For those who believe in any type of universal consciousness, there really isn't a difference between intelligence and intuition. Perhaps intuition is even more valuable in this sense, because it conveys an intelligence far deeper than the individual at hand. The knowledge is so deeply ingrained that it has reached a level of instinct, and sometimes is so strong that it is hard to ignore.

As a society that values intelligence, however, we may have come to think of intuition in a harsher light, as a "soft science", per se. There is often no hard fact to back up that gut feeling or nagging in the back of our minds. Sometimes we discredit it as nerves or some other weakness.

Yet I propose that intuition is a form of intelligence, and that there is such a thing as "intelligent intuition". Not that I'm recommending changing your entire life based on a feeling, but I do ask that the next time you get one of these feelings of "I just know", to take into account that maybe you DO know, on a deeper level. One that consciousness and the connections between neurons and synapses may not quite reach. There is plenty we have yet to learn about the human brain, and perhaps somewhere caught up in the mixture of neurotransmitters and hormones, there is something to recognize intuition as a true type of intelligence.

By typical definition, intelligence IS different from intuition. Many can argue that while you can learn and thus make better use of your intelligence, you cannot augment a natural sense of intuition. I beg to differ. From childhood on, we are taught to question and to judge scientifically everything we come upon, and few of us are taught to depend on those gut feelings. It takes time and practice to learn to trust them, and one wrong choice based on an instinct may be enough to cause someone to never trust in them again. Instead of learning to act, or not to act, based on intuition, perhaps we need to examine these feelings and take into consideration that they may in actuality be a protective factor. Intuition may not be something to make decisions on totally, but it is something to think on. As we all know, the deal that seems "too good to be true" usually is. When something doesn't feel right, regardless of how good the pieces seem to add up, most of us will still hesitate to act. It is my belief that this happens for a reason, and that this reason is we instinctually know that intuition is not to be so easily discredited.

In short, it doesn't seem to me that intuition is not an aspect of intelligence. Perhaps one day we will have the knowledge and tools to know for sure, but for now, we have to depend on good old human nature to decide- and human nature is to be intuitive, and to notice those feelings. Intuition should be taken with a few grains of salt, but just the same, pay attention to those feelings. They may be the very root of intelligence, an inner knowledge that we as of yet cannot explain, but has for some reason been passed down genetically to all of mankind. My intelligence tells me that this is not just a chance occurrence.

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