Wednesday, December 23, 2020

What 'commonsense' is this?

WHAT 'COMMONSENSE' IS THIS?

Consider this sentence someone tells you - 

The doctors did the surgery quickly.

There are obviously 2 parts to the cognition of this sentence - 

1) In cognition, we, first, obviously consider / understand what is given explicitly (that there were more than one doctor, they did a surgery, they did it quickly etc. This obviously involves understanding the meanings of the words making up the sentence).

2) Then, we consider the implicit part - the commonsense. In this case, we cognize (assumedly) that this happened in a hospital, the doctors were adults etc.

I wish to draw forth your attention to another part of the cognition of the sentence.

Now, when we hear this sentence, we obviously don't know a lot of things - like,  whose surgery was done?, what surgery was done? who were those doctors? etc. These questions arise in our mind. The basis for the arousal of the blank slot of say, 'what surgery was done?', is the dormant cognition/"registry" of the fact that 'if it was a surgery => it must be a surgery of some KIND'. It is the cognition of this super-simple rule that leads to the question - what (kind of) surgery was it? This is the commonsense (the rule) I am talking about. This is something more basic than something like - the event must have happened in a hospital (as given as an example in part (2)). Also, as a general additional point, what else can explain the arousal of a question like 'what kind of a surgery was it?' on being told there was a surgery done? 

(Other such rules here, corresponding to the questions :

a) If they were doctors => they must be some particular doctors.                                                            b)If the surgery was done => it must be done of someone (this is a bit more "distant" an implication than the above one).

 





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