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From: fostel@ncsu.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.ai
Subject: RE: Intuition in Physics
Message-ID: <2360@ncsu.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 6-Oct-83 15:00:15 EDT
Article-I.D.: ncsu.2360
Posted: Thu Oct  6 15:00:15 1983
Date-Received: Sun, 9-Oct-83 05:55:07 EDT
Lines: 38



    Some few days ago I suggested that there was something "different"
    about psychology and tried to draw a distinction between the flash
    of insight or the pet theory in physics as compared to psychology.

    Well, someone else commented on the original, in a way that sugested
    I missed the mark in my original effort to make it clear. One more time:

    I presume that at birth, ones mind is not predisposed to one or another
    of several possible theories of heavy molecule collision (for example.)
    Further, I think it unlikely that personal or emotional interaction in
    one "pre-analytic" stage (see anything about developmental psych.) is
    is likely to bear upon ones opinions about those molecules. In fact I
    find it hard to believe that anything BUT technical learning is likely
    to bear on ones intuition about the molecules. One might want to argue
    that ones personality might force you to lean towards "aggressive" or
    overly complex theories, but I doubt that such effects will lead to
    the creation of a theory.  Only a rather mild predisposition at best.

    In psychology it is entirely different.  A person who is agresive has
    lots of reasons to assume everyone else is as well. Or paranoid, or
    that rote learning is esp good or bad, or that large dogs are dangerous
    or a number of other things that bear directly on ones theories of the
    mind.  And these biases are aquired from the process of living and are
    quite un-avoidable.  This is not technical learning.  The effect is
    that even in the face of considerable technical learning, ones intuition
    or "pet theories" in psychology might be heavily influenced in creation
    of the theory as well as selection, by ones life experiences, possibly
    to the exclusion of ones technical opinions. (Who knows what goes on in
    the sub-conscious.)  While one does not encounter heavy molecules often
    in ones everyday life or ones childhood, one DOES encounter other people
    and more significantly ones own mind.

    It seems clear that intuition in physics is based upon a different sort
    of knowledge than intuition about psychology.  The latter is a combination
    of technical AND everyday intuition while the former is not.
    ----GaryFostel----