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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   4053 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for February 17, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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INTUITION ESSAY FINAL

My Intuition Essay contest, is concluded. Thank you to everyone who participated, I really enjoyed reading every entry! Voting is concluded. The winner is: @Pitt19802 with This Untitled Piece Comparing Statistical and Intuitive Approaches in Baseball and Politics. Mr. Pitt selected Stage Right Greensburg, a small local theater company in my home state of PA, to receive the $300 in prize money (I tossed in a little to cover fees). Mr. Pitt only threw his work in at the last moment, so let that be a lesson: never be discouraged, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take, shoot for the moon even if you miss you'll land among the stars, man in the arena, every dog has his day, gods stand up for bastards, even a blind squirrel finds a nut, etc. etc. ditto ditto.

Thank you to all of our participants, and I want to take one more opportunity to highlight their excellent work.

@TheDag entered Intuition in a Scientific Age

@f3zinker entered A Case For/Against Education, Intuition

@felipec entered My Intuition About Intuition

@Gaashk on a Jungian View of Intuition

and

@ryandv on Forming Connections via Similarity of Mental Models

@DaseindustriesLtd also wrote this piece on the topic but explicitly asked to be excluded from the competition, hoping to leave the field to the rest of us.

Can anybody who voted explain to me how the winner entry is superior to mine?

From what I can see this is what it said about intuition:

  • Grady Little may have made a decision based on intuition, Joe Maddon didn't

  • To improve intuition one must train

  • LBJ was intuitive, Obama wasn't

That's basically it.

This is what it didn't say:

  • What is intuition

  • What is the opposite of intuition

  • When is intuition helpful

  • When is intuition unhelpful

  • How complex intuition is

  • What intuition is comprised of

My essay at least attempted to answer these.

To me this is clear evidence of bias in this community.

And because Mottizens are very prone to commit converse error fallacies, I shall point out that this is not something specific to my essay, I also don't see how the winner is superior to this entry: Intuition in a Scientific Age, which also does attempt to answer some of the important questions, such was: what is intuition? I also would be interested in hearing why somebody who voted for the winner considered it superior to that one.

  • -12

So, I don't think I'm appropriately positioned to explain the rationale for why anyone voted the way they did, I'm not going to try to do that.

I think I agree that my essay did less to develop a mechanical working model of intuition than other entries.

What I was trying to shoot for was a somewhat more meta approach, how our culture values intuition, and perhaps devalues it in certain areas to our determent.

If you're of the opinion that I missed the mark on what I was shooting for, or just didn't care for it, you're certainly entitled to that opinion.

If you're of the opinion that other entries were more deserving winners, idk, perhaps you're correct.

Fwiw, I liked the essay you submitted quite a bit.

What I was trying to shoot for was a somewhat more meta approach

My essay was also a meta approach. I talked about the intuition necessary in writing, while writing about intuition.

If you're of the opinion that I missed the mark on what I was shooting for, or just didn't care for it, you're certainly entitled to that opinion.

No, my opinion is that your essay didn't touch the topic of intuition much. Which is why I wonder why the voters found it valuable.

But if you recall when I promoted all the participants I specifically said all the participants should be worthy of praise for attempting to write about such a nebulous concept, especially if they had never written about it before.

My feeling is that the people who attempted to write about the topic would have a different valuation of the essays than the people who just just read them. For example, what made you think of Grady Little and Joe Maddon when writing about intuition? I bet it was your intuition.

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