What specific characteristics distinguish intuition from instinct?
Hello,
Well basically the characteristics of instinct are unlearnt inherited fixed action patterns or responses to certain or specific stimuli. For example when it gets dark bats (well most of them) wake up and go to 'work' but (normally) on the other hand human beings go to bed - unless they are doing shift work. Instinctively we know that shift work is going to be hard work as it operates against our long held behaviours.
Instincts do not need learning. For example birds 'know' how to build nests and spiders know how to build a web. There is a lot of scientific research around on instinct.
On the other hand intuition is a vague concept where a person seems to know something or sensing something without reasoning about it - in a way related to insight or knowing without learning. There is a philisophical field of inquiry called Intuition created by Henri Bergson (google him).
Check this website for more information - might provide some food for thought: Intuition
Here is a quote from that site:Intuition, for me, is the rat that gnaws through the maze. It’s the annoying squeak you can’t find. It’s the sudden glimpse of something out of the corner of your eye. It is the irrational happily at work wrecking plans, sticking wrenches into carefully constructed ideas and the one intangible happy accident that makes being human glorious fun.
So intuition is not a response to a specific stimuli or behaviour it is something less well defined and enters into the territory of psychics and other 'alternative' (unprovable?) areas...
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Both instinct and intuition are mental function.Instinct is the aspect of behavior that is innate. It is complex and normally adaptive. A powerful impulse. An innate aptitude. It is natural and no effort is necessary. You must have heard human instinct. Animal instinct.Intuition is an intellectual activity or output. It can be stimulated, intensified and enriched during concentration or meditation. Inference is also another mental function which is used by adepts
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