a scientist "follows" intuition with experiments (which falls into the spectrum of Scientific method that is SEQUENTIAL) is a bit contradicting. Again, the sniper and shotgun analogy I used before can make it easier to conceptualize. When the scientist is going through those experiments, testing out potentials, it's a matter of pick and choose. It takes one sniper shot, reloads (picks another test during the experimentation), finds something that seems a bit more suitable (but may not be more conclusive), and takes another shot at precision until hopefully they can repeat whatever phenomenon the experiment is aiming for (solution).

But even with that, something as sequential as the scientific method for experimentation usually leads to predispositions that are limited (because there's one goal in mind, and trying everything out with the expansive awareness with intuition might just make the process confusing).

Does this mean that intuition is always right? Of course not. However, because the right brain deals with the big picture, when it comes to important decisions, its wisdom is greater than that of the left. Of course an even better brain is one that uses both equally.

Exactly, if one can practice how one learns unconsciously and consciously, both are deadly supplements towards accumulating experiential learning.