Posted by Nick on July 16, 1999 at 03:42:54:
In Reply to: Science vs. Intuition? posted by Terry on July 15, 1999 at 08:38:42:
: : Some people prefer an intuitive, personal interpretation of reality rather than science, and good for them.
: I believe in science and intuition, personally. Intuition is a poorly understood mental mechanism, BTW. Intuition seems (in computer terms) to be a background process that is running without conscious intervention and may have linear, linguistic access also, thus not escaping S-W restrictions. Or it may be non-linear, non-linguistic designed in evolutionary terms to provide alternative, quicker looks at large piles of data lying loose in the mind.
: Further aside: in the 80's there were experiments (UCLA maybe) on divided brain people - a woman, e.g. whose epilieptic fits had her brain divided into a left an right half. She literally could not name a common object that she felt, but could not see, with the right hand. The right hand fed into the left brain which is usually the non-linguistic side. She could easily do so with the other hand. So there seems to be an entire half of the brain that has no verbal ability whose function is less well understood. S-W may have no effect on the left hemisphere, but work powerfully on the other.
Hi Terry,
If you define intuition as an adaptive mental process then how can it be, in any sense v's, or apart from science?
On the more general discussion concerning language-based thought, I was under the impression that S-W had been dismissed, and was not taken seriously these days. Could you send me some info on any contemporary examination of the S-W hypotheses (kokor79@hotmail.com).
cheers in advance, Nick