From Fairytale Murder to Alexander Butter’d or Fry’d
via Intuition, Isaac Asimov, Mr Fox, Italian Silver Nose and Scarlet Cloaks
Hello gentle reader,
I will start this letter by informing you that I have no pretensions to becoming a philosopher but I must warn you that I have been considering intuition and what it means to me. I thought I’d start my investigation with the Oxford English Dictionary but unusually this left me even more confused and with a choice of definitions. The simplest of which is ‘Direct or immediate insight; an instance of this.’ It is simple and elegant but doesn’t really explain what I consider to be intuition so I went off down a rabbit hole of research and returned with the following conclusions:
1. People feel very strongly about intuition, whether they believe in it or not
2. Intuition is a word used to mean very different things particularly if you are a philosopher, a psychiatrist or an artificial intelligence researcher
3. The general understanding seems to be that it is a way of understanding something instinctively, without the need for conscious reasoning or factual evidence
4. People argue a lot on the internet.
In all honesty, I was already aware of number 4 but it was definitely reinforced here. The biggest problem seems to be that though a lot of people ascribe their successful decisions to intuition, scientists have had trouble finding quantifiable evidence that intuition actually exists. Some studies that have examined this area of research have hypothesised that it is possible that humans with broad experience in a field are actually basing their decisions on patterns of events that they have seen regularly, so they know how to make the right decision. Alternate studies have hypothesised that some people are better at interpreting non-verbal clues so make quick decisions believing themselves to be acting instinctively, but actually they are just processing information very quickly using short-cuts based on their skill in this area.
I think that the arguments happen because in an uncertain world, people really want to believe that they have an infallible instinct or intuition deep down that helps them make the right decisions; but critical thinkers and scientists are unhappy with the idea of something that is based purely on feelings, not facts or reasoned thought. I’m not sure there isn’t a middle ground. I wonder how much of what we call intuition isn’t actually based on experiences we don’t consciously remember. If for example, we had a bully at school who always wore red coats and used too much aftershave and 20 years later we meet someone in a completely different context who wears a red coat and too much aftershave; would we instinctively dislike them because our brain had made shortcuts based on our previous long forgotten experiences?
We would probably call it intuition that made us not want to sign a contract with them. If their company then went out of business shortly afterwards we would then have that ‘intuitive’ feeling reinforced even if the business failed due to completely unforeseen circumstances and our red coated acquaintance had already left the business and was in no way connected. I also believe that intuition and reasoned thought don’t need to be mutually exclusive as Isaac Asimov says:
“How often people speak of art and science as though they were two entirely different things, with no interconnection. An artist is emotional, they think, and uses only his intuition; he sees all at once and has no need of reason. A scientist is cold, they think, and uses only his reason; he argues carefully step by step, and needs no imagination. That is all wrong. The true artist is quite rational as well as imaginative and knows what he is doing; if he does not, his art suffers. The true scientist is quite imaginative as well as rational, and sometimes leaps to solutions where reason can follow only slowly; if he does not, his science suffers.”
Isaac Asimov “Prometheus,” The Roving Mind (1983)
You might wonder why intuition came up in a letter where I talk and consider stories and fairytales. Well, in this instance its for a couple of reasons, firstly because I’ve been considering the form of fairytales and folk tales and secondly because I’ve been considering two fairytale serial murderers. I know this isn’t normal but I do a lot of commuting. Fairytales use an intuitive logic that we probably don’t notice, things happen not as a part of a strong narrative driven plot but often because the tale places things next to each other and we make an intuitive jump that one thing must be the cause of the other even if there is no logical connection. Humans like patterns, we try and find them in everything and we also love a short cut and those previously identified patterns help.
Are you still there? You got sidetracked by the fairytale serial murderers didn’t you and you have subsequently paid little attention to my last three sentences. I’ll forgive you, serial murderers are distracting . The first serial murderer was Mr Fox. I have included my audio version of the tale below in case you aren’t familiar with it as I examined it a few episodes ago on my podcast. It has stuck with me and I found myself thinking how Lady Mary first identified there was an issue, as in many fairytales or folk tales it isn’t explained, there’s that fairytale intuitive logic at work again. I thought it might be something she saw in him that made her go against her traditional role or was it just an instinctive feeling that she couldn’t explain?
The youngest sister in the Italian story Silver Nose also clearly had some similar thoughts about her new employer but in fairness her two elder sisters and gone with him and strangely disappeared so it wasn’t a significant leap. The story of how she outwitted him is excellent and I suggest you track it down if you can.
Our remedy today is more to remedy laundry issues than people but I just loved the idea of needing to clean scarlet cloaks specifically. This remedy is courtesy of The Prudent Housewife or Compleat English Cook - Mrs Lydia Fisher.
I loved this recipe which is essentially for delicious fritters. The Alexander was a very popular plant brought over to England by the Romans. All parts of the plant were used but this was a recipe for the root which was similar to parsnip.
So, we come to an end, gentle reader. If you have enjoyed this and would like to read further such nonsense, please don’t hesitate to subscribe for free at the button below. You’d be very welcome and it would be a joy to write to you.