To Pursue Unity of Intuition and Logic (2)

As I wrote in my blog article on March 29, 2019, I had an opportunity to meet Dr. Renpu Fujimoto. Dr. Renpu is one of grand masters of Japanese-style acupuncture and the founder of his acupuncture organization, Hokushinkai. During dialogue, he emphasized the point that any theory comes from practice. Acupuncture is no exception.

More importantly, as the Yin-and-Yang symbol of Oriental medicine indicates, we must adopt a broader perspective on life (including phenomena such as birth, aging, ailing, and dying). While modern Western medicine analytically regards life as collection of organs and molecules, we cannot completely separate mind from body. Indeed, his lesson applies to human cognition. As I introduced the controversy between Klein and Kahneman, we tend to think that the nature of intuition is completely opposite to that of logical thinking.

Unlike AI and other sort of machines, human can adopt both intuitive and logical thinking. Yes, we usually think about the target intuitively first ('System 1' or 'Fast' as Kahneman explains). Then, we take time to consider the target logically analytically ('System 2' or 'Slow'). Kahneman pointed out fast thinking often leads us to misunderstanding or bad consequences due to our heuristics and biases. Klein denied his argument.

However, real experts like Dr. Renpu has strong intuition and logic. Their intuitive explanation (or evaluation) coincides with logical and analytical explanation. I call this 'Unity of Intuition and Logic'.

As I always insist, intuition is unique to human. AI researchers cannot copy this and instill AI through programming. I don't agree to the idea that human intuition is incompatible with logic. They can work together in the expert's mind.