Perceiver Strategy 71- And, as for the moon containing lots of silicon, we know that silicon
is the major ingredient of sand. Maybe the moon does contain a lot of
silicon.
Finally, look at these facts: The President of the United States visited
the White House; 2 x 2 = 4; the moon is made out of rock. I think that all
of us can say with certainty that we know these facts to be true. Why?
Because we know that the component pieces of information belong
together. When we think of the President of the United States, we
automatically think of the White House. In our minds, these two fragments
of facts have become connected. In the same way, the words „two times
two‟ automatically remind us of „4.‟ As for the moon, every picture I have
seen reveals nothing but dust and rocks.
Let us summarize. Perceiver strategy works with facts. A fact is a
bundle of information. A fact is true if the pieces of information belong
together and false if the various bits do not coexist. Just as Mercy strategy
labels every experience with a feeling, so Perceiver thought attaches to
each fact a label of certainty. Perceiver strategy knows what does and what
does not belong together.
Perceiver Automatic Thought
All of us have a Mercy part which can feel. Similarly, each person can
know facts with the help of Perceiver thought. However, I suggest that the
knowing of the Perceiver person has an added advantage. In the same way
that the Mercy person is consciously aware of a mental storage shed of
experiences, so the Perceiver person has conscious access to a mental
storage shed of facts. As a Perceiver person, I have discovered over the
years that I have a natural ability to work with uncertain information. I
simply „reach‟ into the mental storage shed of facts located within
automatic Perceiver thought and out pops the appropriate piece of
information, along with a label of certainty. I suggest that the name which
we give to this Perceiver storage shed is intuition.A
A The Facilitator and Mercy persons also use intuition. While this involves
subconscious Perceiver knowing, I suggest that these cognitive styles
approach the Perceiver storage shed of information in different ways: The
Mercy person gets the „tool‟ along with the label, but he cannot „see‟ into
the shed. In contrast, the Facilitator person can see all of the shed, but the
label of confidence which he receives is limited to either right, wrong, or
unknown.