Everyday understanding

 EVERYDAY UNDERSTANDING 

Suppose you call up your friend and ask him “Hi, what are you doing?” and he says “Hi, I am shopping”. To this, a typical reaction is “Ok, Ok”. This means you have, in an everyday sense of the word, “understood” what he told you.

What does this understanding comprise of? My first claim (about the first part of this understanding) is that whenever you come across anything in everyday life, you get in touch with why it is so. Now this 'why' is not the actual specific reason as to why that piece of data is the way it is, but you mapping that data as an instance of a commonsense phenomena that is known to happen in the world. That is, the mind gets in touch with the fact that ‘people shop’. This is what comprises (partly) the understanding of the information that he is shopping – the reason for the information as a general commonsense phenomenon known to take place in the world. 

When you see a building while walking on a road, your mind gets in touch with something it knows beforehand that ‘there are buildings alongside roads’. The argument for this is that if there is something that is odd and doesn’t match with a commonsense phenomenon you know happens in the world, you immediately think or ask ‘how come?’ or ‘why?’ or something similar. Suppose your friend had told you “Hi, I am waxing pigeons”, the first and immediate reaction would be “What? WHY on earth are you doing that?” You try to get in touch with the reason, which you cannot do so by mapping what he said with a commonsense phenomenon known to be happening in the world.

The second part of this understanding is that the answer by the friend lights up a related commonsense knowledge-piece in your mind, which is typically, ‘people shop in shops’. (Probably, this extends to ‘people shop by spending money’). This makes you immediately realise that your friend is in a shop, and is what makes you ask, probably something like “Which shop are you in?” The claim of this part of the understanding is supported by the argument that - you would laugh if you followed up to his answer by saying something like “where are you?” to which he said “in a shop!” (You would then say something like “stop cracking jokes, tell me where in the city are you”).

So the understanding of “Hi, I am shopping” comprises 2 parts – 1) getting in touch with the commonsense phenomenon known to take place in the world that ‘people (do) shop’, and 2) Invoking related commonsense knowledge like ‘People shop in shops’ or ‘people shop by spending money’.