Those who know me personally will understand that I am not a particularly mystical person by nature. I am intuitive, but I’m not someone who is comfortable with those matters that are too strange and “out-there.” Nonetheless, I had a good conversation this afternoon and I wished to comment at least a little bit on some of the elements of this conversation and the question of intuition and discernment. Be forewarned that this post will seem even more scattered than my usual one, but there are connecting elements nonetheless.
It is curious how animals and small children can often sense people very easily, recognizing who is friend or foe on an intuitive basis. For example, the feral cats around here recognize that I am not someone who is going to feed them or leave food for them like others do, and that given my druthers I’d have them in a cage sent somewhere else. So, not surprisingly, they run from me. Nonetheless, they recognize that I don’t mean them any harm so they don’t attack me either. Most animals are quite happy to be playful if others are not either afraid or aggressive toward them, whether the animals are wild or tame, or whether the animals have fierce defenses or not.
There are some people that seem to naturally have a touch for plants or animals, and who seem to have an intuitive knowledge of how to care for them and how to keep them well, knowledge that I must admit that I don’t have but at the same time that I can recognize. Whenever we say someone has a green thumb or is a horse or cow whisperer, there is a recognition that their serene ways reflect an intuitive fondness for a given sort of life, one where there is mutual recognition of love and respect, which allows someone the ability to work very well in a given situation.
It would therefore seem as if on some level there is an intuitive connection between people and other people and animals (and perhaps even plants) where some aspects of the character and nature of people can be known and recognized and responded to. It would seem that certain aspects of our lives (including sales and marketing and hitting on people at a bar) would also seem to reflect to some extent an intuitive rather than a rational examination of factors. It would appear that we are predisposed in some fashion to react in a positive way to a certain intuitive picture, without examining too critically whether that picture is real or projected, which to some extent punishes those who are fairly complicated and nuanced and would benefit those who can present a false front of confidence, as is so often the case. Perhaps an animal would be less fooled, but most of us as people are pretty easily fooled in such matters, especially because we so desperately want to be deceived.
Some people appear to have the gift of being very sensitive to the moods and attitudes of others. To some extent this gift must have an innate component, but also it is clearly nurtured in some fashion as well. After all, if one grows up in an abusive family, it is fairly easy to recognize the signs that there will be trouble based on knowledge that someone is an angry drunk, or that certain people don’t get along well and nearly always get into a fight when they are around each other, or based on a look in someone’s face that betrays very hostile feelings and gives people enough warning to seek an escape before inevitable trouble follows. As someone who tends to communicate rather expressively nonverbally, I afford an easy subject for others who are attuned to such matters, even though I tend to be very restrained verbally. I am certainly far from alone in that, though.
One of the more dangerous implications of the intuitive sort of understanding that other people (and animals) can gain of us is a sense that we can betray our deepest secrets in indirect ways. A baby or a little child, for example, may recognize and react negatively if someone is obviously anxious and uncomfortable around them, responding intuitively to someone’s intensity without knowing enough to realize that they are not to blame. Likewise, on a date a prospective partner may respond a bit negatively to someone’s anxiety, thinking that they have done something wrong or that something is wrong with the other person rather than digging deeper into the reasons why.
And ultimately, that is what is most important about intuitive judgments. To properly handle them, they require investigation, whereas all too often in our lives they simply serve as “evidence” for a given action even if it is “evidence” that cannot clearly be explained beyond a gut feeling. Even if that gut feeling is correct, it should be a signal to start digging around for more clues, rather than simply a way to forestall any sort of examination or close off any possibility of connections with someone else. A sound sense of intuition ought to be a motor that drives research and rumination rather than simply a lazy gate that allows people in or keeps people out on merely superficial grounds.
Edge Induced Cohesion 
Intuition is when a person develops an ability to view life from a reflective state opposed to the position of apprehension, and after having aquiered this state only through the study of the self and ones place within the whole, and humility is made true by realizing ones insignificance. This humility is rewarded with God’s wisdom. Good judgement, or an ability to re-cognize within near zero time or actual time of event. Like a baby, a pause or a pondering of each singular event as it appears in real time and vanishes in the same instant, we can only muse and intuit, responding before we begin to judge or add absurdum, providence can and may occur. Judgement and reductio ad absurdum causes us to hesitate. When we hesitate, providence passes by and keeps moving forward as we lag and stammer in confusion and fright.
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Indeed, those who are blessed take intuition and keep the matter in mind, whereas those who immediately judge and then lose sight of what they saw are like the man in James who saw his reflection in the mirror and then walked away, forgetting what kind of man he was.
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Intuition is the ability to acquire knowledge without inference or the use of reason. [1]
Intuition is the enhanced or “mature” ability to infer and reason with accuracy. [2]
When a baby or an animal responds to a person’s discomfort it is; sensing sympathetic vibrations or minute changes in immediate environment. Just like when a nervous person can make us feel nervous or uneasy and we tend to put up our guard because we prepare for the unpredictable actions of a person apparently out of control, a baby or an animal would react in the same manner. This is not intuition it is reacting to a sudden change in mood.
[1] Oxford English Dictionary
[2] Crant, theory of bio-psychodynamics C=ea2, http://www.editnse.org
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My point is that animals can intuit that something is wrong by sensing mood on a basis that is not strictly rational, but that most of us never get beyond that point to examine matters deeper and understand at least some of the reasons why.
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“to examine matters deeper and understand”
Humans cannot “get deeper” mostly because many humans are shallow and self centered and tend to view the world from a sophist standpoint. I know many people I am convinced believe the world revolves around them and that we should pay attention to their every move and wait on their every word. Try crossing or contradicting them and look out. Its scary.
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Indeed, but that is something that we are responsible for. If we are shallow and self-centered, then our perception is wrong and we are responsible for it along with the suffering that such a mistaken view of life brings. Mind you, some suffering comes about regardless of whether we have a proper perspective of life or not, but if we see things correctly at least we are equipped to do something about it if our perceptions are accurate.
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Immanuel Kant believed humans held inherent capacity for moral law (good sense), but this intrinsic and valuable atribute is attainable only by autonomy. How would autonomy permit a person to realize moral sense?
And would this moral sense be universal?
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I would argue that the free will of mankind is universal, but I dislike the use of the word autonomy to describe this, since I firmly believe we are all accountable to a Heavenly Judge for our obedience (or not) to HIs standards, which would make us subject to His authority and not autonomous in the sense of being free to decide right and wrong for ourselves (for this was the sin of Adam & Eve in the Garden of Eden), but rather that we have the responsibility of choosing what we will do and think and believe for ourselves, whether we are men or women, adults or children. Even if I believe the possession of free will is universal, the realization of the moral sense as a result of taking that freedom seriously and developing our moral responsibilities is far from universal. The potential is universal, the realization much rarer.
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Being autonomous is not about accountability it is about being able to decide for ones own self on matters that affect us personally. It is about recognizing how the self fits into the whole as a vital and funtioning part or element. It has absolutely nothing to do with being outside of God’s judgement or thinking one is above the law. It is simply recognizing that you are an individual creation, unique and precious and not something for other men to mold to their liking such as what does happen in this world of automation even to the point of sheeple being looked at as clones or automatons. Too many people in this modern day cannot even say what type of person they are or honestly and sincerely say what they stand for, many just lumber along and follow the crowd. It is in my opinion the misunderstanding of autonomy and the misuse and ignorance of meaning that cast the bad note. What really does the scri[ture say about being autonomous?
Dear brothers and sisters, when I was with you I couldn’t talk to you as I would to spiritual people. I had to talk as though you belonged to this world or as though you were infants in the Christian life. 1 Cor. 3:1
This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ. Eph. 4:13
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Again, the question is what you mean by autonomy. In our world autonomy usually takes a political tone, and is used for being under no one else’s authority. We talk about autonomous regions and self-willed autonomous people who recognize no law but their own. And it is in that sense in which I oppose the term, but recognize a certain sense of freedom and dignity and responsibility that we have. The language used in the Bible for such a state is mature and spiritual. We ought to therefore understand that it requires a great deal of effort and growth before we can reach that state. All too often people grow up in body but not in mind and spirit, and remain children even after they assume themselves to be mature adults.
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Yes, the truth about autonomy and one being autonomous is exactly that , “maturity”, and it can be argued that in this modern day there are many grown persons whom are not mature in any sense of the word. There are some who fear the autonomy of citizenry but in the near future I can only imagine the greatest government and society will be them who encourage autonomy of its citezenry. The whole cannot funtion properly unless it individual parts are trued, which may be another term for mature.
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I think a lot of leaders like to govern without question or without concern for the needs of the people, and so they don’t want mature people. I would think a mature person would be unable to handle the nanny states or authoritarian dictatorships of our world and that such nations would tend to persecute those who were mature, which explains the experiences of early Christianity in the corrupt Roman Empire rather well.
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Hmmm? That is interesting. Scary, but interesting. It says quite a lot, and draws many questions.
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RE: “The whole cannot function properly unless its individual parts are trued, which may be another term for mature.”
This brings us back to the Carpenter’s Rule.
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Most conversations revolve around basic aspects of worldview.
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Indeed, there are many questions that result fairly easily from that sort of examination.
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