The Power of Intuitive Thinking-2

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The Power of Intuitive Thinking-2

Blink

We live in a world that assumes the quality of a decision is directly related to the time and effort that went into making it. What do we teach our children? Haste makes Waste. Look before you leap. Don’t judge a book by its cover. We believe that we are always better of gathering as much information as possible and spending as much time as possible in deliberation. We really only trust conscious decision making. But there are moments, particularly in times of stress, when haste does not make waste, when our snap judgements and first impressions can offer a much better means of making sense of the world. Decisions made very quickly can be every bit as good as decisions made cautiously and deliberately. There can be as much value in the blink of an eye as in months of rational analysis.

The Adaptive Unconscious

Whenever we meet someone for the first time, whenever we interview someone for a job, whenever we react to a new idea, whenever we’re faced with making a decision quickly and under stress, we use that second part of our brain. When you walk down a street and suddenly realize that a truck is bearing down on you, do you have time to think through all your options? Of course not. The only way that the human beings could have ever survived as a species for as long as we have is that we've developed another kind of decision-making apparatus that’s capable of making very quick judgements based on very little information. That part of our brain that leaps to conclusions like this is called the adaptive unconscious.

Educating your blink

The power of knowing, in those first two seconds, is not a gift given magically to a fortunate few like Sandeep. It is an ability that we can all cultivate for ourselves. Your snap judgements can be controlled and educated.

The Art of Thin-Slicing

‘Thin-Slicing’ refers to the ability of our unconscious to find patterns in behaviour based on very narrow slices of experience. It too, is part of what makes the unconscious so dazzling. But it is also what is most problematic about rapid cognition. How is it possible to gather the necessary information for a sophisticated judgement in such a short period of time? The answer is that when the unconscious engages in Thin-Slicing, what we are doing is an automated accelerated unconscious function of the brain. While Thin-Slicing, one doesn't need to focus on everything that happens. You will be overwhelmed by the task of counting events. Be far more selective, particularly in a negative environment.

Om Namah Shivay