A Thought Game: Mutual Rationality Of Norms By Commonsense As Cultural Derivatives (and Let’s Get Out Of The Box for a while and see)

Here is a question: can you see whether syllogisms below make a logical sense or not (i.e. whether deductively valid or invalid)?

1.  all buildings speak loudly; a hospital does not speak loudly; therefore a hospital is not a building.

2.  if the sun rises then the sun is in the east; the sun is in the east; therefore the sun rises.

The syllogisms were taken from a research paper entitled “Are people with schizophrenia more logical than healthy volunteers?” published in 2007.

Owen GS, Cutting J and David AS (2007). The British Journal of Psychiatry 191: 453-454 http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/doi/10.1192/bjp.bp.107.037309

The first syllogism is valid and the second is invalid. The study above found that schizophrenic patients (under anti-psychotic medications) were able to identify correctly valid non-commonsense syllogisms (e.g. 1) and invalid commonsense syllogisms (e.g. 2), being slightly but significantly better at this task than healthy participants. In discussion, the paper stated:
 “ They suggest that in situations where commonsense knowledge is at stake, formal norms of rationality are violated by people with schizophrenia to a lesser extent than by healthy individuals. People with schizophrenia seem to have a bias towards theoretical rationality over and above practical rationality.”    

From the finding of the study it can also be inferred that in healthy individuals a deductive reasoning unlikely is segregated effortlessly from practical commonsense knowledge when practically meaningful content is added to the context.

This further implies to a degree that deductive reasoning in an ordinary communicative language is influenced by standards (i.e. norms) taken from commonsense of mutual beliefs. Along with a question whether such standards can be absolutely identical among all individuals, this interestingly highlights the uncertain nature of the languages used in human communications. The uncertainty, however, does not necessarily affect probabilistic reasoning with numerical content. In fact, distinct usage of right and left hemispheres of the brain during deductive and probabilistic reasoning has been confirmed by positron emission tomography (PET) (Person and Osherson, 2001: Cerebral Cortex, 11:954-965); therefore the two reasoning process can be assumed not to be same.

Hence putting aside the probabilistic reasoning, the idea that language-based deductive reasoning somewhat relies on commonsense leaves us with a question on how reliable factual accuracy of conceptual worlds held by individuals or by groups relative to the absolute world as it is, unless the commonsense strictly reflect whole truths.

As often as not, a thought processing might be influenced by and relies upon an accepted standard of normality existing in each society. Ever since being born, a human steadily accumulates and updates information through observations and experiences of own as well as by the others communicating with. By doing so, a world remains being constructed in each person, in a manner the world is compatible with those of the others around (and of beyond with extended communications). The world is ordinarily malleable for cultural progresses, fluctuating tendencies of human behaviours, and dynamic nature of the physical world wherein the one resides.

Sometimes, a collective of human thoughts can emerge as an obscure assumption made by coincidences correlated with invalid logic, mostly based on and enhanced by speculative imaginations: rumours, myths and superstitions are obvious examples of such suppositions, which often stem from various emotions including fear, anxiety, hope and desire.

As we tend to take in words and exchange ideas that appeal to oneself as acceptable by so-called “gut feelings” instinctively, often without verifying factual accuracy, nor fully comprehending the meaning of it, various presumptions seep through everyday life.

Language itself is an immediate derivative of human culture and communications; unlike numbers and symbols governed by strict rules, its style, composition, and even meanings held by each word can be malleable to some extent. The uncertain nature of language was previously enquired by Ludvig Wittgenstein, and readers are referred to his study entitled Philosophical Investigation, originally published in 1953 (Blackwell publishing Ltd.), for more information on this matter in detail.

Since no individuals are free from cultural influences, we are all more or less susceptible to hold biased opinions, idiosyncratic beliefs and misapprehensions to various degrees. It therefore is useful now and again to remind ourselves to perform “reality check”, by going outside of a box to objectively oversee own social and cultural beliefs and commonsense from a standpoint of an outsider. For this purpose, there is an advantage of being in a multicultural society, for that would enable one to encounter different cultures in lively circumstances, thereby allowing cultural comparisons to be made whenever one wishes to engage with other cultures.

In comparison, certain delusional beliefs such as superstitions often remain preserved meaningfully in a more relatively closed, monocultural society, in which people live largely on assumption and expectation that others around them are alike to themselves for mutual commonsense and shared cultural beliefs. For that reason, less effort is likely made between them for precision and clarity in communications.

This point might need an attention if the mighty power of commonsense is to cloud simple logical deduction: what could be the worst possible consequence? A society or a group of people could end up holding a mass delusion. It certainly has happened before many times.