Mrs. du Toit has an interesting new essay up on her site this morning.  She talks about the way in which we sometimes “just know” that something is going to happen or how something is going to turn out.  Very often we are tempted to dismiss these thoughts, since we don’t seem to have a rational basis for them, or we don’t want to believe them, or perhaps we don’t want others to think we’re bonkers.

I understand how she feels about this, since I have often felt the same way.  There have been times when I just knew how something was going to turn out, but I had no identifiable rational basis for it.  I must admit that I’m not 100% accurate about these things.  There have been times when I’ve been wrong. 

There is still a lot that we don’t know about how intelligence operates.  I know that most of us tend to seek patterns in the world around us.  It could be that there is some kind of subconscious or non-linear process in the brain that allows us to integrate numerous small inputs and create a larger picture.  Perhaps we’re merely taking advantage of this process without realizing it.

Mrs. du Toit worries that we’re on the verge of another world-wide conflict, World War III.  As of yet, there are few indicators that we can directly identify that would lead to this conclusion.  However, I have also had that little nagging voice in the back of my head telling me the same thing since September 11, 2001.  I don’t have a rational explanation to give at this point.

For everyone’s sake, I hope that we’re both wrong about this.  I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what the next 10 years bring.