Thanks, really glad it landed that way. Bergson is a great connection, and not an obvious one. His split between intelligence and intuition maps almost too neatly: intelligence carves the world into fixed pieces it can manipulate, which is precisely what perceiving, deciding, and acting have turned out to be once you can specify them well enough to automate. Intuition, for him, was the part that grasps movement from the inside rather than reconstructing it from slices.
If he is right, then what we are automating is the intelligence half, and what stays is closer to what he meant by élan, the directedness that decides which problem is worth solving before any optimizing starts.
Does intention belong to his intuition, or is it a third thing neither category holds? Curious where you land.
First off, I should preface this by saying I don't claim to have deep expertise in philosophy. But here are a few thoughts, my terminology might be a bit unrefined, but I'm glad to share them!
Your article mentions intuition as "dark matter," and I believe that is precisely what forms the foundation of intention.
Every time humanity ascends to a higher layer, a previous question has been solved (what was once a directional question at the lower level becomes an operational/execution-level question at the new one). As each question gets resolved, a new one emerges (a meta-question, perhaps?), which then guides that layer toward answering it.
So what lies at the very end? Does an ultimate question even exist? I suspect it is fundamentally philosophical, unique to each person's life journey and lived perception. Knowing that question means knowing what you truly want—knowing your purpose, doesn't it?
To realize that ultimate purpose, one must move from the lower layers (outer execution) to the higher layers (deep, inner decision-making). Once these outer layers are handled, those who weren't necessarily strong in raw execution, but possess something extraordinary deep within their soul will shine.
That special quality is intuition. As you noted, what remains is much closer to élan. Intention is born from intuition, while intuition itself is honed by élan vital through a continuous stream of vivid, lived experience.
Of course, this doesn't invalidate intellect. In fact, our struggles and experiences within the realm of intellect enrich the ongoing stream of consciousness, which in turn sharpens intuition. I believe past generations' efforts to separate intellect from intuition were ultimately so that, one day, the two could merge into one, allowing us to fully comprehend existence. After all, even the greatest intellectual breakthroughs, inventions, theorems, originated from intuitive leaps.
I believe a convergence is coming, though I can't quite describe it yet, as I don't know what that picture looks like. Perhaps we are stepping into the domain of intuition and philosophy... and society will undergo a profound shift in the coming years?
I write this from Vietnam (translated by Gemini) and apologize for any inconvenience in reading.
There is a line from Whitehead in An Introduction to Mathematics that says almost exactly what you said: civilization advances by extending the number of important operations we can perform without thinking about them. He follows it with the reason, that operations of thought are like cavalry charges, strictly limited in number, to be made only at decisive moments. Your version adds the half he left out, that each time an operation sinks below the threshold of attention, a new directional question appears above it.
That complicates the comfortable reading, including mine. If every solved directional question becomes the next layer's execution, intention is not a fixed human reserve. It is a moving frontier, and whether the ladder terminates is the open part. Your instinct is that it ends in something philosophical and personal, the question only your own life can pose. If that is right, here is why: an ultimate question cannot be delegated because there is no external standard to check the answer against. Every question below it has one, which is exactly what makes those delegable.
I think this is one of the most important post in my life. This makes me think about philosophy of Henri Bergson, about intuition...
Thanks, really glad it landed that way. Bergson is a great connection, and not an obvious one. His split between intelligence and intuition maps almost too neatly: intelligence carves the world into fixed pieces it can manipulate, which is precisely what perceiving, deciding, and acting have turned out to be once you can specify them well enough to automate. Intuition, for him, was the part that grasps movement from the inside rather than reconstructing it from slices.
If he is right, then what we are automating is the intelligence half, and what stays is closer to what he meant by élan, the directedness that decides which problem is worth solving before any optimizing starts.
Does intention belong to his intuition, or is it a third thing neither category holds? Curious where you land.
First off, I should preface this by saying I don't claim to have deep expertise in philosophy. But here are a few thoughts, my terminology might be a bit unrefined, but I'm glad to share them!
Your article mentions intuition as "dark matter," and I believe that is precisely what forms the foundation of intention.
Every time humanity ascends to a higher layer, a previous question has been solved (what was once a directional question at the lower level becomes an operational/execution-level question at the new one). As each question gets resolved, a new one emerges (a meta-question, perhaps?), which then guides that layer toward answering it.
So what lies at the very end? Does an ultimate question even exist? I suspect it is fundamentally philosophical, unique to each person's life journey and lived perception. Knowing that question means knowing what you truly want—knowing your purpose, doesn't it?
To realize that ultimate purpose, one must move from the lower layers (outer execution) to the higher layers (deep, inner decision-making). Once these outer layers are handled, those who weren't necessarily strong in raw execution, but possess something extraordinary deep within their soul will shine.
That special quality is intuition. As you noted, what remains is much closer to élan. Intention is born from intuition, while intuition itself is honed by élan vital through a continuous stream of vivid, lived experience.
Of course, this doesn't invalidate intellect. In fact, our struggles and experiences within the realm of intellect enrich the ongoing stream of consciousness, which in turn sharpens intuition. I believe past generations' efforts to separate intellect from intuition were ultimately so that, one day, the two could merge into one, allowing us to fully comprehend existence. After all, even the greatest intellectual breakthroughs, inventions, theorems, originated from intuitive leaps.
I believe a convergence is coming, though I can't quite describe it yet, as I don't know what that picture looks like. Perhaps we are stepping into the domain of intuition and philosophy... and society will undergo a profound shift in the coming years?
I write this from Vietnam (translated by Gemini) and apologize for any inconvenience in reading.
No apology needed, it came through clearly.
There is a line from Whitehead in An Introduction to Mathematics that says almost exactly what you said: civilization advances by extending the number of important operations we can perform without thinking about them. He follows it with the reason, that operations of thought are like cavalry charges, strictly limited in number, to be made only at decisive moments. Your version adds the half he left out, that each time an operation sinks below the threshold of attention, a new directional question appears above it.
That complicates the comfortable reading, including mine. If every solved directional question becomes the next layer's execution, intention is not a fixed human reserve. It is a moving frontier, and whether the ladder terminates is the open part. Your instinct is that it ends in something philosophical and personal, the question only your own life can pose. If that is right, here is why: an ultimate question cannot be delegated because there is no external standard to check the answer against. Every question below it has one, which is exactly what makes those delegable.
Great read. Intention Is All You Need in the Post-Human Era.