Posted by Terry on July 16, 1999 at 09:06:14:
In Reply to: Re: Science vs. Intuition? more info plz posted by Nick on July 16, 1999 at 03:42:54:
Nick,
Sorry, I don't know much about S-W. Did a web search a while back and looked at it to see the academic background. You can get a few hits on a search engine with that as an argument.
My thought was that S-W *seemed* reasonable. That is, since we often think in our native language (I do) the structure of the language stands to influence *how* we think. Seems reasonable, no?
My post was titled "Science vs Intuition?" and the ? is important. I think intuition is simply unconscious thought or non-verbal thought. I (and many others) have had the experience of a full blown solution popping into my mind without having been consciously thinking about it. Must have been at some level, but not consciously. Often happens when one wakes in the morning and so something must be going on in the dark while you're dreaming, too. So, this "intuition" thing may be one of the many "background" processes going on all the time in our brains.
I doubt that many scientists work solely from a rationalist, coldly reasoned pov. They go with their feelings, ideas pop up from nowhere, a chance encounter will key some thought that triggers an idea. The mind is a mysterious, ill lit, poorly understood mechanism and how it is controlled and formed is, as far as I know, not well understood.