What is knowing something? In AI, it means that I can retrieve that piece of information and can manipulate it (reasoning). Nevertheless, the paradox of common sense is hard to transcend in this knowledge view. Why? For acting we need to know innumerous possible things. How can we retrieve and infer all of them even for a trivial action?

However it appears so effortless for our everyday routines. This paradox makes me wonder: do we really retrieve and infer this apparently relevant common sense knowledge?

Perhaps we just don't retrieve or infer that knowledge but still can use that information. How? Analogy sounds good. It tells us a possible way to act but without tell us all details about the way to or not to act. It predicts how to do things "well enough" without reasoning to make the action perfect.

I think analogy or case-based reasoning may grab the key to common sense problem.

However, analogy/case-based reasoning has its own paradox. It still needs rule-based reasoning. The problem is how to combine them.

Another issue worth considering is that I can have reason about my action, i.e., I can explain why I am taking that analogy. The reason can be seen as the metacognition knowledge for explanation of analogy choice.