A little more on intuition

[Guest guest]

All,

 

Personally, I do not see intuition and reason as opposites. I understand

intuition as a way of knowing that depends upon observations that are more

complex and difficult to describe than the values measured by, for example,

the lab tests currently discussed. I think too that Occam's Razor suggests

that the Chinese idea of gong fu, the abilities acquired by hard work and

focused attention, is an adequate explanation for much of what is described

as being spiritual, intuitive or beyond normal means of knowing in CM.

 

To examine any assertion that intuition, or any " higher " form of cognition, is

playing some role in the practice of a clinical medicine, we must ask the

same questions we ask about any clinical tool. Unless what someone calls

intuition is reasonably predictive and teachable, it is an act of faith to say

that it informs practice for anyone, including those who make such claims.

 

Please allow me an example from outside the field to help make a larger

point. People who voyage away from land have talked about the " loom " of

things since ships of wood and wind. There are, for example, the " loom of

the land " and the " loom of the weather " which are a sailor's awareness of

land, or a change in the local climate, before the evidence is at hand.

Captains who do what is necessary based on their perception of the loom -

and are right more often than not - are recognized as masters by those who

see for themselves that the actions taken were appropriate. You

consistently find this in the sailing literature, including that of the modern

era with its radar and satellite images.

 

Like a member of a master mariner's crew, I have worked with people who

solved problems in ways that I believe were complex. Yoshio Manaka, for

example, " had the knack " of knowing which of a complex set of clinical

observations was the key to a therapy. Yet, beyond the personal encounter,

we must see something germane to the situation and practicable before we

can make any claim.

 

Clinically, intuition is meaningless unless it can be used to form a therapy

with a knowable outcome. Once a therapy is configured we can examine its

result just as sailors would see if there really was a storm beyond the

horizon. Unless there is some outcome we can observe, any claim of

intuitive knowledge is a matter of faith and becomes an impediment to

professional discourse by making the only possible response the acceptance

or rejection of someone's belief.

 

I think, however, that the larger point is that neither intuition nor any of

the other so-called spiritual qualities can be said to exist in CM alone. If

some ability had been shown to occur only through traditional CM

practices, then it would be reasonable (although still difficult) to argue that

the introduction of non-traditional concepts might do harm. But, once

these other ways of knowing are understood as qualities of human beings,

the idea that something is lost by incorporating methods that arose after the

traditional arts were formed becomes insupportable both logically and (as's posted noted) historically.

 

Since intuitive knowledge is commonly perceived in many human

endeavors, including biomedicine, it is probably most usefully understood

as a human quality, rather than as a quality of any particular discipline

such as CM, or of any particular religious or spiritual orientation. What

will preserve the traditional concepts is preserving the traditional concepts

by not allowing them to be re-defined in either modern biomedical or

modern spiritual terms.

 

Bob

 

 

bob Paradigm Publications

www.paradigm-pubs.com 44 Linden Street

Robert L. Felt Brookline MA 02445

617-738-4664

 

 

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