We call it by various names. Some say it is our “sixth sense.” Others say it is the communications-like extra-sensory perception that we just haven’t yet discovered, but sometimes use when we have heightened senses. Others call it “the wisdom of the ages.” Some say it is our “instincts.” Many will say it is “following your gut.” Some say it is listening to “the voice of god that always speaks to humans.” Some will say it is becoming “at one with the divine.” Some will say it is “premonitions”. Many will say that it is their most valuable asset. The most charismatic people in our world seem to follow their instincts more than any reasoned course of action or philosophy. They may later be able to give voice to the reason for their actions, but at the moment those actions occur, they seem to be almost instantaneous decisions. What is this marvelous gift that some humans seem to have in abundance? The rest of us just seem to be plodding through life, while these intuitive individuals have the immediate right answers to any puzzle.
That’s not so easy to answer. We will grant that all of the above interpretations of intuition seem to have some logical or emotional basis that makes sense. Poetically, all may be correct. It would be nice, however, to have some understanding of this marvelous phenomenon other than poetry. We don’t think it really relates to some sort of radio wave that has not yet been discovered. We don’t think it relates to some intelligence in our intestines that tells us what to do. We don’t really think it is a collection of learned responses that guides us when rational thinking fails us. We don’t think it is a message coming through the ether from the supreme commander. We don’t think it is getting in tune with the music of the spheres. We don’t think it relates to particle physics, each particle knowing what the other particle is doing no matter where they are in space and time (although, who can tell). We don’t think it relates to some extra dimension sense we haven’ t figured out yet. Our best guess is that intuitive insight relates to keen observation and a language gap. Yeah, you’re right. That is going to require some explanation.
There are some of us humans that seem much more astute at gauging other humans than the rest of us. They become political leaders and corporate CEO’s. They can walk into a room and immediately assess every other person in that room. They seem to have a combination of immediate recall as well as immediate perception, so that they can immediately go around the room knowing the right thing to say to every person there. These special people know how to pull the strings that make everyone else move. They know what to say to bring emotional responses. We see frequent pretenders: those salesmen who keep lists of wives names, secretaries names, children’s names, books most recently read, so that they can get an inside track. They look at their little black book before hitting every office. We do not disparage those salesmen. They are doing the best that they can, and are at least trying to be mindful of everyone else’s needs. The rest of us are too complacent to make all that effort. We trundle through life trying to remember names and circumstances, and are constantly embarrassed that we can’t remember important things about those others we have known more intimately at some time. The fascinating thing is that there are some people in this world for whom this immediate accurate assessment of all those around them seems almost effortless.
We see this trait most particularly in those humans who are charismatic. Charisma exists in all grades. In a lesser sense, we each have known certain individuals in our lives that we could never quite get enough of at any time. In a major sense, we also know that there were outstanding individuals in history that have been exceedingly charismatic. It didn’t matter whether they used their charisma for good or evil purpose. They had the goods. Koresh, Jones, King, Ghandi, Mohammed, Jesus all had what it took. They could walk into any crowd and immediately take assessment of everyone there. What did they have? Keen observation, my friend. There are thousands of signs we give as to where we are in life, what it important to us, where we are headed, what makes us sad, what makes us happy. We do so by facial expression of eyes, lips, nose, forehead, tilt, reaction, eyebrows, attention, pose, carriage, movement, attention, speech cadence, sentence structure, words chosen, pauses, reactions, clothes worn, position of feet and elbows, movement of fingers, motion of arms, posture and a host of other nuances that the charismatic person immediately detects and reacts to in a way that will allow them to gain your confidence. They “intuitively” know what will push our buttons. There are those who are super good at figuring out what is going on with everyone else around them and the rest of the inanimate world. They do it in a flash.
The rest of us may not be charismatic leaders, but we are not dummies either. We make our own rapid read of everything else around us, whatever the situation that arises, and usually do so rapidly. We all have our own intuition. We look at all the signs that all other life and objects around us give, make our immediate assessment, and then react to it. We call this total observation, reassemblage, weighting, and rapid choice of reaction from those available options “intuition.” We call it intuition because it happens so rapidly we can’t give it voice or words. We don’t give our senses and brains enough credit. They are constantly reacting to all the external stimuli that exist around us in order to keep us alive. If there were not almost immediate reactions to external stimuli, we would not survive very long.
Which brings us to the second point to be made. Our brains and senses react much faster than our words can express. “Let me see if I can put this into words.” “It’s hard to know how to say this.” “I can’t find the word I want.” I am dumbfounded.” I wish I knew how to tell you.” “Words cannot express how I feel.” “The words I want escape me.” “I can’t tell you how beautiful it was.” “Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah.” We have to understand that human language is a remarkable development that has not been with us more than a moment in the lapse of time since the creation of our universe. Written language has not been with us for more than 5500 years. Our language has been responsible for an explosion of knowledge and an explosion of the human population. It is, however, still trying to catch up to ways of expressing everything that we see, feel hear, touch, taste, sense, move, and assess in our brains. Our brains reassemble every sensory input immediately. Our language struggles to express what is going on in our brains. Since it is so hard for us to express in some laborious structural language way what our reactions are to our environments, we call that immediate sense of what is right or wrong to do in any situation, intuition.
We pose the suggestion that intuition is the normal reaction that all of us have to any given situation, using all sensory information that we have available at that moment in time, and that some individuals, as is true in any bell shaped curve, have the ability to read their immediate environment more rapidly and more astutely than others. They are more “intuitive.” There are those individuals that have such heightened awareness of all signals coming to them from all other sources that they are charismatic. It is difficult for us to express everything that our remarkable brains are processing in the flash of an instant. Our language tails far behind the capability of our on board super computers. The result is that we try to find words that express the ability of our brains to assess everything around us in a moment. We call this assessment “intuition.” Intuition is not the beam from some super god telling us what to do. It is us, telling us what to do.
The only God that matters is far removed from our intuition. This God selects those organisms that are more adaptive and intuitive for survival, and kills off all the rest. This God doesn’t care. This God has no program other than natural selection.