[FRIAM] Fwd: the role of intuition/inspiration in Science

[Steven A Smith]

In support of one of my earlier rambles about the source and
value/nature of intuition:

I submit this blog-entry on the Pirsig's reflections on the nature of
"Truth" in science and subliminal/subconscious sources of intuition and
inspiration and even analysis.   "Zen and the Art of Science"
<https://mythoslogos.org/2017/04/26/zen-and-the-art-of-science-a-tribute-to-robert-pirsig/>
written as a tribute to Pirsig after his death in 2017...

    /One of the most fruitful sources of hypotheses in science is
    mathematics, a discipline which consists of the creation of symbolic
    models of quantitative relationships. And yet, the nature of
    mathematical discovery is so mysterious that mathematicians
    themselves have compared their insights to mysticism. The great
    French mathematician Henri Poincare believed that the human mind
    worked subliminally on problems, and his work habit was to spend
    //no more than two hours at a time
    <https://books.google.com/books?id=kjFWKqc_eisC&pg=PA98&lpg=PA98&dq=poincare+two+hours&source=bl&ots=eVzG7VELV-&sig=rCYkufFuzsE1dWsRtYEY5q23bos&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi1rI_d7e3MAhVFjz4KHU9zCD44ChDoAQgkMAI#v=onepage&q=poincare%20two%20hours&f=false>//working
    on mathematics. Poincare believed that his subconscious would
    continue working on problems while he conducted other activities,
    and indeed, many of his great discoveries occurred precisely when he
    was away from his desk. John von Neumann, one of the best
    mathematicians of the twentieth century, also believed in the
    subliminal mind. He would sometimes go to sleep with a mathematical
    problem on his mind and //wake up in the middle of the night with a
    solution
    <https://books.google.com/books?id=pmPaAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA369&lpg=PA369&dq=%22von+neumann%22+sleep&source=bl&ots=xsqciGGT_m&sig=1EtMw3-fznf_WRwrMzdUtIcPc9w&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj9pIX1pPDLAhVILSYKHRB-D68Q6AEIUzAJ#v=onepage&q=%22von%20neumann%22%20sleep&f=false>//.
    The Indian mathematical genius Srinivasa Ramanujan was a Hindu
    mystic who believed that//solutions were revealed to him in dreams
    by the goddess Namagiri.
    <http://www.livescience.com/25597-ramanujans-math-theories-proved.html>
    /

I would like to submit that the above does NOT (IMO) answer the question
of "other ways knowing", just more hidden (to the conscious process)
methods of arriving at knowledge which is verifiable by independent and
repeatable testing of the consequent hypotheses.


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