Flashes of Intuition

ELH, 2021

The Intuitive Formation of Meaning. Ed. Sven Sandström. KVHAA Conference 48, 2000

The word intuition has a certain glow to it, something luring and secretive, as if just taking it in one’s mouth would suffice to undergo it. Most people would like to be intuitive if the word is taken in the sense of being in the position to gain knowledge in a direct and immediate way. Calling a person intuitive suggests that he or she has a capacity to see things that are not apparent and to look right into the heart of matters. It reminds of having insight in the etymological sense of the word. The article discusses the role of intuition for insight. Creativity provides heuristic solutions to problems that are intractable if approached in standard, algorithmic ways. Intuition is claimed to occur during the incubation phase (Wallas 1926) and to crucially depend on embodied memory and unconscious processing of memories, such as reconstruction and recreation. Two suggestions as to how memory contributes to intuition, and by which processes are analysed and compared: Barsalou & Prinz’ (1997) and Langley & Jones’ (1988). It is argued that context-independent knowledge and contextual information, embodiment, and personal investment are equally important for intuition and creativity. Then, two theories about the processes that occur during incubation are discussed. Both suppose that intuition depends on memory and that it is not a conscious process. The first one concerns operations on mental images, the second describes how insight results from indexing and retrieval. Both processes are argued to be essential for insight. This means that reconstruction and recreation of memories play an important role to intuition, both during incubation and in recall.

Brand Age, 2024

With so many impressions continuously swirling around us, getting inspired seems to be based on intuition, more than on gathered facts. Intuition sparks revelations, inspirations, and, insights. Intuition eliminates and rejects previous assumptions, but how does intuition emerge, and what causes it to replace previous presumptions? Awakening intuition depends on our ability to dismiss preconceptions. We are making presumptions about virtually everything that comes to mind. We know what is expected, and we know how to evaluate incoming options. Our pre-judgment is based on the indoctrinated standards. We are reacting to what is currently accepted and liked. Our prejudgment is based on what generally marks the parameter of values and aesthetics. By conceding to the norm, we are supporting the existing mandates and are concurrently suppressing the search for what may exist beyond the boundaries. Yes, our perception is being manipulated. This puts us in a precarious situation. When completing a task as it was expected from us, without following up on the unanswered questions, does it mean that we are missing out on potentially better alternatives? To my mind, it does. By irrevocably accepting an answer to what has been initially agreed upon as finite, we are depriving ourselves of an opportunity to arrive at better solutions. However, if we are prepared to temporarily cast aside what has been accepted, and continue to explore alternatives we will encounter resistance from various sides. But we may also encounter some support from those who felt to have been disadvantaged by what has been agreed upon to in the first place. By continuing to amass the energy to search our minds for alternatives, we will eventually come across insights that could become viable alternative solutions. That is the thinking that scientists are applying to find answers to open-ended questions. Such mental processes can be applied to virtually any subject matter. Finding yourself on the winning side of a questionable proposition. While probing for alternative solutions new correlations will emerge. Along the way, we are likely to encounter various indicators of resources as well as devices that are not directly related to what we were looking for, but could nevertheless be useful in the future. Being proactively engaged in exploring the untired, will mark a person as a hopeless dreamer, unless of course, the search reveals a viable alternative. Then the maverick who had that intuition will be revered. Becoming a resourceful inquisitor and the first one to be enlightened by a new insight means being on the winning side of a questionable proposition. Entering the unknown in search of novelties. Venturing into the unknown is not an intellectual gift, found only in people with a high IQ. The unknown can be found in your frontal lobe. Intuitive thinking can happen anywhere under any circumstances. You just have to set your mind free from preconceptions. Everybody talks about thinking outside the box but no one can tell you what "outside the box" looks like. Inside the box, it is a warm and fuzzy feeling that every one of us is familiar with. In searching for alternative answers, we usually move in a narrow spectrum defined by; cultural, ethical, religious, and educational parameters. We presume that we know what to expect, and that is how we evaluate the outcomes.

InterSedes, 2021

1989

Gestalt review, 2011

Examining the moments when Virginia Woolf lays bare her method of writing, this paper treats her fiction primarily as an example for criticism. On numerous occasions in letters and diary entries, Woolf describes the role of intuition as an inspiring force behind her writing, which enables her to write, as it were, from a different part of consciousness. The charge is that this interior vision is both more direct and less teleological: resolution is unknown until the text is completed. Woolf’s method is compared to Henri Bergson’s assertion that intuition is a process. As the initial vision rises to the surface of cognition, it assumes a more definite shape which is nonetheless at the expense of full meaning. The paper has a tripartite structure: first, an explanatory analysis of Bergson’s exposition of intuition as method; second, a consideration of this in regard to the aesthetics of Roger Fry and the writing of Woolf; and third, the paper takes flight to offer a re-reading of Vanessa Bell’s Studland Beach (1912).

2008

2012