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THE INTUITION

Dr. Helen Indira

We divide this work into four stages:

1) What is intuition.

2) The importance of Intuition.

3) Mathematical Intuition.

4) Final Considerations.
 - 1°-

What is intuition?

Sixth sense? Fantasy?

In an interview that we will report below with psychoanalyst Priscila de

Faria Gaspar we will learn a little about the universe of these phenomena of the
psyche.

Dr. Priscila claims that it is not necessary to be a magician, a medium, or

to have supernatural powers to have intuitions.

Paying attention to things, learning to accept the unconscious records

that come back and forth in our consciousness, trying to develop creativity,
dealing well with emotions and being relaxed mind are already more than
enough tools for you to benefit from this human characteristic: the ability to
intuit.

You know that insight that suddenly illuminates a difficult decision or that
feeling that "something tells you" to act this way or that way?

Yeah, these are probably manifestations of your intuition.

And if you learn to deal with them, it can really make your life easier.

Intuition has always intrigued thinkers and scholars.

Plato, the Greek philosopher who lived approximately between 428 and
347 B.C., claimed that there were three forms of knowledge:

1st belief.
 Second opinion.

3rd reasoning and intuition.

Already in the 20th century, more specifically in the year 1921, the Swiss
psychiatrist Karl Gustav Jung, in a book called 'Psychological Types', recorded
the important advances on the controversial and intriguing subject.

In it, Jung refers to four mental activities: feeling, thought, sensation and
intuition.

For Jung, far from being an "irrational" characteristic, intuition is a

function of judgement as much as thought and, on the contrary, sensation and
feeling.

What is intuition?

The word intuition comes from the Latin intuire, which means "to see
inside".

However, the concept of intuition varies somewhat along the lines of

thought.

For Jung, intuition is an inner capacity to perceive possibilities, while the

philosopher Emerson considers it an inner wisdom that expresses itself.

Kant sees intuition as knowledge that immediately relates to objects, that

is, that shows singular realities and does not depend on abstraction, that is, it is
what one knows, without having to deduce to conclude.

Kaplan says that intuition is probably a condensation of one or more lines

of rational thought in a single moment in which the mind quickly gathers a range
of knowledge and passes to the conclusion, which is the part of the process that
he recalls. Often, intuition condenses years of experience and learning into an
instant flash.

When we refer to Kaplan's concept, intuition becomes something that is

revealed to us at a certain moment, by insight. This implies a process, which
includes previously elaborated reasoning with logical sequence. As this process
takes place unconsciously, we have the impression that it is timeless, when in
fact it is only the sudden conclusion of something that was already being
elaborated.
Positivist science only allows the evaluation of data observed objectively, and
intuition, for being an eminently internal process, cannot be studied by the
conventional scientific method.

It would therefore be a subject of philosophy.

However, the fact that it cannot be studied by science does not mean
that it is not accepted by scientists.

On the contrary, there are many stories about scientific theories that
started from an intuition, to be tested in a second moment by the scientific
method.

We find several examples in books dealing with the history of science

and also in some Philosophy publications.

Does intuition always point in the right direction?

Intuition presupposes a condensation of logical knowledge and

reasoning, which are suddenly revealed.

However, even on a logical basis, it does not mean that I am always

right.

Jung said that intuition is a way of predicting possibilities.

 By condensing a series of knowledge, intuition has a high probability of
being right, but that does not mean it will always be right! And even more
attention must be paid to avoid confusing intuition with fears, presentiments and
even superstitions.

An omen, unlike intuition, has no logical foundation and is based more on

fears and superstitions than on previous knowledge.

In general, creative people are more intuitive and have an easy contact
with emotions and imagination. They quickly process information, automatically
relating past experiences to important information and the present moment.

Get to know yourself.

 Another important point is learning to differentiate what is an objective

from a subjective experience. An objective experience is one that can be
shared by others, such as observing an object and describing it (shape,
color, size, etc.)

 The subjective experience depends on the values, beliefs and affections

of the observer, for example, whether the observed object is ugly or
beautiful, whether it provokes pleasant or unpleasant feelings, whether it
reminds us of another object or a fact, etc. To do so, getting in touch with
your subjective world is essential. Psychoanalysis is one of the
techniques that allows this kind of self-knowledge, stimulates the
imaginary as well as the associations and the internal perception.

- 2°-
The importance of intuition

It's not easy to conceptualize intuition. If we consult dictionaries, we will

find something like this: intuition is the act of seeing, perceiving, discerning,
sensing. We are then left with the impression that intuition is the act of seeing
some object or phenomenon in a manner different from that normally seen by
most people who look at this object or phenomenon.

For example: billions of people, in the course of thousands of years, must

already have come across a scenario, at sunset, where, behind an apple tree
full of fruit, the moon is visualized, fixed on the firmament.

How many have seen anything besides apples and the moon?

For it is quite possible that in a scenario like this and in his place, the
young Isaac Newton, only 24 years old, has visualized, besides apples and the
moon.

In those "admirable years", Newton, on his mother's farm, made one of

the most famous observations: he saw an apple falling to the ground. This
phenomenon led him to think that there would be a force pulling the fruit to the
ground and that this same force could also be pulling the moon, preventing it
from escaping from its orbit. Taking into consideration the studies of Galileo
and Kepler, as well as his studies on the subject, Newton formulated the
following principle:

"The speed of a body's fall is proportional to the force of gravity

and inversely proportional to the square of the distance to the center of
the Earth."
 Between normal vision, or the pure and simple act of looking, and
sophisticated vision, that is, the act of seeing, of perceiving, of discerning, of
sensing, resides the secret of intuition, also described as the contemplation by
which truth is reached through non-rational means.

Let us then work a little more on this concept in order to clarify what we
understand by truth here and why the intuitive process would be non-rational.
The scientist is, differently from others, a man who looks for the truth and,
therefore, assumes the existence of that truth.

In that search, you take for granted what we might call the provisional
truth. Let us say, then, that the latter is what we consider to be scientific truth,
and what distinguishes it from other provisional truths, found by those who are
not scientists, would be its coupling to the scientific method or to
experimentation.

To sum up, we could say that scientific truth is a provisional truth

borrowed from nature and the way it looks.

The non-rationality, attributed to intuition, portrays its essential character,

but does not exactly encompass the whole intuitive process.

Let us say that it refers to insigh, or snap, or even the perception of

something strange, not noticed at other times when the same object or
phenomenon was observed.

It is obvious that this perception, when worked rationally, could become a

conjecture or hypothesis.
 However, even before we formulate a conjecture or hypothesis, we are
already faced with something to which we can associate the concept of
provisional truth.

There is a popular concept that says: Burned cat is afraid of cold water.

Would this be tantamount to admitting that the cat reasoned?

Would this be consistent with the statement that the cat formulates
hypotheses (the water burns) and generalizes them (the next waters will burn)?

Probably not!

We can, by example, simply infer that the cat is endowed with a primitive
intuition and the ability to memorize facts and, as a result, in conditions to learn
by a non-rational means.

If experimental science begins with intuition, we could conclude that

intuitivism is the fundamental basis of all human knowledge from the empirical
sciences.

It is important not to confuse intuitivism with intuitionism.

Intuitionism is related to the doctrine that makes intuition the proper

instrument of the knowledge of the truth: Seeing to believe.

Even because the scientist starts from the contemplation of what really
exists, and interprets this truth following a logical reasoning imprisoned to the
scientific method.
 The scientist, then, starts from the truth (intuitivism) and looks for new
scientific truths through the construction and corroboration of theories.

To say that science begins with intuition is therefore quite different from
saying that science begins with observation.

(Text by Alberto Mesquita Filho, extracted by the Internet)

- 3°-

The mathematical intuition.

What is Mathematical Intuition?

Just so I don't run out of math, there's a question:

How does mathematical intuition work? Why do many people's minds

manage to enunciate complicated conjectures without knowing how to
demonstrate them?

Where does this ghost math come from?

I believe that mathematical intuition is for the mind of a mathematician as

well as sensitive intuition is for the human mind...
 When you look at an object you IMMEDIATELY deduct several
properties without using any mediating reasoning.

For example, you have an instant idea (sensitive intuition) of its size,
color, shape, proximity to other objects, etc. (all this knowledge is valid and was
obtained by sensitive intuition instantaneous perception), this and without the
need to use logical or discursive reasoning to reach them.

It seems to me that mathematical intuition is approaching that. You "look"

(with the eye of the mathematical mind) at the objects of the mathematical world
and feel that they must have or maintain certain relationships, without you
immediately being able to forge a demonstration for these relationships or
properties.

See how Gauss talks in two moments:

1) "I have found a wonderful theorem, but unfortunately I still can't

demonstrate it"

He talks about the law of quadratic reciprocity. Take a good look. He was
convinced, (had the intuition), of the correction of the theorem before
demonstrating it.

2) "During this autumn, I have been largely concerned with the general
considerations of curved surfaces, which leads to an unlimited field. "These
researches are strongly connected with the metaphysics of geometry and it is
not without enormous efforts that I can pull myself out of the consequences that
come from it".
 What would be the true meaning of the square root of -1? "In these
moments, I feel the true meaning of these things vibrate vividly in me, but I think
it will be terribly difficult to express this meaning in words.

See here that Gauss first feels the reality of the mathematical world. And
only then will he express what he feels through mathematical theories and
formulas.

First you think, that is to say, experience the objects and facts of
mathematics internally and emotionally through your imagination, then the more
alive that experience is, the deeper your conclusions will be and the easier it will
be to demonstrate them later.

Still on this subject, it is interesting to note that, as Voltaire reports,

Newton was once asked how he had discovered the law of gravitation.

Newton replied, "Thinking about it continuously!"

I mean, by imagining and experiencing the objects you unveil the

mysteries that cover them up... that your intuition had already predicted or
revealed.

I conclude that:

Research is pure emotion! It's excitement! It's intuition! It's magic!

It is this emotional that generates intuition!

 - 4°-

Final considerations
 The "Aurelium" defines intuition as the ability to sense.

 The April encyclopedia says it is the immediate and direct understanding

of a truth.

 In philosophy, it is said that it is the perception of a truth different from

that which is reached through reason or objective knowledge.

We might even call these poetic definitions intuition:

"All things visible" said Lao-Tse

"are arrows that point to the invisible"

In his verses, José Américo de Almeida confirmed,

"To see well is not to see everything."

"To see well is to see what others do not see"

BUDA said:
 "Believe nothing by the fact that they show the written testimony of some
ancient sage. But that which is within your reason, and after careful
examination, is confirmed by your experience (or Intuition), leading to your own
good and that of all other living things, accept it as truth. To this end, guide your
conduct."

Could we say that we have intuitively guided our conduct!?

We have previously seen, in Kant's concept, that intuition is an insight, or

flash, which in an instant gives us the answer as to how to proceed.

It does not simply come from the irrational, but from a deep analysis
processed in a single moment in which the mind quickly gathers a range of
knowledge and passes to the conclusions, which is part of the process he
recalls.

Often intuition condenses years of experience and learning into an

instant flash.

In Latin we have a phrase that says:

"NIL NISI CLAVIS DEEST"

"We need nothing but the key."

(Phrase inscribed on the parchment surrounding the key, in the

corresponding degree. It means that without the internal knowledge, the
symbols have no life, and that, however great the teaching we have, there is still
more to learn, if we walk uprightly along the path of Masonic progress).

We could perfectly well replace it with:

"NIL NISI INTUITO DEEST"

"We need nothing but intuition."

No one can give us the intuition or the key.

It is a metaphor, mainly starting from the premise that it is something that

appears inside each one, in lesser or greater intensity.

What is condensed in this sentence is that with external help we can

develop this characteristic, but always limited to the full effort that each one will
devote to this practice.

Intuition can be the key to open our rational mind to the "irrational", that
is, to reach conclusions only because your intuition induces it, discarding what
reason and previous experiences would require as a deeper analysis based on
knowledge acquired personally or through coexistence and assimilation of
experiences of others.

In those of us who belong to the Order, we constantly have, in our

meetings, moral, intellectual, symbolic, liturgical information, etc. that certainly
induce us to act in accordance with the sublime Masonic precepts.

Certainly in the moments of actions when we have the intuitive

indications based on the summary and analysis of this knowledge assimilated
both unconsciously and rationally, comes the snap, which suggests us how we
should act.

Intuitively we already know what to do. But the action itself will be
determined by the importance that each one gives us, more or less for intuition
or more or less for reason.

For those who wish to stimulate intuition, we report the following

exercise:

Exercise to expand Intuition.

This technique, of Chinese origin, consists in making your inner sun rise
at the same time as the cosmic sun appears on the horizon.

At first, you may not be able to do the thinking, but in time you will learn
to concentrate and visualize properly.

Get up well before sunrise, take a bath and put on white clothes.

Sit in the lotus position, with the spine erect and the legs crossed in front
of the body.

Close your eyes and try to feel your body well relaxed...

Visualize an orange sun rising at the height of your navel.

Imagine that the heat emanating from this sun heats up your whole body,
while a golden light envelops you completely.
 Visualize the sun rising from your navel to your heart.

Imagine that from this region comes a large and beautiful white bird that
flies away, taking with it all its sorrows.

Imagine that this sun rises even higher, until it reaches the energy center
located between your eyebrows.

Then make the sun gain an intense golden color and rise to the top of the
head, from where it will expand until it explodes like a light that joins that of the
cosmic sun.

The Pythagorean Hiérocles says that two things are necessary for life:
the help of relatives and the benevolent sympathy of one's neighbor.

Duality gives us the contrasts of good and evil, such as human and
nature, night and day, light and darkness, knowledge and ignorance, wet and
dry, hot and cold, health and disease, truth and error.

Exactly what our mosaic symbolically conveys to us through the

contrasts of black and white, as well as Reason and Intuition.

The English define Freemasonry, saying that "it is the Science of Moral,
veiled by allegories and illustrated by symbols.

We must first distinguish between emblem, allegory and symbol.

The Emblem - is a representation that derives simply and spontaneously

from an idea. For example: the bull is the emblem of strength; the dog is the
emblem of friendship, fidelity. In the emblem there is the exoteric sense, that is,
the public education or the natural interpretation.

The Allegory - is a figurative interpretation, independent of the literal

sense. The allegory can be an apologist or a parable. The apologist is a moral
allegory, the parable a religious allegory. Christ taught by parable.

The Symbol - is the representation created spiritually on an idea. Every

symbol has an anagogical interpretation, i.e. it requires a high plane of
interpretation.

There is no understanding of a symbol without analogy, that is, without

the spirit rising from the natural and literal sense to the mystical (or intuitive)
sense. This is why it is said that in the symbol there is the esoteric sense of the
idea, or the secret sense or sublimated interpretation.

Therefore, intuition is the key to unveiling our symbols, because even

without knowing how to momentarily prove or give logical and rational
explanations for what we feel before a symbol, we intuit its meaning for a
posteriori looking for an explanation based on intuition itself.

We finished our work prepared especially for this seminar promoted by

the Lodge L'Aquila Romana, orchestrated by the powerful Brother'. Tullio
Colacioppo and masterfully organized by our dear Brother'. Alferio Di Giaimo
Neto, I quote from the preface of the book "Critique of Pure Reason" by
Emmanuel Kant.

In the third part of his Critique of Pure Reason, in transcendental

dialectics, Kant wonders about the value of metaphysical knowledge. The
preceding analyses, by solidly grounding knowledge, limit its reach. What is
founded is scientific knowledge, which is limited to putting in order, thanks to the
categories, the materials provided by sensitive intuition.
 However, says Kant, that's why we don't know the bottom of things. We
only know the refracted world through the subjective pictures of space and time.
We only know the phenomena and not the things themselves or the less. The
only intuitions we have are the sensitive intuitions. Without the categories, the
sensitive intuitions would be "blind", that is, disordered and confused, but
without the concrete sensitive intuitions the categories would be "empty", that is,
they would have nothing to unify. To pretend as Plato, Descartes or Spinoza
that human reason has intuitions outside and above the sensitive world, is to
pass for "visionary" and to delude oneself with chimeras: "The light dove, that in
its free flight divides the airs of whose resistance it resists, could imagine that it
would fly even better in a vacuum. This is how Plato ventured into the wings of
ideas, into the empty spaces of pure reason. He did not realise that, despite all
his efforts, he did not open up any path, since he had no point of support in
which to apply his forces".

However, reason does not stop building metaphysical systems because

their own vocation is to seek unification incessantly, even beyond every
possible experience. She invents the myth of a "soul-substance" because she
supposes the complete unification of my states of soul in time and the myth of a
creator God because she seeks a foundation of the world that is the total
unification of what is happening in this world... But deprived of any point of
support in experience, reason, like madness, is lost in antinomies,
demonstrating, contrarily and favorably, both the thesis and the antithesis (for
example: does the universe have a beginning?).

Yes, because backward infinity is impossible, hence the need for a

starting point.

No, because I can always ask myself: what was there before the
beginning of the universe?

While the scientist makes a legitimate use of causality, which he employs

to unify phenomena given in experience (warming and boiling), the
metaphysician abuses causality to the extent that he deliberately distances
himself from concrete experience (when I imagine a God as the cause of the
world, I distance myself from experience, since only the world is the object of
my experience).

The principle of causality, invitation to discovery, should not serve as

permission to invent.

Intuitively I am sure of the success of this new challenge.

I am deeply grateful for the invitation to present this work, as it gave me

the opportunity to research the countless sources on the subject, to discover
that an apparently banal subject is far beyond my intelligence, and this small
summary of catching up here and there, reflects a tiny part of the complexity of
the subject, but even so I feel an unusual inner growth.

Little Dictionary.

Anagogy = (from the Greek anagogy, elevation + ia.) S. f. Spiritual

elevation, stasis,

Rapture. - Mysticism. What part of the literal sense to reach the spiritual.

Anagogic = Adj. Relative to anagogy. - It is said of a concept that allows

to represent an object of thought in a more abstract, more figurative way.

Antinomy = (from Greek antinomy, composed of Anti and Nomos (law))

Fil. A situation of conflict where two contradictory propositions meet, which
separately can be justified with arguments of equal force. The contradiction of a
principle with itself.
 Apologia = (from Greek, apologia, defence) S.f. A speech or writing
that defends, justifies, praises a person or thing.

NOÙMENO= (from Greek noóumenon) That which is thought. S.m. In

Kant's philosophy, that which can only be object of rationally pure knowledge
and as such is opposed to the phenomenon understood as object of sensitive
knowledge.

PARABLE = (from the Greek parabole, by the Latin parabola) S. f.

Literary genre used by Judaism, which consists of an allegorical narration
whose images, taken from everyday life, allow one aspect of the doctrine to be
highlighted

Bibliographies, in addition to those already included in the above

texts:

Dictionary 28, Grolier International and Codex.

Great Larousse Cultural dictionary.

Etymological Dictionary, New Frontier.

Freemasonry Dictionary, Thought.

Short Biography.

Baruch Spinoza - Filosofo, was born in Amsterdam in 1632, son of

Portuguese Hebrews. A tuberculosis had weakened his body. After a few
months in bed, Spinoza died at the age of forty-four, in 1677, in The Hague.

Carl Gustav Jung - Born on July 26, 1875, in Kresswil, Basel,

Switzerland. He died on June 6, 1961, at the age of 86, at his home on the
shores of Lake Zurich, in Küsnacht, after a long productive life, which marked -
and everything leads one to believe that it will still mark more - anthropology,
sociology and psychology.

Carl Friedrich Gauss - German mathematician, astronomer and

physicist. Born in Brunswick on 30/04/1777 and died on 23/02/1855 in
Göttingen. He learned to read and work with numbers without anyone's help. As
a child, he mentally noticed a mistake in his father's accounts, a contractor. His
higher education, as well as his secondary education, was assured by the Duke
of Brunswick, who was impressed with Gauss' mathematical skills. One of his
theorems was the greatest contribution to Euclidean geometry at the time in
2200 years.
At the age of 12 he was critical of the fundamentals of geometry at the time. By
the age of 13 he was already projecting a non-Euclidean geometry. At 16 he
created a method used until today to determine the elements of orbit of a planet
with measures taken from Earth.

Isaac Newton - English physicist, mathematician and astronomer, was

born on December 25, 1642 in Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire. The last years of true
glory he lived, Newton, in England, was exclusively concerned with complex
theological studies. He died on March 20, 1727 in Kensington, Middlesex and
was buried in Westminster Abbey, where the largest of the monuments was
erected.
 José Américo de Almeida - was born in Areia - PB, on January 10,
1887. He stood out in Brazilian Literature as the author of A bagaceira (1928),
a masterpiece of the modern regionalist novel, now with thirty-two editions in
Portuguese, critical edition and versions in Spanish, French, English and
Esperanto. His work, with seventeen titles, also includes essays, oratory,
chronicles, memoirs and poetry. Among others, he was a deputy, senator,
minister and governor of the State of Paraíba. In 1958, he retired voluntarily,
becoming known as the Solitary Man of Tambaú. After his death, on March 10,
1980, the house, where he had spent the last twenty-two years of his existence,
was transformed into a Foundation.

Kant, Emmanuel - German philosopher. (1724-1804)

Kaplan, Habraham - Psychoanalyst and Writer. (1918 - .... )

Lao Tse - father of Taoism, whose real name was Erh Dan Li. He would
have been born in South China in a region called Ch'u, around 604 BC. Some
legends attribute that he was born between 600 and 300 B.C.. Without a doubt,
he was one of the highest beings among those who lived on earth, having
bequeathed to humanity an immortal work the Tao Te Ching that went through
millennia reaching our days with the same value as 2600 years ago. It is not a
voluminous book, because it is not an encyclopedic work, but only a collection
of 81 small aphorisms, but that represent an immense fountain of wisdom
common to the Great Masters of humanity. On the website
www.symbolsite.com in the Taoist section there is an application of the 81
verses related to the relationship between Master and disciple.

Plato - Greek Philosopher, born in Athens in 428 or 427 B.C. He died in

348 or 347 B.C. He made a vast tour of the world to instruct himself (390-388).
He visited Egypt, where he admired its venerable antiquity and political stability;
southern Italy, where he had the opportunity to have relations with the
Pythagoreans (such contact will be fruitful for the development of his thought);
Sicily, where he met Dionysius the Ancient, tyrant of Syracuse and made a
deep friendship with Dion, his brother-in-law. However, he fell into the tyrant's
misfortune because of his weakness and was sold as a slave. Released thanks
to a friend, he returned to Athens.

In Athens, in the year 387, Plato founded his famous school, which, from
the gardens of Academo, where he emerged, took the famous name of
Academy. He acquired a farm near Colona, a town in Attica, where he built a
temple to the Muses, which became the collective property of the school and
was preserved by it for almost a millennium, until the time of Emperor Justinian
(A.D. 529).

René Descartes - French philosopher, (1596 - 1650). Born in 1596 in La

Haye - not the city of the Netherlands, but a village of Touraine, in a noble
family. arrives in Stockholm, Amsterdam, in October 1649. It is at dawn (5 a.m.!)
that he gives lessons in Cartesian philosophy to his royal disciple, Queen
Cristina. Descarte, who suffers atrociously from the cold, soon regrets, he who
"was born in the gardens of Touraine", of having come "to live in the country of
bears, among rocks and glaciers". But it's too late. He contracted pneumonia
and refused to take drugs from charlatans and to suffer systematic bleeding
("Save the French blood, gentlemen"), dying on February 9, 1650.

Voltaire, François-Marie Arquet de - (Paris, 1694-Paris, 1778). French

writer, author, among other works, of Philosophical Letters, Treatise on
Tolerance and Candido. The Song reproduced (in French) the entry Tolérance
from his Dictionnaire philosophique.