A couple of New Jersey hunters are out in the woods when one of them falls to the ground. He doesn’t seem to be breathing; his eyes are rolled back in his head. The other guy whips out his cell phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps to the operator: “My friend is dead! What can I do?”

The operator, in a calm soothing voice says: “Just take it easy. I can help. First, let”s make sure he is dead.” There is a silence, then a shot is heard.

The guy’s voice comes back on the line. He says: “OK, now what?”

When you read the above story, you immediately know that it is a joke. You are right as this was rated as the best joke of the world by the University of Hertfordshire in one of their research project. Have you ever thought why this small story is a joke? You may say because it is funny or the fellow was an idiot, stupid or fool. But why?

People find other people or characters as funny , stupid, idiotic or foolish whey they find the chap lacking “commonsense”. Here the operator merely wanted the guy to verify, (perhaps by touching his pulse, observing his breathing or his body movement) that the person is actually dead before providing him help (We all seems to know what the operator wanted.). Operator obviously assumed that the fellow has some commonsense. But the guy took the advice of the operator “Let’s make sure he’s dead” literally and made sure that the friend is dead. You find this story funny because the guy “did not apply his mind” and interpreted the words of the operator literally. This means that the guy had no commonsense.

The lack of commonsense is the mystery behind all jokes and comedies. A funny situation seems to arise when one of the characters lack commonsense and understand the literal meaning of the words.

The theory of Knowledge

Words are merely a means of carrying knowledge but they do not have the full knowledge. Physiologists divide knowledge into two explicit categories viz. “explicit” and “implicit.” Explicit knowledge represents the body of the knowledge which is expressed in words or gestures. Implicit knowledge is defied as the knowledge that is not explicit i.e. the hidden knowledge.

Implicit knowledge thus means knowing something (tacitly) without being able to know how one knows it. The learning of implicit knowledge is a passive process, where people are exposed to information, and acquire knowledge of that information simply through that exposure. Explicit learning, however, is an active process where people have to make effort to learn from the information that is presented to them.

Yet implicit and explicit knowledge are the two sides of the same coin. For example, the knowledge continues to reside n the mind of the knower (implicit) unless expressed in words. Therefore, every explicit knowledge is implicit till it is revealed to the world in words. Similarly, if anything is to be called knowledge, it must be able to be expensed in words; else it can not be known to the others. The explicit knowledge is like the body of the knowledge , the implicit knowledge is like a soul of the knowledge. Thus knowledge itself may be considered to be like a living entity which is born (in the mind of the knower) and then revealed to the world (like a child is born from mother’s womb) by help of words. The explicit and implicit knowledge are thus part of the same knowledge which seems to be connected to each other like body and soul.

What is Commonsense?

Common sense can be defined as the ability of the man to understand the explicit knowledge of the words using his implicit knowledge. Commonsense, thus, represents the soul of knowledge. Often it is called by different names like intuition, guess, sixth sense or hunches. Samuel Butler said “The voice of the Lord is the voice of common sense, which is shared by all that is.”

When we learn any knowledge, we remember the explicit knowledge of words which are stored in the memory of the brain. However, simultaneously, we are also capturing the essence or the soul of the knowledge which gets integrated with the existing knowledge of the person in the form of implicit knowledge. This commonsense knowledge is like a know-how, which can be used to understand the world but can’t be expressed in words.

Commonsense knowledge is thus the basic principle which governs the world. It is the simplest form of knowledge yet it can’t be produced in words. It is like soul which is millions of thousand times smaller than the smallest of the atom yet without it no life can exist. This knowledge is so implicit that we are often not even aware that it exists (How many of know, how to walk or talk?). Yet without it no knowledge is possible just like no living creature can exists without soul.

The Importance of Commonsense

Commonsense is the source of all knowledge and wisdom of the world. It helps us in proper understanding of the knowledge. A person without commonsense is nothing but a fool even if he has all the (explicit) knowledge of the world. Buddha said

“Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own commonsense.”

When you meet a person for the first time, you know nothing about the person, yet when you see him, you seems to know millions of things only by looking at his face and movement of his body. When you speak to him, his voice and the content tells more about him. When he introduces himself and you know his qualification and occupation, you know further about him. How, you know him is still something which can’t be expressed in world. For example, when you look at his face, you perhaps compare his feature with millions of people; you have met earlier and formed some impression about the person. Yet you can’t explain the reasons for the impression and how you have applied because you only have to use your commonsense to understand him.

Thus commonsense of the man allows the use of knowledge acquired in one context to be used in another context. Since there are infinite situations and infinite contexts, hence the commonsense knowledge can’t be produced in words. Conversely, if any knowledge can be produced in words, then it is not the commonsense.

Can you Read This?

Commonsense is thus the capability to understand the whole from the part. This is what I received by email from a friend. Let us see if you can read this mail.

i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dsenot mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt. if you can raed tihs forwrad it.

The para above is full of spelling mistakes, yet every one of you must have been able to read it correctly. It is because of the commonsense. We do not remember the word as a combination of the alphabets but understand it as a whole as a concept. For example the word man, woman, God, love are not merely a world but represents complex concepts. If we go on to express a single word, we can fill volumes of book to explain what we understand by a single word. When you read a combination of letters, the meaning of the (right) word pops up in your mind notwithstanding the sequence of letters. When you read a combination of words (like a sentence) then the meaning of the sentence pops up in your mind, even if the sequence or the grammar is wrong. When you read large number of paras in a book, the essence of the book pops up in your mind.

Hence even if all words is misspell, we can easily find the “right” word from the context in which it is written. Every word appears to be stored in our mind as an image. Therefore, when you forget the spelling of a word, you often write it and then you compare it with the image of the spelling in your mind and then you get the proper spelling. You can also automatically find e right meaning of the word (like run) which has numerous meaning depending upon the context.

Conclusion: Commonsense or Bookish Knowledge

Commonsense is thus the capability of man (or any other animal) to understand the the implicit knowledge or the soul of knowledge. In the words of Paulo Cohilio “We were all made by the same hand. And we have the same soul.” This is a profound statement which can be felt but never be proven. It is only due to our soul of knowledge that we can put soul in the explicit knowledge and understand the real meaning of it. The man of great commonsense is the man of wisdom and is called genius as he understands “not the words of the message” but “the soul of the message”. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Commonsense is genius dressed in its working clothes”.

All attempts of the scientists to codify the commonsense have so far failed as machines can’t have soul. There is no computer program made today which can even translate a simple sentence into another language which even a ten year old child can do easily. The Artificial Intelligence experts are trying to formulize the common sense knowledge into words and codes since more than half a century yet; they have not succeeded The soul of knowledge still appears to be a distant dream for the scientist and scholars.

The common sense is, therefore, more important than any form of education as Robert Green Ingersoll said “It is a thousand times better to have commonsense without education than to have education without common sense.” Unfortunately, you can’t teach commonsense to a person as he has to discover it within himself. It comes only by desire and experience. It is no wonder then that the modern world is full of people of (bookish) knowledge but devoid of the people with common sense.

Mr. Awdhesh K Singh is a government of India officer. He is an Engineer by education and philosopher by passion.

He has published several papers in International Journals and Conferences on the subject of E-governance and the application of Artificial Intelligence tools like Fuzzy Logic (FL) and Expert Systems (ES) for E-governance. He also has keen interest in the study and application of Indian Philosophies for solving the real-life problems of the modern world.

Many of his articles are published on the website of Aatmic Science Forum http://www.aatmicscience.com

His website is http://www.awdhesh.com