The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Ian White wrote:


Making your movements flow and letting the subconscious take control
is important in lots of spheres of activity I've now decided.

There's a very useful term for that: "unaware intelligence". It
highlights the fact that some of our subconscious activity is
actually complex, high-level thinking - far above the level of
instincts and reactions (but with a good connection down to that
lower level too). We only discover how complex it is when we bring
it all to the surface, eg in a driving commentary.

Part of our unaware intelligence is that we can process information
that we aren't even aware of having taken in, and this probably
accounts for a lot of our "intuition" and "hunches". The Institute
of Advanced Motorists tell of a classic example:

"... I'm slowing for this blind bend. Oops, braking hard - there'll
be a horse!"

"How did you know?"

"Just before the bend, that pile of sh*t was still steaming."


Indeed. Birds flying up indicates human or predator activity,
reflections in windows helps see round blind corners..


Wasn't it Stirling Moss who said 'as I came round the corner, instead
of a sea of white faces looking at ME, it was a sea of dark heads
pointing up the track..I slowed down instinctively and managed to
avoid the crash that had already happened'.

WE are seriously good at pattern recognition. When the pattern
'doesn't fit' ..slow down and wake up. Something is going down..

We are very good indeed at pattern recognition. Magicians are well aware of
it & take advantage of the fact frequently.



--
Dave - The Medway Handyman
www.medwayhandyman.co.uk