COMMONSENSE THINKING ALGORITHM -

 COMMONSENSE THINKING ALGORITHM - 

There are 2 kinds of commonsense links - commonsense knowledge links and commonsense thinking links. What are they?

When I go by the commonsense that ‘if you have an upset stomach that means you have eaten outside food’ (this is an Indian phenomenon, not in western developed countries), I am stating the link : upset stomach => outside food. This is what I call a commonsense knowledge link - commonsense because it's obvious / known to everyone and knowledge because it essentially comes from a piece of knowledge or rule in the mind that the typical cause of an upset stomach is outside food; you aren't really “thinking” or “thinking afresh” as such. Hence I call it a commonsense knowledge link.

What is a commonsense thinking link? Suppose someone has an upset stomach, and you are thinking what could be the cause. Now suppose the outside food possibility is eliminated by some reasoning. Then some deeper commonsense thinking tells you - someone might have given him bad food with a malicious intent. This follows the pathway : upset stomach => ate bad food => that bad food came to him from somewhere => home food / outside food / someone gave him bad food at home on intent (from amongst which the second option is eliminated. And the first option is naturally eliminated). The commonsense link : ‘ate bad food => that bad food came to him from somewhere’ is what I call a commonsense thinking link. Commonsense because it is commonsense - something very obvious. And Thinking because it is clearly an instance of a thinking connection and not something plucked out of knowledge. We don't know, consciously, rules or pieces like ‘if something exists then there is an existential condition’. It's thinking.

Note : The rule ‘upset stomach => outside food’ is also a piece of someone’s thinking - someone thought of that first, inferred it first - but then now it has become a common piece of knowledge or rule stored as a piece of memory in our minds. It's an instance of a thought becoming knowledge.

Critical 2-step GENERAL mental algorithm for Commonsense Thinking links - 

1. If there is X, X exists, and if X exists, what existential condition does that imply?

2. If that implies Y, then what does Y bring along with it (/its parts)? 

My claim is that most (perhaps all) commonsense thinking links contain their implied parts in the above algorithm.

Examples : 

1. Consider the above example first. 

The CST link is : ate food => food came to him from somewhere

This is clearly step 1 of the algorithm. For food to exist, the existential condition is that it has to come to him from somewhere.

2. If you are walking, the sole of your shoes touches the ground.

For walking to exist, there has to be “foot touching the ground” and “foot in the air” alternately. The first part implies, by step 1 of the algorithm, that the foot touched the ground. Step 2 of the algorithm implies that foot, along with it, brings the shoes + its soles.

3.  John attended Jim’s wedding. This means he saw Jim’s wife.

The CSK link here is : attended wedding => went up to the stage to greet the bride and groom.

The (further) CST link is : greeted bride => saw the wife.

Applying the algorithm, 

‘Greeting’ existing, implies there was a hand and mouth which brings along with it a face. (it doesn't imply other body parts existing since the wife may be crippled or basically having some other body part damaged. But head/face has to exist).

        4.   Lock was opened => someone went inside.

'Lock OPENING' existing, implies there was a key. Key brings along with it key-holder.
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COMMENTS : 

- The algorithm can obviously be applied in loops.

- The suggestion is to build commonsense knowledge bases inspired from this algorithm i.e. oriented to fill these slots connected to entities/concepts.