INTUITION
AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

Intuition: the ability to solve problems without using a well-defined logical method.

Tim Berners-Lee, Weaving the Web

As I have stated many times on this site, I have been much influenced by the Russian-American novelist-philosopher Ayn Rand (1905-1982). In her writings Rand gave little indication of believing in intuition or the unconscious mind. (In her essay, "Philosophy: Who Needs It", however, she mentions the subconscious.¹ She seems to believe human beings should consciously program their subconscious minds.) Though I am certain Rand often acted on her intuition, that is, on her unconscious hunches, she has a great deal to say which suggests she was hostile to such a procedure. For instance, she repeatedly vilifies "whim worshippers," that is, people who act to gratify their desires before (or without) rationally probing, identifying, and justifying them.

Nonetheless I deeply believe in intuition. Life has taught me that my intuitions often are right. I pay attention to them. I live -- often trepidatiously -- by what my unconscious believes; often before I fully understand it.

Yet, like Rand, I too am suspicious of my unconscious. Perhaps it might lead me astray. After all, I have often been wrong; have made many errors, even when I thought I was sure.

Still I feel I have no choice but, often, to go with my intuition. My intuition has been useful to me so often, has correctly guided me in so many difficult situations where I could not consciously reason my way, that I am forced to praise the mental faculty of intuition and to be enormously grateful for mine.

Rand may not even have believed in the existence of the unconscious mind. (For fun, try to find mention of Freud's unconscious or subconscious, let alone praise of them, in her writings). She tried, on the evidence of her biographies, to live an entirely conscious life. But surely in this she was deeply in error. The universe is enormous. If we were to try to be aware of it all in real time in our conscious minds we would waste much of our time and energy. We might go mad. And we would certainly use our minds most inefficiently.

For we have wonderful unconscious minds and, under them, a wonderful nervous system. These act automatically to do many needful things, and they do them well. There is usually no need for the conscious mind (the part of us that is aware of our thoughts) to interfere in their automatic functioning.

Not only that, but there is much about our conscious minds, too, that seems to operate automatically. Do we often choose to think about that which we find ourselves thinking? No. We just find ourselves thinking, or having thought. Do we consciously think out all of a problem? No. We start thinking, we leave off -- and we often come back to the subject to find that our unconscious has advanced the problem or solved it without our conscious attention.

So Rand's position against the unconscious and intuition is absurd. Within limits, all of us might do well to gratify some of our "whims."

After all, the human species didn't just fall off the turnip truck. We are the result of millions of years of successful evolution. Those among us who could not automatically act properly in many situations are now dead, have been dead for a long time. We are their survivors. Our ancestors, we can be sure, often acted appropriately and swiftly. Can we therefore not trust our intuitions, the intuitions that we inherited from them, at least to some degree?

Of course, the problem is that no one knows the exact degree to which we may trust our intuitions. Thus we must be at least a little careful and suspicious. We must test our intuitions. We mustn't go overboard. We must use intuition wisely. We must acquire all the knowledge we can, and use everything we have learned. We must use the whole of what we have learned against our intuition, test our learning against our intuitive hunches -- and somehow decide between what seems the logical thing, and what feels right.

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Notes

¹ "Philosophy: Who Needs It" in Philosophy: Who Needs It, Bobbs-Merrill, 1982.

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Last modified: 4:24 PM 3/4/2002