Tok Work

When the issues as mentioned above are put into light, it really can be made evident that the source of knowledge behind every discovery or invention has to be an intuitive thought or feeling. From the model of an atom to gravity, whether one agrees or not, it has its source in intuitive revelations.

An overt dependence on intuition as that expressed by some philosophers may not be in line with the concept of scientific investigation in the area of knowledge pertaining to the natural sciences as a truly rational activity. Nevertheless, it is an approach adopted by many research scientists.

A knowledge claim imagined to be based on emotion; intuition and vested interests may sometimes influence the course of science as much as logic and experimentation. Prior to the advent of radioactive dating techniques, there was a fierce debate amongst the geologists, biologists and the physicists regarding the age of the earth. Two earlier estimates regarding the age of the earth as just several million years were toppled when the descriptive sciences of biology and geology were compelled to defer to the more exact science of physics, when radioactive dating revealed the earth’s age to be a few billion years.

The philosopher John Locke did not believe in intuition or innate knowledge, while the early twentieth century Italian philosopher and statesman, Benedetto Croce, emphasized the importance of intuition in art and freedom of expression in the development of civilization. The often heard of phrase “all of a sudden, it hit me!” points to the experience of many artists and scientists when, after years of struggle with a problem or riddle, the answer erupted from their sub-conscious mind in a flash of recognition, in their finer moments of quietude following the futile and frustrating moments of their struggle to solve the problem. This experience is described as a stroke of lightning when reason and logic reached its limits and intuition took the person a step further. It is perhaps the creative part of the mind originating in the recesses of the sub-conscious revealing itself under the right circumstances.

In 1999, the world chess champion, Garry Kasparov, had challenged chess enthusiasts everywhere through an internet project named “Kasparov versus the World”. He had competed two highly publicized chess matches against Deep Blue, which was a super computer designed to play chess. In his September 1999 Encarta Yearbook interview, Kasparov said, “ Chess is probably the ideal for comparing human intuition vis-à-vis the brute force of calculation, because you can clearly see at what point the simple calculative process matches the results based on human intuition”.

In the field of scientific theory, although Einstein is reported to have mentioned that the only source of knowledge is experience, he also believed that scientific theories are the free creations of a finely tuned physical intuition and that the premises on which theories are based cannot be connected logically to experiment. Like his scientific theories, Einstein’s experiments were motivated by sound intuition based on a careful assessment of evidence and observation.

My father always tells me, “Sure, intuition can develop with experience. But trusting your hunches has perils, too”. Intuition is essential, but it can even mislead one to dangerous extents. If I say my geological intuition tell me that, Mumbai is north of Delhi and that Kolkata is south of Chennai, for which I must surely be held wrong. This reminds of what Noble Prize winning physicist once said, “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool.” It is very meek for people to understand that, as often as we misjudge and wrongly predict reality and then display ‘conviction perseverance’ whilst in front of disconfirming facts.

To a mind used to furious thinking and conscious planning of every aspect of life, intuition is a far away thing. Only in the quietude of the tumultuous mind can intuition get a chance to operate. A scientist reasons furiously if the earth is round or flat.  But when he goes to sleep, all his organs of perception are abated, and what does it matter to a sleeping person if the earth is round or flat? The utilitarian mind always obsessed with profit and loss can never realize the value of intuition, for it is not a process of conscious volition. When all is set aside as just a process of thought, without which cognizance of anything so called external is impossible, will the mind cease to create worlds upon worlds and impart reality to its imaginations. All experiences must pass as thought processes of an individual. Until this process of becoming ceases, the pure being in itself can not reveal itself.  Bereft of this constant shuttling between the past and the future, in the living reality of the present moment, which is the real unimagined experience of every person, where no thought prevails, the light of intuition may get an opportunity to shine by itself without the aberrance of the subject-object duality.

Intuition is an extremely subjective experience, if it may be called an experience at all. It would be extremely difficult or almost impossible to understand or judge the intuition of another person. This poses a great difficult in verifying someone’s claim to intuitive knowledge. Therefore, there is always a danger of false claims to intuitive knowledge.

One comes to realize from the afore-mentioned discussion that even though intuition appears to pervade virtually all the areas of knowledge, its deeply interwoven connection with the emotional and spiritual dimension of knowledge renders an evaluation of its role in the areas of knowledge an exceedingly complex and daunting task. It is as subtle, profound and difficult to comprehend as the insight of the Sufi mystics and the oriental seers of yore like Lao Tzu and the “rishis” of the Upanishads. An attempt is made here to encapsulate freely the ideology of the Oriental philosophers of the Upanishads on the nexus between reason and intuition.

Words: 1468

Foot notes