:up:

I guess I'm a melioristic-optimist as well, although I didn't know that terms before today.

Intuition is rooted in knowledge. The more you know the better it is. It honestly doesn’t matter what you think about it, doesn’t change what it is. — Darkneos

Intuition is a kind of knowledge. Has anyone really claimed it is more than that? If not, I'll do it now. I see intuition as that sense of the world, the ring of truth, that underpins all knowledge. I've described this before here on the forum. I carry a model of the world around in my head. I visualize it as a cloud lit from within that contains everything I know. Not just things I've learned formally, but anything I've picked up living in the world through observation, imagination, reasoning. Everything is there - electrons, elephants, love, lemmings, tomatoes, tetrahedrons, dogs, diamonds, galaxies, goldfish, integration, ice cream, Occam's razor, the Peter Principle, Murphy's Law... And everything is connected by strings of memory, history, logic, proximity, coincidence, analogy... If I wiggle and idea here, a bell rings somewhere over on the other side.

I remember the specific moment I decided to trust my intuition. I was in college, at the library studying, and some guy came in and dropped his books on the next table over from where I was and dropped into a chair. I glanced over and thought to myself, dumbass. And then I upbraided myself -- Why do you do that? Don't be so quick to judge. Don't jump to conclusions, you don't know that guy. After a while he left and I left shortly after. I was heading for the stairs that were right next to the elevator and he was standing there, repeatedly pushing the down button. We were on the second floor. I decided right then that whatever I had picked up on when I first saw him, I was right. Dumbass. Probably hungover dumbass. I have trusted my intuition ever since. — Srap Tasmaner

And that dumbass turned out to be Osama Bin Laden. True story.

except that isn’t true. Intuition is more akin to thinking than knowledge which is why it’s not reliable if you know nothing.

Plus science has frequently proven human intuition wrong on a number of subjects and stances about the world.

Calling it a ring of truth is just wrong.

Interesting. You may be making less of it than it actually is. I fully agree that intuition is related to knowledge in that one is always intuiting something in some context, and that the more detailed knowledge you have, the more intuitive knowledge becomes possible. But it is the entire nature of intuition that it extends if not transcends the current limits of what can be discursively extracted from the context. The expert diagnosis of a very experienced MD versus an intern for example. — Pantagruel

That’s not what the research shows again. Without any sort of training or knowledge it’s no better than a coin toss.

Calling it a ring of truth is just wrong. — Darkneos

You and I disagree.

That’s not what the research shows again. Without any sort of training or knowledge it’s no better than a coin toss. — Darkneos

I don't think you read my reply. I agreed with you, intuition is integrally related to knowledge. I just don't see it as a trivial occurrence.

It's very much a "You have to have been there." situation, but Meri handled this guy twice her size perfectly. To me then, it was like watching magic. — wonderer1

Excellent example. To me it seems that socialization is the supreme 'art.' The conceptual aspect of philosophical conversation would be only a tiny aspect of this. In you situation, the bodies involved play a huge rule. I think we agree that most of this skill is radically tacit. [ Heidegger (as you may know) is famous for emphasizing the centrality of this circumspective 'autopilot' understanding. 'Logocentrism' is a bit tainted by ambivalence toward Derrida, but before or beyond all of that (and Derrida personally -- though on the whole I like him) the critique of logocentrism seems completely respectable to me. Is there no 'knowledge' in Coltrane's music (or in a great painting or a work of architecture) ? Or (as Whitman might point out, picturing a lean man with sweat on his back) in the confident chopping of firewood ?

I don't think you read my reply. I agreed with you, intuition is integrally related to knowledge. I just don't see it as a trivial occurrence. — Pantagruel

My mistake

Well I’m right and you’re right wrong.

Excellent example. To me it seems that socialization is the supreme 'art.' — plaque flag

For sure. My second wife is a master of sociability. I emulate her as much as possible. It's an art but it can be learned.

For sure. My second wife is a master of sociability. I emulate her as much as possible. It's an art but it can be learned. — Pantagruel

:up:

Well I’m right and you’re right wrong. — Darkneos

Am I right that you're wrong, or wrong that you're right?

To put it bluntly, you’re wrong about intuition.

the 'argument from equals' in the Phaedo — Wayfarer

I've been mulling over your post and I don't have a simple response to it. I might spend some time actually looking at the Phaedo and then start a thread on it. In the meantime, I have some remarks.

1. I think it may not be possible to resolve our differences, because I am not sure they can be expressed cleanly, that there's some proposition or set of propositions you hold true and I false, for instance. Maybe, but I have my doubts.

2. There is a broad sense in which you seem to believe there is a world of concrete particularity, accessible to the senses, and a world of abstract generality, accessible to reason. It looks like there's little room for disagreement; I can't taste or see or touch the relation of equality, only things that are or are not equal.

3. That's not so far from Hume's observation about causality, but he didn't conclude that we can learn through rational insight what we cannot learn by looking; he concluded that the belief in causality is in some sense a fiction, a useful simplification.

4. If Plato's argument is right -- not clear to me yet -- if the concept of equality is unlearnable, then we might also conclude that we have no such concept, rather than concluding it must be innate.

5. "But of course we have the concept of equality!" --- We are adept at doing the things that having a concept of equality was supposed to explain, certainly. But if we cannot have such a concept, then the explanation must change.

6. It seems to us we see the entire environment before us, like a high-definition movie on a screen, our visual field. This is false. There is no such rendering of our environment present anywhere in our brains, and could not be. The truth is that we move our eyes frequently, much more than we are aware of, and we see a section of about a degree or two of our visual field clearly each time; the complete visual field is patched together without our awareness, giving the impression of a seamless whole.

That's an example of how an explanation can change to make something impossible possible.

7. The assumption that we must have the abstract concept of equality to judge whether two sticks are the same length suggests a computational model of the mind, with abstract rules being applied to concrete cases as they come up. I have my doubts.

8. Presumably the argument against materialism will continue before birth: if it's not a concept that could have been learned, it will also turn out to be a concept evolution could not have provided us with.

9. As you see it, Plato provides a dispositive argument that equality cannot be learned, but we have the concept, therefore ... If that argument is watertight, there's no need to consider empirical evidence, which could only mislead us.

10. On the contrary, I'm inclined to look at the research. Mathematical concepts have always been a central focus of developmental psychologists from Piaget on down to today. Parents and teachers spend time teaching children how to count, how to recognize shapes, similarity and difference, and so on, or at least providing them the appropriate setting for learning those concepts.

11. At what age do children actually acquire the concept of equality? What does the proto-concept look like, and how do they use it? Are there differences between cultures?

12. Mostly I think making claims about what can be learned and what cannot without looking at the development of children is worse than a waste of time.


As I said, I may post something about Plato, just because it might be interesting, though, not because it would lead to anything.

But it is the entire nature of intuition that it extends if not transcends the current limits of what can be discursively extracted from the context. — Pantagruel

Not sure about "transcends". I talked about this in @wonderer1's thread, the difference between not reported and not reportable, and the difference between not reportable in principle and not reportable as a practical matter. I get the feeling you're alive to the issues here, hence the careful phrasing.

On the other hand, I'm a little puzzled by the hint that it must be intuition that extends. Is the idea that conscious processes can't extend because whatever hasn't been discursively extracted from a context can't be by conscious analysis? By definition? I almost see an argument there, but it's not clear, and that's probably on me.

The expert diagnosis of a very experienced MD versus an intern for example. — Pantagruel

Isn't there a study from years ago showing that AI is better at reading x-rays than most radiologists?

Herbert Simon concluded decades ago that intuition is kind of a myth, that it's overwhelmingly a matter of experience, and perhaps some habits that make knowledge more accessible. But there's no preternatural insight. Your comparison of the intern to the experienced MD makes sense with that understanding as well, without mythologizing intuition.

Been really enjoying reading your thoughts in this thread.

Isn't there a study from years ago showing that AI is better at reading x-rays than most radiologists? — Srap Tasmaner

Isn't there a study from years ago showing that AI is better at reading x-rays than most radiologists? — Srap Tasmaner

A relevant article.

The scientists used about 112,000 X-rays to train the algorithm.

A big advantage AI has over humans for tasks like this, is the ability to be trained on such a huge dataset without getting bored and quitting.

To put it bluntly, you’re wrong about intuition. — Darkneos

To put it bluntly, of course I'm not. The "evidence" you provided at the beginning of the discussion was based on an incorrect understanding of what intuition is. I, and others on this thread, have demonstrated that your understanding is too limited. There's a name for a logical fallacy when you can't win an argument, you fall back to a more limited position that's easier to defend.

To put it bluntly, of course I'm not. The "evidence" you provided at the beginning of the discussion was based on an incorrect understanding of what intuition is. I, and others on this thread, have demonstrated that your understanding is too limited. There's a name for a logical fallacy when you can't win an argument, you fall back to a more limited position that's easier to defend. — T Clark

It's not a limited understanding, you're just trying to make out to be more than what it actually is and I'm showing you the research doesn't support you.

So in this case you're just wrong. Intuition isn't some special knowledge, it's rooted in what you already know and is prone to bias as well. It's pretty much "thinking super fast" to where you reach the conclusion so quickly that it feels like "knowing" but it really isn't.

Like I said already, it doesn't matter what you THINK it is that doesn't change the reality of what it is. All you and others here have shown is that you REALLY want magic to exist, but humans just aren't special bud.

Well, I'm flattered to have posted something which provoked such a coherent and lucid response.

There is a broad sense in which you seem to believe there is a world of concrete particularity, accessible to the senses, and a world of abstract generality, accessible to reason. — Srap Tasmaner

That is Platonism 101, isn't it? The 'argument from equals' is one among many of the arguments for the Forms. I've never really gotten across all of the material, which is voluminous and subject to millenia of commentary. But I sense a deep issue which I've been exploring throughout my engagement with philosophy forums.

Very briefly I see the whole issue as being bound up with the nature of the reality of intelligible objects -
what kind of existence they have. Consider for example the nature of number and of universals. When I first signed up to forums I had the intuitive view that numbers are real but not material, i.e. they are the same for all, but can only be grasped by a rational mind. * My reasoning was simply that numbers, unlike sense objects, are not composed of parts, and do not come into and go out of existence. It seemed obvious to me that they possessed a kind of higher truth, but I learned that it is mainly rejected nowadays because it is at odds with empiricism - that what is real is grounded in, and must always refer back to, sensory experience. See the essay, What is Math, Smithsonian Institute:

“I believe that the only way to make sense of mathematics is to believe that there are objective mathematical facts, and that they are discovered by mathematicians,” says James Robert Brown, a (Platonist) philosopher of science recently retired from the University of Toronto. ...


Platonism, as mathematician Brian Davies has put it, “has more in common with mystical religions than it does with modern science.” The fear is that if mathematicians give Plato an inch, he’ll take a mile. If the truth of mathematical statements can be confirmed just by thinking about them, then why not ethical problems, or even religious questions? Why bother with empiricism at all?

Speaks volumes, as far as I'm concerned.

This issue goes back to medieval times and the debate between scholastic realism and nominalism. Nominalism won the day, and 'history was written by the victors.' Nowadays our culture is so steeped in nominalism and empiricism that we literally can't understand realism (in the traditional sense. The modern outpost of scholastic realism is of course neo-thomism).

It seems to us we see the entire environment before us, like a high-definition movie on a screen, our visual field. This is false. There is no such rendering of our environment present anywhere in our brains, and could not be. The truth is that we move our eyes frequently, much more than we are aware of, and we see a section of about a degree or two of our visual field clearly each time; the complete visual field is patched together without our awareness, giving the impression of a seamless whole. — Srap Tasmaner

But the impression is the reality! We experience ourselves and the environment as a unified whole - that is almost as undeniable as cogito ergo sum. This a specific subject in philosophy, namely the subjective unity of perception. That was subject to commentary by Kant, but it's also an aspect of the hard problem of consciousness. See Jerome Feldman, The Subjective Unity of Perception.
-----
* I found an excellent early essay, Frege on Knowing the Third Realm, Tyler Burge.

Not sure about "transcends". I talked about this in wonderer1's thread, the difference between not reported and not reportable, and the difference between not reportable in principle and not reportable as a practical matter. I get the feeling you're alive to the issues here, hence the careful phrasing. — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, I said if not transcends meaning as a limitation. That's the funny thing about language. If you're not careful, it can sound like the opposite of what you mean.

I have an further example in mind, but I want to think on it a bit further....

It's not a limited understanding, you're just trying to make out to be more than what it actually is and I'm showing you the research doesn't support you. — Darkneos

The research applies only to the limited meaning you incorrectly applied to it, as we pointed out to you during this discussion.

So in this case you're just wrong. — Darkneos

You can say it over and over again, but that doesn't make it true.

Intuition isn't some special knowledge, it's rooted in what you already know and is prone to bias as well. It's pretty much "thinking super fast" to where you reach the conclusion so quickly that it feels like "knowing" but it really isn't. — Darkneos

This just shows that you ignored everything other people said in this discussion.

Like I said already, it doesn't matter what you THINK it is that doesn't change the reality of what it is. All you and others here have shown is that you REALLY want magic to exist, but humans just aren't special bud. — Darkneos

Do you really think that the only way you can think other than by reasoning is magic? Also, capitalizing letters doesn't make you more correct.

5. "But of course we have the concept of equality!" --- We are adept at doing the things that having a concept of equality was supposed to explain, certainly. But if we cannot have such a concept, then the explanation must change. — Srap Tasmaner

Pattern recognition in neural nets. Pretty simple to explain recognition of equality these days.

Of course Plato wasn't in a position to understand this, and fabricated his ideas without sufficient basis for knowing what he was talking about.

Sometimes philosophy looks a bit like ancestor worship.

The research applies only to the limited meaning you incorrectly applied to it, as we pointed out to you during this discussion. — T Clark

That "limited" meaning is what it actually is. Like I said, it doesn't matter what you think that doesn't make intuition more than what it is.

Is there anything that you are an expert in?

It might be harder to recognize the sense of intuition being discussed here, if one has never developed expertise in something.

Pattern recognition in neural nets. Pretty simple to explain recognition of equality these days.

Of course Plato wasn't in a position to understand this, and fabricated his ideas without sufficient basis for knowing what he was talking about.

Sometimes philosophy looks a bit like ancestor worship. — wonderer1

:100: My sentiments exactly!

Sometimes philosophy looks a bit like ancestor worship. — wonderer1

It is weird how one generation's rebel becomes the stumblingblock conformity of the next. One funeral at the time ! But Hegel is probably right that the errors tend to snowball into something less silly -- for those who can bear to drop the errors and move on, of course.

As a person who learned some angular math, I'd say it's much easier to be a bad philosopher than a mediocre mathematician. Yet I love good philosophers more than good mathematicians. What they are trying to do (some of them) is beautiful and (to me) essentially human.

A big advantage AI has over humans for tasks like this, is the ability to be trained on such a huge dataset without getting bored and quitting. — wonderer1

:up:

I studied neural networks for a little while, and we might also add that human intuition is the raw ingredient (if I'm correct that it was supervised learning based on a dataset of human diagnoses.)

...we might also add that human intuition is the raw ingredient... — plaque flag

I would think human intuition was a huge component of the training ingredients, but I would think there was a fair bit of slow thinking thrown in as well - in reaching a diagnosis to tag each X-ray with. I'd guess that in some cases there was evidence in addition to the X-ray. E.g. biopsy results.

In any case, you bring up a good point - that the training data involves more than just the X-rays.

for those who can bear to drop the errors and move on, of course. — plaque flag

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