Ratio and Intuition

[Visty]

And you do not go to a clairvoyant person to prove 2+2=4. And you don't go to a mathematician to prove telepathy works.

I laughed when I read this. Very true :lol:

These days I feel replacement shame when I see paranormally inclined people ride against the leg of science for a pat on the head while they are only kicked off. Science will not allow a dual, alchemical approach to reality; only it has monopoly over what is real and so it discards all other points of view as superstition, fringe- or pseudo-science or worse. yet it is clear that humans are dual in nature, we can be logical and intuitive. Science excludes intuition. But the paranormal does not deny ratio is of use.

Ratio and intuition are two sides of a single coin. I have given up on explaining both sides only by utilizing ratio. Science can explain itself, intuition can not explain itself. Science is meant for logical formulated statements about reality. Intuition has no such tools, but it has other ways, which are by default imprecise, not based on fact, mostly anecdotal. That is innate to that side of the coin. So it is not a statement that the paranormal side is worse off, it is just the exact opposite in every way to ratio.

So if ration allows for precise statements and measure, the intuition is imprecise and anecdotal. Both are equal. It is merely that in our science minded world we think of measurement as superior. It is not.

Paranormal people should stop submitting to testing and James Randi's million dollar challenge. It will never work. You cannot use the tools and methodology of science to proof something that by definition escapes measurement in any form. These debunkers KNOW this. That is why the 1 million dollar is safe. And all you get is stacked 'proof' that paranormal claims are nonsense.

You don't see a scientist go for proof or advice to a fringe scientist, paranormal healer or a medium, right? They are too high and mighty for that. So why should any person with a paranormal ability undergo scientific scrutiny? It is like wanting to measure a DMT trip. How would you do that?!?

So these days I am perfectly fine with separating logic and intuition and respect on their own ground. I won't pitch them against each other in a battle for truth. Truth is the alchemical merger of science and the paranormal.

Both fields have their strengths. Together there will be synergistic effects.

 

[Citta]

Why are science and intuition/the paranormal equal? Why is not science superior? I would like you to elaborate on your statements.

The problem with the paranormal is that every time it is investigated in any rigorous way, it turns out to be the product of fraud, self-deceit, wishful thinking, cognitive biases, sensory illusions or myth making to mention a few examples. This is not unproblematic. Generally, there are two ways to defend beliefs in the supernatural. One of them is to claim that there are facts to support it. But this exposes such claims to scientific and historical study, and usually when scientists and historians then come knocking on the door of these claims, the ones making them retreat or refuse to submit their evidence to scrutiny, or their evidence is simply shown to be bogus or groundless.

The other way around is to somehow bypass science, as you do here, claiming the paranormal to be separate and that it is based on different methods. But the problem arises because claims about paranormal things are often claims about how the universe works, and this is the area of science. Another problem is that the methods used in paranormality is almost exclusively human-based observations, i.e personal experiences. These experiences can vary and they suffer when under rigorous study. But another more pressing problem regarding this is that humans are prone to hallucination, drunkenness, drug usage, persuasion, personal beliefs, fatigue etc., which makes any of our personal observations questionable. In a court of law, forensics is always placed before eye witness accounts for example. Now, this basic problem regarding personal experience is what science tries to take to the minimal and bypass.

The whole point of science is that we can get around this and, at least in principle, describe the world in a way that is independent of individual perceptions of it. We don't need to take into account the qualitative differences in the experience of red to describe the electromagnetic spectrum, we don't need to take in qualitative differences in the experience of watching the stars to describe the process of fusion that goes on inside them, or take in the experience of music to describe mechanical vibrations. The scientific method frees us from the limitations of our own subjective experiences, such as limitations in our sensory apparatus, wrong intuitions, cognitive biases and so on in a way that the paranormal does not. The paranormal fails in these respects, and is thus a suspect method of uncovering genuine facts about our universe. Why do you think we left it behind? Why do you think Greek philosophers threw away myths and paranormal explanations and sought to devolop their own theories? Why did we, in the course of the Age of Enlightenment, put reason and science over superstition and religion? Because it brought us somewhere. Because it worked. Now it has given us an exponential growth of knowledge and understanding, as well as an exponential growth in technology. The paranormal has contributed nothing in this regard.

Nothing has so thouroughly transformed the world like the working knowledge that seeps through every day in vast quantities from using scientific methods in every field of study about our universe. Nothing has so thouroughly transformed our way of living and our perspective of the universe. When was the last time the paranormal cured small pox? When was the last time the paranormal sent us to the fucking moon and landed rovers on Mars? When was the last time the paranormal provided you with electricity in your house, and internet to communicate with? When was the last time the paranormal gave human beings medicines to cure horrible diseases and gave us a drastically longer life-expectancy? I can't recall because it didn't happen. Superstition, religion and the paranormal have provided none of these things, but have usually hampered it time and time again instead.

There is just no way in superstition, religion and the paranormal to really verify the statements and beliefs it entails. Science is needed for this, and when science comes in everything breaks down. Why would we value things without evidence? Why would we live according to something that has no rational foundation? In what kind of primitive and horrible state would our world be if we did not make an effort to actually go out there and check our claims against nature? If we did not try to be intellectually honest with ourselves? If we didn't throw old myths and superstitious beliefs out of politics, ethical concerns and our investigation of nature? Take a look at history, and see what kind of societies we lived in when we valued beliefs without any proper foundation. As Sam Harris have said, "If history reveals any categorical truth, it is that an insufficient taste for evidence regularly brings out the worst in us". This is true.

Belief in supernatural things is a belief that stands on a thouroughly faltered foundation. It is as simple as that. It provides us with little or nothing that is genuine, and thus is it is not equal to science, and they are not two sides of the same coin.

 

[SpartanII]

So these days I am perfectly fine with separating logic and intuition and respect on their own ground. I won't pitch them against each other in a battle for truth. Truth is the alchemical merger of science and the paranormal.

Both fields have their strengths. Together there will be synergistic effects.

Well put. That's why left and right brain hemisphere synchronization has such potential.:d

 

[nen888]

..Srinvasa Ramanujan was a genius mathematician from a poor Madras family, eventually discovered by Cambridge mathematicians..he died aged 33 of tuberculosis in 1920..he wrote a letter to Cambridge with 120 formulae establishing mathematical results..they all subsequently proved correct, many only proven many decades after his death..yet he used no empirical or logical method of proof to deduce the formulae..it was done purely by leaps of
intuition..he could not explain logically how he arrived at these results..

the famous Cambridge mathematician of the day Hardy wrote:

Suspending judgement, I asked him to come over again, and he did...and showed me some of his simpler results. These transcended existing books and I had no doubt that he was a remarkable man.

Hardy (at the time the world's foremost authority on the solution of such problems) found a few of the formulae 'deeply mysterious and difficult', announcing

..they must be true because, if they were not true, no one would have had the imagination to invent them..

[taken from "Pi in the Sky" by J.D. Barrow p.183]

..unlike empirical science, mathematics cannot simply rely on results of direct observation and experiment..e.g. calculating the first trillion examples to check that every even number was equal to the sum of two prime numbers..and then concluding that because no counter example has been found it is true..in many mathematical problems it would take ridiculously fast supercomputers more than a human lifespan to do such 'observation'

..induction and intuition are intermingled tools of pure mathematics..

mathematics is the bridge between logic and the transcendent (intuition)

the method of science cannot solve or barely probe it's deepest questions..
.

 

[Citta]

This is true nen888, especially when it comes to mathematics. Another example is the calculus devoloped by Newton, which was not very rigorous or solid at all at the time, but nevertheless effective with accurate answers to practical problems. He used a lot of physical intuition to arrive at these ideas. Elsewhere in science some form of intuition is used as well. I devolop my intuition as I study hard for example. When I am working with certain hard problems, I just know the solution form, or just know immidiately what to do and what is going on without reasoning at first.

But the kind of intuition here might be a little bit different than the kind of intuition visty is talking about. I think we're talking more about unconscious cues and/or prior learning and experience here. Besides, these scientific and mathematical intuitions are shown by others to be correct, and proofs are made in mathematics. So while intuition plays a role in the sheer development of certain ideas, science and mathematics makes sure to control if these intuitions are correct or not. After all, intuition is often shown to be wrong, especially in science.

Intuition may play a role in scientific innovation, no doubt, but many times intuition fails, other times it doesn't. Either way, we need to check our statements and claims through reason, proofs and logic, observations and so on.

 

[Citta]

..unlike empirical science, mathematics cannot simply rely on results of direct observation and experiment..e.g. calculating the first trillion examples to check that every even number was equal to the sum of two prime numbers..and then concluding that because no counter example has been found it is true..in many mathematical problems it would take ridiculously fast supercomputers more than a human lifespan to do such 'observation'

While it is true that mathematics cannot rely simply on direct observations and experiments (it often doesn't, at least the more abstract and advanced forms of mathematics), exploration is still key in discovering theorems. By calculating many examples and seeing a very spesific pattern, or spesific outcome each time, the mathematician have a strong suggestion of what could be a possible theorem. Simple examples of this is for instance the fact that in Euclidean geometry the sum of the angles in a triangle is 180 degrees. A mathematician might measure the angles and sum them up for a great amount of different triangles and see that he gets about 180 degrees every time. Thus, he reasons, that perhaps this result is general. Now he knows what the possible theorem is.

Another example is from arithmetic, as a mathematician might see that;

1 = 1

1 + 3 = 4 = 2^2

1 + 3 + 5 = 9 = 3^2

1 + 3 + 5 + 7 = 16 = 4^2

We note here that each number on the right side is the square of the number of odd numbers appearing on the left side. The general result that these direct calculations suggests is that if the first n odd numbers were on the left side, the right side would always be n^2. Thus, the mathematician reasons, this might be a possible theorem.

These simple illustrations of how observations, measurements and direct calculations suggests possible theorems are not very profound, and more complex physical problems can also suggest more advanced theorems. Newton for example, as already mentioned, developed his calculus largely because physical problems suggested the mathematical ideas. He created them because his study of motion required it.

But, ingenious mathematical work must be done in order to provide the real proofs of possible theorems. In search for the method of proof, the mathematician must use audacious imagination, creativity and insight in order to get anywhere. The mathematician depends here on the kind of inspiration and process that we might usually associate with the creation of music, literature and art. In many ways, mathematics is art, and the mathematician is an artist. The mathematician might feel that he has a conclusion which will follow from his axioms, something that he can deduce. Through experience and knowledge he might be guided through the right channels. Of course, there is no logic or infallible guide which tells the mind how to think. But the formal proof through deductive reasoning, made by either the one discovering the idea, or those that supersedes him, merely sanctions the idea already made by the intuition.

Mathematics is a strange field indeed, and differs very much from the empirical sciences. Mathematics is often called a deductive science, as all the conclusions are ultimately put into rigour through the methods of deduction. But imagination, insight, exploration, creativity and intuition certainly plays a central role in the development of these ideas, but just as often these things mislead the mathematician as well. Many of our greatest mathematicians have failed at places where their predecessors have not.

At any rate, intuition in mathematics and in a certain extent elsewhere in science doesn't really speak for the paranormal kind of intuition visty is talking about. Some intuitions might be true, many are not, and this is why science and mathematics is superior, because science and mathematics cares to check whether or not its ideas are correct. When paranormal intuitions are put to the test like this, they are shown to be false every single time. The other problems I have already written about in my first reply.

 

[Citta]

I can recommend the book by the psychologist Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow, for you all. It highlights how poor our thinking can be when we do not rely on careful analysis, logic and reason, and instead rely on our intuition. To sum it up, our intuition is generally extremely poor. Not so weird then, that the paranormal always seems to fail the tests...

To elaborate, let's take a look at a few examples where our intuition fails us.

1) The tennis racket and the ball costs 110 coins in total. The racket costs 100 coins more than the ball. What is the cost of the ball?

Do you think the ball costs 10 coins? 80 percent of those asked this question will answer that the ball naturally costs 10 coins, but this is wrong! Those of you here that are inclined to critical and analytical thinking might not have guessed 10 coins, but I bet most of you did. Why is the answer wrong? Well, if the ball costs 10 coins and the racket costs 100 coins more, the sum total would be 120 coins, which is wrong. However, if the ball costs 5 coins, and the racket costs 100 more than this, the sum total will be 5 + 105 = 110. Intuition fails us when we don't stop up for a moment to think.

2) There is a girl named Linda. She is 31 years old, single, out-going and very intelligent. She has a masters degree in philosophy. As a student she was very engaged in the battle for social justice and she was active in the women-movement. She participated in several demonstrations against atomic weapons too. What is the most likely?

A: Linda is a functionary in the bank.
B: Linda is a functionary in the bank and a feminist.

Most people will answer B, but again our intuition fails us unless we think about it more carefully. B makes sense to us, but when we think about it every single feministic bank functionary is a bank functionary, but not every bank functionary is a feminist. Out of logical necessity answer A is the most likely, not B - but our intuition persuades us to answer B nevertheless.

3) Very intelligent woman often marries men that are less intelligent than themselves. What is the most likely explanation?

If you started to think about social and political factors here you can just drop it. Most women that are found near the one end of the intelligence scale will out of statistical necessity choose men that are found closer to the other end.

The examples of intuition gone wrong are many, and it applies equally well to paranormal intuition as well. Ultimately reason, logic and science is superior because it seeks to avoid these silly and lazy mistakes that we make in our thinking very often.