Trust those 'Aha' moments.

[Sriram]

Hi everyone,

Here is a Science Daily article about trusting your sudden insight rather than the methodical analysis.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/03/160307144013.htm

*****************

When a solution to a problem seems to have come to you out of thin air, it turns out you've more than likely been struck with the right idea, according to a new study.

A series of experiments conducted by a team of researchers determined that a person's sudden insights are often more accurate at solving problems than thinking them through analytically.

 "However, insight is unconscious and automatic -- it can't be rushed. When the process runs to completion in its own time and all the dots are connected unconsciously, the solution pops into awareness as an Aha! moment. This means that when a really creative, breakthrough idea is needed, it's often best to wait for the insight rather than settling for an idea that resulted from analytical thinking."

Analytical thinking is best used for problems in which known strategies have been laid out for solutions, such as arithmetic, Kounios said. But for new problems without a set path for finding a solution, insight is often best. The new study shows that more weight should be placed on these sudden thoughts.

"This means that in all kinds of personal and professional situations, when a person has a genuine, sudden insight, then the idea has to be taken seriously," Kounios said. "It may not always be correct, but it can have a higher probability of being right than an idea that is methodically worked out."

******************

Cheers.

Sriram

[Rhiannon]

I had one of these the other day. I got a flash of insight that there is no God and the solution to all my problems are to be found in a sea of Merlot and islands of Green and Blacks.

So far it's working well I must say.

Ps you might want to bear in mind that your audience consists largely of British adults familiar with Steve Coogan characters when choosing your thread titles.

[SweetPea]

Hi, Sriram

Yes, I'd agree with Mr Kounios, insights should be taken seriously. This is because they are often the intuition speaking.

There was a programme on TV on this a couple (?) of years ago and the presenter came to the same conclusion. It's so easy to doubt ourselves and our intuition, at times, and this can even cause us to make mistakes.

[Shaker]

Someone once asked Carl Sagan what he thought about going with his gut feelings about things.

"I prefer to think with my brain," he replied.

[Nearly Sane]

How can we tell the insights/intuitions are correct?do we judge it by intuition?

[Nearly Sane]

I have two friends, one is intuitively going to vote Out in the EU referendum, one intuitively In. So they are both right?

[Rhiannon]

If I'm honest if if trusted just to my 'gut instinct' when my kids were small I'd never have left the bloody house.

[SweetPea]

How can we tell the insights/intuitions are correct?do we judge it by intuition?

Good question. I just know (for me) looking back, there are times when I wished I'd listened to my intuition.

[Nearly Sane]

Most decisions we make are 'right' without a commonly accepted method to judge what is right. Sometimes we make correct guesses with no real basis, sometimes they are educated. Sometimes we are making connections that could be the subconscious or Kevin the Mystic Pixie throwing the answer into our brain by magic darts, as in the structure of benzene, for example. But we judge the 'correctness' rationally, measurably.

That we may not consciously be able to explain our ratiocination does not mean that it isn't ratiocination.

[Nearly Sane]

Good question. I just know (for me) looking back, there are times when I wished I'd listened to my intuition.

And any times when you would have wished that you hadn't trusted to it?

[SweetPea]

Maybe, some, yes. But is that only because I didn't like the outcome at the time? Sorry, I can't remember, at the moment.

Brings to mind the film 'Sliding Doors'. Did anyone see that? The old thing, if we make one decision we go one way.... make another, and everything changes. 

[Nearly Sane]

Maybe, some, yes. But is that only because I didn't like the outcome at the time? Sorry, I can't remember, at the moment.

Brings to mind the film 'Sliding Doors'. Did anyone see that? The old thing, if we make one decision we go one way.... make another, and everything changes.

And indeed, how do we classify what is instinct or a very strong feeling which is backed up rationally, or post rationally. We know we estimate probability badly.

[Gonnagle]

Dear Sane,

Evolution, this gut instinct stuff is much more than just fight or flight, we have spent hundreds of thousands of years fine tuning these gut instincts, billions of little neurons in the brain firing away, we have only touched on what that lump between our ears is capable of.

Anyway, it is to early and I must be up and off out into the real world, someone has to, WHY ME!!

Gonnagle.

[Nearly Sane]

Dear Sane,

Evolution, this gut instinct stuff is much more than just fight or flight, we have spent hundreds of thousands of years fine tuning these gut instincts, billions of little neurons in the brain firing away, we have only touched on what that lump between our ears is capable of.

Anyway, it is to early and I must be up and off out into the real world, someone has to, WHY ME!!

Gonnagle.

And that gut instinct is frequently wrong. I'm not here disagreeing with the idea in the O, just suggesting that things are more complex than this.

[torridon]

Analytical thinking is best used for problems in which known strategies have been laid out for solutions, such as arithmetic, Kounios said. But for new problems without a set path for finding a solution, insight is often best. The new study shows that more weight should be placed on these sudden thoughts.

If there is no trusted methodology for deriving a solution, then we use instinct, so much is uncontroversial I would have thought. Conscious mind aids in certain types of decision making situations but certainly not all.  If you are running to return a serve you don't stop and start solving differential equations consciously to calculate motor responses. When we fall in love, it is not on the basis of higher cognitive deliberations, it comes straight from the heart, so to speak. Conscious mind is highly specialised but its focus has to be narrow, humans can only hold perhaps four variables in conscious working memory at once, five or more and we are stuffed; so for complex multivariable decisions like buying a house or falling in love, we tend to trust gut feelings, its too much for conscious mind to deal with.

[Bubbles]

Sometimes it's not about having lots of things going on in your brain, but about noticing something and being able to find a way to resolve it, rather than just accepting what is.

In my link on the bottom of the page there is a chart of examples, and lots fall into the noticing something category, that they then went on to resolve.

The aha moment can be incredibly simple, like making cups for babies that don't spill.

http://www.inc.com/larry-kim/15-incredible-aha-moments-from-famous-founders.html

[floo]

I have had several 'Aha' moments lately. We have been moving several items of furniture etc around the house, and the places I thought they would look good, appear to have worked.

[wigginhall]

I was thinking about some of the Aha moments I had, when I was young, which turned into disastrous decisions.  You name it, I cocked it up - in relationships, property buying, employment.

It didn't make me reject intuition, but I have a healthy skepticism towards it now, and tend to think hard about Aha moments, and also sleep on them, speaking of which,  those blonde girls at university, damn it, what's wrong with a few mistakes like that?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

Here is a Science Daily article about trusting your sudden insight rather than the methodical analysis.

Wrong. Intuition is just intuition – we cannot know whether it’s solved a problem until we test it, which is methodological analysis.

[Brownie]

I agree with you bluehillside.  What intuition does is make us stop and think and that is good because sometimes our instincts are right.

[wigginhall]

One of the issues here is being impulsive.  As I said above, when I was young, I would get an intuition, and act on it.   Oops, this often led to disasters.   OK, as I got older, I learned not to be impulsive, but to think about these intuitions, and apply a little skepticism.   A great improvement.   Yeah, I really liked that blond bar-maid in the pub last night, but maybe it's not yet the time to get married.

[Nearly Sane]

One of the issues here is being impulsive.  As I said above, when I was young, I would get an intuition, and act on it.   Oops, this often led to disasters.   OK, as I got older, I learned not to be impulsive, but to think about these intuitions, and apply a little skepticism.   A great improvement.   Yeah, I really liked that blond bar-maid in the pub last night, but maybe it's not yet the time to get married.

But she is gloriously embonpoint, and her poitrine is joyous

[wigginhall]

But she is gloriously embonpoint, and her poitrine is joyous

Damn, you are right.  What else matters?  (So thought my 19 year old self). 

[Nearly Sane]

Some years ago, a friend of mine literally bumped into some people late at night. He was in his way home to his partner after a Christmas night out. One of them walked back and punched him, as a gut instinct thing to do to impress his girlfriend. The bloke was 6', my friend 5'2'. My friend died from that punch. Yeah instinct is fucking great.

[wigginhall]

Yes, in spades.  A friend of mine is a Kleinian therapist, and one of her big things is the importance of thinking, in containing feeling and intuition, and that many people don't know how to think about their own feelings.   Basically, without thinking and skepticism, we are lost, as NS's post shows.