Intuition comes from somewhere, it’s not random. It’s built up from our past experiences, so if we have experiences in a given field and if we reflect on these, we can build up our intuition for future situations.

But we can get so attached to our intuition and want to prove them right, that we ignore all the red flags telling us they are wrong. So, our intuition can be a good starting point signalling for us to delve into something, and to start doing a bit of rational analysis.

So, it’s not that intuition just helps us to know where to delve into more, but with some rational analysis using data and the like can actually help prepare us to have better intuitions. It’s like a big loop where one leads to strengthening the other.

In the end, intuition can be so irresistible even for the best of us. Where intuition fails us most, is in our inability to come up with real meaningful alternatives to decisions that we are making. Intuition may limit our potential solutions, because we are only looking at things we have already done or recognise.

Credit:
BBC The Why Factor – Intuition: Why should we trust it?
By Nastaran Tavakoli-Far