CCXXXIX - the power of intuition

I have a private, perhaps subconscious way, with which I learn things quickly - I use my intuition to map out a tree. Take a word or a phrase, assign it to a discipline, and assume it has the trunk and branches arising from classical understanding of that discipline. If I can't, if my knowledge of that discipline is lacking, then I take the next most analogous discipline I have knowledge of, and I assume the unknown discipline has the trunk and branches of that analogous discipline. Then I test out the tree (whether from my actual knowledge and applied to that word or phrase, or from an analogous tree) by asking questions. I ask questions which I expect, based on the tree, to have predictable answers. The more that the true answers match my predictions, the more safely I can assume to know that thing; the less, the more that I have to throw away the assumed analogy, or to learn a new tree entirely.

As Brian Skinner, associate professor of physics and blog author of Gravity and Levity, writes, it is "one of the most important strategies in physics: solving by analogy." (see link). Thus, "[t]his is the best form of cheating that I know: you show that the hard problem someone is asking you is identical to a hard problem that someone else has already solved, and you look up the answer. You come away looking clever without having to do much difficult work at all." For the great Feynman once wrote, "Nature uses only the longest threads to weave her patterns, so each small piece of her fabric reveals the organization of the entire tapestry."

The great thing about this method, this intuition-rubric, is that if it works, it works really effing well.

The problem with this approach is at least threefold:

1. Conceit - I stop listening to an explanation faster than I should - partly because I am thinking of the tree (this takes time), and partly because I am relying on the borrowed tree to plug in the meat of the explanations. It is also perhaps because the explanation is delivered by a non-expert, or in an uninteresting manner. This is remedied by making sure to learn from credible, clear sources.

2. Mistake - I pick the wrong analogy, or worse, I pick the wrong questions to ask. Or perhaps I misinterpret the answers, and draw incorrect conclusions from those premises. All this is very difficult to remedy, and takes time to learn from. Also, carried away with my own genius, I tend to assume the gaps between the actual tree of knowledge and the presumed tree are smaller than they are, and paper over cracks. But analogies must fail sometimes, and the more tenuous the analogy, the less useful the tree (and I may not realise the error until too late).

3. Ignorance - It takes time and learning to develop intuition - to amass knowledge of disciplines, to build trees of knowledge, and to learn how analogies should work.

The interesting thing out of all this, is that errors and mistakes can be wonderful, wonderful things. Novelty comes from having a solid core of knowledge, but with imagination in application, derivation and expansion. So often we have this beaten out of us! And the most important things in all of learning are curiosity and creativity. Even if a guess is wrong, it is interesting to consider the conceptual steps that led to that guess; even if intuition is wrong, it can reveal that the world is stranger than we think it is. Not being afraid to be guided by one's own intuition, and being proven right or wrong, is surely the most intellectually satisfying thing.