U NCOMMON V IRTUES #5: C OUNTERINTUITION

CROSSHAIRS ON INTUITION

intuition | ˌ int(y) o͞ o ˈ iSH( ə )n|
noun
 
• the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning:  we shall allow our intuition to guide us.
 
• a thing that one knows or considers likely from instinctive feeling rather than conscious reasoning:  your insights and intuitions as a native speaker are positively sought.
 
***
 
UNCOMMON VIRTUES #5: COUNTERINTUITION
 
It’s worth noting again briefly what we are doing here.
 
We’re looking to digest and synthesize the lessons of history so that we can be smarter, act smarter, do better.
 
When we explore Uncommon Virtues , we are seeking ways of doing things that are better, which have been common in other days and ages, but which are not currently popular.

If we train ourselves to think and act in rare effective ways, we'll dramatically outperform and live better lives.
 
And now we have our crosshairs set firmly on Intuition.
 
Currently, a love and embrace of intuition is in the ascent.
 
Is this good? Is this the best way of doing things? Should we trust our intuition?
 
Under what conditions?
 
We’ll look at some of the biological origins of intuition, and then look at the case of a couple historical leaders whose intuition took them astray – Napoleon Bonaparte’s and Kaiser Wilhelm II’s.
 
We’ll tie this together with some guidelines on honing one’s intuition and counterintuition, to keep us out of trouble and keep us thriving.
 
***
 
FEELINGS TOWARDS FEELINGS ACROSS THE CENTURIES
 
I find the most insightful books to read are those that were very popular in their era, but are not currently well-read.
 
The top two books in the 1400’s and 1500’s in Europe were likely The Bible and Kempis’s “ The Imitation of Christ .”
 
You’ve obviously heard and probably read at least a little from the former; you’ve likely never heard of the latter.
 
Here’s two excerpts from both, note the bolded sentences –
 
From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciplines that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised from the dead.
 
Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”
 
Jesus turned and said to Peter,  “Get behind me, Satan!  You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”
 
-- Matthew 16:21-23
 
“The situation is much different with those who ignorantly place their devotion in external acts, which frequently are the cause of their own downfall, and are of far deeper consequences than open crime. In themselves they are not evil, but only when wrongly applied.  They are so attached to these acts that they utterly neglect to watch their inner movements of their hearts; but giving them free reign, they leave them prey to their own corruption and the tricks of the devil. It is then that this destroyer, seeing them go astray, not only encourages them go on their way, but fills their imagination with empty ideas , making them believe that they have already tasted the joys of Paradise, the delights of Angels, that they see God face to face…
 
A very little reflection on their conduct discloses their error and the great distance between them and that perfection of which we are now in search. In every circumstance they love to be shown preference to others.  They have no guide but their own private judgment, no rule but their own will . They are blind in their own affairs, ferret-eyed in regard to those of the neighbors, always ready to find fault. Touch the empty reputation they think they possess, and of which they are extremely jealous. Order them to stop some of the devotions to which they accustomed. Their amazement and vexation can hardly be expressed.”
 
-- The Imitation of Christ, Tomas a Kempis, written 1418-1427
 
Well, this is remarkable, isn’t it?
 
I don’t mean “it’s amazingly good” – I mean, it’s worth remarking on.
 
For at least a few centuries, these were two of the most frequently read works in Europe.
 
Look beyond all the elaboration of the Christian tradition for a moment and simply put the relationship between Jesus and Peter in an earthly context. These men are very close and intimate; I think you could call them very close friends.
 
Jesus knows he’s repeatedly defied Roman and Pharisee law, and is saying he is going to go and get himself arrested, tortured, and executed in a large spectacle as a political act to fulfill the prophesy.
 
Peter says, basically, “No, come on, yuck, we don’t want that to happen. Don’t do that.”
 
The response is remarkable –  Get behind me, Satan!
 
Again, Jesus is shouting that at his chief discipline and closest confidant.
 
Peter’s response is very human, very understandable. He doesn’t want to see his friend tortured to death. It’s instinctive, flexible – of course he doesn’t want that to happen.
 
Kempis’s is a book of Christian asceticism; it was wildly popular for centuries.
 
In it, he’s taking to task people who do public works of devotion and think they’re doing the right things.
 
“They are so attached to these acts that they utterly neglect to watch their inner movements of their hearts; but giving them free reign,  they leave them prey to their own corruption and the tricks of the devil.  It is then that this destroyer, seeing them go astray, not only encourages them go on their way, but fills their imagination with empty ideas…”
 
Note the core similarity between Matthew’s gospel in the Bible and Kempis’s writing about believing that the actions that come naturally to oneself are very dangerous; thinking you’re doing the right thing leaves you open to “corruption and tricks of the devil.”
 
I can’t underline this heavily enough since it’s so alien to the modern way of thinking.
 
***
 
CHRIST’S SATAN, BUDDHA’S MARA, BEWITCHING FOX SPIRITS IN JAPAN
 
For a very, very long time in Europe – until very recently – there was a common belief that many of the initial thoughts and feelings we had came from an external and evil source that was actively trying to corrupt and ruin your life.
 
This is so incredibly alien that I don’t know how to adequately convey the thought to you.
 
But it’s not solely a European thought.
 
The Buddhist scriptures include a demon called “Mara” that tempted Prince Siddharta heavily before his final enlightenment. Mara brought beautiful women to Buddha; when he rejected those, he tried to have Siddhartha physically assailed by monsters –
 
“Mara’s monsterous soldiers cried out together, “I am his witness!” Mara challenged Siddharta,  who will speak for you?
 
Then Siddhartha reached out his right hand to touch the earth, and the earth itself spoke: “I bear you witness!” Mara disappeared. And as the morning star rose in the sky, Siddhartha Gautama realized enlightenment and became a Buddha.”
 
This sort of allegory seems to occur across cultures.
 
I was for a long time puzzled when I read translations of Japanese stories. There’d be passing references to foxes, a fear of foxes, people discussing whether a colleague who went mad or acted rashly was possessed by a fox.
 
From Wikipedia –
 
“There are two common classifications of kitsune [foxes]. The  zenko, literally “good foxes”, are benevolent, celestial foxes associated with Inari [a kami/deity]. On the other hand, the  yako – literally “field foxes” – tend to be mischievious or even malicious… [one type], a  kitsune, is an invisible fox spirit that human beings can only perceive when it possess them.”
 
“Other supernatural abilities commonly attributed to the kistune include possession, mouths or tails that generate fire or lightning, wilfull manifestations in the dreams of others, flight, invisibility,  and the creation of illusions so elaborate as to be almost indistinguishable from reality .”
 
And most strikingly –
 
“In Japan, kitsunetsuki [fox possession] was noted as a disease as early as the Heian period  and remained a common diagnosis for mental illness until the 20th century.  Possession was the explanation for the abnormal behavior displayed by the afflicted individuals.”
 
***
 
CAN OUR THOUGHTS BE ENEMY SOLDIERS?
 
The vast majority of us, nowadays, do not believe in an actual Satan, do not believe in the demon Mara, do not believe in malicious yako foxes trying to possess us and delude us and cause us to do all sorts of evil.
 
But I would contend that we’ve lost something.
 
It was previously understood across many cultures that your thoughts might just be enemy soldiers putting you under siege.
 
Stop and reflect on that for a moment.
 
It’s easy to chuckle at the idea of evil possessing foxes as a rational, science-grounded Westerner. “Haha, foxes. Silly primitive people.”
 
Of course, we might not say it in such a harsh way. But really now, isn’t that just foolish? You think so deep down, no?
 
As a core way to understand the world, of course, science serves us better than folklore and superstition.
 
But, could we have lost something?
 
Our ancestors believed that not all of our thoughts were our own.  Many ideas, they believed, came to us like enemy agents or enemy commandos, trying to delude us and take us off the right path, and ruin our lives.
 
We now no longer believe in supernatural enemy commandos – so what? All of our thoughts are our own, then?
 
Hmm.
 
***
 
COUNTERINTUITION
 
Stop and reflect on the word “counter-intuitive” for a moment.
 
–> No, seriously, please stop and think for a moment what something “counter intuitive” is, feels like, and what that phrase means . 
 
It’s very important. You really ought to think this through before I lay out my thoughts on it.
 
I’ve investigated this for dozens of hours – literally dozens – because many of the principles and rules I operate by turned out to be counterintuitive.
 
What is  “counter intuitive”?
 
I think it’s really important.
 
Have you thought about it a bit?
 
Ok, so here’s the Apple Dictionary again –
 
intuition | ˌ int(y) o͞ o ˈ iSH( ə )n|
noun
 
• the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning: we shall allow our intuition to guide us.
 
• a thing that one knows or considers likely from instinctive feeling rather than conscious reasoning: your insights and intuitions as a native speaker are positively sought.
 
Intuition is what feels instinctively correct  or is your default response  or your first solution to a stimulus or problem.
 
This comes, I believe, primarily as a result of three things – (1) homeostatic pressures that are interpreted as feelings, (2) default entrained behaviors, and (3) correct and incorrect pattern recognition.
 
***
 
A BROAD VIEW OF HOMEOSTATIC PRESSURE 
 
Homeostasis is how your body stays in balance.
 
This is incredibly known and proven stuff.
 
Many of your body’s homeostatic processes come about without any thought or action on your part – if you get very hot, you start sweating immediately.
 
But I think it’s useful to take a little more of a broad view of homeostatic pressures.
 
So let’s say you’re in your apartment in the summer and you feel hot. Your body might have already started sweating a little bit.
 
Then, often without thinking, we might take our shirt off, make a cold drink with ice in it, or turn on the air conditioning when we feel hot.
 
Homeostatic pressure is a very strong and mostly good thing. It keeps us alive.
 
But it also explains a lot of potentially stupid behavior.
 
If you use any stimulants – and caffeine is a very potent stimulant that most people use – you’ll start to feel a homeostatic pressure as you go into stimulant withdrawal. In the case of caffeine, if you start the day by drinking a couple large coffees, in the afternoon you’ll start to flag with lower energy which feels uncomfortable.
 
I contend – and I don’t think this is very radical – that your response to minor caffeine withdrawal is very similar to your response to feeling overly hot.
 
Your body will internally regulate to a large extent, but you’ll also start to “feel yucky” and instincts will come to you about how to fix that.
 
You might, then, make another coffee – even if it’s later in the day and that’s going to screw up your sleep – or you might eat some sugar or junk food.
 
People who have studied the science behind their sleep/wake rhythms might instead take a short nap or a long shower in an afternoon window when caffeine is wearing off, knowing they’re merely at a natural low in their circadian rhythms.
 
But, your untrained and automatic response to “feeling low” won’t necessarily be a smart one.
 
You merely “feel yucky” – so what? More coffee? Eat a candy bar?
 
The homeostatic pressure builds; you “feel a certain way”; then what do you about it?
 
The default inclination might not serve you for the long-term. For years, I would have caffeine excessively throughout the day to try to “stay up” in energy levels – which would both increase my tolerance for caffeine and screw up my nightly sleep. Junk food in the afternoon can work similarly.
 
“I feel yucky and low-energy” – what is that? The body self-regulates, you interpret many of the processes happening as your feelings, and you act – in the absence of study and training – somewhat automatically.
 
***
 
ENTRAINED BEHAVIOR AS THE BEST PREDICTOR OF WHAT YOU’LL DO
 
The “best guess” as to what you’ll do in any given situation is easy to make –
 
Guess you’ll do the same thing you did last time.
 
It’s painfully simple and stunning in its accuracy.
 
What are you going to do immediately upon waking up?
 
Same thing you did yesterday.
 
What are you going to eat for breakfast?

Same thing you ate yesterday.
 
What are you going to do when you feeling low-energy and flagging in the afternoon?
 
Same thing you did last time that happened.
 
It’s not perfect, but the most reliable predictor of behavior in common situations is whatever you’ve done typically in those situations.
 
Over time, those become your default responses.
 
***
 
CORRECT AND INCORRECT PATTERN RECOGNITION
 
So let’s say you’re in a brand new situation  – what are you going to do?
 
I contend the answer is, again, rather predictable.
 
You’re going to act based on what this situation seems most familiar to.
 
Over-usage injuries in running and weightlifting come when the runner or weightlifter fails to accurately notice that “this particular pain is different than the normal minor safe pains that I reliably train through.”
 
If you’re doing sports at any semi-competitive level, you will always be dealing with little minor nagging pain, soreness, etc.
 
Often, the correct answer is just to warm up well, train through it, and cool down well. But when the runner incorrectly thinks the minor pain in the arch of the feet is just “normal stuff” and trains through it, they might wind up with a vicious planar fasciitis injury.
 
A big part of successfully training for athletics is recognizing the patterns better – learning what’s safe to train through, and what needs backing-off and a plan to manage through lower intensity, cross-training, more active recovery, or just plain old rest.
 
***
 
RATHER UNCONTROVERSIAL
 
This is all pretty uncontroversial stuff…
 
1. The body self-regulates via homeostasis. When you’re doing aerobic exercise, you start naturally breathing heavier. When you’re hot, you start sweating. These also start affecting your thinking in terms of emotions – “I feel hungry”, “I feel low energy”, etc – these also exert influence on your decisionmaking and what seems appealing to you at the moment.
 
2. Your first response to any particular common internal pressure will be whatever you normally do. Obvious, no? “It’s 2PM and I feel a little hungry. When that happens, I make a sandwich. I’m making a sandwich.” It’s not even reasoned to that level; it just happens.
 
3. In unfamiliar situations, your default decisionmaking and action will be based on whatever situation the current one seems most familiar to.
 
***
 
EXPANDING FROM THE SIMPLE PHYSICAL REACTIONS TO THE COMPLEX SOCIAL AND PLANNING INTERACTIONS
 
Let’s look at that excerpt from Kempis again –
 
A very little reflection on their conduct discloses their error and the great distance between them and that perfection of which we are now in search. In every circumstance they love to be shown preference to others. They have no guide but their own private judgment, no rule but their own will. They are blind in their own affairs, ferret-eyed in regard to those of the neighbors, always ready to find fault.  Touch the empty reputation they think they possess, and of which they are extremely jealous. Order them to stop some of the devotions to which they accustomed. Their amazement and vexation can hardly be expressed.
 
So I’m going to make a more controversial claim now.
 
I would contend that “feeling reputationally threatened” is extremely similar of a type of thing as feeling hungry.
 
Kempis is criticizing supposedly devout religious people who go through the motions of prayers and devotions, are very pleased with themselves and their supposed virtue, but who are not actually on the path of “the perfection” they’re supposedly after.
 
It’s easy enough to establish some habits and rituals around prayer, meditation, devotions, and outward acts.
 
But at the root level, they remain stuck in a stimulus-response monkey-type-behavior when questioned or challenged.
 
***
 
COMPLEX SOCIAL PHENOMENON AS HOMEOSTATIC PRESSURE
 
To underline this point,
 
I believe that complex social phenomenon also follow from homeostatic pressures, entrainment, and pattern recognition.  
 
Simple example: a driver is in his car, and is “cut off” by an aggressive driver.
 
This registers internally as a threat, or danger, or disrespect, or whatever.
 
Whatever the driver normally does in that situation will be the default response – for some, that’s honking the horn, shouting, “flipping the bird”, or whatever else. For others, it’ll be slowing down and driving more cautiously.
 
If the driver had never been cut off when driving before, their default response will be however they typically react to perceived threats/dangers/disrespect – the typically cautious people will instinctively  slow down and brake; the person who typically responds aggressively will honk, shout, aggress, etc.
 
The most interesting case is a person who gets upset when people are being bad  but does not get upset when the environment seems hostile or dangerous . For that person, their default response will be however they immediately size the situation up to be – is the bad driver a person being reckless, or is it more like a rainstorm? That person might have a different reaction based on their split-second evaluation of the situation. Pattern recognition.
 
But again, I contend that “this is dangerous” follows similar rules of homeostatic pressure and default responses as feeling hungry.
 
***
 
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE’S INTUITIONS, I
 
Let’s synthesize a bit.
 
We praised Napoleon for his fundamental love of competence in our chapter of Uncommon Virtues, “Mere Competence.”
 
But we also see two things that are very salient for Napoleon –
 
1. Whenever he saw an opportunity, he immediately felt a strong desire to seize it with bold and lightning-quick action.
 
2. When threatened or in a dangerous situation, his default inclination was to attack.
 
A lot of his success came from #1 – this is where came his bold actions to join the French army, to defect from one of his posts (where he was luckily rewarded with a promotion instead of a court-martial; it could have gone either way); his hurrying back to France from Egypt in the chaos of Second Coalition defeats of France; etc.
 
But later it became the first piece of his eventual downfall, the opportunistic seizing of the Throne of Spain and betrayal of his Spanish allies. It was not reasoned-through or carefully planned enough – he saw the weakness of the Spanish monarchy and just immediately seized upon it.
 
A lot of his success likewise came from #2 – Austerlitz is the most famous – but eventually, he followed this pattern into the Russian Campaign with disastrous consequences.
 
***
 
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE’S INTUITIONS, II
 
The argument that I’m making is that Napoleon’s intuition was a mix of homeostatic pressure – strong urges felt whenever he saw opportunity or felt threatened – followed by his default responses through entrained behavior over the years as an artillery officer and commander, and likewise matching patterns of unfamiliar situations to previously known situations.
 
In order to have secured France’s place in the world, Napoleon would have needed to start acting against his intuition  at some point, and taking a counter-intuitive position  (to him) in regards to opportunities and threats.
 
***
 
WILHELM II AND WORLD WAR I
 
Let’s turn to arguably the greatest disaster in all of history – World War I.
 
I was shocked when I realized for the time first that the Kaiser who fired Otto von Bismarck as Chancellor was the same man who led Germany into World War I.
 
I had never put the pieces together until I traced the lines. The events were separated by 26 years and are often treated as different eras of history, but the same man did both.
 
Wilhelm II was born in 1859 and came to power much earlier than anticipated when his father died young in 1888.
 
This date is important because he never really saw the struggles for German Unification led by Bismarck and Moltke. Germany was unified in a series of wars and diplomacy in the 1860’s, leading to final unification in 1871.
 
Bismarck and Moltke appeared to have simply they wiped the floor with all adversaries without breaking a sweat, especially looking backwards  – both Bismarck and Moltke saw they dangers that they perilously navigated, and cautiously and immediately buttoned-down into a series of truces and diplomacy and ended most belligerence and expansion after their initial aims were met.
 
But Wilhelm II was only a boy when these dangerous victories were barely achieved. To him, it looked those two great leaders were merely excessively cautious.
 
You can see insecurity and a desire for glory in Wilhelm II – again, I argue these are homeostatic pressures similar to simply being hungry.
 
The final nail in the coffin? Bad pattern recognition.
 
Wilhelm II wants to go down in history as great and glorious or whatever – his intuitions followed from those pressures and bad pattern recognition.
 
He saw Sea Power as important, and starting building a German fleet to rival England’s. He was comfortable making ultimatums and taking belligerent actions and getting into combat, negating and alienating many of the alliances and peace-building institutions that had been set down by Bismarck.
 
In retrospect, we can simply say – oops . His intuitions turned out to be very destructive and led to millions of death, Germany becoming a defeated war-shattered mess that eventually gave rise to the Nazis, and him being chased off into exile for the rest of his life.
 
***
 
GET BEHIND ME, SATAN!
 
Bismarck had two quotes of warning after his dismissal by the young Kaiser.
 
The more famous was, “Jena came twenty years after the death of Frederick the Great; the crash will come twenty years after my departure if things go on like this” – which came just about exactly in time.
 
But the more striking one to me was,  “Your Majesty, so long as you have this present officer corps, you can do as you please. But when this is no longer the case, it will be very different for you.”
 
To me – and maybe I’m reading too much into it – Bismarck is trying to invoke a “Get behind me, Satan!” type thinking to Wilhelm II.
 
By the late 1800’s, it was no longer fashionable to believe that Satan was directly affecting your own thinking in a poisonous way.
 
Likewise, it would not fit decorum to tell the Kaiser that his own ideas, intuitions, and feelings were very dangerous and potentially very bad.
 
To me, Bismarck seems to be trying to instill a sense of caution in Wilhelm II – the same type of caution that earlier Europeans would have perhaps ascribed to Satan whispering into their ear and deluding them.
 
Bismarck can not say to Wilhelm II: “Your thoughts are reckless and dangerous; be afraid of your own thoughts; they may lead to downfall.”
 
He can say, “Be careful with this new round of officers whispering poison and blunt aggression into your ears. Do not put faith in them.”
 
But who is choosing the officers? Wilhelm II is, of course, choosing his own belligerent council. There would still have been plenty of conservative German officers.

Bismarck’s criticism, to me, is trying to help Wilhelm II externalize some of his own intuition and thinking as potentially dangerous – putting that “enemy soldiers” check and balance on Wilhelm II’s thinking.
 
***
 
HONING ONE’S OWN COUNTERINTUTION
 
I think merely being aware of what intuition is – and its limits – produces 90% of the gains here.
 
You cannot avoid intuition, of course – thoughts and feelings come unbidden to you all the time; it is what humans do.
 
But again, I would contend intuition boils down largely into three things –
 
1. Homeostasis
2. Entrainment and default behaviors
3. Pattern recognition
 
Kaiser Wilhelm II could have looked to mitigate his own internal feelings and pressures around glory and expansion; or he could have gotten wiser council around pattern recognition and seen that there was no realistic chance at success in rivaling England or getting into a multi-front war.
 
Napoleon Bonaparte is a harder case – his intuition took him all the way to the top; but then, it took him all the way back to the bottom.
 
He would have needed to keep scrutinizing his own behavior and default replies to situations, and to create a new repertoire or new set of policies once all of his initial aims were reached.
 
***
 
IN ALL THINGS, NO PREFERENCES
 
I’ll leave you with a final thought by the famed swordmaster, Miyamoto Musashi.
 
On his death bed, he wrote his famous Dokkodo – final principles for the students of his school.
 
The third principle is, “In all things, have no preferences.”
 
The fourth principle is, “Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world.”
 
These two, to me, elegantly defend against the downsides of naive intuition.
 
Situations are always fluid. Continuing your default responses to internal pressures is a very dangerous thing if your situation changes or evolves.
 
There are many ways to redirect your attention and intentions, to shape your own thinking, but I find those two precepts by Musashi to be a fantastic shortcut to much sounder thinking.
 
In all things, have no preferences – no preferred way of dealing with situations, no assumptions you’re allowing to linger perpetually after their utility has expired for you.
 
And then, think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world.
 
Your own homeostatic pressures and default desires to do something!  can so lead you astray.
 
Over time, with knowledge and awareness of this, you can examine and be critical of your own base set of feelings, and learn how to navigate them – by thinking deeply about the world.
 
This means not embracing the first answer that comes to you, or any “default way of being” that you’ve been doing, even if you’ve been doing it for a number of decades.
 
All told, this leads from going with naive intuition – which was the eventual downfall of Napoleon Bonaparte and Wilhelm II – to a more honed intuition that includes studying the world, deciphering the true patterns, being skeptical of one’s own behavior – so that you can constantly plot a good course through reality.
 
Perhaps ironically, this way of doing things eventually becomes intuition – your default response shifts over time from unreasoned action to reasoned, planned, deep-thought action.
 
Intuition is in the ascendant – naive intuition, unshackled and unanalyzed.
 
I find wisdom in the ancient counsel of scrutinizing one’s own thoughts as if they might be a major source of downgoing, and then injecting planning and study to cultivate one’s own behaviors.
 
1. You have homeostatic pressures. Don’t naively assume they’re “real” – reason through them to the root cause.
 
2. You have default entrained responses – don’t deploy them blindly without occasional checking and re-checking them, searching for better ways.
 
3. Your brain naturally matches and finds patterns – don’t be satisfied until you’ve fully explored what other patterns might be more applicable or superior for your situation.
 
Thinkers and doers who cultivate and scrutinize their intuition go so much further than people who blindly trust intuition – my hope is that this chapter gives you a baseline for that analysis and makes you more and strongly.
 
Cultivate that Counter-Intuition!