Recently, while watching tv, I turned to Sue and commented on her intuition. In several scenes, we saw a father having conversations with his son. Sue intuited that we were seeing the scene as the father imagined it, and that son must be deceased. She was correct.
Just on the previous evening, I had deduced that the supposedly bad cop wasn't bad after all. Well, I guess he was partly bad, but his better side appeared in the 11th hour, and he saved the day, just as I thought he might.
That was when I turned to Sue and opined that she intuited things while I deduced them. That is not to say, however, that she didn't do any deduction and that I didn't intuit at all, for we are not just one thing or t'other.
I also deduced the final turn in the latest Netflix mystery, Untamed, set in Yosemite Park. It's not that I try to guess outcomes, but sometimes, I just get a feeling, which, I know, does sound intuitive, but I think that I see little hints as well. Sue thinks that I should write mysteries, but really, I can only solve them, and just sometimes.
Intuition or deduction: are you more one way that the other?
I strongly suspect that intuition is really deduction happening at a level below the conscious one. Our brains evolved to pick up on the implications of little clues quickly, without having to slog through every step of a conscious chain of logic. In the old days, the faster you picked up on the fact that a saber-tooth tiger was lurking in the grass or that a visitor from another tribe meant you ill, the better.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, since intuition isn't a conscious deductive process, it can fool you. Intuitively, the Earth seems to be flat. I experience both intuition and deduction, but I tend to be a little suspicious of intuition.
Yeah, I think you are essentially correct. It probably comes down to lateral vs linear thinking
DeleteI think I deal a lot with intuition, which can be considered for me to be a 'gut' feeling. Usually though, it isn't about shows, it is about weather, animals, and all things going on around me.
ReplyDeleteAs Ray Bradbury said “I don't try to describe the future. I try to prevent it.” Endings of TV shows, whatever is right around the corner...it's not always something that we want to know. But I do think our animal nature is helpful in keeping us going, safe, fed, whatever. I pity the arthritic people who always have pain before rain, including myself.
ReplyDeleteI echo Val's comment, I have the same experience.
ReplyDeleteInteresting question. I don't think I'm more one than the other.
ReplyDeleteI do both -- but I'm not sure if my intuition is sometimes cheating! For example, if you watch a mystery and see a "name" in the cast, chances are that person is either going to be the murderer or the victim, probably the former. Intuition but based on aggregating past viewing results.
ReplyDeleteI'm always turning to Farmbeau while watching TV and saying "You could write this stuff!" because he's just correctly predicted what then occurred onscreen. Could it be that so much we see on TV these days is formulaic?
ReplyDeleteNot really answering your question, but all people are intuitive. We have a bad habit of ignoring or discounting our intuitions, often to our own detriment.
I think it's more deduction, but feels like intuition. Agree with #753 up there.
ReplyDeleteI often deduce who dunnit in mysteries; John is amazed by it. I've read and watched many mysteries and have a certain system I follow. I like the description of intuition being deduction below the conscious level. We pick up on cues without even realizing it.
ReplyDeleteGood point
DeleteI hope to be the best parts of both. I hope you and Sue have a beautiful day and week ahead. Thank you friend. Aloha
ReplyDeleteI do both. I can often figure out the murderer, and even who is going to get murdered in a show. I think that's deduction, predicting based on clues. Intuition is a different animal, I think. It's more like sensing something, with no basis in anything tangible. I trust my intuition about people, for example, although often I will give a person a few chances before deciding tgat my initial negative intuition about them was correct. Occasionally they surprise me, but not often.
ReplyDeleteI'm just mixed up and disorganized most of the time when it comes to reading. In real time I have intuition excellent intuition. .
ReplyDeleteI do both but I think mostly intuition.
ReplyDeleteExcellent question . I wonder if there is a gender component here. Or just a perceived one.
ReplyDeleteI think I do a little of both.
ReplyDeleteQuick definition of intuition gives me "the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning." I am not sure that most moments of clarity about plots are really intuited. There are usually all sorts of tiny clues that, for me anyway, run through my mind at top speed and give me an idea about what something is or something is about to happen. I think true intition is something like "I knew the minute I saw him that ..." Mostly said after aforesaid 'him' disrupted the class. Eh?
ReplyDeleteBut if anyone could do it, Sue could.
I haven't finished watching the untamed but it is a good show
ReplyDeleteI think a combination of the two work for me.i enjoyed Untamed. Hope there is season 2.
ReplyDeleteI have read that there will be another season.
DeleteYes, we also watched the same Netflix series, Untamed, and I thought of The Sixth Sense movie. And, yes, I figured out that the young boy had died faster than Patrick did, just like Sue.
ReplyDeleteThere is a time and place for both!
ReplyDeleteShould I deduce that you would recommend Untamed?
ReplyDeleteInteresting question. I think I do both, really. But intuition requires direct contact, for me. I pick up cues from people. But...if I am picking up cues, am I actually deducting?
ReplyDeleteYou have given me a headache.
Insightful. Love your relationship synergy.
ReplyDeleteI'd say intuition and deduction are more on a spectrum than binary. If I had to choose, I'd say I'm more intuitive, but it depends on the context.