From Reading to Commonsense Assumptions

Consider this sentence : 

John was preparing an omelet. 

The moment we finish reading this sentence, some things instinctively flash in our minds - like, John was in the kitchen, it was probably morning breakfast time, the omelette was for breakfast etc. (It doesn't flash in our minds that say, John was on a street-hawkers' cart preparing omelette for a customer.) 

These are commonsense follow-ups from a piece of data presented to us. This works in 3 broad stages (not necessarily in ordered serial processing; we shall come to that later; first just note the 3 essential stages) : 

Stage 1) Factual content collection - The mind has to firstly know what matter is being presented i.e. the words. This simply decides if there is a 'bird' in the data or a 'man' in the data - something to that effect.

Stage 1') Applying the rules of language learnt, to piece together these bits into an ordered structure knowing all the relations that exist amongst the bits. So, for example, if it is given that John was preparing an omelette, it amounts to understanding that it was John who was the one preparing; what was being prepared was an omelette etc.

Stage 2) Likening - 'Likening' (refer article 'First law of Commonsense') the understood ordered content to a known/valid entity in memory. After the mind understands that someone was preparing an omelette, it likens it to a typical entry from experience/memory of someone preparing an omelette (in the kitchen). This is our typical idea of someone preparing an omelette.

Stage 3) From this likened entity, we observe the surrounding/other elements in its visual (like it is happening in a kitchen, it's typically morning time etc.)

It is clear that Stage 2 follows Stage 1 and that Stage 3 follows Stage 2 , but what is the actual sequence of the processing of the information as a whole, till the instinctive flashes occur to us? Let's argue and piece things together.

Without the ordered content being complete, the likening to the memory-entity (Stage 2) cannot happen/begin. Note - for a sub-part of a sentence that can happen (i.e. without the sentence being technically fully complete) but that is a "complete" chunk of a scene in itself, which can be treated as a small complete "sentence" or a "unit".

So, somehow the ordered content has to be created first. Let's see how that is done. 

As we read each word, one by one, its definitions start flashing in the mind. This is an obvious, common experience. This process can be seen, again, as a Likening of the script to the known, understood stored entity (definitions) in memory, of its. The script - words (composed of letters) - are the external-world-entries, and the definitions in memory are our ideas of what they mean/stand for, stored in the mind, to which the former are Likened to. We obviously dont first read the whole sentence and then the definitions of each flash after that. That happens as we read each word. So this process can be represented (for a sentence ABCD; A, B, C and D are the words) as - A1 A2 B1 B2 C1 C2 D1 D2. 1 indicates the Stage 1 process mentioned above, and 2 indicates the stage 2 process mentioned above. 1 because you are factually collecting the content - the script (the words, composed of letters) - and 2 because you are likening them to your ideas of their definitions in your memory. For example, when you read John, the A2 is "some human person", or when you read omelette you liken it with the idea of the definition of an omelette you have in memory (/mind) - "ya, THAT such and such dish/food item".

Now, parallely with this sequential process, i.e as you are reading the words, one by one, is happening the process of Language-rules being applied (Stage 1') over the contents to piece them in an ordered weaved fashion as to the key linkages between them. So, a typical example of a result of this process would be - "ok so, so and so doer was doing such and such process on such and such doee, in such and such manner". 

So Stage 1 and Stage 1' operate in parallel, first. When both are complete, a rough skeleton or sketch of the scene in a form which 'relates correspondingly the order of the words in the sentence to their actualisation in the weaved/pieced-together structure of the story' occurs in the mind. Let me elaborate a bit on this. This amounts to saying that the order of the words - John, was, preparing, an..... - corresponds in a "tune" with the actual semantic actualisation of how these entities are placed in the scene in its knitted-form. This is sent to memory for retrieving a likened piece from it (Stage 2). This leads to the first flash of the visual of the scene, upon retrieval. The retrieval is the "flash". This process can be called as (ABCD)2 standing for the fact that the sentence as a whole (its understood ordered content) is likened to some piece from experience/memory, with the latter being "flashed" as a visual in the mind.

The process after this is obvious. In this likened visual, one sees the various elements surrounding/in the contents, like the background, the time, the situation, the nearby entities etc. This is Stage 3. From this, the commonsense follow-ups occur in the mind. This can be called as ((ABCD)2)3 standing for the likened entity from memory of the sentence as a whole being seen along with the surrounding elements in the scene (from which commonsense assumptions are drawn). The 3 stands for Stage 3 applied on ((ABCD)2).

So, the net order / sequence of processes is - [(A1 A2 B1 B2 C1 C2 D1 D2) || (Language-rules being applied)] [(ABCD)2] [(ABCD)2]3

What is Meaning?

General definition of meaning - Meaning of 'X' is the reason as to why the parts of X are connected to each other.

Consider 3 cases of X i.e. Meaning of i) Data in general, ii) Sentences and iii) Words.

i) Data in general - 

I am ringing the doorbell multiple times and nobody is opening the door. This is the data.

What are the parts of this X? A - ringing the doorbell multiple times and B - nobody is opening the door

A and B are connected. What is the connection between A and B? There is no one opening the door AFTER/UPON ringing the doorbell multiple times.

WHY is A connected to B? That is, WHY is no one opening the door after/upon ringing the doorbell multiple times?

Answer : Because nobody is there in the house.

And this is what we say after we are in such a situation - "This MEANS nobody is in the house".

ii) Sentence - 

John gave a ball to Jack.

What are the parts of this sentence (X) - John, gave, ball, Jack...

Is there a connection between John and, say, Jack? Yes. 

What is the connection? That John gave a ball to Jack.

WHY does this connection exist? That is, why did John give a ball to Jack? The answer to this question constitutes one of the things we need to fully understand/ comprehend the MEANING of the sentence - John gave a ball to Jack.

Is there a connection between John and, say, ball? Yes.

What is the connection? That John gave a ball.

Why does this connection exist? That is, WHY did John give a ball? The answer to this question constitutes one of the things we need to fully understand/ comprehend the MEANING of the sentence - John gave a ball to Jack.

iii) Word - 

"Ticket"

What are the parts of X? The letters and the constituent sounds of pronunciation. 

Is there a connection between these constituent parts? Yes.

What is the connection? The peculiar way they have combined.

Why does the connection exist? This way of combining has led to the existence of the word 'ticket'. So asking why the connection exists is like asking why does the peculiar word "TICKET" exist? 

Answer : It stands for "a piece of paper ........." This is the MEANING of the word 'Ticket'.

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NOTE : How / the way in which the parts are connected to each other constitutes the UNDERSTANDING of the meaning of X. For example, in the first case, the actual way in which ringing a doorbell would lead to a person inside hearing the sound and make him come to open the door would comprise the HOW the 2 parts (A and B) of the scene connect to each other. 

'Commonsense Thinking'-Tendency

 'Commonsense Thinking'-Tendency 

Consider this - 

A gave a ball to B.

B gave the ball to C.

C gave the ball to D.

D gave the ball to E.

E gave the ball to F.

E gave the ball to G.

G gave the ball to H.

Suppose I now ask - where is the ball? The machine would read every sentence and draw an inference at the end of every sentence, and keep iterating, until it reaches the end of data, and then announce - the ball is with H!

Now let's turn to human commonsense - Firstly, it is commonsense that comes in, in tracing the ball. How does the mind think commonsensically that the ball should be with the "last" person in the chain?

We gauge i.e. we have a tendency to gauge the "nets" in any process given to us. This is a fundamental property of the mind. 

When we are told that A gave the ball to B and then told that B gave it to C, we immediately, instinctively, and without any motivation or foreseeable need, draw the inference that the net effect is that it is not with B, now. This continues i.e. it is then not with C (since the process of receive-give repeats at C like at B), then not with D, not with E, not with F...and then you realize automatically that this will end at the "Last" person.  

You don't have to go tracing the ball at every step. You don't need to "examine" every step. Once you know the pattern, you can safely say that the "last" person in the chain will have the ball. *Now one might argue that you do have to read every step-line as a human too, to ensure that it is a pattern like that in the first place. But there are 2 differences - 1) you guess a pattern midway, seeing the "trend" and 2) you hence don't draw a conclusion at the end of every step that the ball is with so and so person (at the end of that step) like a machine would. You start seeing the story more as a kind of CHECKING that - "C got, C gave", "D got, D gave" and then scan your finger to the end. 

(In fact, as an extension of the tendency of gauging nets, you are probably ready with the answer before that question is even asked!)

The pattern detection is the secondary part of the human thinking; the gauging of the net effect at the step of B is what inspires the detection of the pattern, and hence is a more primary part of the human thinking than the actual pattern-detection later.

So the human process follows 3 steps - 

1) Gauging the "NET" at B.

2) a) Inspired, b) look for and confirm the pattern later on.

3) Keep doing 2(b) by measuring the "nets" at the nodes. 

A law of Commonsense Thinking

 A law of Commonsense Thinking -

If a feature repeats across experiences, then we attribute that feature to the repeating entity, if any, across those experiences.

Consider a father spraying perfume on his shirt in the presence of his kid. The kid gets the fascinating smell from his father's shirt. Then the father leaves the scene. The kid goes to the perfume bottle, takes it and starts exploring it. While doing that, he opens the lid and gets the smell of the perfume. It is the SAME smell. It immediately flashes in his mind - that smell on dad's shirt was due to the contents of this bottle.

Here, the repeating feature across the 2 experiences (dad spraying perfume on the shirt, and playing with the perfume bottle later) was the SAME smell that the kid got. The repeating entity to which the kid attributed that feature to was the perfume bottle.

We adults also use this kind of reasoning ubiquitously. Suppose there are 2 instances of robbery in the locality, and on both the occasions a particular person was found to be present at the scene, we develop some suspicion on him.

Note - This inference is not necessary, logically.

Proportionality and Countability

There is proportionality in discrete countability - 

What is 5x? x+x+x+x....5 times. This is equivalent to multiplying the number 5 with x.

Now, what is 2.2x? You can't directly say that it is x + x + .. 2.2 times because - how can the number of times be 2.2? But you can indeed say it actually. Its x + x + 0.2x i.e. one whole x plus one whole x plus 0.2th of x. So, in the third term, instead of a whole ONE x, you have taken a PROPORTIONAL quantity of x which is 0.2th of an x or (x/5) and this works well in the counting scheme above of 2.2x being x + x +..."2.2 TIMES" or the third term being "0.2 TIMES" even if it (0.2) is not a discrete unity integer. 

So countability (which is additive) is consistent with proportionality (which is multiplicative).

(Continuation of previous post) Exhaustion of cases, cognitively.

An extension-point to the previous post - There, I mentioned about the attempts failing in the Cognitive pathway. Consider this example - a ring in a plane can rotate in only 2 directions, about an axis passing through its centre and perpendicular to the plane. And this works Cognitively in exactly the same way as described about the horse case. But the attempts are failing for you - how do you know they will fail for everyone? Still, you are damn sure that there are only 2 directions - clockwise and anticlockwise - in which the ring can rotate about that axis. How can you be sure that you have exhausted all the possibilities of the directions in which the ring can rotate?

Logic, Logical Argument and Proof

Is logic or a logical argument synonymous with a 'proof'?

Consider this piece of commonsense reasoning - one would immediately remark something like - what use is a horse for a Presidential address at the White House? What is meant here is that there is no use of something like a 'HORSE' - a real horse (the animal) - for a Presidential address at the White House (say, while the President is addressing the Press or the public). So if I ask you to think of a use of a horse for the same, you would, in all probability, say - Yes, what use could that be of? And this is "acceptable commonsense reasoning".

Now, examine this reasoning. You haven't 'PROVED' that a horse is useless for a Presidential address. This is more of the form "As far as I can see, there is no use of a horse...." You haven't deduced this. 

Also, how does this work cognitively? You try to think of some possible uses, by fitting in a horse for the said purpose/situation, and then after seeing/gauging the way your few attempts fail, you "infer" that there is no apparent use of a horse for a Presidential address. (Note - this relates to the straight line of boxes on the table example earlier).

The question then is this - can there be a logical proof, and if not, then how come a logical explanation, for the above 'inference' (that there is no apparent use, i.e. fitting into the commonsensical conventions of human affairs, of a horse for a Presidential address, at the White House)?

I agree there can be absurd, but logically possible uses like - make horse-beef and feed it to the people there. But that doesnt fit into something "acceptable".

How will you explain/represent this piece of commonsensically acceptable reasoning, in logic?