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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb. It is Saturday, so we have a

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Speaker 1: vault episode for you. This is going to be Pretend

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Speaker 1: Play Part two. It originally published one nine, twenty twenty five.

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Speaker 1: Let's explore.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb.

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Speaker 3: And I am Joe McCormick, and we are back with

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Speaker 3: part two in our series on pretend play, meaning play

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Speaker 3: that involves non literal action. Now, this is really one

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Speaker 3: of our series where I think if you haven't heard

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Speaker 3: part one, I would really recommend you go back and

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Speaker 3: listen to that one first, because we really laid the

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Speaker 3: groundwork there. We establish a lot of the definitions and

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Speaker 3: so forth. But as a brief refreshed or in part one,

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Speaker 3: Rob and I talked about our own memories of pretend

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Speaker 3: play from our own childhood, as well as our experiences

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Speaker 3: of pretend to play as parents, especially centering out around

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Speaker 3: the kind of play that happens in preschool age, you know,

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Speaker 3: around three to five or so, which, according to the

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Speaker 3: researchers is sort of the high season of pretend play

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Speaker 3: when the most pretending is happening usually though, of course,

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Speaker 3: we also talked about the ways that play extends throughout

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Speaker 3: the lifetime. Even pretend play, you know, it starts before

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Speaker 3: this period goes beyond it. But the preschool age is

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Speaker 3: when the pretending is coming thick and fast, and we

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Speaker 3: characterized what a lot of that play is, Like Robert,

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Speaker 3: I don't remember if we ever got into this in

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Speaker 3: the previous episode, but one thing I was reflecting on

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Speaker 3: before we started today is not just how much my

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Speaker 3: two year old daughter loves engaging in pretend play with

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Speaker 3: you know, her various dinosaurs, kind of doing imaginary tasks

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Speaker 3: and going to imaginary events things like that, but also

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Speaker 3: gets so dedicated to pretend play that like it is

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Speaker 3: a tragedy and an emergency if she is asked to

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Speaker 3: stop pretending before she's done.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Again, I think that's one of the wonders of childhood.

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Speaker 1: They just get so they go all in on their

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Speaker 1: imaginative play, and you know, it's it's enviable. Though I

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Speaker 1: think we can sometimes relate. We can sometimes relate to

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Speaker 1: being thrown out of our own creative, imaginative endeavors without

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Speaker 1: enough warning, without a five minute warning from life. Parents

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Speaker 1: at least tend to give that five to ten minute

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Speaker 1: warning if they can.

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Speaker 3: I think the thing about pretending is if you're deep

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Speaker 3: enough in it, you can be given the warning and

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Speaker 3: then you just forget and you know, it doesn't stick.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like falling back into a dream. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 3: But anyway, in the last episode, we also looked in

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Speaker 3: depth at a paper sort of scientific overview published in

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Speaker 3: a in a cognitive science review that was looking at

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Speaker 3: the state of research on pretend play in children. That

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Speaker 3: paper was by a researcher named Dina Skolnik Weisberg, published

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Speaker 3: in twenty fifteen. It was just called pretend Play, and

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Speaker 3: it was sort of a review of research on pretend play,

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Speaker 3: especially as it relates to other developing cognitive skills in childhood.

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Speaker 3: So in the last episode we talked about the paper's

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Speaker 3: discussion of the possible relationships of pretend play to symbolic

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Speaker 3: understanding and also to counterfactual reasoning. Today, I want to

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Speaker 3: return to another idea explored in this paper, and that

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Speaker 3: is the relationship of pretend play to theory of mind.

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Speaker 3: This is a concept that's come up on the show

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Speaker 3: many times. Before, but to define it again here, theory

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Speaker 3: of mind is the ability to recognize that other entities,

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Speaker 3: like other people and animals, have their own internal mental states,

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Speaker 3: such as beliefs, desires, intentions, and emotions. And theory of

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Speaker 3: mind is also the understanding that other people's mental states

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Speaker 3: are independent of one's own. So it's not that everybody

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Speaker 3: is sad because I'm sad right now. The other people

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Speaker 3: different things are happening in their minds. We are not

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Speaker 3: born with theory of mind skills. The ability to imagine

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Speaker 3: and model the mental states of other people is something

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Speaker 3: that is acquired and refined throughout childhood.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's this is of course the topic that's

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Speaker 1: come up on the show multiple times before and what'll

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Speaker 1: keep coming up because it's a huge part of the

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Speaker 1: human condition and it's so fascinating to think about. It's

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Speaker 1: one of those things that we use all the time

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Speaker 1: to the point that we we just we think of

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Speaker 1: it as just reality, and we think of what we

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Speaker 1: know of others' mental states, and we attribute to other

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Speaker 1: people's mental states as being just how people are. You know,

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Speaker 1: we think we know them, but in reality, like the

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Speaker 1: whether we're dealing with the closest relationships in your life,

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Speaker 1: you know, a significant others, family members, offspring, and so forth,

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Speaker 1: whether you're dealing with them or you're dealing with someone

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Speaker 1: you just met on the street or didn't even meet

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Speaker 1: someone that was walking across the street from you. We

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Speaker 1: we we create a simulation of their mind state of

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Speaker 1: what they're roughly, their their goals, their attitudes towards us

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Speaker 1: generally are, and and then we react to the to

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Speaker 1: those models, and so it is. It is kind of interesting,

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Speaker 1: kind of haunting to think about the fact that, like

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Speaker 1: the you that I think I know best is actually

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Speaker 1: inside of me. Yes, you know. And and of course

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Speaker 1: theory of mind can be trained on plenty of non

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Speaker 1: human entities as well, on objects and on real things.

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Speaker 1: Uh So it's a very powerful part of the human

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Speaker 1: cognition tool chest.

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Speaker 3: That's right, it's a you know, I was just thinking

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Speaker 3: about how theory of mind is so deep in such

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Speaker 3: different types of sort of human relations and expression. Like

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Speaker 3: theory of mind is the core of love, of what

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Speaker 3: it means to love people, but it's also the core

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Speaker 3: of like manipulation and machiavelianism. It's it's everywhere.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's involved in in all of our prejudices.

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Speaker 1: It's involved, you know, in in our hatred as well

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Speaker 1: as our love. So it's you know, it's it's a

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Speaker 1: very broad spectrum here.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, So it's I think easy to see why theory

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Speaker 3: of mind might have connections to pretend play. When you

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Speaker 3: play a pretend game, especially with other people, it is

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Speaker 3: important to understand the intentions of the play partner in

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Speaker 3: order to understand the game as non literal. So this

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Speaker 3: is an example game I mentioned in part one. Why

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Speaker 3: is my friend stirring a bowl of crayons with a

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Speaker 3: fork and then lifting the fork to my stuffed therapod

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Speaker 3: dinosaur's mouth. This activity does not make any sense when

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Speaker 3: just observed and taken literally. But if I'm a child

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Speaker 3: and I see this happening, even without talking about the game,

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Speaker 3: I can probably infer that my friend intends the crayons

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Speaker 3: to be understood as food. You know, last time we

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Speaker 3: talked about crayons as spaghetti, and thus intends the forklifting

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Speaker 3: to be understood as feeding, and thus intends the inert

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Speaker 3: stuffed dinosaur to be understood as eating. So I can

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Speaker 3: participate in this play by feeding the dinosaur spaghetti crayons

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Speaker 3: as well, or by making nomnom sounds when the crayon

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Speaker 3: reaches the dinosaur's mouth. And about this connection, Weisberg writes

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Speaker 3: in the paper quote pretense is thus meta representational, meaning

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Speaker 3: it involves representing someone's representation of a state of affairs.

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Speaker 3: Without the ability to meta represent one would see pretense

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Speaker 3: actions as nonsensical, and quarantining would break down. And remember

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Speaker 3: from last time, quarantining is the ability to stop yourself

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Speaker 3: from taking inapplicable lessons from pretend play. So the example

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Speaker 3: was mom is using a banana as a phone. Somehow

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Speaker 3: we can play that pretend game and yet not take

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Speaker 3: the incorrect lesson that you can actually make calls on

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Speaker 3: a banana. It's the ability to ward off incorrect information

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Speaker 3: and prevent your brain from learning things that are wrong

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Speaker 3: based on a game that is counterfactual. And so what

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Speaker 3: Weisberg is saying here is that things like quarantining are

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Speaker 3: only possible because we have this meta representational ability. Like

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Speaker 3: you can see somebody playing the banana as phone game

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Speaker 3: and you don't think that, oh, maybe the banana can

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Speaker 3: place calls because you understand that person's intentions that they're

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Speaker 3: just intending this to be a game, not intending to

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Speaker 3: use the banana literally as a phone. In my example,

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Speaker 3: I guess the equivalent would be like, are we feeding

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Speaker 3: the dinosaur crayons? Because crayons are actually food? Should I

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Speaker 3: eat them? Sometimes a kid may experiment along these lines,

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Speaker 3: but usually they do not end up at this conclusion.

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Speaker 3: Usually the kid understands the intention of the play partner

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Speaker 3: to treat the crayons as something other than what they

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Speaker 3: actually are.

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Speaker 1: I do have to say that after we recorded the

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Speaker 1: last episode, there were a number of phone banana shenanigans

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Speaker 1: in my household. Oh Ran it totally killed. It's just

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Speaker 1: inherently funny. So I hope listeners have been re exploring

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Speaker 1: the comedy as well.

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Speaker 3: I mean, that's funny no matter what age are. Absolutely

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Speaker 3: Oh but to talk about killing the joke by over

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Speaker 3: explaining it, nevertheless, I'm going to go there. I would

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Speaker 3: love to understand better the like the minute mechanics of

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Speaker 3: that kind of humor, Like how close physically does the

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Speaker 3: fruit or the food have to be to the op

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Speaker 3: objecked to like work enough to be funny, because obviously

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Speaker 3: it's like a banana is funnier than like a plastic

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Speaker 3: toy phone. But I would also think a banana as

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Speaker 3: a phone is funnier than an apple as a phone.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean a banana is stupid. A banana, I mean,

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Speaker 1: don't get me wrong, is delicious. But a banana is

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Speaker 1: bright yellow, there's all slipping on the peel clown shenan. Again,

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Speaker 1: it is phallic and therefore has that layer of humor

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Speaker 1: to it as well. And then the juxtaposition is that

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Speaker 1: a phone is serious. A phone, you know, it may

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Speaker 1: be a loved when calling, but it may be bad

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Speaker 1: news on the other end of the phone. The phone

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Speaker 1: is what you reach for when there's an emergency, So

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Speaker 1: the phone is dead serious or can be. The banana

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Speaker 1: is stupid and therefore it just works.

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Speaker 3: It's so good. But anyway, Okay, to come back to

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Speaker 3: playing pretend and theory of mind, the connections we've talked

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Speaker 3: about suggests there is a link between theory of mind

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Speaker 3: and playing pretend because it's about recognizing and internally modeling

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Speaker 3: the mental states of others, recognizing not just what another

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Speaker 3: person literally does, but understanding what that person intends. And

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Speaker 3: Weisberg compares this to a common experiment that is used

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Speaker 3: to test theory of mind in children, which he refers

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Speaker 3: to as the Sally Ann false belief task, though or

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Speaker 3: sometimes in the literature they just call this a false

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Speaker 3: belief test. Here's a simplified version of it. Okay, the

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Speaker 3: child is a participant. The child watches a character playing

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Speaker 3: with a ball, and then this character puts the ball

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Speaker 3: down in a basket and walks out of the room.

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Speaker 3: And then while the original character who is playing with

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Speaker 3: the ball is gone, somebody else comes into the room,

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Speaker 3: takes the ball out of the basket, hides it in

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Speaker 3: a box, and then leaves. Then the first character comes

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Speaker 3: back into the room, and the child has been watching

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Speaker 3: the whole time, so the child saw everything happen. When

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Speaker 3: you ask the child a question, where will the original

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Speaker 3: character look for the ball? So the child knows, because

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Speaker 3: they were watching the whole time, that the ball is

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Speaker 3: hidden in the box. But with theory of mind skills,

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Speaker 3: the child should be able to say that the character

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Speaker 3: should look in the basket where she left it, because

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Speaker 3: the child knows that the character does not know that

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Speaker 3: the ball was moved or where it was moved too,

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Speaker 3: So to answer this question correctly, the child in the

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Speaker 3: experiment has to ignore their own knowledge about the true

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Speaker 3: state of affairs and instead answer based on the false

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Speaker 3: belief that the character in the scenario would have. If

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Speaker 3: you compare this to the pretend play scenario, if a

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Speaker 3: kid wants to join in the crayons as spaghetti game

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Speaker 3: with another child, they have to ignore the true knowledge

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Speaker 3: that the crayons are crayons and that they are meant

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Speaker 3: for drawing and not for eating, and also to infer

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Speaker 3: the intentions of the play partner that the crayons are

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Speaker 3: to be treated as food for the dinosaur. So both

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Speaker 3: of these situations, pretend play and the false belief test

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Speaker 3: for theory of mind depend on at least two things

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Speaker 3: that Weisberg highlights. One of them is what she calls decoupling,

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Speaker 3: and that is temporarily ignoring your knowledge of what is

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Speaker 3: literally true, And the other is meta representation, internally representing

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Speaker 3: somebody else's mental states, such as their intention to represent

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Speaker 3: a literal object X as pretend object Y. So it's

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Speaker 3: very tempting to see a link between theory of mind

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Speaker 3: and pretend play. Weisberg in fact cites a researcher named A. M.

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Speaker 3: Leslie who has speculated in some writing that there is

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Speaker 3: possibly an underlying neural structure in the brain that is

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Speaker 3: responsible for both theory of mind and for pretending. Calling

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Speaker 3: this hypothetical structure the theory of mind module. Leslie apparently

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Speaker 3: argued that perhaps a developmental difference in this neural structure

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Speaker 3: is what underlies autism, given the observation that studies have

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Speaker 3: found that children with autism spectrum diagnoses demonstrate deficits in

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Speaker 3: social cognition, which implicates theory of mind, but also tend

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Speaker 3: to engage in less pretending. But both the existence of

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Speaker 3: this module and the connection with the autism spectrum is hypothetical.

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Speaker 3: What's clear is the cognitive and behavioral similarity between theory

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Speaker 3: of mind and elements of pretend play. And then Weisberg

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Speaker 3: goes on to site some studies that seem to support

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Speaker 3: this link. I thought a couple of these were kind

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Speaker 3: of interesting. One of them is by researchers named Rebecca

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Speaker 3: Dore and Angeline Lillard, published in Imagination, Cognition, and Personality

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Speaker 3: in twenty fifteen called Theory of Mind and Children's Engagement

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Speaker 3: in Fantasy Worlds. This was a study that looked at

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Speaker 3: preschoolers at the beginning and then the end of a

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Speaker 3: seven month period, and it tested for a few different

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Speaker 3: things to see if there are any correlations. One was

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Speaker 3: a child's tendency to engage in fantasy, ideation and activities,

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Speaker 3: so this would be related to pretending basically a child's

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Speaker 3: orientation toward fantasy. And then another thing measured was the

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Speaker 3: child's tendency to use mentalistic descriptions. I had to look

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Speaker 3: up what this is, but I think this basically means, like,

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Speaker 3: imagine you see a drawing of a character reaching a

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Speaker 3: bucket down into a pool of water. You could give

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Speaker 3: a physical description of that scene, you know, the character

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Speaker 3: is leaning down scooping up water, or you could give

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Speaker 3: a mentalistic description, which might be something like this character

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Speaker 3: wants a drink of water, explaining things in terms of

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Speaker 3: motivations and mental states as opposed to just physical movements.

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Speaker 3: And then the third thing tested for correlation here was

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Speaker 3: the child's capacity for theory of mind, which is tested

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Speaker 3: a variety of ways, one of which is the false

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Speaker 3: belief TAC that I was talking about a minute ago,

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Speaker 3: but another is testing for whether children understand that different

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Speaker 3: people have desires and emotions they're different from their own.

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Speaker 3: Things like that, and this study found that preschool children

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Speaker 3: who are more oriented toward fantasy on a number of

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Speaker 3: measures did not grow beyond the baseline in the use

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Speaker 3: of mentalistic descriptions during the seven month period, but did

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Speaker 3: show some greater improvements in theory of mind, so that

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Speaker 3: establishes that there could possibly be a link between the

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Speaker 3: tendency to engage in fantasy and faster learning on theory

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Speaker 3: of mind skills. Another finding is that some experiments have

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Speaker 3: found that children do better on false belief tasks like

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Speaker 3: the ball in the basket versus the box thing I

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Speaker 3: was talking about when the format of the test involves

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Speaker 3: more pretending. So think of when the scenario is presented

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Speaker 3: as a fictional story or when it is acted out

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Speaker 3: with invisible pretend and objects, as opposed to being acted

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Speaker 3: out with literal physical props, in which case apparently the

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Speaker 3: kids do a bit worse. That kind of makes sense

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Speaker 3: to me, Like, I guess it's harder to ignore your

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Speaker 3: knowledge that the ball is actually in the box and

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Speaker 3: remember that Sally left it in the basket and that's

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Speaker 3: all she knows. When oh my god, like I just

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Speaker 3: saw the ball go in the box. I literally saw

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Speaker 3: it go in there. There It is also interesting is

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Speaker 3: there are apparently some findings that suggest this is actually

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Speaker 3: in adults, that reading fiction may possibly improve particular theory

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Speaker 3: of mind skills.

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Speaker 1: I remember reading about this several years back.

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Speaker 3: I believe yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, as with the stuff

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Speaker 3: discussed in the previous episode, with the links to symbolic

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Speaker 3: understanding and counterfactual reasoning, Weisberg adds the important caveat that

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Speaker 3: basically all of these experiments connecting theory of mind to

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Speaker 3: pretend play are correlational or they're limited to a single situation.

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Speaker 3: It's really hard, maybe impossible, to devise an ethical, robust

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Speaker 3: experiment where you like randomly manipulate the independent variable of

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Speaker 3: pretend to play over a developmentally significant period of time

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Speaker 3: and then track the results. Both ethics and practicality kind

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Speaker 3: of limit us to weaker forms of testing in this

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Speaker 3: subject matter. So we should be realistic and thus humble

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Speaker 3: about the limitations of what we know about these links.

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Speaker 3: So what we know is very interesting, but it's also

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Speaker 3: fairly tentative and important to not hang too much on

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Speaker 3: these findings, especially the findings of a single study. But

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Speaker 3: with those caveats, I think there's pretty good reason to

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Speaker 3: think that pretending and theory of mind are deeply intertwined

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Speaker 3: in some ways in the brain and in child development,

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Speaker 3: but exactly how they are related, how one affects the other,

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Speaker 3: and so forth, is more questionable. Now. The kind of

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Speaker 3: theory of mind that we have been primarily talking about,

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Speaker 3: of course, is inferring the mental states of other people

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Speaker 3: who do physically exist. But a different related question is

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Speaker 3: what about simulating the workings of an external mind that is,

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Speaker 3: at its base level make believe? And this brings us

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Speaker 3: back to something we mentioned only briefly in Part one,

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Speaker 3: the imaginary friend.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, in some ways, the imaginary friend is it's like

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Speaker 1: the ultimate pretend play manifestation, an imaginary being that is

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Speaker 1: altogether imaginary and invisible, but is also gifted with varying

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Speaker 1: degrees of agency and intelligence. This you know. This of course,

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Speaker 1: gets more complicated when you try and like nail down

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Speaker 1: what an imaginary friend is. There are sort of related

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Speaker 1: concepts that are sometimes looped together and sometimes are considered like,

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Speaker 1: for instance, you have things like stuffed animals that are

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Speaker 1: attributed personalities in some degree of agency. You also have

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Speaker 1: personified objects, and you also have also sometimes there's a

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Speaker 1: distinction between imaginary companions and imaginary friends. I'll come back

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Speaker 1: to that in a bit, but I guess a good

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Speaker 1: place to start would be with examples from our own lives. Joe,

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Speaker 1: did you have an imaginary friend? And does your child

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Speaker 1: have an imaginary friend or friends?

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Speaker 3: This may get into some of the distinctions you were

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Speaker 3: just highlighting, But I never had like a consistent imaginary

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Speaker 3: friend over time. I think I may have had single

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Speaker 3: use imaginary friends that were, you know, dreamed up for

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Speaker 3: a single play occasion or something. With my daughter, I

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Speaker 3: don't think there's not a single entity who is her

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Speaker 3: consistent imaginary friend, but she does seem to ascribe a

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Speaker 3: lot of personality to various pretend entities, like imbuing mind

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Speaker 3: into stuff, to animal friends, or imagining. We sometimes play

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Speaker 3: this game with these invisible kitty cats and stuff that

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Speaker 3: you know, we can find like hiding between the couch

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Speaker 3: cushions and things, and we pull out an invisible kitty cat,

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Speaker 3: and oh, and she can talk about what the kitty

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Speaker 3: cat wants. But I think that's different than an imaginary friend,

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Speaker 3: which is usually thought of as something that persists over time.

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Speaker 1: Well, I mean, yes, yes, and no. I guess one

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Speaker 1: thing This sort of comes out of the research I've

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Speaker 1: been looking looking at here is that I think imaginary

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Speaker 1: friends do come and go, and they inevitably do come

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Speaker 1: and then go. There is kind of like a period

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Speaker 1: of time during which they tend to be active. But

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Speaker 1: there's not necessarily like we should can get too attached

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Speaker 1: to the idea that they'll just be a single imaginary friend.

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Speaker 1: There could be several, and they need not be this

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Speaker 1: sort of you know, standard version of some sort of

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Speaker 1: essentially invisible friend, an invisible humanoid being that is like

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Speaker 1: on the same level as as your child. And also

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Speaker 1: they might just spring out of nowhere, as we'll get

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Speaker 1: into a bit. But yeah, I myself have no memory

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Speaker 1: of ever having an invisible friend, despite the fact that

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Speaker 1: I was the oldest child and in many respects the

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Speaker 1: eldest child that seemed to be more likely to have

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Speaker 1: an imaginary friend. My own child had being lost friends

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Speaker 1: that I remember, and so I asked them about this,

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Speaker 1: is like, do you remember your being lost friends? And

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Speaker 1: they were like, no, I don't remember the being lost

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Speaker 1: friends at all. I remember three imaginary cats that I

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Speaker 1: had at one point. I'm like, okay, well I forgot

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Speaker 1: about that. One. So that's another thing to keep in

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Speaker 1: mind when you think about like single imaginary friends that

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Speaker 1: a child may or may not have a lot of.

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Speaker 1: It also comes down to what memories are retained by

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Speaker 1: the child and what is noticed and retained by the parents.

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Speaker 1: And so it's entirely likely between those two things that

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Speaker 1: old imaginary friends are lost entirely. So, yeah, there's a

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Speaker 1: lot to unpack there.

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Speaker 3: It's funny. My daughter has also gone through phases where

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Speaker 3: she was really obsessed with bees. She loves bees and

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Speaker 3: has you know, likes to point out bees flying around

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Speaker 3: things that aren't always bees, you know, sometimes there might

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Speaker 3: just be a buzz or something, you know, made by

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Speaker 3: a machine and.

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Speaker 1: It's like b b Yeah. Yeah, So like my child's

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Speaker 1: being lost friends. I don't think they really talked or anything.

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Speaker 1: They just they were essentially animals that were invisible, you know.

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Speaker 1: I also asked my mom about this. I was on

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Speaker 1: the phone with her last night and I was just checking.

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Speaker 1: It was like, you know, it was like me and

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Speaker 1: my siblings, none of us had invisible friends that you

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Speaker 1: know of, right, And she's like no, But she shared

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Speaker 1: that she had seven imaginary of friends when she was

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Speaker 1: a child. Oh, and she was the eldest child. This

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Speaker 1: would have been the I guess the early fifties, so

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Speaker 1: that that'll be worth keeping in mind as we proceed

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Speaker 1: through the discussion here.

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Speaker 3: Wow.

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Speaker 1: So one of the sources I was looking at for

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Speaker 1: this this was a twenty eighteen meta analysis Prevalence of

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Speaker 1: Imaginary Companions and Children, a meta analysis by Morigucci and Toto.

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Speaker 1: This was in the Meryl Palmer Quarterly, and they pointed

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Speaker 1: out for starters that imaginary friends don't have to be

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Speaker 1: entirely invisible. Some experts point out that a particular object,

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Speaker 1: and even a personified object, may seemingly enhance the vividness

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Speaker 1: of an imagined companion. They also discussed imaginary friends and

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Speaker 1: personified objects as both being forms of imaginary companions, but

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Speaker 1: stressed that a key difference one tends to find is

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Speaker 1: that the relationship between child and personified object tends to

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Speaker 1: be more more of a matter of like, these are

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Speaker 1: my pets or you know, or these are my children.

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Speaker 1: You know. It's a relationship that's mirroring human child and

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Speaker 1: human pet relationships, while an imaginary friend is more egalitarian.

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Speaker 1: You don't tell them what to do because they're your friend.

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Speaker 1: They're at least you're equal. It's not someone you boss,

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Speaker 1: surround or care for. I want to add that into

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Speaker 1: because I don't want to. I don't want to create

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Speaker 1: this idea that you know, bossy kids just have these

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Speaker 1: these underlings that are imaginary. It's like, you know, it

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Speaker 1: could also be a care scenario and so forth, but

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Speaker 1: the imaginary friend, it is more egalitarian in its nature.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that is really interesting. I wonder if that has

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Speaker 3: to do with I don't know, ideas about like when

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Speaker 3: you when a physical object is yours, there's this state

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Speaker 3: of mind about it that like you own it, it

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Speaker 3: is one of my possessions. And thus, even if it

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Speaker 3: is a even if it has a mind, you kind

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Speaker 3: of feel like this this power over it, where whereas

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Speaker 3: you don't with you know, other people your age, or

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Speaker 3: I guess you shouldn't with other people your age. So

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Speaker 3: like imagining an invisible person is different.

436
00:25:49,280 --> 00:25:52,119
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, like it's my object, it is mine, but

437
00:25:52,320 --> 00:25:55,960
Speaker 1: also mine to care for and so forth. Yeah. I

438
00:25:56,040 --> 00:26:00,199
Speaker 1: also know that some researchers consider personified objects to be

439
00:26:00,280 --> 00:26:03,600
Speaker 1: imaginary friends, but not always. Again, we have to remind

440
00:26:03,640 --> 00:26:06,800
Speaker 1: ourself that this is all this is all adult language

441
00:26:06,960 --> 00:26:09,360
Speaker 1: that has been generated to make sense of the thing

442
00:26:09,400 --> 00:26:13,320
Speaker 1: that is emerging, often unlanguaged from the minds of children.

443
00:26:13,400 --> 00:26:32,680
Speaker 1: So you know, bear that in mind as we move forward. Now,

444
00:26:32,680 --> 00:26:36,240
Speaker 1: they briefly touch on the history of imaginary friends, with

445
00:26:36,440 --> 00:26:39,240
Speaker 1: the study of them first popping up in eighteen ninety

446
00:26:39,280 --> 00:26:43,639
Speaker 1: five with the work of Clara Vostrovsky A Study of

447
00:26:43,680 --> 00:26:48,800
Speaker 1: Imaginary Companions. And yeah, but before this, there's like, there's

448
00:26:48,840 --> 00:26:53,040
Speaker 1: basically nothing they were. For a while, following the emergence

449
00:26:53,080 --> 00:26:55,600
Speaker 1: of study regarding them, they were often thought to be

450
00:26:55,640 --> 00:26:59,280
Speaker 1: signs of a personality dysfunction. The first book wasn't written

451
00:26:59,280 --> 00:27:02,040
Speaker 1: about them unteen eighteen, and it wasn't until the nineteen

452
00:27:02,119 --> 00:27:05,640
Speaker 1: sixties that imaginary friends were seen as a positive part

453
00:27:05,680 --> 00:27:10,360
Speaker 1: of a child's development. This is universally so like, for instance,

454
00:27:10,760 --> 00:27:14,239
Speaker 1: just going back to the example of my mother, like

455
00:27:14,960 --> 00:27:19,600
Speaker 1: her parents embraced this idea and would like set places

456
00:27:19,600 --> 00:27:22,680
Speaker 1: at the table for the seven imaginary children. So it's

457
00:27:22,720 --> 00:27:24,919
Speaker 1: not a situation where it's like, oh, until the nineteen sixties,

458
00:27:24,960 --> 00:27:28,840
Speaker 1: imaginary friends were to be feared or anything. But just

459
00:27:28,880 --> 00:27:31,439
Speaker 1: you know, broad strokes. Now, one question you might have

460
00:27:31,600 --> 00:27:33,880
Speaker 1: is like, Okay, what does this mean. Does this mean

461
00:27:33,920 --> 00:27:39,760
Speaker 1: that nobody had imaginary friends before the twentieth century? Well,

462
00:27:40,040 --> 00:27:42,840
Speaker 1: that is actually one way you could look at it,

463
00:27:42,880 --> 00:27:44,560
Speaker 1: and we'll get into that. But the other way is

464
00:27:44,600 --> 00:27:47,320
Speaker 1: that clearly this is something that's just been going on

465
00:27:47,920 --> 00:27:51,240
Speaker 1: since time out of mind, and it's only as we

466
00:27:51,280 --> 00:27:53,560
Speaker 1: get into the twentieth century that it's being noticed and

467
00:27:53,600 --> 00:27:54,080
Speaker 1: so forth.

468
00:27:54,520 --> 00:27:58,639
Speaker 3: I think sometimes we underestimate how much things in the

469
00:27:58,680 --> 00:28:02,520
Speaker 3: past just there's not written evidence of them, not because

470
00:28:02,560 --> 00:28:06,360
Speaker 3: they didn't exist, but because nobody who was writing books

471
00:28:06,440 --> 00:28:08,040
Speaker 3: just thought it was worth paying attention to.

472
00:28:08,800 --> 00:28:10,240
Speaker 1: I think there's a strong case to be made for

473
00:28:10,320 --> 00:28:15,440
Speaker 1: that absolutely. Now. Clausen and Pasmano point out in two

474
00:28:15,480 --> 00:28:19,520
Speaker 1: thousand and sevens per ten Companions. I've seen this sighted

475
00:28:19,560 --> 00:28:23,440
Speaker 1: in numerous studies as well, that the idea of childhood

476
00:28:23,440 --> 00:28:27,600
Speaker 1: as we understand it today perhaps didn't really emerge until

477
00:28:27,800 --> 00:28:32,080
Speaker 1: like the seventeenth century. So there were perhaps severe limitations

478
00:28:32,119 --> 00:28:35,399
Speaker 1: on our ability and our willingness to understand what was

479
00:28:35,440 --> 00:28:39,240
Speaker 1: going on with children. So, you know, did we care

480
00:28:39,400 --> 00:28:42,800
Speaker 1: what children were talking about, did we care about if

481
00:28:42,800 --> 00:28:45,160
Speaker 1: they had an imaginary friend or not, and so forth.

482
00:28:45,800 --> 00:28:48,840
Speaker 1: On top of that, before the seventeenth century we deep

483
00:28:48,880 --> 00:28:51,320
Speaker 1: ever deeper in of course, into the demon haunted world

484
00:28:51,360 --> 00:28:56,040
Speaker 1: of superstition. So you know, if we did hear about

485
00:28:56,120 --> 00:29:00,680
Speaker 1: our children talking with unseen entities, we probably had a

486
00:29:00,720 --> 00:29:03,000
Speaker 1: script to go to that was not, oh well, they're

487
00:29:03,000 --> 00:29:06,160
Speaker 1: just engaging in pretend play. It might be more, oh well,

488
00:29:06,200 --> 00:29:08,640
Speaker 1: they're talking to fairies, they're talking to spirits and so forth.

489
00:29:08,840 --> 00:29:11,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, the goat whispered something to me, help me.

490
00:29:13,640 --> 00:29:17,280
Speaker 1: They write quote. Many early descriptions of pretend companions may

491
00:29:17,320 --> 00:29:19,800
Speaker 1: not be recognized as such because they were depicted in

492
00:29:19,880 --> 00:29:24,160
Speaker 1: terms of spirits and other supernatural concepts. Metaphysical explanations for

493
00:29:24,160 --> 00:29:26,760
Speaker 1: pretend companions are not at all limited to the past,

494
00:29:26,800 --> 00:29:29,720
Speaker 1: because to some extent they have existed even in recent

495
00:29:29,800 --> 00:29:33,400
Speaker 1: times now. They also bring up the idea that free

496
00:29:33,440 --> 00:29:37,880
Speaker 1: play time and time alone are perhaps both key requirements

497
00:29:37,920 --> 00:29:40,560
Speaker 1: for their emergence of an invisible companion and a child,

498
00:29:41,080 --> 00:29:43,200
Speaker 1: and these would have been things that would have been,

499
00:29:44,280 --> 00:29:48,040
Speaker 1: by some estimates, historically lacking and still lacking for children

500
00:29:48,040 --> 00:29:50,440
Speaker 1: in many parts of the world and in many different

501
00:29:50,480 --> 00:29:55,360
Speaker 1: socioeconomic levels. You know, do you have time alone, do

502
00:29:55,400 --> 00:29:59,320
Speaker 1: you have time to play in which you'd get to

503
00:29:59,320 --> 00:30:01,400
Speaker 1: know your imagine in which you had been able to

504
00:30:01,440 --> 00:30:04,720
Speaker 1: be able to generate this idea and play with it.

505
00:30:05,400 --> 00:30:08,840
Speaker 1: They cite works from two thousand and three and nineteen

506
00:30:08,880 --> 00:30:13,680
Speaker 1: seventy nine that reported a very low rate of reported

507
00:30:13,720 --> 00:30:17,719
Speaker 1: invisible friends in India zero point two percent in one study,

508
00:30:17,800 --> 00:30:19,880
Speaker 1: which is really low compared to some of the Western

509
00:30:19,920 --> 00:30:23,280
Speaker 1: stats that I'll mention here in a bit, and they

510
00:30:23,280 --> 00:30:27,960
Speaker 1: attributed it to limited playtime and limited alone time. They

511
00:30:28,000 --> 00:30:31,480
Speaker 1: also acknowledged that the idea of children remembering past lives

512
00:30:31,880 --> 00:30:35,080
Speaker 1: is something that is sometimes explored and encouraged in parts

513
00:30:35,080 --> 00:30:37,680
Speaker 1: of India, but that didn't seem to have an impact

514
00:30:37,800 --> 00:30:43,360
Speaker 1: on the percentage rate of imaginary friends here. So they

515
00:30:43,360 --> 00:30:46,600
Speaker 1: bring up this idea that in the past, and to

516
00:30:46,640 --> 00:30:50,920
Speaker 1: some extent in the present, traditional ways of life throughout

517
00:30:50,920 --> 00:30:54,400
Speaker 1: the world might not have allowed most children sufficient room

518
00:30:54,480 --> 00:31:00,240
Speaker 1: for not only imaginary friends, but even imagination play itself. Now.

519
00:31:00,520 --> 00:31:02,400
Speaker 1: One of the sources they cite here on this is

520
00:31:02,480 --> 00:31:05,800
Speaker 1: the work of Lloyd de Moss from nineteen seventy four,

521
00:31:05,880 --> 00:31:09,600
Speaker 1: The History of Childhood, writing that quote, if pretend companions

522
00:31:09,640 --> 00:31:13,160
Speaker 1: are indeed a modern phenomenon, then their genesis may result

523
00:31:13,160 --> 00:31:16,120
Speaker 1: from being left alone and from having time available for play,

524
00:31:16,640 --> 00:31:19,680
Speaker 1: customs that apply to contemporary Western children, but rarely to

525
00:31:19,760 --> 00:31:23,520
Speaker 1: children historically. Now quick side note on de moss Here,

526
00:31:23,520 --> 00:31:26,440
Speaker 1: who lived nineteen thirty one through twenty twenty. He was

527
00:31:26,480 --> 00:31:30,840
Speaker 1: a psychoanalyst and self proclaimed psychohistorian, and there remains some

528
00:31:30,880 --> 00:31:33,840
Speaker 1: controversy about his work, and I've read some strong criticisms

529
00:31:33,840 --> 00:31:37,200
Speaker 1: of his scholarship, especially concerning some of his more bombastic ideas.

530
00:31:37,920 --> 00:31:40,400
Speaker 1: I'm not super well versed in his work, but at

531
00:31:40,440 --> 00:31:43,480
Speaker 1: any rate, the key idea of his involved here is

532
00:31:43,520 --> 00:31:46,560
Speaker 1: the notion that childhood in the modern Western sense is

533
00:31:46,600 --> 00:31:47,440
Speaker 1: relatively new.

534
00:31:47,840 --> 00:31:50,120
Speaker 3: Okay, but that sort of contributes to one of these

535
00:31:50,160 --> 00:31:54,120
Speaker 3: competing explanations for why it's only recently that there has

536
00:31:54,160 --> 00:31:58,960
Speaker 3: been much published on the idea of imaginary companions in childhood.

537
00:31:58,960 --> 00:32:01,520
Speaker 3: It could be that, you know, this is something that

538
00:32:01,720 --> 00:32:04,880
Speaker 3: happens with lots of kids throughout time, but it's only

539
00:32:04,960 --> 00:32:08,920
Speaker 3: really been noticed by adults who wrote about it in

540
00:32:09,440 --> 00:32:11,920
Speaker 3: the last century or so. Or it could be that

541
00:32:12,200 --> 00:32:15,840
Speaker 3: the very nature of childhood itself changes pretty drastically in

542
00:32:15,880 --> 00:32:19,400
Speaker 3: different times and cultures, and this is something that emerges

543
00:32:19,520 --> 00:32:24,200
Speaker 3: much more strongly in recent times in certain cultures.

544
00:32:24,560 --> 00:32:26,480
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, so I feel we have like a few

545
00:32:26,480 --> 00:32:28,719
Speaker 1: different ways to potentially think about it. It's something that

546
00:32:28,840 --> 00:32:32,640
Speaker 1: was long and visible to adults, had at least less

547
00:32:32,680 --> 00:32:35,280
Speaker 1: space to foster in children, and was likely to be

548
00:32:35,320 --> 00:32:40,480
Speaker 1: explained away with superstition anyway, if superstition was even employed.

549
00:32:40,520 --> 00:32:42,160
Speaker 1: Like I said, I think there's also a strong argument

550
00:32:42,200 --> 00:32:44,280
Speaker 1: to be made that it just wasn't noticed as much

551
00:32:44,320 --> 00:32:48,120
Speaker 1: and wasn't fostered as an idea, wasn't even recognized. And

552
00:32:48,400 --> 00:32:50,760
Speaker 1: you know, we'll come back to some ideas regarding that

553
00:32:50,840 --> 00:32:53,560
Speaker 1: here in a second. But another interesting idea they bring

554
00:32:53,640 --> 00:32:56,200
Speaker 1: up is that while historical accounts of imaginary friends and

555
00:32:56,320 --> 00:32:59,240
Speaker 1: children from before the twentieth century is scant and non existent,

556
00:32:59,680 --> 00:33:03,520
Speaker 1: we have plenty of accounts of quote adult pretend companion

557
00:33:03,680 --> 00:33:09,040
Speaker 1: like phenomena. This includes muses, household gods, guardian angels, and

558
00:33:09,280 --> 00:33:14,160
Speaker 1: personal saints. I'd also personally add ghosts and ancestor spirits

559
00:33:14,200 --> 00:33:16,880
Speaker 1: to this, and I think it's something that many contemporary

560
00:33:16,960 --> 00:33:21,320
Speaker 1: humans will also find themselves engaging with at least to

561
00:33:21,400 --> 00:33:24,120
Speaker 1: some degree. You know, when we speak to the dead,

562
00:33:24,280 --> 00:33:29,600
Speaker 1: and I don't mean even in like a daily regular fashion,

563
00:33:29,680 --> 00:33:32,800
Speaker 1: but like if you visit somebody's grave and you speak

564
00:33:32,840 --> 00:33:36,960
Speaker 1: to them, and on some level, you know, you were

565
00:33:37,040 --> 00:33:41,560
Speaker 1: engaging with this mental model of their mind. You know,

566
00:33:41,600 --> 00:33:43,600
Speaker 1: what are you really speaking to it? You're speaking to

567
00:33:44,280 --> 00:33:48,960
Speaker 1: this imaginary construct that person no longer exists in a

568
00:33:49,000 --> 00:33:52,960
Speaker 1: physical form, you know. So, yeah, you are engaging in

569
00:33:53,000 --> 00:33:56,840
Speaker 1: a very similar sort of pretend play. But we think

570
00:33:56,880 --> 00:33:58,960
Speaker 1: of it differently, you know, we have a different We

571
00:33:59,040 --> 00:34:01,800
Speaker 1: have an adult mindset regarding it, and so we don't

572
00:34:01,840 --> 00:34:03,840
Speaker 1: loop it in, we don't lump it into the same

573
00:34:03,880 --> 00:34:09,320
Speaker 1: category with the imaginary friends. Usually. Now, in this meta analysis,

574
00:34:09,520 --> 00:34:11,840
Speaker 1: they point out that numerous studies have made a case

575
00:34:11,960 --> 00:34:16,839
Speaker 1: for invisible friends and invisible companions. I'm sorry, imaginary friends

576
00:34:16,840 --> 00:34:20,640
Speaker 1: and imaginary companions, but they're often invisible having a beneficial

577
00:34:20,640 --> 00:34:24,560
Speaker 1: effect on a child's social, emotion, emotional, and cognitive development.

578
00:34:25,360 --> 00:34:28,200
Speaker 1: Just a few of the possible attributed benefits in the

579
00:34:28,200 --> 00:34:33,480
Speaker 1: meta analysis include children with ices or imaginary companions may

580
00:34:33,560 --> 00:34:38,399
Speaker 1: have more developed sociocognitive and narrative skills. Children with ices

581
00:34:38,480 --> 00:34:41,520
Speaker 1: may go on to have better coping competence as adolescents,

582
00:34:41,560 --> 00:34:45,279
Speaker 1: that is, better coping strategies and techniques when faced with anxiety,

583
00:34:45,400 --> 00:34:48,319
Speaker 1: such as reaching out for help or advice when they

584
00:34:48,320 --> 00:34:48,640
Speaker 1: need it.

585
00:34:49,000 --> 00:34:51,879
Speaker 3: Oh, that's interesting. I was wondering if that might take

586
00:34:51,920 --> 00:34:54,680
Speaker 3: a different form, which is that I wonder if having

587
00:34:54,680 --> 00:34:59,640
Speaker 3: an imaginary companion just kind of trains you in engaging

588
00:34:59,719 --> 00:35:02,319
Speaker 3: in a back and forth within your own mind, which

589
00:35:02,360 --> 00:35:06,279
Speaker 3: is very important for kind of getting perspective on yourself

590
00:35:06,320 --> 00:35:09,080
Speaker 3: in your own situation. Even as an adult. You might

591
00:35:09,120 --> 00:35:12,520
Speaker 3: not have another person, you imagine, but you sort of

592
00:35:12,560 --> 00:35:16,279
Speaker 3: do need to be able to ask and answer questions

593
00:35:16,320 --> 00:35:21,120
Speaker 3: within yourself or to set up oppositional viewpoints within your

594
00:35:21,120 --> 00:35:24,800
Speaker 3: own head in order to sort of stand outside yourself

595
00:35:24,840 --> 00:35:25,719
Speaker 3: and see what's going on.

596
00:35:26,440 --> 00:35:29,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm getting a strong sense that you could look

597
00:35:29,640 --> 00:35:32,120
Speaker 1: at it as a kind of simulation or rehearsal for

598
00:35:32,200 --> 00:35:36,319
Speaker 1: social relationships and communication as well. Yeah. Yeah, there's a

599
00:35:36,400 --> 00:35:40,200
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen study from Gleason and Kalpedo that they point

600
00:35:40,239 --> 00:35:44,080
Speaker 1: out that found that children with egalitarian child icy relationships

601
00:35:45,000 --> 00:35:49,359
Speaker 1: chose more constructive coping strategies than did those with these

602
00:35:49,600 --> 00:35:52,600
Speaker 1: child ice relationships that are more like you know pet

603
00:35:52,719 --> 00:35:58,799
Speaker 1: or you know child, you know a care relationship. So yeah,

604
00:35:58,840 --> 00:36:02,239
Speaker 1: it's it's interesting to think about here. Now, one thing

605
00:36:02,280 --> 00:36:04,120
Speaker 1: they point out, and this is a huge factor, and this,

606
00:36:04,200 --> 00:36:08,000
Speaker 1: of course is often a factor in studies. Is that

607
00:36:09,000 --> 00:36:12,840
Speaker 1: is that pretty much all of our scholarship on ICs

608
00:36:13,680 --> 00:36:16,960
Speaker 1: has come out of Western culture, where there is generally

609
00:36:17,000 --> 00:36:20,400
Speaker 1: a majority of children with ICs of one sort or another.

610
00:36:20,680 --> 00:36:22,880
Speaker 1: And so you have to ask, and again this is

611
00:36:22,920 --> 00:36:25,120
Speaker 1: you know, this is a problem in other studies as well,

612
00:36:25,440 --> 00:36:29,600
Speaker 1: obviously scientific and otherwise, like what's your your sample consists of?

613
00:36:30,120 --> 00:36:32,600
Speaker 1: Is it a bunch of you know, western college students,

614
00:36:32,640 --> 00:36:34,600
Speaker 1: Is it a bunch of white Western college students and

615
00:36:34,600 --> 00:36:37,560
Speaker 1: so forth? Then how does that break down when you're

616
00:36:37,560 --> 00:36:42,600
Speaker 1: actually considering the species as a whole, And so, you know,

617
00:36:42,640 --> 00:36:44,719
Speaker 1: you can you can ask yourself, well, how much of

618
00:36:44,760 --> 00:36:47,879
Speaker 1: this is purely cultural then? And it's hard to say,

619
00:36:47,920 --> 00:36:51,399
Speaker 1: they point out because at the time, at any rate,

620
00:36:51,440 --> 00:36:53,760
Speaker 1: they said they had virtually nothing outside of Western culture

621
00:36:53,800 --> 00:36:57,120
Speaker 1: to compare these studies to. And I think this has

622
00:36:57,200 --> 00:37:00,480
Speaker 1: changed a little bit since the publication date, but I

623
00:37:00,480 --> 00:37:03,560
Speaker 1: think a lot of big questions remain. They did point

624
00:37:03,560 --> 00:37:06,759
Speaker 1: to some Japanese studies at the time, however, and these

625
00:37:06,800 --> 00:37:11,520
Speaker 1: seem to suggest that imaginary companions might be less common

626
00:37:11,600 --> 00:37:15,719
Speaker 1: in Japanese children, apparently due to cultural reasons, though the

627
00:37:15,840 --> 00:37:20,520
Speaker 1: rate was still something like fifty percent, So it's so

628
00:37:20,560 --> 00:37:23,480
Speaker 1: it's just that's compared to sixty to sixty five percent

629
00:37:23,560 --> 00:37:27,520
Speaker 1: rate in studies of Western children. So you know, it's

630
00:37:27,520 --> 00:37:30,800
Speaker 1: a sizable difference, but you're still looking at fifty percent.

631
00:37:32,400 --> 00:37:35,120
Speaker 1: Obviously there's a great deal to unravel there. In their

632
00:37:35,120 --> 00:37:38,759
Speaker 1: meta analysis, they further elaborate the cultural attitudes towards imaginary

633
00:37:38,760 --> 00:37:41,920
Speaker 1: friends are likely important here in Japan, for instance, they

634
00:37:42,000 --> 00:37:44,759
Speaker 1: said there was at the time less common knowledge of

635
00:37:44,800 --> 00:37:48,360
Speaker 1: the concept and perhaps more of a likelihood for imaginary

636
00:37:48,360 --> 00:37:52,680
Speaker 1: friend reports from a child to generate a Prindal concern, despite,

637
00:37:53,000 --> 00:37:56,359
Speaker 1: to be clear, a strong support for pretend play in

638
00:37:56,440 --> 00:38:02,799
Speaker 1: general in said culture. So, yeah, it gets complex trying

639
00:38:02,840 --> 00:38:04,600
Speaker 1: to tease a part like, well, how much of it

640
00:38:04,640 --> 00:38:07,319
Speaker 1: is a cultural factor, how much of it is just

641
00:38:08,160 --> 00:38:11,960
Speaker 1: parents paying attention and so forth. So they summarize quote,

642
00:38:11,960 --> 00:38:15,480
Speaker 1: imaginative and pretend play maybe universal behaviors across cultures with

643
00:38:15,560 --> 00:38:18,319
Speaker 1: an evolutionary origin, but how the play is constructed in

644
00:38:18,360 --> 00:38:23,160
Speaker 1: shape varies across culture is unclear. Now, other factors that

645
00:38:23,200 --> 00:38:26,840
Speaker 1: seem to impact things. These include the children's age, the

646
00:38:26,880 --> 00:38:31,600
Speaker 1: assessment method, sex, and birth order. So on the subject

647
00:38:31,600 --> 00:38:35,520
Speaker 1: of age. Looking at various studies involving imaginary friends, some

648
00:38:35,560 --> 00:38:38,200
Speaker 1: studies identify two to three and a half as the

649
00:38:38,200 --> 00:38:42,560
Speaker 1: peak age for imaginary companions, while others have identified age four.

650
00:38:43,000 --> 00:38:45,960
Speaker 1: Some studies, they argue, do not distinguish between current and

651
00:38:46,040 --> 00:38:50,920
Speaker 1: past imaginary companions, and I think that's interesting to think

652
00:38:50,920 --> 00:38:53,400
Speaker 1: of as well. I honestly do not remember at what

653
00:38:53,520 --> 00:38:56,680
Speaker 1: age my child had been wasp friends, but clearly there

654
00:38:56,760 --> 00:38:57,839
Speaker 1: was a window for it. You know.

655
00:38:58,239 --> 00:39:01,480
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're never too old for wast friends, but at

656
00:39:01,520 --> 00:39:04,000
Speaker 3: a certain age they just become less common. It's harder

657
00:39:04,040 --> 00:39:05,960
Speaker 3: to get in touch now.

658
00:39:06,080 --> 00:39:10,160
Speaker 1: They also stress the assessment method is key. So broadly speaking,

659
00:39:10,200 --> 00:39:13,080
Speaker 1: you can ask kids about their imaginary friends and or

660
00:39:13,160 --> 00:39:16,239
Speaker 1: talk to their parents about their imaginary friends. And I

661
00:39:16,239 --> 00:39:18,520
Speaker 1: don't think this will shock any parents out there. But

662
00:39:18,600 --> 00:39:23,000
Speaker 1: sometimes the accounts do not match up. Parents often don't

663
00:39:23,040 --> 00:39:27,000
Speaker 1: have or attain all the details, and parents who disapprove

664
00:39:27,160 --> 00:39:30,840
Speaker 1: of imaginary friends, either in general or specifics like I

665
00:39:30,880 --> 00:39:34,520
Speaker 1: don't trust mister Bongo or whatever, they may retain even

666
00:39:34,600 --> 00:39:37,920
Speaker 1: less of the details. However, while the children themselves may

667
00:39:37,960 --> 00:39:41,240
Speaker 1: be the best source, there are also complications there as well.

668
00:39:41,640 --> 00:39:43,839
Speaker 1: They point out that below age three, a child may

669
00:39:43,920 --> 00:39:45,920
Speaker 1: not have the verbal skills to answer all of the

670
00:39:46,000 --> 00:39:49,759
Speaker 1: questions that the researchers have about the imaginary friends, and

671
00:39:50,040 --> 00:39:53,680
Speaker 1: they may wind up answering questions by invoking real life

672
00:39:53,719 --> 00:39:57,560
Speaker 1: friends instead, Like you're asking them about imaginary friends, but

673
00:39:57,560 --> 00:40:00,799
Speaker 1: they're answering, they get confused out whether you're talking about

674
00:40:00,800 --> 00:40:03,200
Speaker 1: imaginary friends or real friends. And then I found this

675
00:40:03,239 --> 00:40:06,960
Speaker 1: particularly funny. They may make up new imaginary friends during

676
00:40:06,960 --> 00:40:08,759
Speaker 1: the interview.

677
00:40:09,239 --> 00:40:12,440
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, yeah, there is sometimes a blurring of I'm

678
00:40:12,480 --> 00:40:16,200
Speaker 3: just thinking about my daughter, like playing with toys. You know,

679
00:40:16,280 --> 00:40:18,960
Speaker 3: she's got her dinosaurs and like little dogs and cats

680
00:40:18,960 --> 00:40:21,520
Speaker 3: are and they're sitting around having a party or something.

681
00:40:21,960 --> 00:40:24,160
Speaker 3: And then sometimes she will identify some of them as

682
00:40:24,200 --> 00:40:26,359
Speaker 3: real people in her life. It's like, oh, now this

683
00:40:26,480 --> 00:40:29,640
Speaker 3: is mama, and this is data, and these are the grandparents,

684
00:40:29,680 --> 00:40:31,799
Speaker 3: and these are my friends from down the street and

685
00:40:31,880 --> 00:40:32,400
Speaker 3: so forth.

686
00:40:32,800 --> 00:40:35,600
Speaker 1: Yeah. So, I mean, yeah, their imagination is fertile and

687
00:40:36,640 --> 00:40:39,080
Speaker 1: they can they will create angels and demons for you

688
00:40:39,200 --> 00:40:44,120
Speaker 1: at the drop of a hat. So many studies therefore

689
00:40:44,280 --> 00:40:46,799
Speaker 1: focused on both children and parents, and then compare the

690
00:40:46,880 --> 00:40:51,320
Speaker 1: notes also key sex and birth order on the birth

691
00:40:51,480 --> 00:40:55,760
Speaker 1: order side of thing, firstborns and presumably singletons are most

692
00:40:55,880 --> 00:40:58,520
Speaker 1: likely to have imaginary friends something like two point eight

693
00:40:58,560 --> 00:41:03,160
Speaker 1: times more likely in the meta analysis, presumably because they

694
00:41:03,440 --> 00:41:07,279
Speaker 1: lack for true childhood companions or more likely to lack

695
00:41:07,320 --> 00:41:12,040
Speaker 1: for true childhood companions within the household. On the sex

696
00:41:12,120 --> 00:41:13,960
Speaker 1: side of the conundrum, there's a lot of work to

697
00:41:14,080 --> 00:41:16,879
Speaker 1: work out here as well, and what we do have

698
00:41:16,960 --> 00:41:20,719
Speaker 1: it tends to entail a lot of gender norms. Additionally,

699
00:41:20,760 --> 00:41:25,000
Speaker 1: it's possible that there are different prime ages for imaginary

700
00:41:25,040 --> 00:41:28,680
Speaker 1: friends between boys and girls, and not every study reports

701
00:41:28,680 --> 00:41:42,080
Speaker 1: sex differences anyway. Now, I want to get into a

702
00:41:42,160 --> 00:41:45,480
Speaker 1: more specific question that came up for me on this topic,

703
00:41:46,400 --> 00:41:49,200
Speaker 1: and it came up because it's the title of a

704
00:41:49,280 --> 00:41:52,200
Speaker 1: paper I ran across from twenty twelve published in the

705
00:41:52,280 --> 00:41:57,200
Speaker 1: International Journal for the Psychology of Religion by Jay Bradley Weiger,

706
00:41:57,520 --> 00:42:01,840
Speaker 1: Katrina Paxson, and Lacy Ryan, What do invisible friends Know?

707
00:42:03,200 --> 00:42:05,960
Speaker 1: And this of course leans heavily into questions of theory

708
00:42:06,000 --> 00:42:09,320
Speaker 1: of mind. Ah, yeah, it all comes back in this study.

709
00:42:09,440 --> 00:42:12,879
Speaker 1: The author's question thirty six children ages two through eight

710
00:42:13,400 --> 00:42:16,680
Speaker 1: with imaginary friends at the time, on what sorts of

711
00:42:16,719 --> 00:42:21,120
Speaker 1: things their imaginary companions knew essentially on a sliding scale,

712
00:42:21,480 --> 00:42:24,200
Speaker 1: with dog at one end and God at the other,

713
00:42:24,560 --> 00:42:27,120
Speaker 1: and humanity, you know, somewhere in the middle. And they

714
00:42:27,120 --> 00:42:32,359
Speaker 1: found that younger children attributed knowledge to all agents considered here,

715
00:42:32,880 --> 00:42:36,000
Speaker 1: while older children treated God differently from all the others,

716
00:42:36,160 --> 00:42:40,360
Speaker 1: but that imaginary friends, the imaginary friend was also different

717
00:42:40,400 --> 00:42:43,279
Speaker 1: from either human or dog. In other words, it kind

718
00:42:43,280 --> 00:42:46,560
Speaker 1: of stands as this in between character. And I was

719
00:42:46,560 --> 00:42:48,439
Speaker 1: thinking about this and I realized, you know, it kind

720
00:42:48,440 --> 00:42:51,680
Speaker 1: of reminded me of the nineteen eighty eight film My

721
00:42:51,680 --> 00:42:56,600
Speaker 1: Neighbor Totoro by Hyo Miyazaki. In this, if you haven't

722
00:42:56,640 --> 00:42:59,720
Speaker 1: seen it, two young girls in the Japanese countryside encounter

723
00:42:59,760 --> 00:43:03,040
Speaker 1: friends nature spirits in the form of Toto's as well

724
00:43:03,080 --> 00:43:05,640
Speaker 1: as a cat bus. And it does not expressly deal

725
00:43:05,680 --> 00:43:08,040
Speaker 1: with them as imaginary friends. But if we were to

726
00:43:08,080 --> 00:43:12,560
Speaker 1: think of the Totos as imaginary friends, you know, what,

727
00:43:13,160 --> 00:43:15,719
Speaker 1: did they seem to know? What is their mindset? They

728
00:43:15,800 --> 00:43:17,600
Speaker 1: do not seem to have the mind of an all

729
00:43:17,640 --> 00:43:21,640
Speaker 1: knowing or all seeing God. They don't really talk. They

730
00:43:21,680 --> 00:43:24,600
Speaker 1: are certainly in many ways like animals, but they're clearly

731
00:43:24,719 --> 00:43:27,960
Speaker 1: not animals either. Wild or domestic. They're also not people,

732
00:43:29,320 --> 00:43:32,600
Speaker 1: and they're not to invoke another Miyazaki creature. They're not

733
00:43:32,680 --> 00:43:37,799
Speaker 1: like Kiki's feline companion Jiji in Kiki's delivery Service, who

734
00:43:37,880 --> 00:43:40,360
Speaker 1: is a cat who speaks with the human voice. The

735
00:43:40,400 --> 00:43:43,040
Speaker 1: totos seem to have their own category, much like what

736
00:43:43,120 --> 00:43:44,040
Speaker 1: we're discussing here.

737
00:43:44,440 --> 00:43:48,720
Speaker 3: When you were talking about the invisible companions with children

738
00:43:48,719 --> 00:43:51,600
Speaker 3: attributing knowledge to them, that's kind of an in between place.

739
00:43:51,920 --> 00:43:55,840
Speaker 3: Did you mean most often somewhere in between human knowledge

740
00:43:55,880 --> 00:43:59,719
Speaker 3: and omniscience, like knowing more than a normal human would,

741
00:44:00,400 --> 00:44:03,000
Speaker 3: but less than an omniscient god. Or did you mean

742
00:44:03,040 --> 00:44:06,120
Speaker 3: somewhere between the human and the dog level of knowledge.

743
00:44:06,480 --> 00:44:09,160
Speaker 1: No, we'll discuss between human and God.

744
00:44:09,520 --> 00:44:09,880
Speaker 3: Okay.

745
00:44:10,280 --> 00:44:12,120
Speaker 1: So I wasn't able to get a hold of the

746
00:44:12,120 --> 00:44:15,160
Speaker 1: full study, but the lead author, Jay Bradley Weiger, later

747
00:44:15,200 --> 00:44:18,600
Speaker 1: wrote a book titled Invisible Companions, and he discusses the

748
00:44:18,640 --> 00:44:22,480
Speaker 1: study in that book. So here's a taste of it.

749
00:44:22,719 --> 00:44:25,239
Speaker 1: In one of the studies experiments, the children who all

750
00:44:25,239 --> 00:44:28,600
Speaker 1: came from various Christian denominations, so they had this just

751
00:44:28,719 --> 00:44:32,319
Speaker 1: varying degrees some idea of what God is within that

752
00:44:32,400 --> 00:44:35,680
Speaker 1: cultural belief system. And then they engaged in three They

753
00:44:35,719 --> 00:44:38,560
Speaker 1: were asked to engage in three different theory of mind tasks.

754
00:44:39,000 --> 00:44:40,920
Speaker 1: So in one of the theory of mind tasks, the

755
00:44:41,000 --> 00:44:45,239
Speaker 1: children had what is called an occluded picture study. So

756
00:44:45,680 --> 00:44:47,040
Speaker 1: you can think of it this way. You have a

757
00:44:47,040 --> 00:44:49,920
Speaker 1: full picture inside of a folder, like a folding folder,

758
00:44:50,280 --> 00:44:53,440
Speaker 1: and then there's a little window cut in the folder

759
00:44:53,840 --> 00:44:57,200
Speaker 1: so that you just get a little sliver of the

760
00:44:57,239 --> 00:45:01,319
Speaker 1: full picture, and then you ask the child, can you

761
00:45:01,400 --> 00:45:04,759
Speaker 1: guess what the full picture is? And the children were

762
00:45:04,840 --> 00:45:08,080
Speaker 1: very confident, something like sixty three percent of them said

763
00:45:08,080 --> 00:45:10,879
Speaker 1: that they knew what the whole picture was. They're like, oh, yeah,

764
00:45:10,880 --> 00:45:12,640
Speaker 1: I know what it is, and they made wild guesses.

765
00:45:13,080 --> 00:45:15,840
Speaker 1: They didn't none of them got it. But that's not

766
00:45:15,880 --> 00:45:18,000
Speaker 1: really the point here. It's about what they thought they knew.

767
00:45:18,440 --> 00:45:21,359
Speaker 1: But here's where it gets interesting. Fifty three percent said

768
00:45:21,360 --> 00:45:24,360
Speaker 1: that their best friend, this is like a real person

769
00:45:24,960 --> 00:45:27,359
Speaker 1: would know what the picture was as well, So that's

770
00:45:27,680 --> 00:45:31,279
Speaker 1: less so sixty three for them, fifty three percent for

771
00:45:31,320 --> 00:45:34,520
Speaker 1: their friends. Forty four percent said a dog would know,

772
00:45:35,200 --> 00:45:39,480
Speaker 1: and ninety percent said that God would know, and the

773
00:45:39,520 --> 00:45:44,960
Speaker 1: imaginary friend sixty seven percent. So imaginary friends were quote

774
00:45:45,000 --> 00:45:48,640
Speaker 1: slightly more likely to know than everyone except God.

775
00:45:48,840 --> 00:45:51,600
Speaker 3: Okay, they know a little bit more than I do,

776
00:45:52,000 --> 00:45:55,959
Speaker 3: a good bit more than my friends at school, even

777
00:45:56,040 --> 00:45:58,560
Speaker 3: more than a dog, but not as much as God.

778
00:45:58,719 --> 00:45:58,919
Speaker 1: Though.

779
00:45:58,960 --> 00:46:01,800
Speaker 3: I also find it into that there were ten percent

780
00:46:01,840 --> 00:46:04,640
Speaker 3: of children here who believed in God but thought God

781
00:46:04,719 --> 00:46:06,720
Speaker 3: would not know what was in the folder.

782
00:46:07,040 --> 00:46:07,440
Speaker 2: Yeah.

783
00:46:07,520 --> 00:46:13,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, even God cannot see insiche his foulder, so that's yeah.

784
00:46:13,000 --> 00:46:18,440
Speaker 1: But yeah, by and large, the imaginary friends stood in

785
00:46:18,560 --> 00:46:24,560
Speaker 1: between human perception and the perception of God. Interesting, So

786
00:46:24,680 --> 00:46:27,000
Speaker 1: that's yeah, that's that's fascinating.

787
00:46:27,320 --> 00:46:31,240
Speaker 3: Privileged and knowledge, not omniscients, but heightened missions.

788
00:46:31,680 --> 00:46:36,400
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, once the picture was revealed, it turned out

789
00:46:36,440 --> 00:46:38,960
Speaker 1: to be an elephant on a ball. I couldn't get

790
00:46:38,960 --> 00:46:41,320
Speaker 1: a sense of this at all really from the preview.

791
00:46:41,640 --> 00:46:46,040
Speaker 1: The children found it funny, and given decent theory of mind,

792
00:46:46,040 --> 00:46:48,120
Speaker 1: would then be able to conclude that their best friend

793
00:46:48,160 --> 00:46:50,680
Speaker 1: and dog would also surely fail to guess what it was.

794
00:46:52,480 --> 00:46:55,919
Speaker 1: And in the book why your comments on this? And

795
00:46:56,040 --> 00:46:58,960
Speaker 1: the kind of Wax is poetic about the idea and

796
00:46:59,120 --> 00:47:01,680
Speaker 1: writes quote, this was not magic to them, It was

797
00:47:01,719 --> 00:47:05,560
Speaker 1: the way things are. Anything, everything is nested, there is

798
00:47:05,600 --> 00:47:07,799
Speaker 1: always more, and so It goes on to praise the

799
00:47:07,800 --> 00:47:10,880
Speaker 1: resiliency of a child's mind when presented with the awareness

800
00:47:10,960 --> 00:47:14,320
Speaker 1: of more. You know, like their understanding of the world

801
00:47:14,440 --> 00:47:20,200
Speaker 1: is continually challenged, corrected, and expanded upon. And you know,

802
00:47:20,640 --> 00:47:22,640
Speaker 1: when he was pointing this out in the book, it's

803
00:47:22,680 --> 00:47:24,239
Speaker 1: like I was like, yeah, like that's the kind of

804
00:47:24,280 --> 00:47:27,319
Speaker 1: thing that most stubborn adults, it would just break them.

805
00:47:27,400 --> 00:47:29,800
Speaker 1: Most adults are too stubborn too, I feel like to

806
00:47:30,680 --> 00:47:34,120
Speaker 1: really learn much, at least in certain areas of their life.

807
00:47:34,280 --> 00:47:37,319
Speaker 1: But like, that is what childhood is. It's constantly being

808
00:47:37,600 --> 00:47:40,319
Speaker 1: finding out that, oh I didn't understand this, and now

809
00:47:40,320 --> 00:47:42,560
Speaker 1: I have a broader understanding of what it is, but

810
00:47:42,680 --> 00:47:45,520
Speaker 1: still being confident enough to think, you know what the

811
00:47:45,560 --> 00:47:48,920
Speaker 1: picture is. You know, it's like a special kind of optimism.

812
00:47:49,120 --> 00:47:52,080
Speaker 3: That's beautiful. And yeah, the horrors of adulthood that what

813
00:47:52,120 --> 00:47:55,000
Speaker 3: it really means is like becoming rigid enough that you

814
00:47:55,080 --> 00:47:57,200
Speaker 3: refuse to be corrected even when you're shown.

815
00:47:57,640 --> 00:47:59,800
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, But the big take I'm here for the

816
00:48:00,120 --> 00:48:04,080
Speaker 1: theors was that imaginary friends or invisible friends were in

817
00:48:04,120 --> 00:48:08,120
Speaker 1: between entities, that they were positioned in their knowledge somewhere

818
00:48:08,160 --> 00:48:12,799
Speaker 1: between the individual and God. And again I think it's

819
00:48:12,800 --> 00:48:15,280
Speaker 1: worth stressing that these children were all, to varying degrees,

820
00:48:15,280 --> 00:48:17,920
Speaker 1: brought up within a worldview in which an all knowing

821
00:48:18,000 --> 00:48:20,520
Speaker 1: and all seeing God is very much a concept. I

822
00:48:20,560 --> 00:48:23,080
Speaker 1: don't think that they explored the way this might have

823
00:48:23,280 --> 00:48:26,880
Speaker 1: influenced things, at least not in what I read. But

824
00:48:27,320 --> 00:48:30,640
Speaker 1: instead they stress that while they were all likely told

825
00:48:30,640 --> 00:48:33,319
Speaker 1: to some degree what God knows and sees, they were

826
00:48:33,400 --> 00:48:35,279
Speaker 1: left to their own devices to figure out what their

827
00:48:35,320 --> 00:48:39,399
Speaker 1: imaginary friend would know. And this is where the author

828
00:48:39,480 --> 00:48:44,920
Speaker 1: shares some interesting ideas quote perhaps their invisibility itself is important.

829
00:48:45,040 --> 00:48:48,280
Speaker 1: The physicality of humans and dogs is what creates limits

830
00:48:48,280 --> 00:48:51,800
Speaker 1: in perspective and knowledge. At least the older children might reason,

831
00:48:52,160 --> 00:48:55,719
Speaker 1: perhaps invisible figures enjoy the privileges of not being so

832
00:48:55,920 --> 00:48:59,000
Speaker 1: limited because they don't have ordinary bodies.

833
00:49:00,239 --> 00:49:04,440
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree. I think that is a strong intuition

834
00:49:04,600 --> 00:49:07,160
Speaker 3: that a lot of people have. Again, I don't know

835
00:49:07,160 --> 00:49:09,560
Speaker 3: if this is cultural conditioning based on the way we

836
00:49:09,640 --> 00:49:12,400
Speaker 3: normally think about the metaphysics of ghosts and angels and

837
00:49:12,440 --> 00:49:15,160
Speaker 3: beings like that, or if it's something deeper in the brain,

838
00:49:15,280 --> 00:49:17,200
Speaker 3: but I do think we tend to think that if

839
00:49:17,200 --> 00:49:21,120
Speaker 3: a being is invisible it's not limited by the laws

840
00:49:21,120 --> 00:49:24,719
Speaker 3: of physics, and thus can see beyond walls and has

841
00:49:24,800 --> 00:49:28,000
Speaker 3: access to information that we can't access.

842
00:49:28,520 --> 00:49:30,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Like. He goes on to speculate that these

843
00:49:30,719 --> 00:49:34,440
Speaker 1: kids are spontaneously attributing special knowledge to their invisible friends

844
00:49:34,520 --> 00:49:36,719
Speaker 1: in a way that suggests quote a deep bias in

845
00:49:36,719 --> 00:49:39,880
Speaker 1: our theory of mind, one that makes beliefs about God's

846
00:49:39,920 --> 00:49:43,600
Speaker 1: mind easy to affirm and pass along. And you know,

847
00:49:43,719 --> 00:49:45,080
Speaker 1: and yeah, to your point, I feel like we don't

848
00:49:45,080 --> 00:49:49,040
Speaker 1: even necessarily need to invoke like a you know, ideas

849
00:49:49,040 --> 00:49:50,880
Speaker 1: of a Christian God in all of this. You know,

850
00:49:50,920 --> 00:49:53,759
Speaker 1: you consider such notions as the Evil Eye, which in

851
00:49:54,120 --> 00:49:57,000
Speaker 1: some traditions is held to be this manevolent force that

852
00:49:57,080 --> 00:49:59,879
Speaker 1: will hear you if you boast of your blessings to low,

853
00:50:00,800 --> 00:50:04,160
Speaker 1: it will seek you out and curse you. You know, invisible,

854
00:50:04,200 --> 00:50:07,520
Speaker 1: its powers of detection seem rather boundless, such that you

855
00:50:07,680 --> 00:50:11,160
Speaker 1: choose your words carefully in every instance. And you know,

856
00:50:11,200 --> 00:50:14,000
Speaker 1: there are similar concepts as well of Santa Claus, though

857
00:50:14,040 --> 00:50:17,919
Speaker 1: not invisible, and does kind of take on this sort

858
00:50:17,960 --> 00:50:23,799
Speaker 1: of invisible status outside of Christmas Eve itself, right, and

859
00:50:23,920 --> 00:50:26,120
Speaker 1: you're told that he sees all you know, He's like

860
00:50:26,160 --> 00:50:30,080
Speaker 1: the eye of Providence, always watching, all seeing, all knowing.

861
00:50:30,560 --> 00:50:33,320
Speaker 3: Well, it also makes me wonder about the effect on

862
00:50:33,960 --> 00:50:37,799
Speaker 3: beliefs like this of different types of characters in our

863
00:50:37,840 --> 00:50:41,560
Speaker 3: storytelling and media. So I'm thinking, as a counter example

864
00:50:41,640 --> 00:50:45,400
Speaker 3: to these beings like you know, angels and ghosts and

865
00:50:45,440 --> 00:50:48,040
Speaker 3: gods that have sort of vague and definite powers, you

866
00:50:48,080 --> 00:50:50,960
Speaker 3: can wonder what the boundaries of their power are and

867
00:50:50,960 --> 00:50:54,680
Speaker 3: you're not really sure. When we have these very concrete

868
00:50:54,800 --> 00:50:57,920
Speaker 3: superpowered characters like the X Men, you know, so like

869
00:50:58,000 --> 00:51:01,280
Speaker 3: they have physical bodies and they have powers beyond normal

870
00:51:01,360 --> 00:51:06,000
Speaker 3: human powers, but also they're clearly limited in all normal

871
00:51:06,080 --> 00:51:09,200
Speaker 3: human capacities apart from their special powers.

872
00:51:09,719 --> 00:51:11,360
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, and then and then I think in the

873
00:51:11,360 --> 00:51:13,640
Speaker 1: better examples of of your your X Men, you know,

874
00:51:13,680 --> 00:51:17,680
Speaker 1: their special power is also to their detriment. It's also

875
00:51:18,040 --> 00:51:21,439
Speaker 1: their great flaw. Uh. So yeah, it's fascinating to think

876
00:51:21,440 --> 00:51:26,040
Speaker 1: about it. But but yeah, this idea of invisibility uh

877
00:51:26,480 --> 00:51:33,240
Speaker 1: or disembodiedness, having the h the effect of greater knowledge

878
00:51:34,080 --> 00:51:38,040
Speaker 1: it's and and being closer to the divine is fascinating

879
00:51:38,040 --> 00:51:40,279
Speaker 1: as well as this idea that it like it represents

880
00:51:40,600 --> 00:51:43,719
Speaker 1: a tendency uh in the human psyche to to like

881
00:51:43,840 --> 00:51:48,279
Speaker 1: lean into these ideas of the unseen world, and uh

882
00:51:48,320 --> 00:51:49,880
Speaker 1: and so yeah, it makes you wonder it's like when

883
00:51:49,960 --> 00:51:53,960
Speaker 1: when children are engaging in imaginary companions and imaginary friends, Like,

884
00:51:54,400 --> 00:51:57,080
Speaker 1: is this sort of like the raw creative energy that

885
00:51:57,239 --> 00:52:01,480
Speaker 1: later on in life is used to foster and generate

886
00:52:02,280 --> 00:52:06,719
Speaker 1: you know, religious ideas and so forth, superstitions and and

887
00:52:07,080 --> 00:52:09,520
Speaker 1: you know, in any of these other examples we mentioned

888
00:52:09,520 --> 00:52:14,560
Speaker 1: earlier that are prevalent in adult life to varying degrees, muses, angels,

889
00:52:14,960 --> 00:52:16,880
Speaker 1: deceased loved ones and so forth.

890
00:52:17,000 --> 00:52:20,760
Speaker 3: Or more mundane things like knowing what your spouse wants

891
00:52:20,760 --> 00:52:23,719
Speaker 3: for their birthday, or know or knowing you know, what

892
00:52:23,760 --> 00:52:26,960
Speaker 3: would make your boss happy, or knowing how to write

893
00:52:27,000 --> 00:52:29,360
Speaker 3: a good character or anything like that.

894
00:52:29,440 --> 00:52:31,799
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean I think there there There are

895
00:52:31,840 --> 00:52:35,759
Speaker 1: also probably some strong connections to you know, the the

896
00:52:35,920 --> 00:52:40,960
Speaker 1: continual rise of AI, the use of chatbots and so forth.

897
00:52:41,280 --> 00:52:44,080
Speaker 1: You know, things that do not have a mind. But

898
00:52:44,280 --> 00:52:47,920
Speaker 1: as we engage with a language model that responds to

899
00:52:48,320 --> 00:52:53,080
Speaker 1: our words, we cannot help but attribute a mind to it.

900
00:52:53,120 --> 00:52:55,400
Speaker 1: We cannot help simulate it, even if we we know

901
00:52:55,520 --> 00:52:58,640
Speaker 1: on other levels that it's based entirely on what we're inputting,

902
00:52:58,719 --> 00:53:00,719
Speaker 1: and and you know, we'll we'll at least have some

903
00:53:00,920 --> 00:53:04,319
Speaker 1: level of understanding this is not a person. But then

904
00:53:04,480 --> 00:53:07,719
Speaker 1: it becomes real to us because we're kind of hardwired

905
00:53:07,760 --> 00:53:08,160
Speaker 1: to do that.

906
00:53:09,040 --> 00:53:11,960
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, this is really not related to our

907
00:53:12,000 --> 00:53:14,319
Speaker 3: topic today, but some something I would like to come

908
00:53:14,320 --> 00:53:16,480
Speaker 3: back and revisit at some point is the question of

909
00:53:16,560 --> 00:53:20,880
Speaker 3: why it is so difficult for me to be rude

910
00:53:21,160 --> 00:53:24,239
Speaker 3: to an AI chat bot, even when I feel my

911
00:53:24,320 --> 00:53:28,320
Speaker 3: primary emotion for it is distrust and even antipathy.

912
00:53:30,080 --> 00:53:32,719
Speaker 1: You know. Got into that topic a little bit in

913
00:53:32,760 --> 00:53:35,719
Speaker 1: November in an interview that I did here and Stuff

914
00:53:35,719 --> 00:53:38,799
Speaker 1: to blil your Mind with Jonathan Birch The Edge of Sentience.

915
00:53:39,680 --> 00:53:41,719
Speaker 1: You know why I asked. I asked him about this

916
00:53:41,920 --> 00:53:43,919
Speaker 1: because this is something they discussed a bit in his book,

917
00:53:43,960 --> 00:53:46,400
Speaker 1: you know, like, what does it mean when I feel

918
00:53:46,520 --> 00:53:49,080
Speaker 1: like I need to be polite to the to the

919
00:53:49,360 --> 00:53:52,200
Speaker 1: to the AI, to the chatbot or whatever or even

920
00:53:52,280 --> 00:53:54,400
Speaker 1: like the you know, the Google Home or whatever you

921
00:53:54,400 --> 00:53:57,040
Speaker 1: happen to be talking to in your home, Like what

922
00:53:57,080 --> 00:54:00,520
Speaker 1: does that mean? And should we be nice to them?

923
00:54:00,560 --> 00:54:04,719
Speaker 1: And I think the general wisdom here is yes, you

924
00:54:04,719 --> 00:54:06,520
Speaker 1: should be you should be nice to them for a

925
00:54:06,560 --> 00:54:09,880
Speaker 1: variety of reasons, if for no other reason, like you

926
00:54:09,920 --> 00:54:11,680
Speaker 1: really need one other thing in your life to be

927
00:54:11,760 --> 00:54:14,840
Speaker 1: kind of like rude to and yell at like No,

928
00:54:15,239 --> 00:54:17,520
Speaker 1: there's probably a better channel for that energy.

929
00:54:17,960 --> 00:54:19,960
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I guess now that I think about it,

930
00:54:20,000 --> 00:54:22,080
Speaker 3: I probably do have an opinion on that, which is

931
00:54:22,120 --> 00:54:25,960
Speaker 3: that I have some implicit knowledge that what we do,

932
00:54:26,000 --> 00:54:29,280
Speaker 3: we tend to do more of. So if you teach

933
00:54:29,360 --> 00:54:31,520
Speaker 3: yourself that it's okay to act some way in a

934
00:54:31,520 --> 00:54:35,240
Speaker 3: certain situation, even though in that situation there's no actual

935
00:54:35,280 --> 00:54:38,840
Speaker 3: harm caused, you are training yourself to behave the same

936
00:54:38,880 --> 00:54:42,120
Speaker 3: way in other similar situations where people would be harmed.

937
00:54:42,680 --> 00:54:46,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like the one interesting difference, but that the more

938
00:54:46,160 --> 00:54:48,160
Speaker 1: that I think about it, the less of a difference

939
00:54:48,160 --> 00:54:49,759
Speaker 1: it is, and the more of a similarity it is.

940
00:54:50,880 --> 00:54:53,319
Speaker 1: If you are rude to your imaginary friend, like your

941
00:54:53,360 --> 00:54:56,320
Speaker 1: imaginary friend has no sentience that is not your own sentience,

942
00:54:56,800 --> 00:55:01,360
Speaker 1: and therefore on one level, you're would be rude to

943
00:55:01,440 --> 00:55:03,239
Speaker 1: no one. But on the other hand, you would be

944
00:55:03,320 --> 00:55:06,080
Speaker 1: rude to yourself. And I guess on some level, like

945
00:55:06,640 --> 00:55:10,799
Speaker 1: rudeness is always like self directed. But when you're looking

946
00:55:10,800 --> 00:55:13,520
Speaker 1: at AI. This is something that Jonathan Burch brought up.

947
00:55:13,560 --> 00:55:18,879
Speaker 1: It's eventually, by many estimates, the AI models that we're

948
00:55:18,880 --> 00:55:22,600
Speaker 1: interacting with will become sentient, and we won't necessarily be

949
00:55:22,719 --> 00:55:25,440
Speaker 1: able to tell when that occurs. So there will be

950
00:55:25,719 --> 00:55:28,320
Speaker 1: if someone is just like one hundred percent rude to

951
00:55:28,840 --> 00:55:32,480
Speaker 1: all AI computer chatbots and so forth, Google homes and

952
00:55:32,520 --> 00:55:35,680
Speaker 1: what have you, and they just stuck to that at

953
00:55:35,680 --> 00:55:40,040
Speaker 1: one point, at some point, possibly they're going to be

954
00:55:40,120 --> 00:55:43,960
Speaker 1: rude to a sentient being that humans have created and

955
00:55:44,200 --> 00:55:46,640
Speaker 1: like and that you know, crosses over into a different

956
00:55:46,760 --> 00:55:49,080
Speaker 1: level of rudeness and meanness and what have you.

957
00:55:49,719 --> 00:55:51,480
Speaker 3: This is a question that's come up before. I don't

958
00:55:51,520 --> 00:55:53,440
Speaker 3: know where I am on that right now. I guess

959
00:55:53,440 --> 00:55:57,040
Speaker 3: I lean more skeptical about the I don't know why.

960
00:55:57,080 --> 00:55:59,279
Speaker 3: It's just an intuition at this point. I'm leaning more

961
00:55:59,320 --> 00:56:02,440
Speaker 3: skeptical the days on AI sentiens. But even if my

962
00:56:02,480 --> 00:56:04,839
Speaker 3: current gut feeling is right about that, I do think

963
00:56:04,880 --> 00:56:07,280
Speaker 3: it is the case that being mean to the machine

964
00:56:07,360 --> 00:56:09,480
Speaker 3: just teaches you to be mean, It helps you be

965
00:56:09,600 --> 00:56:10,560
Speaker 3: mean to people later.

966
00:56:11,080 --> 00:56:13,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, and for me anyway, I think that's the bigger

967
00:56:13,120 --> 00:56:13,600
Speaker 1: take home.

968
00:56:13,680 --> 00:56:16,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, all right, well, I think that does it

969
00:56:16,040 --> 00:56:17,880
Speaker 3: for today's episode, but we got a lot more to

970
00:56:17,880 --> 00:56:19,839
Speaker 3: say about Pretend to Play, so we will be back

971
00:56:19,880 --> 00:56:23,080
Speaker 3: with at least a part three and perhaps more beyond that.

972
00:56:23,080 --> 00:56:26,760
Speaker 1: That's right, so stay tuned and tune in for those episodes.

973
00:56:26,760 --> 00:56:28,920
Speaker 1: And in the meantime, of course, we want to hear

974
00:56:28,960 --> 00:56:34,680
Speaker 1: about your imaginary friends, your personified objects from your life,

975
00:56:34,719 --> 00:56:38,000
Speaker 1: from the life of siblings and children, and so forth.

976
00:56:38,480 --> 00:56:40,400
Speaker 1: Right in with those details, this will be fun to

977
00:56:40,400 --> 00:56:43,680
Speaker 1: get into in a future listener male installment. Just a

978
00:56:43,719 --> 00:56:45,800
Speaker 1: reminder that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a

979
00:56:45,840 --> 00:56:48,840
Speaker 1: science and culture podcasts, with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays,

980
00:56:48,960 --> 00:56:51,759
Speaker 1: short form episode on Wednesdays and on Fridays, we set

981
00:56:51,760 --> 00:56:54,840
Speaker 1: aside most serious concerns to talk about a weird movie

982
00:56:54,880 --> 00:56:56,200
Speaker 1: on Weird House Cinema.

983
00:56:56,440 --> 00:57:00,200
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.

984
00:57:00,480 --> 00:57:01,920
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us

985
00:57:02,000 --> 00:57:04,360
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

986
00:57:04,360 --> 00:57:06,399
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

987
00:57:06,800 --> 00:57:09,359
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow

988
00:57:09,400 --> 00:57:18,080
Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.

989
00:57:18,200 --> 00:57:21,120
Speaker 2: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

990
00:57:21,200 --> 00:57:25,040
Speaker 2: more podcasts, from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts,

991
00:57:25,120 --> 00:57:40,680
Speaker 2: or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows.