The phenomena of having a gut feeling, or an intuition, is perhaps the most common citation of ‘proof’ that there are means to knowledge other than reason and logic. But what if your faculty of reason is most likely causal in your intuitive hunch?
It is widely acknowledged that our consciousness is bombarded with a massive amount of data in every waking moment, far more than can be consciously assimilated. At the same time, it is recognised that people voluntarily attending a lecture on subject matter they are interested in will only take away consciously about 25% of the information they are presented with—and this is when they are paying attention! The point is, that in every day life, an enormous amount of information slips past conscious awareness, but it is still heard, seen, experienced. It still gets registered by the brain, and the evidence shows that it is subconsciously noted. It is not disputed that subliminal messages are noted, and also things that are repeatedly encountered are noted even if they are not perceived consciously.
I suggest that when information that has been recorded in the subconscious mind becomes relevant to the current considerations of the conscious mind, a gut feeling or intuition, with respect to that subject matter, is experienced. Your subconscious has relevant information recorded, but no cognitive connection exists to link it to the relevant consideration. Without this cognitive connection the idea cannot be used in reasoning. All that is left, is for your subconscious to offer you an intuition, a hunch, or a gut feeling. Without cognition and conceptual awareness, only a feeling can be offered to signal that the conscious mind should pay attention! Intuition, hunches or gut feeling, whatever you call it, it is useful information coming not from any 6th sense, but from your subconscious mind.
If we wish to fully integrate our consciousness into a united and efficient single unit, I suggest that we should always acknowledge and investigate any gut feeling, hunch or intuition that has relevance to our conscious interests, with the important caveat, that you should not let these be the sole sanction of your convictions. Feelings, hunches, emotions, etc, are not the primary means of determining facts. Ideas or conclusions suggested by intuition should properly be the starting point of further investigation. They are like sign posts telling you where to dig in your investigation, where to drill down to find evidence. But you must know that it is the use of reason that will lead you to truth, even after suggestions from a hunch. Rational argument, proof, evidence and logic should properly provide the sanction of your convictions in the form of reasons as the basis of your understanding, not your feelings.
Telepathy, energy transfer, gut feeling, or just knowing without any evidence or supporting facts, these all amount to using emotions to feel what is true. These feelings can be erroneously supported by holding other false ideas as true. In other words, a ‘knowledge base’ that includes false ideas can contribute to eliciting feelings in support of yet more related false ideas. Emotions are a hugely misunderstood phenomena. If you are interested in an interpretation that challenges the mainstream view, yet is intelligible, makes sense, and that you can test for yourself, check this out.
Sometimes, we can experience a gut feeling that says NO to our (apparently correct) left brain logical reasoning. We may then subsequently find out that the hunch was right, and that if we had followed our logical thinking disaster would have resulted! Therefore, we may conclude, the hunch is superior to reason because it can see what reason can’t. This conclusion is understandable, but there are other more likely possibilities
In the absence of all the knowledge required in a given situation, or if you have a false premise as part of your reasoning, you will likely arrive at an incorrect conclusion. In this case, conclusions arrived at by reasoning may well be false, and may contradict information held in your subconscious, in the form of something that you’ve seen or heard. Something has registered only subconsciously, not cognitively. All that your subconscious mind can do is offer you an intuition, a feeling, a hunch NOT to continue, NOT to follow this reasoning. It is effectively warning against error. For some reason, not available to conscious awareness, the subconscious mind can see a contradiction, but has no cognitive connection to offer, maybe it has some association of a contradictory idea, but this can’t offer you a cognitive insight. The hunch is the signal that deeper rational inquiry is needed, Not that rational inquiry is faulty, or inferior to feelings.
The use of our consciousness should not be seen as an either/or competition between reason and emotion, it should be seen as an integration of both, with proper regard for the role played by each in serving the goal of a fully integrated consciousness, one able to fulfill its role in guiding our values, our choices, our actions, our lives.
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Nigel, September ’25
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