In Defense of Intuition: Exploring the Physical Foundations of Spontaneous Apprehension

Abstract

The thesis advanced in this paper is that human experience encompasses not only elements registered by the exteroceptive and interoceptive senses, but also elements received intuitively, in a direct and spontaneous mode.  Findings at the cutting edge of quantum physics and brain research support the hypothesis that the brain can receive information not only through nerve-signals conducted from the senses but also through quantum resonance at the level of cytoskeletal structures.  Confirmation of this hypothesis would provide a physical foundation for the spontaneous intuitions that surface occasionally in consciousness.  Recognizing that some varieties of intuitions are bona fide perceptions of the world beyond the brain and body would enlarge our view of the scope of human experience and support assumptions about the existence of subtle informational ties between humans, as well as between humans and nature.

Keywords: apprehension—intuition—information—nonlocality—quantum physics—quantum brain theory