physics and intuition

[capt vimes]

Originally Posted by Dave Gudeman

Intuition is not just guesswork, nor is it some sort of mystical knowledge. Intuition is just the name for whatever faculty or faculties give you your inherent knowledge --the knowledge that can't possibly have come from experience.

i disagree...
intuition is by the very meaning - guesswork!
you apply logic and reasoning to defend, articulate and proof your guesswork - your intuition...

sure enough - our intuition is derived from our experiences and made up by our brain - an organ which sole purpose is to give us the right picture of our envirenment we are living in in order to be able to survive... but our memory is vary, our experiences sometimes wrong memorized and therefore leading to false conclusions...

logic and reasoning is the only way to go... the more you reason the more your intuition starts to work on the same trail...
but intuition is guesswork - by definition!

[Dave Gudeman]

Originally Posted by capt vimes

i disagree...
intuition is by the very meaning - guesswork!

The word "intuition" several different meanings. I used it in a particular way in the post that started this thread. People have misunderstood how I was using the word and so I have been trying to clarify. I was specifically not using the word to mean the same as guesswork. In fact, if you read the original post and replace "intuition" everywhere with "guesswork" you will see that the post makes no sense. You could also reread this post and this post where I explain my use of the word.

[Asleep Helmsman]

I looked it up:
The following is a excerpt from Dictionary.com

intuition:

1.
direct perception of truth, fact, etc., independent of any reasoning process; immediate apprehension.
2.
a fact, truth, etc., perceived in this way.
3.
a keen and quick insight.
4.
the quality or ability of having such direct perception or quick insight.
5.
Philosophy.
a.
an immediate cognition of an object not inferred or determined by a previous cognition of the same object.
b.
any object or truth so discerned.
c.
pure, untaught, noninferential knowledge.
6.
Linguistics. the ability of the native speaker to make linguistic judgments, as of the grammaticality, ambiguity, equivalence, or nonequivalence of sentences, deriving from the speaker's native-language competence.

I have used intuition all of my life and I’m mostly correct. I know people that went to school for years and couldn’t think their way out of a phone booth.

There is no distinction between logic and intuition from the stand point of getting things right. It’s subconscious and based on prior knowledge, attitude, and the ability to trust that your past experiences have been correct enough, and that you have the confidence to move forward.

That does not eliminate the need for education or the need to apply proper tools, like computers, to come up with scenarios that work.

Now if you really want to talk about something hard to duplicate in any logic machine.

Talk about creativity.

That’s the important one.

[SheetWise]

There is also presentiment, which is often confused with intuition.

Granted the difference is subtle -- but presentiment is clearly not learned.

[gonzo]

Asleep helmsman; All the definitions you posted are about perception. Nowhere does it say that there is any proof or demonstrability.

[Asleep Helmsman]

Originally Posted by gonzo

Asleep helmsman; All the definitions you posted are about perception. Nowhere does it say that there is any proof or demonstrability.

Ok. I just posted what they had on dictionary.com

Maybe someone else can find some better ones.

[capt vimes]

either the english word 'intuition' means what asleep posted and i completely misunderstood it for my entire life and messed it up with the german word "Intuiton" which means apparently something completely different...
ot the other way round...

the german word stands for a feeling from your guts that something is the way you think... its not percepted as truth or fact - well to the one it might be like that - but it is just a feeling and one is not able to explain why or where he got this 'quick insight'...
and that is guesswork...

[TeddyDiver]

Originally Posted by capt vimes

but it is just a feeling and one is not able to explain why or where he got this 'quick insight'...
and that is guesswork...

Might it be the difference of being right when it's intuitition or when wrong just guessing

[capt vimes]

Originally Posted by TeddyDiver

Might it be the difference of being right when it's intuitition or when wrong just guessing

hehe... good and valid point there...

[gonzo]

Being right or wrong is not the issue. Demonstrability is. You can tell me that you feel it is right but you won't convince me at all. I build and design structures based on engineering not feelings. I think only a fool would buy a design because the designer tells the buyer that he feels "right" about it.

[Dave Gudeman]

Gonzo, you are half correct that intuitions cannot be proven. Intuitions are like logical premises --they have no justification in argument; they are just given. But you can argue about intuitions by banging them against each other.

I'm not sure how appropriate it is to discuss epistemology in a boat-design forum, but I just can't resist the ongoing joke: commenters who insist that demonstration is better than intuition on the grounds of their own unsupported intuition and in defiance of my demonstrations. They think that demonstration is better than intuition, apparently, except when it is their own intuition and someone else's demonstration.

So, one more time: demonstration does not replace intuition; it exploits intuition. It uses one set of intuitions to overrule another. For example, my intuition tells me that boat over there is 32 feet long. You go lay out a tape measure along the dock and show me that the boat is 34 feet long. I will agree that my initial intuition was wrong.

But this isn't because intuition has been replaced by demonstration --it is because a weak intuition has been replaced by an argument based on much stronger intuitions. What intuitions did you use to change my mind? Well, first there is the intuition of geometry. I had to believe the axiom of parallels in order to agree that by lining up the ends of the tape measure on the dock with the ends of the boat in the water, you made the tape measure the same length as the boat. Then there is my intuition about how vision works. I had to agree that your vision when you lined up the ends of the tape measure would produce parallels. Then there is my intuition about your honesty. I don't think you would lie about what you saw.

Some intuitions are tentative and individual. An example would be a guess about a boat length. Other intuitions are firm and universal. An example would be your assumptions about parallel lines. What you are doing is assuming that only the tentative individual intuitions are intuitions. You seem to think that the firm universal intuitions are just facts. Not even facts, really; these assumptions are so deeply buried in your reasoning that you don't even notice them at all. But they are there, and they have no firmer grounds than intuition, and they underlie all of your reasoning, whether you notice them or not.

[Asleep Helmsman]

There’s a book: International Residential Codes

This book explains in great engineering detail, every feasible aspect of creating safe, and sound, residential structures. I’ve read it cover to cover and used it to detail dozens of homes over the last 24 years.

No where in that book does it tell you how to design a home that people will love, people will buy, or would actually make a nice place to live.

Intuition and creativity tells you all those things; so I would say that if you build any structure strictly by engineering alone, it would be considered foolish.

Take a look at the old Soviet buildings for example, engineered yes, but ugly as hell and probably not very comfortable to live in.

It takes a measure of creative spark, intuition about what looks good and what might work, and finally, math and science to prove it’s capable of being built, and economically feasible.

Great teams are made up of all three.

And all inspired architectural, nautical, or any other kind of master piece, incorporates all three, even something as mundane as a tooth brush.

[capt vimes]

Originally Posted by Dave Gudeman

Some intuitions are tentative and individual. An example would be a guess about a boat length. Other intuitions are firm and universal. An example would be your assumptions about parallel lines. What you are doing is assuming that only the tentative individual intuitions are intuitions. You seem to think that the firm universal intuitions are just facts. Not even facts, really; these assumptions are so deeply buried in your reasoning that you don't even notice them at all. But they are there, and they have no firmer grounds than intuition, and they underlie all of your reasoning, whether you notice them or not.

you are saying that the laws of physics as we know them and learned them are 'buried intuitions' and that those laws have no frimer ground than any personal intuition?

uhhmm...
certainly it was newtons intuiton - his subconscious 'belive' - that what the apple lets drop to the ground from a tree is a force.
the tinkered, experimented and came up in the end with laws and caluclations to explain and compute this force he called gravity...
it was his intuition on work there - sure enough - but it is no subconscious, hiddden knowledge to us anymore because we learned from his work and we know on a rational basis that 2 bodys with certain masses (m1 and m2) in a messureable distance (d) attract each other and that we can easyly calculate the force by his formula!
F = G((m1*m2)/d^2)
with G being the gravitational constant
no intuition at work there - not at all...

if we apply now newtons physic laws on a larger or smaller scale we will see that it does not fit... they work here on our planet and its close surrounding quite good... but they are dead wrong if it comes to astronomical or atomar scales...
and since we know that also - we do not need to restore to intuition at our last resource thank's to einstein and blank and all the other guys working on quantum theory...

[Dave Gudeman]

Originally Posted by capt vimes

you are saying that the laws of physics as we know them and learned them are 'buried intuitions' and that those laws have no frimer ground than any personal intuition?

No, that's not what I'm saying. The laws of physics are not intuitions; nor are they any sort of buried knowledge. They are theories derived from observation by reason, but the reasoning is ultimately grounded on intuition. The reasoning is grounded in intuition because the basic premises of arithmetic and geometry are known by intuition. Since the laws of physics are based on arithmetic and geometry, the laws of physics are ultimately grounded in intuition.

Here is another example of intuition: if x is less than y and y is less than z, then x is less than z. If you think about that, you will realized that it has to be true, but you can't give a reason why it has to be true. This is just a basic premise of arithmetic. An intuition.

Also, I said that our basic assumptions "have no firmer grounds than intuition". I didn't say that they have no firmer grounds than "any personal intuition". The difference is important. Our intuitions about the axioms of arithmetic are much more reliable than many other intuitions.

[capt vimes]

Originally Posted by Dave Gudeman

No, that's not what I'm saying. The laws of physics are not intuitions; nor are they any sort of buried knowledge. They are theories derived from observation by reason, but the reasoning is ultimately grounded on intuition. The reasoning is grounded in intuition because the basic premises of arithmetic and geometry are known by intuition. Since the laws of physics are based on arithmetic and geometry, the laws of physics are ultimately grounded in intuition.

i can sign that... to some extend...

Here is another example of intuition: if x is less than y and y is less than z, then x is less than z. If you think about that, you will realized that it has to be true, but you can't give a reason why it has to be true. This is just a basic premise of arithmetic. An intuition.

and now comes the bugger...
arithmetic is mathematics and mathematics follows rules and laws 1+1=2 - any time, everywhere...
and all those figures on the natural scale(? english term?) are in a certain order and in this order 5 is less than 10 and this is less than 100 - so 5 is also less than 100... the whole thing is surely intuitional based but put into laws and rules and even if its only for the sake of common language - so to speak - its rules and laws nontheless...

Also, I said that our basic assumptions "have no firmer grounds than intuition". I didn't say that they have no firmer grounds than "any personal intuition". The difference is important. Our intuitions about the axioms of arithmetic are much more reliable than many other intuitions.

granted but we 'framed' those intuitions with rules and laws... (see above)

the reasons for this are also very clear:
we know that primates and other animals (the famous parrot 'Alex' i.e.) also already know about arithmetics...
a monkey will know the difference between 1 banana and a bunch of bananas and will ALWAYS go for the bunch...
this is something most probably coded into our genes because it will give the individual a very good chance of finding and choosing the richest food resources and therfore enhance its survival abilities immensly...