# "Introspection and intuition are the most useless character traits"



## Alvis Oswin (Jun 25, 2012)

How would you respond to someone who tells you that intuition and introspecting are the most useless traits a person can have? My rival debater claims this, and I think he is uneducated on the subject.


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## coquelicot (Jun 8, 2012)

Intuition is magic. Introspection is precious. As a very introspective IFP I wish my intuition was stronger, it would make me feel more playful and creative, instead of letting me stuck in endless esoteric endeavours. 
Would the world have scientists and artists and great minds if those two qualities were not present? You know, it pisses me off that the modern world is so deeply rotten. All of a sudden, nothing matters unless it is tangible, unless you can translate it into money and labor. What kind of sick utilitarianism that is? 
All the heads who run the world are intuitive introspectors with weird ideas. They set the models and then let them work and watch them proliferate. The rest of us have no worth unless we can make ourselves useful enough in the frames of those models. Argh!


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## Alvis Oswin (Jun 25, 2012)

You hit the nail on the head. Exactly how I feel.


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## MuChApArAdOx (Jan 24, 2011)

If they find neither of them useful, they either haven't experienced it ( intuition ) or not doing it right ( introspection ).


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## coquelicot (Jun 8, 2012)

> You hit the nail on the head. Exactly how I feel.


Fortunately some of us in here understand each other. Relief.


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## Pointless Activist (May 22, 2012)

I'd respect their views, but frankly, I couldn't live without either. I can't imagine my life without me being introspective and intuitive. They are both very useful traits, but no better than any other. Some people just prefer those traits over sensing and observing, and I am one of them. I see almost nobody now using intuition or introspection. Not using intuition I understand. Everyone has preferences. But I don't see how you can ignore yourself so easily, and not be introspective. I just can't imagine people being that way. I don't meet many introspective people nowadays. I have my brother, and an acquaintance or two. 

My question is, how can you be stuck on focusing on the outside world all of the time? Introspection is a great way to understand yourself and how you affect others around you. It allows for thoughts to dance around in your mind, your ideas playing around without fear of being judged. Introspection is the only thing that really lets me be me, to be honest. Otherwise, I feel just as "superficial" as the non-introspective people. 

That being said, I'm not trying to discriminate or anything, it's just that I don't easily understand their lifestyle. 

Just my two cents.


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## Vermillion (Jan 22, 2012)

Calmly ask your rival debater why he thinks so, and proceed to give an extremely intuitive and introspective answer that leaves him speechless for a while so you can think up something to stump him more.

It's what I would do anyway. Anyone who places less value on intuition and introspection automatically has lost my respect.


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## Kyrielle (Mar 12, 2012)

I would be inclined to think him a rather unbalanced person. Not because of the intuition comment, but because of the introspection comment. Without looking inward now and again, how can you know yourself or solve any ongoing psychological issues? How can you possibly call yourself balanced if you don't examine your interior now and again? Do you wander through the world utterly blind?


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## Faust (Jul 25, 2012)

Is it possible to come to such a conclusion without the use of both introspection and intuition....?


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## Carmine Ermine (Mar 11, 2012)

Without introspection, there would be no way to assess my progress. Life would just be a series of visions, sounds, sensations and motion, with no meaning required, no values needed, and no way of guessing what could possibly happen. Pure Se, in other words (from my persepective).

Intuition is something that can go a long way and solve a lot of problems before they begin.

Maybe, to people with dominant sensing, taking intuitive leaps can be scary and off-putting because it feels like this:






Then you wonder, "maybe you missed something?"


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## Helios (May 30, 2012)

Whoever told you that just spouted a crock of complete bullshit. Intuition and introspection are two very good traits to have. With introspection, you can learn your strengths and weaknesses and how to improve yourself. Intuition provides great insights. Don't listen to what he said.


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## Laguna (Mar 21, 2012)

who has a problem with intuitive feelers????


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## Dark Romantic (Dec 27, 2011)

Intuition is pretty fucking useful, as it allows you to size up people and situations very quickly and accurately, and it allows you to see what's going on behind the scenes without much trouble. Introspection is the best way to learn your strengths and weaknesses, although I suppose you could get a trusted person to let you know what they are and why they are strengths or weaknesses.


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## Alvis Oswin (Jun 25, 2012)

He acts very logical, but his logic is bent toward science, evidence and confidence, whereas my logic is bent toward philosophy, relativity and happiness. He finds most comfort in knowing things, but my belief is that you can't know things, I feel comfort in believing that there is someone watching us outside of our universe, but he thinks that if you can't know enough about it, it's not worth believing in, but for some reason, he says it would make him feel comfortable to believe that what I believe is true. 

I believe in something that I call 'relative deism', which is the belief that there is a deity outside of our universe that judges every person absolutely perfectly and appropriately, and no one human is to say or know what is 'appropriate'. To believe in Heaven and Hell only would, in my opinion, be pointless, as only a few hundred truly vile people would go to Hell, while many relatively bad people would go to Heaven solely because they were raised to be bad and it is not their fault, or they were not raised at all, thus there would have to be many, many, many universes to fit people just right. I could go on further to describe what I believe just so that people don't _tell_me_ what I believe, when I don't really believe it, but this is getting off-topic.


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## GROUNDED_ONE (May 23, 2012)

Alvis Oswin said:


> How would you respond to someone who tells you that intuition and introspecting are the most useless traits a person can have? My rival debater claims this, and I think he is uneducated on the subject.


I would just simply say, "we agree that you will always need a GPS in life telling you your every next move based on facts and proven results. " Directions don't always work, technology can fail.


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## Christie42476 (May 25, 2012)

Alvis Oswin said:


> How would you respond to someone who tells you that intuition and introspecting are the most useless traits a person can have? My rival debater claims this, and I think he is uneducated on the subject.


I would say: "I understand why you would think that way. Tools people lack the competence to wield properly are ultimately useless to them. I was fortunate to be born with an innate talent for them, but my sincerest sympathies that you were not."

Or something like that :wink:


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## cue5c (Oct 12, 2011)

I would ask him how the people got the information he so dearly relies on and tell him that if there's not enough information then go and find it himself. Nothing gets done by standing around and spouting of opinions, which is all his "facts" are. If he's young, I wouldn't put too much effort into it. The world has a way of evening a person out.


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## strawberryLola (Sep 19, 2010)

Whenever I hear someone spout off about intuition and introspection as useless character traits to have (excuse me if I'm not PC here), my immediate reaction is "you're a tool."

Intuition and introspection helps me to not sheep down for the sake of sheeping down. I'd rather be a social critic than someone who passively rolls over and accepts things "just they way they _are_ because that's _just_ the way it_ is_." If anything can be more armchair psychology, I'd say statements like that really make George Bush look GENIUS.


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## Antipode (Jul 8, 2012)

These aren't comparable superpowers. Any trait is as useless as the next--it is the heart behind the trait that makes it useful.


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## xEmptiness (Jul 26, 2012)

Intuition has been extremely useful for me in the past, I'm willing to trust this unlimited subconscious power over the limited senses and knowledge one can obtain. It is impossible to process raw knowledge or sense into the unlimited scale of the universe, the uncertainty and bias is simply too large in external information.
Introspection is useful at times, but also quite misleading. I don't think making external decisions via introspection only is very wise.

Nevertheless in a limited scenario, knowledge is extremely useful. I don't think I will ever trust my senses though.


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