The marvelous Kahneman book Thinking Fast and Slow has a section discussing System 1 vs. Expert Intuition. He refers to an running debate with another scholar which became a collaboration. This debate isn’t fully described, but seemed to start with the contrast between the flaws and biases of System 1 and the power of expert intuition.
As Malcolm Gladwell described in his seminal book Blink, the power of expert (conditioned) intuition is so extraordinary it is hard to overstate. Observing and celebrating intuitive skill is one of great primary entertainments as humans. We adore great skill in every endeavor from art to sport to basic daily tasks.
I don’t think Kahneman wrote about expert intuition simply being a trained System 1 (I do need to review that section of the book).
System 1 is trainable.
System 1 learns by conditioning, through repetition. It is actually being trained constantly and cannot help being trained. System 1 learns anything we practice and makes that action unconscious. And we are practicing all the time. We are what we practice (1).
In fact, many of System 1’s flaws arise from conditioning earlier in life, particular in our formative years. Often this training was a remarkably successful adaptation to the environment we lived in. Years later in different environments System 1’s automatic adapted behavior gets us into trouble (2).
This isn’t just true for “unhealthy” environments in our formative years. Even if we have the most healthy, secure, balanced family life, System 1 develops habits which can be limiting later in life.
System 2 has a version of this conditioning. It develops mental models which become unconscious and can be limiting if we don’t update them, or if we fail to see they do not completely fit the present situation.
Final note: probably need to revise the picture with the elephants in captivity.
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(1) Strozzi Institute of Embodied Leadership teaches, 1) we are what we practice, 2) we are practicing all the time, 3) do our practices serve us?
2) David L. Bradford, Stanford Graduate School of Business, “In my experience, people get into more trouble from over-using their strengths than from their weaknesses.”
Elephants and Economics 