Tldr: Write an effortpost on the subject of human intuition by February 10th, we will pick the winner by poll, I will donate $200 dollars to a charity mutually agreed upon with the winner
I've been thinking a lot about the subject of intuition lately, due to some life events. What do we know without knowing we know it, what can we communicate without knowing we communicate it. When I'm thinking a lot about something what do I want to do? Read a bunch of Mottizens thinking about it too! So, on a whim while thinking about the fact that great works like the Oresteia, Frankenstein, and Rousseau's best work were the result of competitions; I've decided to launch my own little essay competition and see if anyone bites.
The basic rules are thus:
-- Write an effortpost on the topic of Intuition. Standalone or in the CW or side threads; only rule is effort. Intuition can be as broadly or as narrowly defined as you like. Effortpost we define informally, but I'd say it must be at minimum 2000-4000 characters that is substantially your own original work. No ripping off another post, of your own or someone else's. An original summary/condensation or retelling of someone else's thesis is fine. How will we be able to tell? I'm kinda counting on the crowd here, especially if we get a little competitive fire going. I wouldn't count on slipping anything by the peanut gallery here.
-- On February 12th, as long as we have at least three entries, I will publish a poll, and we will select a winner. If anyone has a suggestion for a better method of picking a winner, I'm open to it. I'm thinking a poll would be better than just raw upvotes, but I'm open to other possibilities.
-- Once a winner is selected, I will work with the winner to select a charity, and I will donate $200 to that charity. I say I will work with the winner, I'm not donating $200 to NAMBLA or Mermaids UK or the StormFront Charity Fund just because somebody wins a poll. I will do my best to be reasonable, but there are some lines I'm not gonna cross here, and IDK there might be legal issues in some countries. I will post some kind of digital receipt in all likelihood, unless it's something like give the $200 in cash into the collection bin at church or to a homeless man or something. I'm sure for most here, the bigger thing will be winning, and being acknowledged as the winner.
So why? The mood just sort of struck me. And how do you know it will really happen? You don't, except that I spend way too much time hanging around here so you can figure I'll probably stick to my word. And anyway, you'll get even more motte street cred for being the guy who got welched on than you would for being the guy who got $200 donated to mosquito nets or whatever.
I'm curious to see what a bit of direction and effort could bring out, or maybe we need chaos. We'll see if we get three.
Please bring up any questions, or rules I haven't considered.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
That's a difficult prompt, quite nebulous in scope. Feels like a high school essay prompt which by all means I hated more than University essay prompts. At least in University, the prompts were specific and constrained and I wasn't as much of a bumbling moron.
However, I will spend the next few days working on an effort post. A little transfer of wealth from the first world to the third world seems like a good enough incentive.
I'm happy to give you something more concrete as an assignment if it would help you, I always like reading your thoughts, and I certainly have a few clear topics that would be interesting to hear about from someone else.
I wanted to define it broadly to allow anyone to enter anything that was percolating in their head but hadn't yet been committed to text.
Share the prompts you have in mind. It's an interesting idea to outsource thinking, I'm surprised I haven't seen widescale adoption of this directly, as opposed to just letting the TV do its work indirectly.
-- We perceive the world at the level of our baseline skill. Is there any way to specifically develop skill at intuition, or is it only possible to develop skills which will then provide you with intuitions as they integrate into your brain? Can I learn to diagnose an engine problem by sound/feel, or is that just the residue of a thorough knowledge of engine repair in general? How does this apply to personal interactions, which we generally don't think of as a teachable skill but as purely intuitive? ((I'm perpetually amazed at my mechanic's ability to just "know" what is wrong with a car from how it feels))
-- Phantom vibrations seem to relate to the brain misinterpreting stimuli that are typically meaningless as meaningful due to the presence of a new stimulus in the form of phone vibrations. In what other ways have new stimuli short-circuited our intuition? Or have we formed new intuitions? ((I definitely run into phantom vibrations, or a constant desire to check emails, during certain work periods))
-- How much can we intuit about a person through text based communication? How much can we read between the lines of text messages, letters, forum posts in subtle ways beyond the implications of normal writing? Is this skill more or less present in those who use these formats more often? ((I recently formed a fairly profound connection with someone via text, and my intuitions about them proved right, and I've been wondering this ever since, luck or unknown skill?))
-- Blood Harmony is a degree of musical harmony that is traditional in country/bluegrass/gospel music; supposedly siblings can achieve degrees of harmony impossible for others. Is this a real phenomenon? Is it applicable to other fields than music? Does consanguinity create the harmony, or being raised together? Both, neither?
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