Apparently, Intuition isn’t just a vague ‘knowing’ towards something, it’s more than that – intuition is the highest form of intelligence. Gerd Gigerenzer, a director at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, and the author of the book Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious, explains why.

According to Gigerenzer, intuition means instinctively understanding which is the important and unimportant information. It’s the ‘knowing’ of what details to chew over, or to be discarded. Gigerenzer says he is both instinctive and rational.

“In my scientific work, I have hunches. I can’t explain always why I think a certain path is the right way, but I need to trust it and go ahead. I also have the ability to check these hunches and find out what they are about. That’s the science part. Now, in private life, I rely on instinct. For instance, when I first met my wife, I didn’t do computations. Nor did she,” Gigerenzer said.

Intuition can be tied up as a form of intelligence when smart people use it to challenge their assumptions. Individuals who are intellectually curious, and hungry for knowledge, have gut feelings that initiate an instinct about knowing something, most of the time, out of the blue. Once an intuition occurs, they are willing to entertain a thought, but they know when to do otherwise.

In simpler words, a person is not exercising intelligence when all he does is trust his instincts. However, when he dives deep into a subject and explores different possibilities, he’s exercising his intelligence when he follows his intuition when it’s telling him what’s important and what’s not.

In other views, intuition can be an understanding of a collective intelligence. For instance, the world wide web is created in an Intuitive way. So, it’s navigation is easily understood by anyone who uses it. The web today, however, evolved from numerous online chaos, where a common wisdom was acquired over what was essential and what’s superfluous.

Watch this interesting video on the subject of Intuition:

Theo Humphries says that intuitive design can be described as “understandable without the use of instructions”. It can be true when a group of people who shares a common understanding of how something works, intuitively understand one another.

Intuition can only be a form intelligence if its power is disciplined. People still need to use their brains despite a strong instinct towards something. Intuition will even become sharper if more researches and learnings will be done.

Albert Einstein has left a quote regarding the subject. Although these exact words may have been paraphrased, the quote is widely known as, “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”

Forgetting the gift, and letting the rational mind win over situations that requires intuitive intelligence can lead you to a wrong direction. It typically happens during a corporate mandate, brainstorming, or when you want to produce a particular outcome. During those times, it’s better to listen to your instincts. When there is a ‘bad feeling’ that continues to persist despite talking to yourself that you are going in a right direction, perhaps you are really heading the wrong way.

Smart people listen to ‘gut feelings’. They are the smartest among us who make great intellectual leaps forward, who won’t able to do it without the power of intuition.

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