There is only one other acceptable theory of how to hit a golf ball. Grip it and rip it. – Tin Cup (1996)

“Over the years, I’ve sort of learned to follow my nose on these hunches that I have, and usually something turns up pretty interesting.” – Hit Man (2024)

For most of human history, we have collectively understood the world without the help of machine learning, excel spreadsheets or even written words. Instead, we’ve made do with all things inexact: stories, myths, dreams, poetry, dance, drama and a deep connection with nature. These tools have helped us to make sense and meaning out of the mysterious. And they’ve done so by respecting all of ourselves we are unaware of – our unconscious.

These days, we think differently. We’re avatars on a digital social graph, sharing every thought to thousands. We hardly spend time outside. We don’t move our bodies much. We use tv instead of our imagination. We talk to computers with code. Thinking logically, analytically and systematically is highly valued. It’s all about precision baby.

Biologically, most of that type of thought is ruled by the left hemisphere. That’s where detail, order, power, control, rationality, planning, math & logic live. It’s the bread and butter of western civilization. It’s also the kind of thought we experience much of the day, when we zoom in, plan for our holidays, tick off to-do lists and tally up our budgets.

So where does that leave our intuition, imagination and other largely unconscious processes?

In Subliminal, Leonard Mlodinow doesn’t exactly have a point of view on that question, instead reviewing the latest and greatest science of the ‘new unconscious’, and all the cognitive biases that have become mainstream knowledge since it was published in 2012. These quirks show us that we are not as clever as we thought. And there’s consequences. Faulty memory sends innocent people to be jailed. Social and racial biases cause unqualified men to be hired or women to perform worse on a test. A light touch on the arm or the word ‘because’ is all it takes for us to say yes. Pick up artists rejoice, growth marketers profit.

Time and time again, reactions and decisions that are self-reported as good or accurate, are neither. An image used to describe this lack of conscious control is a monkey riding an elephant. The monkey thinks he’s in charge, but in truth the elephant pretty much goes where he wants. We conclude that we need to clean up our biases and get better at statistics if we’re going to keep our job or ever find our soulmate.

In terms of ‘correctness’, humans do seem to be hopelessly inaccurate and likely to misjudge reality. Hell, by looking at the eye, we know that we only have detailed vision in about two degrees of visual angle (that’s a thumb width at arm’s length). Ambiguity is everywhere and when it’s computed by our brains it invariably ‘opens the door to stereotyping, to misjudging people we don’t know very well. It also opens the door to misjudging ourselves.’

But what if we are looking at the elephant the wrong way? Rather than big and out of control, maybe it’s actually wise. Iain McGilchrist points out that intuitive thought is something unappreciated, undeveloped and deserves more of our brain power.

A lot of people have come away with the idea that intuition would be very bad thing to be guided by at any stage to any degree.

You can set up these artificial situations in which we seem to be getting things wrong by following our intuition… that’s often because 99% of the time we followed this intuition it would intelligently and quickly take us to the right solution.

Intuition, in certain cases, and certainly most experiments, can look like a contradiction, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s useless. Like Nassim Taleb says, “If a cognitive ‘bias’ is helpful, it is not a bias.” Rather than clean it up, or push it further back into the dark, we should seek to understand and involve it. Why?

1. It’s need balancing. In high school we learn more about language, math and science than art or poetry. There’s no reason why our intuition couldn’t be as robust as our intellects.
2. It’s all one system. Your unconsciousness isn’t in some deep water tank separate from your conscious mind. There is no monkey or elephant. Even the left and right hemisphere are part of one body. Any problem solved uses things we are aware of and in control of, and some things that are not.
3. Most things are done better unconsciously. The better a fighter pilot or saxophonist gets, they ‘think’ less and less. In fact, many things get worse if we try and do them consciously. Csikszentmihalyi shows us in Flow that everything from gardening to choir singing benefits from intuition.
4. It needs attention. Next time you feel overwhelmed with counter-productive or harshly judgmental thinking – try speaking to yourself. Say something like “I am really not interested in thinking these thoughts anymore, thanks.” Jill Bolte Taylor, who had a left brain stroke and basically lived in her unconscious for a few months likes to add “a kinesthetic component to my message like waggling my pointed finger in the air, or standing firm with my hands on my hips. A scolding mother is more effective when she says what she means with passion and communicates her message multidimensionally.”

Also posted on Substack