Ask HN: Have you improved non measurable qualities like intuition? how? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Have you improved non measurable qualities like intuition? how?

22 pointsakudha30 comments

Some people collect every available information they can, spend insane amount of time analyzing and then finally come to a decision. Some people just think about it for a few seconds and go with the decision that feels right. Anecdotally at least, I can't say one group is better than the other.

Which brings me to the question - have you improved your intuition (I don't know what other word to use)? Do you use it more than hardcore fact analysis for decision making? In other words, what tools do you use other than hard core fact based analysis for making decisions?

View on HN

> Do you use it more than hardcore fact analysis for decision making?

As it relates to this community, one area where I think quantitative analysis can be extremely limiting is in project management. I've seen processes where PMs take dozens or hundreds of tasks, subjectively evaluate a ton of values ("cost", "urgency", "importance", "impact"...) for each, and then use those to "calculate" prioritization.

In reality each task has at least thousands of deeply inter-related strategic and interpersonal dimensions, so any view we can quantify will be myopic. Other important dimensions include: "this task is a nightmare and the only person who can take it is Bob, who is key talent that is burnt out right now and might quit", "item A will greatly decrease in cost if we wait a few weeks, but only if we assign out item B to Person X because it's blocking and they can do it five times faster.", and "this task will help develop skills that I think are likely to be strategically important in six months, but only if we assign other items that leverage that strategic advantage".

Every variation on these that you can imagine is a dimension, and some of them are far more important than anything that you can easily quantify.

The human brain isn't good at this form of high-dimensional mathematical analysis. It is, however, extremely good at pattern-matching this intuitively. I have yet to see a project management process that performs better than someone with good intuition sitting down and deciding on gutfeel in 1/10th the time.

There are two (at least) kinds of intuition, the first (which is what it sounds like you're asking about) could be called "hyper-cognition" and can be developed through (self-)hypnosis. The second is what people call "being psychic" where you can access information that should be impossible for you to know by conventional means. These are not distinct, they overlap.

To develop hyper-cognition study hypnosis[1]. To develop the second kind you could try "Core Transformation' process[2].

They are old but check out "Superlearning 2000" and "Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain" both by Sheila Ostrander & Lynn Schroeder

[1] I can recommend "TRANCE-formations" by Bandler and Grinder and "Monsters and Magical Sticks: There's No Such Thing as Hypnosis?" by Steven Heller.

[2] https://www.coretransformation.org/

>what people call "being psychic" where you can access information that should be impossible for you to know by conventional means

This subjective experience is the principal aspect of schizophrenia, or clinical paranoia, that I am aware of.

The issue with paranoia or magical thinking is that it's not really a matter of what facts are real, but what they mean - is something "just" a coincidence or not?

Being correct with hindsight does not mean you necessarily knew in advance.

One tends to assume that mental illness involves a failure to reason logically. But I believe it's more about seeing too many correlations, which are in fact frequently there, but a normal mind automatically filters out as meaningless.

A sane mind is no better at rejecting them through logic, which is why insanity can be very frightening in an existential way.

I'm not sure what you're saying? There's definitely a difference between "being psychic" and schizophrenia or clinical paranoia.

Some mentally ill people don't understand that they are not supposed to be able to see the thoughts around the heads of other people, which can lead to "creepy" events (e.g. the muttering weirdo on the bus who replies to your inner voice.)

The social convention is that our thoughts are ours and private to our heads, but this is just a convention. It's pretty easy to extend the faculty that lets you see the thoughts around your head that you consider "yours" to be able to see the thoughts around other people's heads. It's also easy to send/receive thoughts to/from others at any distance. Thoughts themselves are independent of the mind (like how TV shows are not in the TV.) One of the fascinating things is that you can do without thoughts entirely. Your body continues to perform its actions without them. Empty mind is extremely pleasant, blissful.

> It's pretty easy […] to be able to see the thoughts around other people's heads. It's also easy to send/receive thoughts to/from others at any distance.

Being able to see and speak in a land of blind mutes is an unmatched advantage. A handful of folks with this ability could form the most powerful entity in the world and change it to their taste. I can’t think of such an untouchable group - do they all live in the shadows, or is this skill not that easy to develop?

> Being able to see and speak in a land of blind mutes is an unmatched advantage.

Yes. (Boredom and loneliness are the only problems.)

> A handful of folks with this ability could form the most powerful entity in the world and change it to their taste.

Yes. And they do. ("nine unknown men")

> I can’t think of such an untouchable group

Of course not.

> do they all live in the shadows

They live in light, the "blind mutes" live in the shadows.

> or is this skill not that easy to develop?

Everyone already has this skill.

Part of the answer is that control and (individual) free will are illusions. All are One. Only That has free will.

So online you can't read minds and lose your unmatched advantage - becoming a blind mute?

One can read minds over the internet, psychometry works on electrons and photons.

Are you able to do this? If so what methods led you to having that ability. I catch peoples thoughts sometimes, it's like they're being yelled into my head.

> Are you able to do this?

Yes, but everyone can, I'm not special.

> If so what methods led you to having that ability.

As corny as it sounds I first learned it from a pamphlet on "How to Read Minds" that I ordered from the back of a comic book.

There's no specific method to it, your brain already does it, you just have to practice and develop your "psychic" muscles.

> I catch peoples thoughts sometimes, it's like they're being yelled into my head.

Yeah, if that bothers you imagine a reflective egg surrounding your body, that should help.

>There's definitely a difference between "being psychic" and schizophrenia or clinical paranoia.

Only to the extent that psychics are often frauds.

If "psychic" powers go away on medication, but come back if it is reduced, is that evidence to you that they are a type of symptom? If not, then what is the evidence that convinces you?

> If "psychic" powers go away on medication, but come back if it is reduced, is that evidence to you that they are a type of symptom?

If physical abilities go away when you take medication, does that mean the ability was a “symptom” or that the loss was a “side effect” ofbthe drugs? Usually, the latter.

Why would it be any different for psychic abilities, except from the perspective of one who takes as given that the ability doesn't exist and that discussion of it is merely discussion of the delusion of having the ability?

Do you think drugs always take away abilities and never provide them?

> Only to the extent that psychics are often frauds.

Again, I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. Mental illness and the ability to see thoughts are orthogonal.

> If "psychic" powers go away on medication, but come back if it is reduced, is that evidence to you that they are a type of symptom?

I'm not a psychopharmacologist nor a psychiatrist so I can't really comment in any depth. I would assume that some drugs would mute the ability to see thoughts, while others (such as LSD) make it easier. But this is a vast and complex subject about which I know very little.

> If not, then what is the evidence that convinces you?

Convince me of what specifically?

What would convince you that the ability you experience is a delusion?

I mean, some people are delusional, and they do experience a myriad of phenomena involving thought transmission, insertion, etc.

So what is it that tells you it's real and fundamentally different in quality?

Being able to see thoughts of someone who is operating a combination lock might be handy.

> What would convince you that the ability you experience is a delusion?

Hmm... That is an interesting question.

FWIW, there have been times when I've wondered, "Am I just insane?" but not for years now.

You would have to have some sort of record of most of my life, from say, age ten on. Especially the time I was homeless. (I dropped out of high school and lived on the street for about 4.5 years.) So many things happened during that time that would not be accepted as real by, uh, mainstream conventional viewpoints. "Mind reading" or "being psychic" was one of the more pedestrian aspects.

So you would have to have some sort of video recordings covering most of my life, and I'd have to go through them and see for myself how hundreds of "episodes" or events were just coincidences or hallucinations.

Interestingly enough, I was also suffering from depression during that time. However, that didn't seem to interfere with the, uh, esoteric stuff that was happening with and through me. As I said, mental illness and "psychic" phenomenon are orthogonal.

> I mean, some people are delusional, and they do experience a myriad of phenomena involving thought transmission, insertion, etc.

Oh to be sure! Schizophrenia is a hellofa thing. I remember reading a book written by someone who became schizophrenic and then healed from it, and they e.g. thought that all bus drivers formed a sinister psychic cabal that ruled the world!

I hasten to point out that you don't have to be crazy to fall into the trap of erroneously believing that you can "read minds", although we seldom call it that. It's a pretty common hallucination that we know what the other person is thinking, eh?

> So what is it that tells you it's real and fundamentally different in quality?

I was raised in a pro-science way (although I'm not a scientist myself) and some of my personal heroes include noted skeptics like Carl Sagan and Isaac Asimov. So as I began to investigate the wider world beyond convention I did my best to test these things.

I should point out that, although I can (or believe I can) see thought forms that are not my own (and really, as I said above no thoughts are properly "our own") I didn't try to read other people's minds. It seemed voyeuristic, y'know? Also, for my own weirdo reasons, I wasn't really interested in what other people were thinking, I was driven to find the truth about reality and most folks are just "watching TV" in their heads.

Anyway, there were just a lot of confirmations, over and over again. To the point where it was almost ridiculous. Getting back to the original question (about developing intuition) I was living in a stream of "coincidences" that happened all day every day. For example, for about two years, I never hit a red light. What I mean is that every time I came to an intersection the light was green in my direction. I was walking a lot back then, all day, all over the city, green light green light green light.

As a counter-example (not of my personal experience, but of fraudulent "psychics") I once went to visit a friend of mine and saw the sign of a local psychic shop in his stairwell. Asked why it was there he told me, "I was drunk and I figured that if they really were psychic they would have known I was gonna steal it and they wouldn't have left it out." Impeccable reasoning, if a bit mean.

My deal was the opposite of that. Everything fell into place, over and over again. I could go to a city I'd never been to before, walk straight to a "random" bus stop, board the first bus that came by, and arrive at my destination. No map, no schedule, just "following my feet." Call it intuition.

> Being able to see thoughts of someone who is operating a combination lock might be handy.

What? To steal from them? That's criminal. What do you want from knowing that combo? Money? What do you want that money for? Food? Just get food. :)

>Getting back to the original question (about developing intuition) I was living in a stream of "coincidences" that happened all day every day.

Some people with schizophrenia experience exactly this as their principal symptom (it may vary with medication and other unknown factors). This is where paranoia comes from - the coincidences can seem to form a compelling pattern unless one's mind is sufficiently tranquilized.

It's a misconception that hearing voices, hallucinations, or multiple personalities define the illness.

Are you trying to convince me that I'm schizophrenic? :)

I don't know whether you are schizophrenic. I'm not qualified to diagnose you.

I was only curious whether you understand what it is (can be), and have good reasons for thinking you are not.

Try to build mental models without becoming attached to them. When your predictions are not accurate, try to update it based on the actual outcome. If you're any good at this then you'll get more accurate over time when exposed to the same kinds of situations.

I'm not sure this needs explaining though - most real people don't make decisions based on data most of the time. We make decisions based on experience, received knowledge (eg advice) or gut instinct.

Where most people fall down (I would say) is not letting go of failed models.

> Some people just think about it for a few seconds and go with the decision that feels right.

This sounds a lot like experience. Say someone's been programming for decades, solved all kinds of problems and encountered all kinds of obscure bugs. Maybe they see your issue, they've seen something like it before, but they don't remember exactly what or when, just that it's familiar. So they quickly find the solution but it just "feels right" - intuition.

The observation of "intuition" is that people analyze or make decisions without having insight into the process.

The logical conclusion is that people have background processing that is independent of their consciousness. But that entity doesn't manifest as an independent personality.

I have always had the experience that I can read something with a lot of details, and feel like I am skimming and not focusing well, almost to the point where I wonder if I really am an effective reader.

But then inconsistencies appear in my mind, so that if I need to discuss what I've read, I have plenty to talk about.

A chess master will see the best move right away then spend his additional time further analyzing it.

First you have to ask yourself if you are sufficiently experienced with the topic. How many times have you seen this or a highly similar situation before? Did you guess then validate in those situations? If you consider it sufficient or are looking to acquire the intuition you invest the time guessing. After guessing you try to guess what accuracy you expect your guess to have. THEN you do the validation or analysis to see how well you did.

More often than not I'm almost completely wrong and I imagine my intuition to be highly accurate. It's very humbling. I learn not to depend on it.

I've seen others do much better to the point it looks like magic.

With chess, strategy is usually based on intuition, tactics is on analysis. The early game is mostly strategy, end game is mostly tactics.

It's hard to analyze early on. You have things where you sacrifice a pawn for a better position, or sacrifice a bishop for a bishop for seemingly no gain. It's difficult to even define a good position; your queen is in the center, able to threaten everywhere, but it faces threats from everywhere too.

This is where intuition kicks in. I know that I've had a lot of bad games letting enemy pawns in the center or with higher value pieces moved too aggressively early game. There's no analysis that can tell me why, but you develop it looking through your old games.

Take a look at TRIZ, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIZ

I read this:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23995360-superforecastin...

It has a good section in the appendix about things you can do to improve your forecasting accuracy.

I feel like most qualities are immeasurable. Physical performance is measurable, so is intellect to a degree.

How can one objectively track performance in an immeasurable property?

u have to find the space and time to be quiet and listen to yourself and follow it. has served me well (mostly!)

Joshua Waitzkin, US Chess Champion, Taichi Push Hands World Champion, covers the topic of intuition several times in his book the Author of the Art of Learning. I highly recommend this read (favorite book of all time). Its not a book focused on intuition specifically, but it does cover it alot .

Once you achieve a high level of mastery and experience your area of work, intuition, seems a lot more relevant and reliable. Here are some clear visual examples in sports (but they apply to all disciplines i firmly believe):

Example1: How is Cristiano Ronaldo such a phenomenal elite soccer player? - https://youtu.be/4achmhzLNoY?t=1060

  Example2: How are master level chess players able to calculate positions almost instantly or recall game positions from a long time ago?

- http://billwall.phpwebhosting.com/articles/memory_and_chess.... - https://theprint.in/pageturner/excerpt/chess-player-memory-a... - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS5Q5KPU_No

I found this conversation with Tim Ferris and Josh Waitzkin might pique your curiosity and they talk about intuition in sports and business. - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r6gr7uytQA

TLDR of whole response: topic mastery and experience really help develop intuition

Recent personal example of building intuition for me:

I have been doing a lot of programming contest questions. Initially I was getting stumped on how to approach the problems that kept re-appearing again and again. After so much repeated failure, I felt what I was missing was an understanding of underlying principles and patterns for certain coding questions. I found a resource online and discovered there were lots of topics I had never heard of in these programming contests / coding interview problems like “sliding window”, “2 pointer” etc….

After I started drilling down on those types of problems I struggled with, when I encountered new unseen or familiar looking questions my mind was able to *immediately suggest to me an approach towards solving the problem. Before It would take me a long time to decide how I was going to approach the problem and it was because I lacked knowledge and depth in the area I was working in.

Thank you

Reply on news.ycombinator.com