Counter-Intuitive, Intuitive and False Positives

[Mole]

For two hundred thousand years we have had a spoken culture.

And it is only very, very recently we have had a literate culture. And that only in privileged parts of the world.

Spoken culture gives rise to intuitive thinking. While literate culture gives rise to counter-intuitive thinking.

A good example of intuitive thinking is astrology. While a good example of counter-intuitive thinking is astronomy.

Intuitive thinking also gives rise to many false positives. Such as one can intuitively see many false positive correlations in astrology. That is, astrology seems to work - as far as the intuitive mind can see.

And fortunately false positives do not threaten our fitness to pass on our genes. For instance the false positive, "That is a sabre-tooth tiger", is not life threatening. While the false negative, "that is not a sabre-tooth tiger", when it is, will soon have have you on the menu for lunch.

So false positives are not life threatening, while false negatives are life threatening.

And that is why we have been able to survive for two hundred thousand years with intuitive thinking and all the false positives generated by intuitive thinking.

So intuitive thinking has served us well for two hundred thousand years - it has enabled us to survive. Just look how long astrology has been around.

But then the printing press was invented which gave rise to the dream of universal literacy. And this dream has quite recently been realised in the West - look, I am writing this and you are reading this now - we are both literate.

And remember that literacy gave rise to counter-intuitive thinking. For instance the intuitive could see that the sun went round the earth, while the counter-intuitive know the earth goes round the sun.

And indeed almost all of modern science is counter-intuitive.

Another example of counter-intuitive thinking is modern economics. For while the intuitive believed that private avarice led to public destitution - indeed they called it usury, the counter-intuitive know, thanks to Adam Smith, that private greed leads to public prosperity.

And modern liberal democracy is entirely counter-intuitive. For it is intuitive for politicians to seek to continue to increase their power, while liberal democracy, quite counter-intuitively, limits power. See your Constitution and mine.

So while counter-intuitive thinking has given us science, prosperity and freedom, intuitive thinking has given us astrology and MBTI.

Intuitive thinking gives rise to many false positives. This is borne out here where most members give testimony to many false positive correlations between personality characteristics and types.

In other words, to the intuitive mind MBTI seems to work because it continues to produce false positives.

But to the counter-intuitive mind, MBTI is the natural result of intuitive thinking which is validated by ongoing false positives.

In other words, MBTI is self validating.

 

[Ilah]

Note
After I wrote this post a thought occured to me; maybe this whole post is just for baiting people who are Ni/Ne dominant. But I decided to post anyway because it seemed like it might be a good topic for discussion.

I respectly disagree.

First of all, my dominant is Ni, but I learn very well through the written word, but not spoken word.

On the part about spoken culture = intuitive and written culture = counter-intuitive:
Intuitive v. counter-intuitive is more about the ideas and the actual information than the form it takes (spoken v. written). For example, I think my collection of metaphysical books would still be concidered intuitive even though they are written.

D&D and other role-playing (non computer) games are very intuitive. And books are very central to the game.

The science fiction and fantasy fandom community is a very intuitive bunch and also a group that is heavily centered in books. I realize that some fans now are more into movies and TV and don't read as much, but the original fandom was from the books and it is still a core part of the community today.

Religion is very intuitive and I know of two major religions centered around a book - Christianity/the Bible and Islam/the Koran.

On science and economics:
I took courses in science and economics and I found most of the principals involved to be very intuitive. We did physics labs to prove things that I knew were intuitively true, like a heavier object hits with more force. The law of supply and demand, that struke me as pretty intuitive.

On usury:
I think this is a mixed bag in terms of prosperity. Being able to buy things on credit has made some improvments in my life, including being able to purchase a condo. However, I think I might be a little more prosperous if credit card interest rates were a more reasonable 5-10% rather than 18 - 24%.

On astrology:
Astrology is your sole example of intuitive thought? That seems a little unbalanced. What about religion and poetry and folk medicine and story telling?

Ilah

 

[Mole]

Note
After I wrote this post a thought occured to me; maybe this whole post is just for baiting people who are Ni/Ne dominant. But I decided to post anyway because it seemed like it might be a good topic for discussion.

I respectly disagree.

First of all, my dominant is Ni, but I learn very well through the written word, but not spoken word.

On the part about spoken culture = intuitive and written culture = counter-intuitive:
Intuitive v. counter-intuitive is more about the ideas and the actual information than the form it takes (spoken v. written). For example, I think my collection of metaphysical books would still be concidered intuitive even though they are written.

D&D and other role-playing (non computer) games are very intuitive. And books are very central to the game.

The science fiction and fantasy fandom community is a very intuitive bunch and also a group that is heavily centered in books. I realize that some fans now are more into movies and TV and don't read as much, but the original fandom was from the books and it is still a core part of the community today.

Religion is very intuitive and I know of two major religions centered around a book - Christianity/the Bible and Islam/the Koran.

On science and economics:
I took courses in science and economics and I found most of the principals involved to be very intuitive. We did physics labs to prove things that I knew were intuitively true, like a heavier object hits with more force. The law of supply and demand, that struke me as pretty intuitive.

On usury:
I think this is a mixed bag in terms of prosperity. Being able to buy things on credit has made some improvments in my life, including being able to purchase a condo. However, I think I might be a little more prosperous if credit card interest rates were a more reasonable 5-10% rather than 18 - 24%.

On astrology:
Astrology is your sole example of intuitive thought? That seems a little unbalanced. What about religion and poetry and folk medicine and story telling?

Ilah

This is an interesting and thoughtful reply. Perhaps if I answer it a little bit at a time.

First, am I trying to bait you?

I wrote the post after coming across the words, "false positives". And immediately I could see the connection between false positives and intuitive thought. However as I thought about it later, I started to forget the connection. But I knew if I wrote it down, I would remember it forever.

However writing it down here brings the added excitement of a reply or even a number of replies.

So am I trying to bait you? Well, if I am trying to bait you, I have caught my first fish, and what a nice fish you are. So I think I will take my time in landing you - and answer your points one by one. At the moment, I am off for coffee and the newspaper at the Bakery but I will be back.

To be continued.....

 

[WALMART]

bump 4 awsm