Counter-intuitive
From Free net encyclopedia
A counterintuitive proposition is one that does not seem likely to be true using intuition or gut feelings.
Scientifically discovered, objective truths are often called counter-intuitive when intuition, emotions, and other cognitive processes outside of deductive rationality interpret them to be wrong. However, the subjective nature of intuition limits the objectivity of what to call counter-intuitive because what is counter-intuitive for one may be intuitive for another.
Flawed understanding of a problem may lead to counter-productive behavior with undesirable outcomes. In some such cases, counter-intuitive policies may then produce a more desirable outcome. For example, a policy of catching large fish and throwing back small ones so may be counter-productive. In response to that policy, evolutionary pressure may select for small fish. A counter-intuitive improvement may be to catch only medium sized fish, leaving the biggest free to breed, creating evolutionary pressure for fish to grow quickly through the medium size.<ref>New Scientist, July 2005</ref>
Physics
The Michelson-Morley experiment sought to measure the velocity of the Earth through the aether as it revolved around the Sun. The result was that it has no ether velocity at all. Relativity theory later explained the results, replacing the conventional notions of ether and separate space, time, mass, and energy with a counter-intuitive four-dimensional non-Euclidean universe.
Quantum mechanics counterintuitively suggests that instead of being made out of particles, the universe is best described by complex-valued wave functions that often behave unlike particles.
At scales typical of human experience, the predictions of quantum mechanics and relativity are similar to those of common sense folk physics and of human intuition. However, experiments verify their counterintuitive predictions at more extreme scales, suggesting that they are more accurate than the theories which preceded them.
Attempts to unify these theories, such as string theory and M-theory, are seemingly even more counter-intuitive.
See also
- common sense
- folk physics
- folk psychology
- Operations research
- Jesuit Ivy
- wave-particle duality / photoelectric effect - is light a wave or a particle?
- Monotonicity criterion - as it affects voting systems
- paradox
References
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