202408021018 Intuition and instinct are implicit knowledge

Intuition, or instinct, or gut-feel is actually implicit knowledge (202110231457 Tacit knowledge) of some process, phenomenon, system, etc. that we don't consciously, explicitly understand.

When we intuitively know a solution to a problem, or instinctively feel uneasy about something, what's really happening is that our conscious and unconscious mind has taken in a variety of signals and understood something that we didn't sit down and reason out.

This can be powerful in a skill based setting where decisions have to be made frequently, like sports. It can also help experts shed false starts and bad paths without wasting time on them.

I would argue that one of the key characteristics of becoming skillful or expert at something is getting to the point where you have intuitive understanding of how to do it. This intuition may be enumerable if one tried to sit down and think it through