Originally Posted by Dianeva
Okay, so look at it this way: you're using your sense of reason (along with your desire to be happy) to conclude you shouldn't over-analyze things. You're reasoning out that since you want to be happy, and you've realized that over-thinking things makes you unhappy, you should stop over-thinking things so much. If you weren't 'over-thinking' at all then you wouldn't have even come to this realization.
...As others have said, reason and intuition aren't contradictory at all. Many people don't seem to realize that emotion and other forms of desire are at the core of everything we do. If we didn't have those things, we'd have no reason to act at all. We'd have no reason to think rationally to decide which actions to perform. Intuition works for some obvious things.
That's because you're using a behaviorist argument that emotions and other forms of desire are the core of how we produce meaning in our existence, and using that as the only means of existential reasoning, especially with terms like self-actualization and such is just having narrow-scoped thinking behind what would fuel sentient beings such as us to use sapience to make judgment and analysis of the stimuli that occurs (external and internal). Behaviors, emotions, and desire definitely are a part of the core, but not all of it. Especially since desire automatically implies the word “want,” it becomes a question between wants vs. needs.
Originally Posted by Dianeva
We don't think logically about how we're going to put the next foot down while walking, yet our intuition takes control, and that works out because our bodies are good at getting around without conscious thought.
Intuition is simply us being able to understand something immediately without having to go through a cognitive processing consciously. That is completely different from “unconscious processes” as a whole that occur with involuntary movements and/or things we don't have to take control of consciously. We don't necessarily have to have competence or awareness in understanding certain unconscious processes (biological, psychologically, etc.), which would be conscious competence of unconscious competence, so the terminology you're using here is inconsistent.
At best, you're referring to unconscious competence, intuition is just a part of that, but not the other way around.
Unless you had a hidden premise to this, they're unconscious processes, not intuition. Intuition obviously would be brought about based on experiential totality and pre-existent concepts, beliefs, etc. that the unconscious mind stores, but intuition is just a part of that, not the whole mode of how the brain operates both consciously and unconsciously.
Originally Posted by Dianeva
Even for bigger things, you may feel that something is 'wrong' yet you aren't sure what it is exactly, and so you act on that. In some cases, that may work. You may have subconsciously recognized that something was wrong, and the best thing to do would be to act on it, even if you aren't consciously sure why. But for larger-scale things, the problem arises when people think they're experiencing 'intuition' or a 'gut feeling' or whatever, while really they aren't. Like if you have a feeling that you'll win the lottery, that is probably bullshit.
That's a question on internal and external locus of control, and for larger-scale events, that may be the individual engaging in apophenia and trying to gather meaning from things conjured up from their mind that may not necessarily have any meaning or usefulness with “gut feeling” or “intuition.”
Originally Posted by Dianeva
A good way to distinguish real and fake intuition might be to use reason. To ask yourself whether there's any way you could know this, even subconsciously. Like if you have a feeling your marriage proposal will be turned down, that might actually be because you've known the person for a long time and know 'on some level' that they don't want to marry you. But if you have a feeling you'll die in a plane crash during your trip next month... how could you possibly know that? That kind of intuition is false, more just your mind playing tricks on you.
Pay attention to what intuition is defined as, it's something that comes immediately without the person going through a conscious cognitive processing of it (i.e. using reason). Again, unless you have certain criterion of what is true intuition and “fake” intuition, it's just unintelligible equivocation on your end.
And one of many reason the person may have a feeling they would die in a plane crash is because of the predispositions that have been formed and molded from all sorts of things (i.e. terrorist attacks with aerial vehicles or just a phobia for heights or aerial vehicles). Your deduction that it's the mind is playing tricks on you is what people using common sense argument conclude into with how the Ego and other aspects of the mind works.
The whole “Trickster mind” presumptions usually comes about when a person over-analyzes and realizes that they don't have enough competence to solve the dilemma of understanding themselves as a whole. This is why most will subscribe to intellectual quietude, it doesn't necessarily mean avoiding the confusion is a bad thing, it's just something that may be brought up again when the individual feels they can progressively improve from what they ended before.
Originally Posted by Dianeva
I think that reason should definitely be used, we should think deeply when necessary to help us make decisions. Deciding to try to be simple-minded isn't the solution to the misery which can result from over-analyzing things. If we feel the need to think deeply about something in the first place, then chances are there's some problem which we're trying desperately to solve, but haven't been able to yet. Ceasing to think deeply and essentially ignoring the problem can't possibly solve the issue, unless you were just exaggerating the problem's importance, or getting so overwhelmed with the details you weren't able to see a simple solution, or something. But those are problems with the way you're thinking, flaws in your sense of reason, not problems that result from how much you think.
Although you have some valid points, there is a certain point where an individual will subscribe to quietude to avoid the confusion that comes with over-analyzing things like I've stated above.
Originally Posted by Dianeva
People who don't think a lot are lucky in a way, I guess, since they wouldn't have as many problems. But people who think about less are likely also more stupid, less concerned with figuring out the truth. And I'd never want to be like that as I value truth over happiness, for some reason I've tried to figure out for years and am still not sure about.
People who are mostly complacent and avoid thinking a lot doesn't mean they won't have as many problems as people who are more intellectual, rational, and may over-think things. There's a difference between being intelligent enough to see your own shortcomings, faults, weaknesses, and problems vs. being less intelligible and not being able to become aware of them. An idiot can still have as many problems as an intelligent person, it's just that they're not aware of them, and with how the mind goes through creating coping mechanisms and uses all sorts of processes for the sake of survival, balance, and consistency, an incompetent person would be going through more problems of massaging their egos and avoiding the awareness of actual problems they have, which would just be blissful ignorance, and that's an example of a huge problem.
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As for OP's question, being rational and intuitive honestly go in tandem with each other, and obviously most people's responses end up with achieving balance. Going towards one extreme instead of mixing around with both as much as you can would create the same problems one may deduce would happen if they were more “intuitive” or more “rational.”
Being intuitive doesn't necessarily mean being complacent all the time and being prone to doing “stupid” or "irrational” things, it's just one of the many modes of thinking we use to contribute towards solving or coming up with ways to justify a problem. Being more intuitive means you're temporarily becoming more receptive towards unconscious (or sub-conscious thoughts for the New-Age hipsters) thoughts, and depending on your proficiency, that can help with solving many problems that would be hard to deduce from only through conscious means and rationalization.
However, even with that, like I mentioned before, people become too intuitive that they become complacent to eventually shift towards being rational or conscious thinking to make decisions when they must be made. That's what would make people have regrets because they were too busy looking for answers through intuitive means and avoiding using experimentation and progressive improvement with hindsight and retrospect (two of many forms of rationalization). And when a person focuses more on using unconscious thoughts/suggestions/ideas/etc. as a precedent towards better rationalization, sometimes answers may not show up, and that's when the irritant quality of the Ego comes in.
That's when the individual shifts towards quietude to avoid the confusion and tedious endeavor of being too intuitive and making rational decisions from that. But with being rational means making certain decisions and forms of thinking that would be suitable based on the situation that comes before them. However, if one gravitates towards the extreme of only using rationalizing (as in not being more intuitive through being receptive to unconscious thoughts as ways to solve problems), that can make one come up with deductions that they would regret and think are stupid.
They're both needed, and although intuition may not be considered as a valid source compared to how one would make deductions on rationality, being more rational can be just as invalid or of less credibility if taken to the extreme to block open-mode of thinking. It's more of knowing how long and how quickly one can gather information from being more intuitive to make better deductions and rationalizing ways to solve or justify certain phenomenon and situations.
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