Understanding Unconscious Intelligence and Intuition: “ Blink ” and Beyond

Abstract

The importance of unconscious intelligence and intuition is increasingly acknowledged by the scientific community. This essay examines and assesses the varied views on the topic presented in three books that bridge the scientific world and reading public: Blink by Malcolm Gladwell (2005), Gut Feelings by Gerd Gigerenzer (2008), and How Doctors Think by Jerome Groopman (2007). The analysis differentiates among kinds of unconscious intelligence and points towards a more complete understanding of the higher cognitive potential of the unconscious mind.

Self-deception as affective coping. An empirical perspective on philosophical issues

“…Emotions do this via the somatic states they come with, which are automatically reactivated when we imagine future actions. This process can occur unconsciously and has been considered as part of gut feelings unconscious intelligence (Gigerenzer, 2007;Gigerenzer, 2008;Isenman, 2013). For instance, experiments on the Iowa gambling task reveal how subjects begin to choose the good decks of cards after the bad choices are accompanied by an increase of skin conductance and before the conscious understanding of the behavior modification.…”

Estudio sobre la intuición artificial

“…Intuición artificial aplicada al a teleoperación. Chase y Simon, 1973;Dreyfus y Dreyfus, 1988;Easen y Wilcockson, 1996;Hogar-th, 2001;Hogarth, 2002;Kahneman, 2003;Simon y Frantz, 2003;Gladwell, 2005;Kant, 2005;Seligman y Kahana, 2009;Kruglanski y Gigerenzer, 2011;Isenman, 2013;Marcovici y Blume-Marcovici, 2013;Pearson, 2013;Tinghög, Andersson et al, 2013;Woolley y Kostopoulou, 2013).…”

Constructive Skepticism and Being a Mirror in the Zhuangzi

“…Connectionist models of the brain are based on the basic architecture of neural tissues, "in which each neuron interacts simultaneously with many others" and "automatically registers complex co-occurrences and interacting regularities." 22 As Isenman suggests, some of our most useful intuitions are produced not through a simplifying heuristic applied to a thin-slice of experience, but nonconscious processing that integrates multiple clues into a meaningful complex pattern that may be "too multidimensional and interwoven for the conscious mind, with its ability to hold a very limited amount of information at the same time, to comprehend, never mind articulate." 23 This non-conscious processing is holistic and relational in nature.…”

“…22 As Isenman suggests, some of our most useful intuitions are produced not through a simplifying heuristic applied to a thin-slice of experience, but nonconscious processing that integrates multiple clues into a meaningful complex pattern that may be "too multidimensional and interwoven for the conscious mind, with its ability to hold a very limited amount of information at the same time, to comprehend, never mind articulate." 23 This non-conscious processing is holistic and relational in nature. Thus if there is sometimes competition between the automatic processing of experience and explicit, deliberate analysis, and if relevant experiential patterns are too complex for conscious analysis, it may make sense, as the Zhuangzi does, to encourage suspension of the latter in favor of the former.…”

“…As Isenman remarks in her analysis of Jerome Groopman's book on the difficulties of diagnosis and judgment in the medical profession, sometimes the path to a better answer is confessing that one doesn't know, or that there are conflicting indications that form a puzzle yet to be solved. 25 Such a confession might lead to a Zhuangist constructive skepticism that makes one more receptive to something one has not named or conceptualized but that has been tracked through one's bodily qi. The solution to the puzzle might not come from pressing further and more intensely with conscious analytic thought, but waiting on those quieter parts of the self to process what is too much for the conscious mind to handle.…”