Roughly speaking the mind possesses three different processing speeds The first is faster than thought Some situations demand an unselfconscious instantaneous reaction When my motorbike skidded on a wet road in London some years ago my brain and my body immediately choreographed for me an intricate and effective set of movements that enabled me to keep my seat  and it was only after the action was all over that my conscious mind and my emotions started to catch up Neither a concert pianist nor an Olympic fencer has time to figure out what to do next There is a kind of intelligence that works more rapidly than thinking This mode of fast physical intelligence could be called our wits The five senses were originally known as the five wits