On insight

The link is to an excellent article from Edge magazine. It's a conversation with Gary Klein on the nature of intuition and the decision-making of experts.

Judgments based on intuition seem mysterious because intuition doesn't involve explicit knowledge. It doesn't involve declarative knowledge about facts. Therefore, we can't explicitly trace the origins of our intuitive judgments. They come from other parts of our knowing. They come from our tacit knowledge and so they feel magical. Intuitions sometimes feel like we have ESP, but it isn't magical, it's really a consequence of the experience we've built up.

• There's enough material here for an entire course
• In particular, it poses interesting questions about the much-vaunted notion of reflection.
• Because it is an interview piece (although we only get Klein's contribution) it is very accessible. It's even exciting in parts!

(It's also available as a video on this page.)