Common sense; uncommonly agreed upon

 The latest New Scientist (28 Sep., 2024) had an article headlined Uncommon Sense, written by Emma Young (based in Sheffield, UK) which was primarily based on a study done by Duncan Watts and Mark Whiting at the University of Pennsylvania. I wasn’t surprised to learn that ‘common sense’ is very subjective, although she pointed out that most people think the opposite: that it’s objective. I’ve long believed that common sense is largely culturally determined, and in many cases, arises out of confirmation bias, which the article affirmed with references to the recent COVID pandemic and the polarised responses this produced; where one person’s common sense was another person’s anathema.
 
Common sense is something we mostly imbibe through social norms, though experience tends to play a role long term. Common sense is often demonstrated, though not expressed, as a heuristic, where people with expertise develop heuristics that others outside their field wouldn’t even know about. This is a point I’ve made before, without using the term common sense. In other words, common sense is contextual in a way that most of us don’t consider.
 
Anyone with an interest in modern physics (like myself) knows that our common sense views on time and space don’t apply in the face of Einstein’s relativity theory. In fact, it’s one of the reasons that people struggle with it (Including me). Quantum mechanics with phenomena like superposition, entanglement and Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle also play havoc with our ‘common sense’ view of the world. But this is perfectly logical when one considers that we never encounter these ‘effects’ in our everyday existence, so they can be largely, if not completely, ignored. The fact that the GPS on your phone requires relativistic corrections and that every device you use (including said phone) are dependent on QM dynamics doesn’t change this virtually universal viewpoint.
 
I’ve just finished reading an excellent, albeit lengthy, book by Philip Ball titled ambitiously, if not pretentiously, The Book of Minds. I can honestly say it’s the best book I’ve read on the subject, but that’s a topic for a future post. The reason I raise it in this context, is because throughout I kept using AI as a reference point for appreciating what makes minds unique. You see, AI comes closest to mimicking the human mind, yet it’s nowhere near it, though others may disagree. As I said, it’s a topic for another post.
 
I remember coming up with my own definition of common sense many years ago, when I saw it as something that evolves over time, based on experience. I would contend that our common sense view on a subject changes, whether it be through the gaining of expertise in a specific field (as I mentioned above) or just our everyday encounters. A good example, that most of us can identify with, is driving a car. Notice how, over time, we develop skills and behaviours that have helped us to avoid accidents, some of which have arisen because of accidents.
 
And a long time ago, before I became a blogger, and didn’t even consider myself a philosopher, it occurred to me that AI could also develop something akin to common sense based on learning from its mistakes. Self-driving cars being a case-in-point.
 
According to the New Scientist article, the researchers, Watts and Whiting, claim that there is no correlation between so-called common sense and IQ. Instead, they contend that there is a correlation between a ‘consensual common sense’ (my term) and ‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes’ (their terminology). In other words, the ability to ‘read’ emotions is a good indicator for the ability to determine what’s considered ‘common sense’ for the majority of a cultural group (if I understand them correctly). This infers that common sense is a consensual perception, based on cultural norms, which is what I’ve always believed. This might be a bit simplistic, and an example of confirmation bias (on my part), but I’d be surprised if common sense didn’t morph between cultures in the same way it becomes modified by expertise in a particular field. So the idea of a universal, objective common sense is as much a chimera as objective morality, which is also more dependent on social norms than most people acknowledge.
 
 
Footnote: it’s worth reading the article in New Scientist (if accessible), because it provides a different emphasis and a different perspective, even though it largely draws similar conclusions to myself.