Tldr: Write an effortpost on the subject of human intuition by February 10th, we will pick the winner by poll, I will donate $200 dollars to a charity mutually agreed upon with the winner
I've been thinking a lot about the subject of intuition lately, due to some life events. What do we know without knowing we know it, what can we communicate without knowing we communicate it. When I'm thinking a lot about something what do I want to do? Read a bunch of Mottizens thinking about it too! So, on a whim while thinking about the fact that great works like the Oresteia, Frankenstein, and Rousseau's best work were the result of competitions; I've decided to launch my own little essay competition and see if anyone bites.
The basic rules are thus:
-- Write an effortpost on the topic of Intuition. Standalone or in the CW or side threads; only rule is effort. Intuition can be as broadly or as narrowly defined as you like. Effortpost we define informally, but I'd say it must be at minimum 2000-4000 characters that is substantially your own original work. No ripping off another post, of your own or someone else's. An original summary/condensation or retelling of someone else's thesis is fine. How will we be able to tell? I'm kinda counting on the crowd here, especially if we get a little competitive fire going. I wouldn't count on slipping anything by the peanut gallery here.
-- On February 12th, as long as we have at least three entries, I will publish a poll, and we will select a winner. If anyone has a suggestion for a better method of picking a winner, I'm open to it. I'm thinking a poll would be better than just raw upvotes, but I'm open to other possibilities.
-- Once a winner is selected, I will work with the winner to select a charity, and I will donate $200 to that charity. I say I will work with the winner, I'm not donating $200 to NAMBLA or Mermaids UK or the StormFront Charity Fund just because somebody wins a poll. I will do my best to be reasonable, but there are some lines I'm not gonna cross here, and IDK there might be legal issues in some countries. I will post some kind of digital receipt in all likelihood, unless it's something like give the $200 in cash into the collection bin at church or to a homeless man or something. I'm sure for most here, the bigger thing will be winning, and being acknowledged as the winner.
So why? The mood just sort of struck me. And how do you know it will really happen? You don't, except that I spend way too much time hanging around here so you can figure I'll probably stick to my word. And anyway, you'll get even more motte street cred for being the guy who got welched on than you would for being the guy who got $200 donated to mosquito nets or whatever.
I'm curious to see what a bit of direction and effort could bring out, or maybe we need chaos. We'll see if we get three.
Please bring up any questions, or rules I haven't considered.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Isn't it weird that in most submissions (3/4 in my count) the role of experience always comes up? In 2/4 Thinking, Fast and Slow is mentioned.
My insight was that intuition is analytical thinking encoded. The more hours one puts into a task, the better one becomes and intuiting. However, hours alone isn't enough, those hours have to be of a certain quality. Veritasium's video: The 4 things it takes to be an expert explores what that quality is.
The list is: valid environment, many repetitions, timely feedback, deliberate practice.
Putting 10,000 hours alone is not enough. Following your baseball examples, 10,000 hours without analytics is not going to be the same as 10,000 with analytics.
I think people are too quick to dismiss intuition based on bad examples.
No, absolutely not. You can train intuition (think, reflexes, like playing tennis) without any analytical thinking at all. Animals do it, no problem.
The main point of analytical thinking is to provide a check on intuition for when it goes wrong. Like, you encounter an optical illusion, a fish in the water appears farther than it is, so to spear it properly you need to aim closer, "wat in heck, my eyes deceive me" is where the improvement starts.
Reflexes are not intuition to me.
That's what you assume, but you couldn't have done your current level of analytical thinking without having done some analytical thinking in the past. A baby cannot do your level of analytical thinking, even a genius baby.
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