C3. Thoughts vs. feelings – Trust your intuition?

Thoughts vs. feelings – Trust your intuition?

Do we trust our mind or our intuition? How we answer often reveals a clear preferred way of reasoning and, with that, a blind spot created by a dominant belief. In “Thinking Fast and Slow,” Daniel Kahneman introduces system one and system two. He refers to 1) our autonomous, swift, and emotional response; and 2) our slower, logical, and conscious reasoning.

The key here is noticing when to use what system, our quick intuition, or our thorough intellect? Overusing our intuition without reflection would lead us in the wrong direction as it may be full of biases. At the same time, solely using our intellect will be awfully time-consuming and drain our energy if engaging in deep logical problem solving every time we decide what to eat or wear.

___

In most major decisions, we need to regard rational reasoning while not denying that our feelings have an important part to play. Using our intuition can be very powerful as it draws on your entire life of experience and our entire history as a species. Fighting against these deep-founded drivers can be like swimming upstream, and when in conflict with our rational mind, it may be draining our energy.

Buddhists would suggest simply acknowledging our emotional response without judging. By doing so, we can reflect on what role these feelings play and why. If we have a bad feeling about someone, we might notice the feeling as an important signal to stay away. If we suspect this feeling to be based on the person simply being different from us, we likely should challenge this gut feeling with rational arguments. To separate fact from opinion is a very important but often neglected skill. When we feel something, this is a fact, not a choice, and should not be denied. How we think about and act upon that feeling is for us to choose freely.

Similarly, if we come to rational decisions that feel wrong or simply dull, these are likely emotional aspects that we missed in our very simplified rational model. Not taking our, as well other’s, feelings into account results in a theoretical model not likely to work practically. Getting hired to the “perfect” job on paper that you end up hating won’t be the outcome we’re after.

Feeling and intuition seem to work better when presented with a few options where we have more qualitative data. If given a choice between ten different projects at work for our next assignment, we might want to reduce the options, using intellectual reasoning before asking ourselves what we feel like. Doing so allows us to filter out options that we consider a no-go. When filtering down to just a few options that we can now describe in greater detail, we find it easier to answer what project we feel would be the most exciting to work on. Over time, we’ll be able to update both our intellect and intuition by reviewing the outcome of choices made by either method. If our decisions aren’t taking us in the direction we want to go, consider challenging our current preference of system one and two and let’s see where it take us.

Regardless of whether we consider ourselves rational or not, we’re highly guided by emotional circuitry formed through evolution over eons in environments very different from today’s societies. Sensations of pleasure and happiness are nature’s way of guiding our actions toward reproduction. Not because it is, in essence, the fundamentally right or moral path but that every single gene that makes us who we are has been passed on by individuals with genes capable of successfully surviving and replicating. These drivers and incentives that got us here seem to be a fact. Now what?

The political right often uses out natural tendencies as an excuse to let nature have its way on unregulated markets. At the same time, the left often ignores the human drives deeply ingrained from evolution. While neither perspective works, the solution is not a compromise. Rather we need to diligently seek the truth of our human nature in its beauty and its nihilistic competitiveness. We must clearly and truly understand ourselves without shying away from the less noble sides. Only when we accept our true nature as humans can we identify the gap towards what we would like our incentives to be and create a society reinforcing these aspirations.

The increased knowledge of our emotional circuitry through medicine, psychology, and neuroscience can help our understanding of thoughts, feelings, and behavior. This same understanding of how we operate makes it easier for others to exploit our attention through media, advertisements, or the use of certain drugs. So far, the debate has only touched on the need for individuals to own their data. Soon we will realize the need to own our minds and incentives. Kings, priests, and business leaders have all made claims to influence what we should want. As our understanding and ways to change what we strive for increase, it may be time to claim our right not just to what nature or society decided that we want—power, beauty, and praise—but what those precious wants are all together.

Intellectually, we may instead ask ourselves if we’re happy with nature’s programming of ourselves. If not, what would we want to want? This may be the most challenging question of them all. All the same, it is the one that sets us free. By answering what we want to want, we can let go of nature’s steering mechanisms and align our thoughts and feelings with incentives that go above and beyond natural selection. So, where to next?

SYNTHESIS:

• - Use rational reasoning to filter quantitatively, then intuition to choose qualitatively.
• - Always separate between fact and opinion. Seek truth in facts, whatever they are.
• - Notice without judgment what nature and society reward us for and how it differs from what we would like to like.