Common sense: The inside story

 

Mr. John says,

"Hey Tom, just use your common sense to find your way in life"



Mr. Tom replies,

"No way, common sense blinds, we make wrong conclusions thanks to Common Sense."



Mr. John retorts,

"What nonsense, what's wrong with you?!!"



Mr. Tom shouts,

"See John, leave me alone, I know what I am doing, you have your life, I have mine, so see you later."

[Tom leaves shutting the door hard]



Mr. John says to himself,

"Huh, what's wrong with him, why can't he just use his head for once!!!, no wonder they say, "Common sense is not so common""



Now to get into the reality-scene of the above conversation:

THE INSIDE STORY

Actually, John and Tom were both fighting for one cause, but they ended up arguing just because the same word-phrase "Common sense" had different meanings to John and Tom.

Here is the explanation

To Tom, as per his Wikipedia's definition, he understands that: "Common sense" consists of what people in common would agree on: that which they sense as their "common" natural understanding. Some people use the phrase to refer to beliefs or propositions that — in their opinion — most people would consider prudent and of sound judgment, without reliance on esoteric knowledge or study or research, but based upon what they see as knowledge held by people "in common". For example, using this type of common sense, people will think that 0.999... is not equal to 1, but actually according to the mathematics that we follow world wide, 0.9999... is really equal to 1.

To Tom, common sense can blind people,

STRESS IS ON THE WORD "COMMON".

Whereas



To John who is unaware of Tom's definition, refers to the Wikitionary's defintion, he understands that: "Common sense" is the ordinary sensible understanding; one's basic intelligence which allows for plain understanding and without which good decisions or judgments cannot be made.



He even quotes a British writer, "To act with common sense, according to the moment, is the best wisdom I know; and the best philosophy, to do one's duties, take the world as it comes, submit respectfully to one's lot, bless the goodness that has given us so much happiness with it, whatever it is, and despise affectation."

To John, common sense is a synonym for logic to make good decisions,

STRESS IS ON THE WORD "SENSE"

To elaborate on this same example. Please check this link at "The free dictionary.com" it provides two meanings for the same phrase "Common Sense" on the same page. One definition is from the American Heritage dictionary, whereas the other definition is from the Collins English dictionary. And both definitions for the same phrase are different.

Collins: plain ordinary good judgment; sound practical sense.

American heritage: Sound judgment NOT based on specialized knowledge; native good judgment.



Now, coming back to our INSIDE STORY example of Tom and John.



According to John, Common sense is a phrase that means, use your head, use your logic. He was advising his friend Tom to use his head, to think deeply in every angle, and come to logical conclusions to deal with the problems in life, and only then should he take a step in life. John knows that "We need to use our brains real time".



But Tom does not follow John in reality-scene, because to Tom "Common Sense" means the knowledge held by people "in common". Common Sense to him as per his definition is a handicapped piece of junk, mostly obsolete. Tom knows that the world is NOT static, it's dynamic, and it depends on each individual's own conclusion, position and circumstance. A person should think logically, without getting trapped in the river of "prevailing commonly agreed notions". Tom knows that "We need to use our brains real time".



So for us, the readers of this blog post, using our brains, we know the inside story is that both Tom and John were actually both logical, standing for one cause and should be in one happy union as friends...

.........but sadly it was their difference in definition of the phrase "Common Sense" that unknowingly made them to misunderstand each other, quarrel and break up.

I see it very clearly that most of the arguments and wars fought in this world are mainly due to mismatch in semantics - i.e. relating to the meanings of words.



The above example clearly shows how we human beings end up fighting just like that... And to add more about the Internet-famous discussion of whether 0.999... = 1, it's true that at a quick look, people will feel that 0.999... is not equal to 1, but in a deeper study of it, it is actually true that 0.999...=1, a proof for why they say that "COMMON" sense blinds, the truth is that our worldwide mathematics can prove in many ways that 0.999... = 1, just check this out.

But again I disagree with the worldwide mathematics for being blind due to it's own "COMMON" sense, because mathematics, in order to make it a practical logic, it has incorporated the IDEAL idea of  "SAMENESS". For example, in "COMMON" mathematics, 1+1 = 2, but in TOTAL PURE mathematics, 1 + 1 is unfathomable. How can you add "1" and another "1" and get "2". The first "1" and the second "1" are different in the totality of reality. But in the case of, One fruit + another fruit is = 2 fruits, but what if one fruit is a jackfruit, and the other fruit is a banana, but here we can add them into 2 fruits, because the word "fruit" has the idea of "VASTNESS" in it..

For practical purposes in life, we need to incorporate the "idea of sameness" in the case of numbers (1+1=2 i.e. we assume that 1's are the same in totality and so can be fused into the number "2")  and we have to incorporate the "idea of vastness" in the words that follow (e.g. "fruit" can represent vast/different kinds - big/small, rotten/fresh...).

But people forget these incorporations and come up with erroneous equations that it can be proved that 0.999...=1 or even that 1 = 2.

The very people who had preached there that "prevailing notions of sense blinds", were themselves blinded by their own "prevailing notions of sense". I repeat, the very people who had preached against "blinding common sense" using the example of 0.999...have become the best examples for "blinding common sense".Well, I am also preaching against "blinding COMMON sense", but again my statements of proof are better than theirs.....but I am sure that a thinker better than me will be able to find fault in my thoughts too, because I am not perfect. Leaving my autobiography there... and coming back to our discussion.

People are not sure about how the inside story goes in their lives and they unconsciously drive themselves in to conflict and into more arguments. They either suffer in misfortune or they enjoy at the expense of other's misfortune.

There are many examples for these confusions in understanding language...

e.g.

1. The word "I" can represent the ego, whereas the same word "I" can represent the inner soul. In the context of spirituality, if someone asks me "Who am I?" I can reply "I am nothing, still a zero". Sadiq Alam can reply, "Knowing me is knowing nothingness", but suppose Sadiq Alam is out looking for a job, and the job interviewers asks him, "tell us about yourself", and suppose if Sadiq answers "Knowing me is knowing nothingness - Knowing The Truth is Knowing the Real. after all we are all dispensable ...". The job interviewer will be baffled at first and perhaps he will ask again, "Hey Sadiq, tell us about yourself, your qualities, how you are as a human being in body and mind, in the context of getting this job?"



Here the difference comes into play as per the context. Similar to the idea of Polymorphism in computer programming terminology.

2. The word "Islam" can mean the "deen" meaning the religion that pervades over all religion, but the same word so happens to also mean - the bottom level of (Islam-Iman-Ihsan) Religion, "islam" which stands for the practice of five rituals.



I see many people, at worldwide levels confusing the terms "Islam deen" for the bottom level "islam.-level".

3. The word Muslim in the Quran is the PERSON who is at least threshold level perfect in UNDERSTANDING and LIVING Religion, but today as per the country's constitution, the word "Muslim" can easily apply to anyone just with a Muslim-like name or born to parents with a Muslim-like morphology. Similar is the case with Christian, Jew, Hindu, Sikh etc... Just because you have the Surname of Gandhi does not make you a Shopkeeper, Gandhi means Shopkeeper according to the pseudo-caste system etymologies.

4. The meaning of "Shiva" to a person could be - the man like Deva with a snake around his neck and a crescent moon on the head, but to another person this "Shiva" represents the unimaginable God, which is contemplated upon by looking at a shapeless black stone, shapelessness and blackness representing the idea of God being unimaginable. All the symbols of crescent moon, and snake around the neck have a divine meaning. But people end up misunderstanding the intended concepts and lose themselves from time to time in the error of it.

And like this mismatches/misunderstandings arise among various sections of humanity. People fight and even go to the extent of killing each other in millions.



By understanding the observation that I have explained here in this blog post, we can come to the bottom of every major problem of the world, all being due to mismatch in semantics.

We are here to see that everyone gets the threshold level happiness. Let everyone see the best of the truth, enjoy the beauty of this beautiful world, be free and loved.

There are three more issues that I wish to add as a corollary, but I am not going to elaborate on them.

1. Everyone has their own definition for phrases and words. To one man, blue might mean sky blue as per his brain's first recollection, while to another, blue might mean navy blue. We must respect differences, but when two persons wish to communicate to each other, they must define the terms clearly, to make sure that they avoid such misunderstanding.

2. Sometimes people easily end up forgetting how to understand each other truly, they misunderstand each other only because of one reason, due to lack of empathy, they are just connected with the "language of mouth" and not connected to the "language of heart". If you try to listen to a person's heart, then the chances are very high that you will be able to understand what's he is truly trying to say without such manifestations of misunderstanding . This is known as "listening and talking with empathy".

3. And it's natural behavior that when people are not in a good mood, they easily find such situations of misunderstanding/mismatch as a reliable/quick opportunity to exhaust out their pre-existing negative emotions. These negative quick emotions might not be related at all to the issue of discussion.



E.g. Regarding the conversation of John and Tom. Prior to their conversation, Tom was happily walking on a foot path to the nearby restaurant when some erratic bus driver drove his bus over a nearby dirty pool of water, and splashed dirt all over Tom's newly purchased dress.

Tom was on his way to meet his beloved feminine friend, Jessica. He wanted to be there on time, but now because of this incident, he was not able to make it on time, he had to change his dress.

Tom went all the way back home cursing the bus driver saying, "just because people think that they are driving a bus does not mean that they have a right over the road, they should behave, have some civic sense to drive slowly over the potholes" and then Tom yelled to himself, "Why can't people just get out of their pre-concieved shells and learn to behave!"



Finally, he made it to the restaurant, late by 15 minutes, he met Jessica, she very busy, talking on the phone to some other person. For every right reason, Jessica got disappointed at Tom for not being punctual. And Tom was sad that he could not make her happy. So it somehow spiraled out to become a very bad date/meeting. After that, they split ways very unhappy, on the way back home, Tom paid a visit to his old friend John's house for some respite. But John was very very busy with a fashion design project, the deadline was tomorrow. But Tom barged into him and said, "You know what John, I am fed up with life". And John replied in a hurry to shoo him off, "Hey Tom, just use your common sense to find your way in life".