The Four Phases of Intuition | Think Differently!

During my Ph.D research, I examined the psychology of creativity in relation to the creative work processes of economists. In a separate paper, I examined economists’ use of highly mathematical models as a kind of ‘metaphor’ or intellectual playground in which to explore the dynamics of system behaviours to motivate intuitions about real world economic systems (see especially pages 20-22 in the paper).

I believe this background leaves me well positioned to propose a relatively accessible and useful model of what intuition is, and how it can be developed – and I propose to do so in this blog article and to release it under ‘creative commons’ licensing (see end of article for details – this means reference me if you use the model, if you want to extend it you can but you must do so on the same licensing and refer back to the original version).

To describe my model of intuition, it’s useful to first review on of the classic models of the creative process, namely the classic 1926 Wallas Stage Model.

The Wallas Stage Model of the Creative Process

In the Wallas Stage Model , creative insights or illuminations occur in the following stages of work:

Preparation (conscious work on a creative problem)
Internalisation (internalisation of the problem context and goals into the subconscious) and Incubation (internal processing of the problem unconsciously), and
Illumination (the emergence – perhaps dramatically – of the creative insight to consciousness as an ‘aha!’ experience)
Verification and Elaboration (checking that the insight is valid and then developing it to a point where it can be used or shared).

As the creative individual (for example a scientist or engineer) works on a problem, if it is a difficult problem they may spend quite some effort, try a number of different avenues, and clarify or redefine the problem situation. All this activity works to begin to internalise the problem into the subconscious, at which point the ideas about the problem can churn around in the subconscious without necessarily any further conscious input – they are “incubating.” As the problems are incubated, they may begin to coalesce into a solution to the problem, which then dramatically emerges to consciousness as an ‘aha!’ illumination experience. But this experience may or may not be a real solution to the problem – it needs to be verified and tested. It may then need further elaboration and development before it is put to use or shared with other people.

Historically, Wallas’s Stage Model was based on the insights of two of the leading scientific minds of the late 19th century. On his 70th birthday celebration, Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz offered his thoughts on his creative process, consistent with the Wallas Stage Model. These were published in 1896. In 1908, Henri Poincare’s (the leading mathematician and scientist of his time) published his 1908 classic essay Mathematical Creation, in which he put forward his views on and understanding of the creative processes in mathematical work – again broadly consistent with the Wallas model, although Poincare offered his own thoughts on possible psychological mechanisms underlying the broad features of the Wallas model.

Poincare speculated that what happened was that once ideas were internalised, they bounced around in the subconscious somewhat like billiard balls, colliding with each other – but occasionally interlocking to form new stable combinations. When this happened and there was a significant fit, Poincare speculated that the mechanism which identified that a solution to the problem had been found was a sort of aesthetic sense, a “sensibility.” Poincare wrote that in creative illumination experiences:

. . . the privileged unconscious phenomena, those susceptible of becoming conscious, are those which, directly or indirectly, affect most profoundly our emotional sensibility. It may be surprising to see emotional sensibility evoked a propos of mathematical demonstrations which, it would seem, can only be of interest to the intellect. This would be to forget the feeling of mathematical beauty, of the harmony of numbers and forms, of geometric elegance. This is a true aesthetic feeling that all real mathematicians know, and surely it belongs to emotional sensibility.

Poincare argued that in the subconscious, “the useful combinations are precisely the most beautiful, I mean those best able to charm this special sensibility that all mathematicians know.” Such combinations are “capable of touching this special sensibility of the geometer of which I have just spoken, and . . . once aroused, will call our attention to them, and thus give them occasion to become conscious.”

Generalising from Poincare’s discussion, the conscious mind receives a vast range of information inputs on a daily basis. The conscious and subconscious mental faculties sort and internalise this information by making patterns and associations between them, and developing a “sense” of how new pieces of information “fit” with patterns, rules, associations and so forth that have already been internalised and may or may not even be consciously understood or brought into awareness.

Which brings us back to a discussion of intuition.

The “Mackinnon Model of Intuition” – A Simple and Practical Model for Understanding Intuition

I propose that intuition can be understood analogously, as involving 4 phases -

Conscious activity, in a given context, leading to
Internalisation of that activity, and associated mental frames and value judgements, into habitualised and internalised patterns of thinking and understanding and an associated sense of what’s normal, how things happen, what’s usual and unusual
Stimuli from new events, activities and situations in the field of conscious activity provide input and stimulation to the mind which interacts with this sensibility (and thereby with internalised cognitive and normative patterns of thinking) leading to conscious “intuitions” as feelings or “sensibilities” about what’s going on and the one hand and ongoing reformation and re-evaluation of the intuition “sensibility”
Validation or denial of this sense or sensibility underlying intuition as the sensibility is or isn’t acknowledged and acted on.

This model of intuition explicitly recognises that the subconscious mind, through its ability to form associations between and identify patterns in vast quantities of information, can process significant amounts of information in a fundamentally different manner to conscious analysis.

It also leads to explicit recommendations for improving your intuition.

Get involved in further activity and gain more experience. The more experience you have the more informed your intuition will become.
Listen to your intuition – and act on it. The more you practice listening to your intuition and acting on it the more you will be able to tell useful intuitions from other feelings and the more confident in it you will become. You will be able to discern your intuition “sensibility” from other feelings and thoughts.
Just like creativity in the Wallas model, sometimes your intuition will be strongest when you are not in the thick of conscious, rational analysis. Sometimes it is useful to put yourself on the spot and force a snap judgement (as this will force you to bypass rational analysis and utilise your intuition), at other times it is useful to leave major decisions until the next day. Experiment and see what works best for you.

Please let me know your thoughts.

Licensing

This model of the 4 phases of intuition is provided under “Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 2.5 Australia” licensing. In a nutshell, this means feel free to use it, but credit it back to me (e.g. call it the Mackinnon model of intuition and link back to here). Treat it as an “open source” model on the license terms defined specifically below. If you extend it, refer back to the original model published here.

The formal licensing is as follows:

This means you can use it commercially (e.g. with your consulting or coaching clients or in your business) but you must refer to this original version as being from Lauchlan Mackinnon of Cognitive Transitions. You can also extend it and enhance it, but in any and every use of it (in whole or part) and any reuse and extension of it must

cite that your work is based on the original (but not in any way suggest that I endorse you or your use of the work),
reference the original version (e.g. link to this page or an equivalent publication from me), and
if distributed, the extended work distributed must be provided under the same Creative Commons licensing.