Proving intuition ~

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How can you prove intuition?
This is something I’ve been struggling with in the making of my film on intuition.
How do you prove it?

Various people – investors and funders – have said to me: You must have scientists giving their view on how intuition works. 

Fact is, they don’t know. Some have theories, but when pressed, they admit they don’t know. They can’t prove it. Not the intuition I’m exploring.

The definition of intuition that I’m working to is this:

Intuition is a sudden unexplained insight that comes unaided by logic, intellect, or expertise. 

Various scientists, like Professor Daniel Khaneman, a Nobel Prize winner and author of the book Thinking Fast and Slow, and authors such as Gary Klein (The Power of Intuition) and Malcolm Gladwell (Blink) talk about an intuition that sits outside my definition.

They talk about what I call subsumed memory recall – a process of recalling past expertise then using their intellect to come to quick “intuitive” decisions.

That’s not the intuition I’m interested in.

I’m interested in the intuition that speaks to you in a car as you’re approaching an intersection, warning you of impending danger. I’m interested in the intuition that works through coincidence so that you miss the bus that would have taken you to the World Trade Centre on that fateful morning.

I’m interested in the intuition that comes to you in dreams and whispers.

Soon I go back into the editing room, and so I’ve begun rewriting my script. I have, as Jennifer says, been “wrestling with crocodiles” with this film. Finally though, I believe I have the croc all trussed up and on the bank. I feel as though I’ve cracked the film. I understand now what I have to say.

But back to proof.

As part of this writing project, I’ve been reviewing past research materials, and I was led back to a great book by Osho called Intuition – Knowing beyond Logic. It’s a book that I read from time to time because Osho brings it all back to simple wisdom. Here are some excerpts from the book:

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When the body functions spontaneously, that is instinct. When the soul functions spontaneously, that is intuition.

Intuition cannot be explained scientifically because the very phenomenon is unscientific and irrational. In language, it looks okay to ask: Can intuition be explained? But it means: Can intuition be reduced to intellect? Intuition is something beyond our intellect, something not of the intellect, something coming from some place where intellect is totally unaware. So the intellect can feel it, but cannot explain it. 

If you feel that what cannot be explained by the intellect does not exist, then you are a non-believer, and you will continue in this lower existence of the intellect and be tethered to it. Then you disallow mystery, and so you disallow intuition to speak to you.

This is what a rationalist is. The rationalist will not even see that something from the beyond has come. If you are rationally trained, you will not allow the higher; you will deny it, and you will say: It cannot be. It must be my imagination. It must be my dream. Unless I can prove it rationally, I will not accept it. A rational mind becomes closed, closed within the boundaries of reasoning, and intuition cannot penetrate. 

Intuition is a leap from nothing to being. That’s why reason denies it, because reason is incapable of encountering it. Reason can only encounter phenomena that can be divided into cause and effect.

According to reason, there are two realms of existence: the known, and the unknown. And the unknown is that which is not yet known but will someday be known. Mysticism says there are three realms: the known, the unknown, and the unknowable. By the unknowable, the mystic means that which can never be known.

Intellect is involved with the known and the unknown, but not with the unknowable. Intuition works with the unknowable – that which cannot be known. Reason is an effort to know the unknown. Intuition is the happening of the unknowable. To penetrate the unknowable is possible, but to explain it is not. 

Screenshot 2016-07-27 11.17.56

12 thoughts on “Proving intuition ~”

  1. WOW–I just posted a whole long paragraph about my KNOWING intuition but it evaporated so to recap: I started taking photos in 2008 using my intuition and that has made all the difference in the world. I don’t pay attention to what I think would “Look Good,” or a myriad of other thoughts that can float in our brains. I shoot what speaks to my soul. Before being tuned in I would have thought, “Oh, that would be a great shot.” and just continue to walk by and then regret that I hadn’t taken the shot. Now when something speaks to my soul–I LISTEN! That’s intuition.

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  2. I still disagree with you Bill about some of these fundamentals, but what the hey — Monaco’s first match against Fenerbahçe in the current Champions League attempt is tonight !!

    Just wanted to get that off my chest before conceiving something more lengthy for your spambot … 😀

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    • Haha – nice to hear from you Julian. You and I will never agree on this stuff. I still though always respect your views, as you know. I now have Bein Cable on my tv service so I’ll see if the Monaco match is on – they have a dedicated football channel. I notice too that you’ve left a long piece on my other post – I’ll respond to that tomorrow. Many thanks, and hope you’re well, bill

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      • Bill, hope you and Jennifer are well !!

        There’s some mic-mac with the broadcast from Turkey, think Fenerbahçe are trying to be too greedy with the rights or possibly there’s some political reticence about sending cash to benefit Erdogan ?

        Anyway, the return match is next week if you can’t catch this one.

        hmmmm, maybe I need to watch a Swannies match some day ? LOL

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        • Julian, just go to YouTube and search Sydney Swans, Grand Final. You’ll see a match. It’s pretty wild! Haha. I looked for the Monaco match on Bein today but couldn’t find it. Hopefully next week!

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          • The Turkish broadcaster was simply too greedy, so you could only watch it on a dodgy Turkish-language stream.

            Monaco lost 2-1, Falcao scored, one goal disallowed for an offside I don’t believe was real, and we need a 1-0 or 3-1 or better win to stay in the Champions League …

            It’s about 50-50, and then we’d need to beat one of the European heavies to qualify for the group stage and the CL proper …

            Bein France does have the rights for the next one.

            ——

            Whichever team in the iconic red & white is the one to follow anyway 🙂

            Aussie rules not my style, but I can see why you like it — watching Swannies so far thrashing Hawthorne couple of months ago, at close to half time.

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  3. The definition of intuition that I’m working to is this:

    Intuition is a sudden unexplained insight that comes unaided by logic, intellect, or expertise.

    I agree most emphatically with your suggestion that multiple definitions of Intuition exist — but I’d personally see these as constituting multiple insights into the Nature of it rather than being limitative in the way that “this” might be Intuition, but not “that”.

    I certainly would not seek to exclude unlooked-for insights for my soul from the somatic structures of my nervous system, or from the autonomic functions of a pure intellect as being foreign to the intuitive as such.

    I still feel that the Intuition is more a matter of Locus than Form — Intuition occurs when our soul is unexpectedly touched by a previously invisible and unlooked-for truth.

    There is no possible failure of intercompatibility in such a view, because the intellect and our rationality are informed by the intuitive rather than being somehow dichotomous against it.

    Intuition is the entry into our soul of spiritual truths that our minds can choose to accept, contemplate, ponder, be surprised with, put on a back burner, discuss with a priest, a spouse, a friend, a pilgrim, or whomever or whatever we need, including even reject, or forget, or deny, or ridicule, or joke about …

    When the body functions spontaneously, that is instinct. When the soul functions spontaneously, that is intuition.

    And so no, I disagree with both parts of this statement.

    There is no reason whatsoever whereby Intuition could not express itself as a bodily reaction. Indeed, the very notion that physical reality and the Intuition might somehow be different in Nature is absurd — you CANNOT suddenly brake to save your life due to an intuition if Intuition were somehow divorced from the Flesh.

    Quite apart from the whole “muscle memory” thing …

    As for the second part, I disagree with it less, but the soul is not the only source of Intuition, but I would see it as the place where Intuition usually occurs, whether it comes from our minds or brains or bodies, or from a Higher Source.

    Of course, that means I agree fundamentally with this (except the “totally unaware” thing — no, our intellects are informed constantly by the spirituality and by God) : — Intuition cannot be explained scientifically because the very phenomenon is unscientific and irrational. In language, it looks okay to ask: Can intuition be explained? But it means: Can intuition be reduced to intellect? Intuition is something beyond our intellect, something not of the intellect, something coming from some place where intellect is totally unaware. So the intellect can feel it, but cannot explain it.

    —

    This is completely false : “If you feel that what cannot be explained by the intellect does not exist, then you are a non-believer, and you will continue in this lower existence of the intellect and be tethered to it. Then you disallow mystery, and so you disallow intuition to speak to you.”

    Quite apart from this being a good pocket definition of the Gnostic and neo-Gnostic Heresies, Intuition is NOT in fact limited in its action to a certain category of “special” people somehow “in tune” with certain sources of “understanding” denied to hoi polloi.

    Not everyone may realise when they act from Intuition instead of intellect, but Intuition is either universal for all of Mankind or it doesn’t exist — there is no third option.

    It is anyway utterly absurd to suppose that Intuition (God) might go off to sulk in a corner just because someone is a “non-believer” or has some manner of silly “lower existence of the intellect”.

    We are all God’s Creatures, not “higher” or “lower” intellects — each individual Soul is equally beloved of the Lord.

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