Re:Differences between expert and novice brains in mice: study
by melvinroest on Friday November 22, 2019 @11:39PM
(#21612505)
I'm biased, from my own literature review I gathered that one could strengthen their intuitive signal via meditation, which is basically feeling your body (not only your gut though).
Intuitive feelings that I acted on were all body-related in my experience. In most cases, these intuitive feelings always had to do with assessing who another person is. My intuition about that seems to be pretty accurate.
I think there's a lot more happening in your body than you might realize. I've noticed that myself by practicing mindfulness. However, I don't think it rules out your idea that some intuitions are purely mental.
By the way the word emotion is a tough one, as I believe there is always a bodily component part to an emotion. I subscribe to the James-Lange theory [1] and the appraisal theory. In part, because I experience emotions in those ways before I even knew about the names and knew that these theories existed.
In short how I view emotions is process-based:
- An event occurs (thought, feeling, someone talks to you)
- This automatically gets processed by you whether you want it or not (though when it's automatic, obviously you're not using your full cognitive resources on it)
- This automatic processing concludes into two things:
1. You get thoughts about it
2. You get feelings about it (feelings in your body)
Note: thoughts and feelings are immediately re-triggering this process. So it gets meta pretty quick as you can have feelings about feelings about thoughts about feelings about <mix_and_match_as_long_as_you'd_like>
During my meditation retreat I realized that feelings come slightly earlier than thoughts. At least that's how I experienced it and I happened to be laser focused on observing my feelings and thoughts.
Coincidentally, that's also why I believe I have no free will as my feelings give rise to my thoughts, even when I simply observe my feelings. I don't choose that these feelings give rise to thoughts (and there were times where I really didn't want them to give rise to thoughts), therefore there's no free will. But that's another story :D
[1] There's probably a more advanced theory of this one as it is pretty old. For practical purposes, this theory was good enough for my understanding on what emotions are.
Intuitive feelings that I acted on were all body-related in my experience. In most cases, these intuitive feelings always had to do with assessing who another person is. My intuition about that seems to be pretty accurate.
I think there's a lot more happening in your body than you might realize. I've noticed that myself by practicing mindfulness. However, I don't think it rules out your idea that some intuitions are purely mental.
By the way the word emotion is a tough one, as I believe there is always a bodily component part to an emotion. I subscribe to the James-Lange theory [1] and the appraisal theory. In part, because I experience emotions in those ways before I even knew about the names and knew that these theories existed.
In short how I view emotions is process-based:
- An event occurs (thought, feeling, someone talks to you)
- This automatically gets processed by you whether you want it or not (though when it's automatic, obviously you're not using your full cognitive resources on it)
- This automatic processing concludes into two things:
1. You get thoughts about it
2. You get feelings about it (feelings in your body)
Note: thoughts and feelings are immediately re-triggering this process. So it gets meta pretty quick as you can have feelings about feelings about thoughts about feelings about <mix_and_match_as_long_as_you'd_like>
During my meditation retreat I realized that feelings come slightly earlier than thoughts. At least that's how I experienced it and I happened to be laser focused on observing my feelings and thoughts.
Coincidentally, that's also why I believe I have no free will as my feelings give rise to my thoughts, even when I simply observe my feelings. I don't choose that these feelings give rise to thoughts (and there were times where I really didn't want them to give rise to thoughts), therefore there's no free will. But that's another story :D
[1] There's probably a more advanced theory of this one as it is pretty old. For practical purposes, this theory was good enough for my understanding on what emotions are.