The Great Overriding of Our Intuition

The latest episode of Andrew Huberman's podcast with one of my favourite authors Robert Greene made me reflect on something:

For a large portion of history, humans did not have language to communicate - we captured signals via our senses, and understood them through intuition.

Some examples of this include smelling someone's compatibility through pheromones, or reading someone's emotion or intent through body language or facial expressions.

The more we evolve, the more we develop and rely on tools and systems to bypass or override our intuition - both to communicate with others and ourselves (from societal institutions that prescribe what to do and believe to biological and environmental sensors that gives us feedback on how we should feel).

We grow up trained to look externally rather than internally for data inputs, and over time erode our capabilities (and trust) in our intuition.

But we are still human - and therefore still have these intuitive capabilities within ourselves. We are just less sensitive to them.

(side note: Robert mentions the discrepancy between the normal person and one more attuned might explain psychics)

I wonder what a world in which we would be more attuned to our intuition would be like.

Personally - most of my best decisions have been attributed to my intuition.

Data and AI model interactions are making external validation easier and easier to access, and therefore reinforcing our tendency to rely on external validation and take the responsibility away from ourselves.

External validation used to help us in survival, but our modern tools might take it too far.

If we want to continue to train our intuition, it will increasingly require conscious thought and action towards it.

Perhaps when you wake up this morning, see how you feel instead of looking at your 8Sleep data, meet someone new without looking at their Tinder profile, or create something new without the help of ChatGPT.

(and maybe we'll all get closer to becoming psychics)