Journal Entry - 20/04/2009

Whose intuitions should you trust? Are some people's intuitions better than other?
An intuition is the gut feeling that an individual experiences and it comes true. However, a person’s intuition is extremely personal and is not usually felt with the same amount of intensity by anybody else. The only intuition that I would trust, would be my own, as it is my inner feeling about a situation or event, that I cannot accept anybody else’s intuition on it. Everybody’s intuitions vary according to their own experiences and their perception towards things. One cannot say that somebody’s intuition is better than another person’s intuition, because, as stated earlier, it is a personal feeling and solely depends on the way the individual chooses to think and perceive the entire situation. Therefore, for me, I would not be able to completely trust anybody else’s intuition over my own.

If something is intuitively obvious must everybody agree about it?
No, it is not necessary for everybody to agree upon something that maybe intuitively obvious, because most things are never intuitively obvious to all individuals. What may be extremely intuitively obvious to one person may be completely bizarre to another. For example, the fact that the Earth was believed to be flat, was intuitively obvious to almost everybody, except the few that were able to reason out this stated fact, question what they were told and come to conclusion about how it was truly absurd. And later, proving that the Earth was not flat, in fact it was round. This example shows how what may seem to be intuitively obvious, does not have to be agreed upon by everybody as all intuitions vary from person to person.

Is there anything that everybody agrees about?
There are innumerable facts and truths which have been proven to be correct, which everybody agrees about. Things which have been scientifically proven to be right, such as the evolution of man, or about facts told about from history. But at the same time there are several issues that are still questioned by most people who have shifting beliefs about the same. Things which may be slightly more controversial and have a number of points that could be counter arguments against the issue.

Could you be wrong to think that something is intuitively obvious?
Many a time our gut feelings, or instincts may not be entirely true, and sometimes they may not be true at all. And therefore, it is wrong to think that things are always intuitively obvious, because that might not always be the case. However, by ALWAYS thinking that things cannot be intuitively obvious, one is taking for granted that intuitions do not exist, which in itself is an intuitively obvious statement that individuals should believe in. The gut feeling that we have, is often so strong and so accurate that it would be foolishness to assure yourself that something is not intuitively obvious.

Might you one day come to see that something you thought was intuitively obvious is in fact a deep rooted prejudice?
Very often, things that individuals may feel are intuitively obvious, turn out to be just the opposite and are merely deep rooted prejudices. This is extremely common for almost all individuals. For an individual who feel that it is intuitively obvious to hate all Muslims because they feel that it is intuitively obvious that all Muslims are terrorists. May someday befriend a Muslim and realise that what he thought to be intuitively obvious, was merely a prejudice that he held. And his feelings may change drastically in relation to this situation.