Intuition is not apart from rational thought it is a part of rational thought
Yuval Noah Harari is fond of saying “Emotions are algorithms” in his book Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow. This is a pretty phrase, and I see its logic. But, as a non-programmer, it still contributes to an otherness I sometimes feel around my emotions.
Somewhere along the way, I internalized a belief that the best way to be in the world is devoid of emotions. Ideally, we’d all be Spock. I have understood for a while now that’s not right, but I’m still in the unlearning process. I think it’s for that reason that I appreciate that someone as smart as Harari openly uses language and logic to elevate emotions. It has me thinking about how emotions and other ways of knowing we typically categorize as not sophisticated really and truly are amazingly so.
For instance, the sensation we call intuition is, in fact, a synopsis of everything we know — the sum of all that we have experienced and all that we are currently experiencing. The mark of an intellectually evolved person is not someone who ignores their intuition but someone who harnesses it. That’s something I can really wrap my mind around.