WEBVTT - From the Vault: Pretend Play, Part 1 0:00:06.160 --> 0:00:08.400 Hey you Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My 0:00:08.520 --> 0:00:11.800 name is Robert Lamb. Today is Saturday, so we have 0:00:11.840 --> 0:00:14.560 a vault episode for you. This one originally published one seven, 0:00:14.600 --> 0:00:18.000 twenty twenty five. It is Pretend Play, Part one, the 0:00:18.040 --> 0:00:20.880 first in a multi part series about the importance of 0:00:20.960 --> 0:00:26.439 pretend play for human beings. 0:00:26.520 --> 0:00:30.280 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:35.960 --> 0:00:37.800 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:37.880 --> 0:00:40.880 My name is Robert Lamb and I am Joe McCormick. 0:00:41.000 --> 0:00:43.880 And today we're going to begin a series of episodes 0:00:43.920 --> 0:00:48.520 looking at the topic of pretend play. And yes, folks, 0:00:48.560 --> 0:00:51.000 this is one of my Baby Looked at You topics, 0:00:51.159 --> 0:00:55.440 inspired directly by watching my currently two year old daughter's 0:00:55.840 --> 0:01:01.200 wonderful and frightening brain become ever more powerful by day. Lately, 0:01:01.240 --> 0:01:06.440 she has been all about pretending. Sometimes it is pretending 0:01:06.480 --> 0:01:08.880 to be things. Robert, I can't remember if I told 0:01:08.920 --> 0:01:11.199 you about the Christmas Elf. Do you know the Christmas elth? 0:01:11.600 --> 0:01:15.640 Do I know the Christmas Self? Well, there are many elves. 0:01:15.800 --> 0:01:17.640 This is different than the one on the shelf. This 0:01:17.720 --> 0:01:20.600 is the So my daughter pretends to be this thing 0:01:20.680 --> 0:01:24.720 called the Christmas Elf, which mostly just like makes a 0:01:24.760 --> 0:01:28.679 grotesque kind of gargoyle face and dances wildly to Black Sabbath. 0:01:28.760 --> 0:01:29.880 That's what Christmas elth is. 0:01:29.880 --> 0:01:33.880 Okay, well you're bringing her up right then. That seems 0:01:33.920 --> 0:01:36.520 that seems more in keeping with some of the more 0:01:36.640 --> 0:01:39.920 archaic forms of ELF that we've discussed on the show. 0:01:40.440 --> 0:01:42.560 Yeah. I don't know, knowing me, that may sound like 0:01:42.600 --> 0:01:45.640 a trained behavior, but this is just what naturally emerged 0:01:45.680 --> 0:01:47.160 from her. I don't know where she got that. That's 0:01:47.160 --> 0:01:49.560 what Christmas elf is. She's like data put on Black 0:01:49.600 --> 0:01:55.320 Sabbath record, but it runs around dance into that. And 0:01:55.360 --> 0:01:58.560 then one of the good pretending to be things the 0:01:58.600 --> 0:02:03.160 other day was she was she's been playing with some 0:02:03.360 --> 0:02:07.160 little doggies that she got for Christmas doggy toys, and 0:02:07.960 --> 0:02:10.440 one of them is a begle. So you know, she 0:02:10.600 --> 0:02:12.600 likes talking about the beagle and hearing about the beagle. 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:16.320 But she was talking to Rachel the other day and 0:02:16.400 --> 0:02:18.760 she I think she was saying woof, woof, and Rachel said, oh, 0:02:18.960 --> 0:02:21.680 are you a beagle right now? And she said no. 0:02:22.320 --> 0:02:27.200 Tater Tot got very still. I don't know what exactly 0:02:27.200 --> 0:02:29.640 are the properties one mimics when being a tater Tot 0:02:29.720 --> 0:02:33.320 that I can't fully inhabit that mindset, but I admire 0:02:33.320 --> 0:02:33.840 the ambition. 0:02:34.200 --> 0:02:38.160 Well, I guess it is of the various fried and 0:02:38.360 --> 0:02:41.400 or baked potato food products. So it's the tater tots 0:02:41.400 --> 0:02:46.800 are the most canine of the bunch, so sure, yeah. 0:02:45.680 --> 0:02:47.560 But a lot of it is. So there's a little 0:02:47.560 --> 0:02:49.480 bit of pretending to be things, but a lot more 0:02:49.520 --> 0:02:51.800 of it is what when we get into the research 0:02:51.880 --> 0:02:56.400 later in this episode, is what is sometimes called replica play. 0:02:56.480 --> 0:02:59.920 It is pretending with the aid of toys or props, 0:03:00.080 --> 0:03:04.040 little agent toys, and making them pretend to do things. 0:03:04.760 --> 0:03:07.280 So she's got a bunch of dinosaurs, and she loves 0:03:07.320 --> 0:03:10.560 to make her dinosaurs go night night and then rapidly 0:03:10.600 --> 0:03:12.920 wake up and then go night night again, over and 0:03:12.960 --> 0:03:17.120 over in like a mind rendingly fast circadian rhythm. She 0:03:17.320 --> 0:03:20.200 loves to have our little dinosaurs and creatures eat pizza. 0:03:20.320 --> 0:03:23.239 And there's a lot of discussion of to what extent 0:03:23.280 --> 0:03:25.640 they're sharing the pizza or not, or to what extent 0:03:25.639 --> 0:03:30.040 they're keeping pieces of pizza to themselves. Sometimes they're eating 0:03:30.080 --> 0:03:33.000 things that you can see there's like a physical prop 0:03:33.040 --> 0:03:35.720 for the food. Sometimes they're just eating purely imaginary thing 0:03:35.720 --> 0:03:39.040 so there's cake there that's invisible cake. And then the 0:03:39.080 --> 0:03:42.440 past few days she's been into going on a boat 0:03:42.480 --> 0:03:45.000 on the couch, which is a book on the couch cushion. 0:03:45.040 --> 0:03:47.400 The couch cushion is the water and the book is 0:03:47.400 --> 0:03:49.480 the boat. She puts various things on the boat, and 0:03:49.480 --> 0:03:51.320 they get on and off the boat and see things 0:03:51.360 --> 0:03:54.640 out on the water, and typically they're on a boat 0:03:54.640 --> 0:03:55.960 trip to grandparents' house. 0:03:57.960 --> 0:04:01.280 Wow. Yeah, it's a magical time. My own child is 0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:06.000 twelve going on thirteen now, so a lot of these, 0:04:06.280 --> 0:04:10.160 you know, really awesome examples of imagination player are in 0:04:10.200 --> 0:04:13.840 the past now, but my wife and I certainly look 0:04:13.920 --> 0:04:15.800 back on them with a lot of funness, and some 0:04:15.840 --> 0:04:18.920 of them are still things we frequently discussed in our 0:04:19.000 --> 0:04:22.479 you know, day to day conversations, even a reference rather. 0:04:23.560 --> 0:04:27.960 But yeah, I remember I remember various antics with these, 0:04:28.040 --> 0:04:31.720 like old plastic dinosaur toys from my childhood, and so 0:04:31.960 --> 0:04:35.200 those would eat those dinosaurs were always eating things. I 0:04:35.240 --> 0:04:37.159 can't remember how much of it was real, how much 0:04:37.560 --> 0:04:40.240 of it was imagined. And they wouldn't so much go 0:04:40.400 --> 0:04:43.360 to sleep as they would occasionally go extinct. There was 0:04:43.640 --> 0:04:47.320 some sort of a cosmic event that would make them 0:04:47.320 --> 0:04:49.400 all go extinct, but you know then they'd be back 0:04:49.440 --> 0:04:50.719 up and running before too long. 0:04:51.040 --> 0:04:55.240 That's intense pretend. Yeah, yeah, facing the realities of nature 0:04:55.279 --> 0:04:55.680 head on. 0:04:56.160 --> 0:04:58.080 Well, you know, you tell the story of the dinosaurs, 0:04:58.080 --> 0:05:00.640 you got to tell the beginning on the end. 0:05:01.000 --> 0:05:03.479 Yeah, look, ma, these are evolving into birds. 0:05:03.600 --> 0:05:08.920 Yeah, that's right. Well, we did touch on that aspect 0:05:08.960 --> 0:05:12.080 of it too, but we also inevitably or I inevitably 0:05:12.400 --> 0:05:14.599 ended up sort of busting out these sort of childhood 0:05:14.680 --> 0:05:16.839 version of dinosaurs that I had growing up, which was 0:05:17.200 --> 0:05:20.719 less about the bird thing and more about just catastrophic 0:05:20.800 --> 0:05:23.720 fireballs and so forth and exploding volcanoes. I think we've 0:05:24.200 --> 0:05:26.719 referenced before that, like almost all of those old paleo 0:05:26.839 --> 0:05:30.520 art paleo art examples from childhood dinosaur books of like 0:05:30.560 --> 0:05:34.360 the late seventies and the nineteen eighties, they all had 0:05:34.600 --> 0:05:36.520 an erupting volcano in the background. 0:05:36.560 --> 0:05:39.360 So it's actively erupting at the moment. 0:05:39.640 --> 0:05:41.479 And it was kind of implied or I always thought like, 0:05:41.640 --> 0:05:45.280 that's the end back there, it's what's happening. It's end 0:05:45.279 --> 0:05:46.640 of days for the dinosaurs. 0:05:46.960 --> 0:05:49.200 I think it's important to get both visions. Yeah, you know, 0:05:49.240 --> 0:05:52.359 you get the long scale evolutionary EON's point of view, 0:05:52.400 --> 0:05:55.600 and then you also get the scary part of fantage 0:05:55.680 --> 0:05:55.880 of you. 0:05:56.320 --> 0:06:01.000 Yeah. Well, I'm excited about these episodes though, getting into 0:06:01.120 --> 0:06:04.320 imagination play. It's a topic that you know, I think 0:06:04.320 --> 0:06:07.200 we've touched on before on the show, at least in passing. 0:06:07.200 --> 0:06:10.080 There may be some very old episodes that deal with 0:06:10.200 --> 0:06:11.839 some of the issues we're going to bring up here, 0:06:11.839 --> 0:06:13.840 but it's it's going to be nice to really dive 0:06:13.839 --> 0:06:14.359 into all of this. 0:06:14.440 --> 0:06:16.800 A new Yeah, And I'm not sure yet how many 0:06:16.800 --> 0:06:18.440 episodes we're going to go to in this series. We're 0:06:18.480 --> 0:06:21.640 looking at least two, but maybe three or more if 0:06:21.800 --> 0:06:24.120 the topic takes us there. But clearly this is a 0:06:24.240 --> 0:06:28.040 rich subject. There's a lot of scientific research in this area, 0:06:28.120 --> 0:06:30.800 but also just a lot of you know, interesting philosophical 0:06:30.839 --> 0:06:33.880 thought going back centuries. So there's going to be a 0:06:33.880 --> 0:06:36.359 lot to get into. But I thought a good place 0:06:36.440 --> 0:06:40.440 to start would just be a good broad sort of 0:06:40.960 --> 0:06:45.120 overview paper looking at the subject from a psychology, cognitive science, 0:06:45.160 --> 0:06:48.320 and child development point of view. And I found a 0:06:48.360 --> 0:06:52.600 good paper in that regard by Dina Skolnik Weisberg published 0:06:52.600 --> 0:06:57.360 in the journal Cognitive Science in twenty fifteen called pretend play, 0:06:57.560 --> 0:06:59.400 and so Rob, if you're ready, I thought we should 0:06:59.400 --> 0:07:01.159 just go ahead and I've write into this paper and 0:07:01.200 --> 0:07:03.120 talk about some of the topics brought up in it, 0:07:03.839 --> 0:07:06.000 some of the research covered, and then we can branch 0:07:06.040 --> 0:07:06.599 out from there. 0:07:06.880 --> 0:07:07.800 All right, let's do it. 0:07:08.279 --> 0:07:12.480 So we start with definitions. Weisberg defines pretend play as 0:07:12.520 --> 0:07:17.600 any playful behavior that involves non literal action, so to paraphrase, 0:07:17.960 --> 0:07:20.560 play that operates on the premise of a thing or 0:07:20.640 --> 0:07:25.280 situation being other than what it literally is. So there 0:07:25.280 --> 0:07:28.480 are types of play that are not pretend to play. 0:07:28.560 --> 0:07:30.640 You can think of a game of tag or a 0:07:30.680 --> 0:07:34.080 game of kickball. This is clearly play, but it's not 0:07:34.160 --> 0:07:36.680 really pretend play because what you I mean. You could 0:07:36.720 --> 0:07:40.880 imagine versions that involve pretend elements, But at the baseline, 0:07:41.000 --> 0:07:43.320 this is a game that is taken literally. What the 0:07:43.400 --> 0:07:47.320 children mostly think they're doing is playing the literal game. 0:07:47.960 --> 0:07:50.040 Yeah yeah, like a game of kickball is just a 0:07:50.080 --> 0:07:53.680 game of kickball unless you do what I do distinctly 0:07:53.680 --> 0:07:57.760 remember doing when I was a kid, is pretending that 0:07:57.880 --> 0:08:01.320 kickball with some sort of like sci fi gladiatorial combats 0:08:01.320 --> 0:08:04.320 and areo you know, and I think kids are probably 0:08:04.360 --> 0:08:06.559 doing some more things today, like imagining it's squid games, 0:08:06.600 --> 0:08:09.840 and so I guess it depends on the age, but 0:08:10.080 --> 0:08:12.880 you know, dreaming it up a little bit, adding that 0:08:13.000 --> 0:08:15.400 layer of imagination on top of it. 0:08:15.680 --> 0:08:20.160 I recall specifically doing this with tag because I enjoyed 0:08:20.200 --> 0:08:22.160 playing tag a lot, and my friends and I in 0:08:22.200 --> 0:08:25.760 elementary school age played tag. But I remember I would 0:08:25.800 --> 0:08:28.880 spice it up mentally, sometimes with the cooperation of others, 0:08:28.960 --> 0:08:32.679 or maybe just in my own mind, by imagining myself 0:08:32.800 --> 0:08:36.800 and other players as characters from movies I liked in 0:08:36.920 --> 0:08:40.040 the context of tag. So like, I just saw the 0:08:40.080 --> 0:08:44.480 movie Anaconda starring Ice Cube and jenn Phi Lopez, you know, 0:08:44.880 --> 0:08:48.160 and and I am now pretending to be this character 0:08:48.280 --> 0:08:50.680 from Anaconda as we play tag. You know, I was 0:08:50.679 --> 0:08:53.640 probably that was probably too mature of a movie for 0:08:53.720 --> 0:08:54.400 me at that point. 0:08:54.440 --> 0:08:57.719 But we need to come back to Anaconda on a 0:08:57.920 --> 0:08:58.760 weirdest cinema. 0:08:58.800 --> 0:09:01.000 By the way, it's it's so good one of the 0:09:01.000 --> 0:09:06.200 most unhinged performances of all time John Voyd in that movie. 0:09:07.679 --> 0:09:09.559 All right, Right, so I think everybody gets where we're 0:09:09.559 --> 0:09:11.920 going with this. Yeah, it's like there's like basically like 0:09:12.000 --> 0:09:16.319 pure sport is not imaginative. 0:09:16.280 --> 0:09:18.080 And then there are other kinds of play that once 0:09:18.120 --> 0:09:21.480 again could break down either way. So building with blocks 0:09:21.840 --> 0:09:24.560 could be pretend to play depending on how you're playing, 0:09:24.880 --> 0:09:27.960 but it isn't necessarily you might just be building with blocks. 0:09:28.400 --> 0:09:31.280 And so sometimes when I build with blocks with my daughter, 0:09:31.360 --> 0:09:34.080 I the impression I get is that it's just about 0:09:34.080 --> 0:09:36.120 building with blocks. You know, she wants to build a 0:09:36.120 --> 0:09:39.520 big tower, make a bunch of blocks. But if you 0:09:39.640 --> 0:09:42.600 think about it as we are building a skyscraper and 0:09:42.640 --> 0:09:44.840 there are going to be people living inside it and 0:09:44.880 --> 0:09:46.840 so forth, then I guess it is pretend play. 0:09:47.480 --> 0:09:50.720 Yeah, like you get into some of the bigger kid 0:09:50.840 --> 0:09:54.120 uses of Legos. For example, I remember doing this, and 0:09:54.160 --> 0:09:57.240 I've seen my child do this as well, where you 0:09:57.400 --> 0:10:01.200 are really almost creating an imaginative fetish idea out of 0:10:01.280 --> 0:10:03.760 the out of the blocks, you know, be it's some 0:10:03.800 --> 0:10:06.720 sort of a character or a creature or you know, 0:10:06.760 --> 0:10:08.320 in my case it was often some sort of a 0:10:08.440 --> 0:10:12.800 robot or a mech suit, you know, whatever the case 0:10:12.840 --> 0:10:16.960 may be. And it is about connecting blocks together and 0:10:17.000 --> 0:10:19.720 building something, making a form. But then you were like 0:10:20.160 --> 0:10:23.200 filling that form with more meaning via your imagination. 0:10:23.720 --> 0:10:26.880 Yeah, exactly. But okay, so here's where like clear pretend 0:10:26.920 --> 0:10:30.480 play comes in. When my child picks up an old 0:10:30.679 --> 0:10:33.600 DVD player remote control that we took the batteries out 0:10:33.640 --> 0:10:36.720 of and holds it up to her ear and says 0:10:36.760 --> 0:10:40.000 that she is calling her grandmother on the phone, that's 0:10:40.080 --> 0:10:44.400 definitely pretend play. At some level, she knows the remote 0:10:44.559 --> 0:10:47.640 is not a phone, and you know, Nana does not 0:10:47.840 --> 0:10:50.760 talk back to her, but she likes to pretend and 0:10:50.840 --> 0:10:52.000 thinks it's very funny. 0:10:53.280 --> 0:10:55.839 Yes. Yes, my child also did a lot of phone 0:10:55.840 --> 0:11:00.400 pretend play as well, picking up various items, remote controls, 0:11:00.480 --> 0:11:02.000 what have you, pretending their phones. 0:11:02.280 --> 0:11:04.320 So that's a pretty clear case. Coming back to more 0:11:04.360 --> 0:11:07.360 ambiguous cases. One that I think is huge is like 0:11:07.520 --> 0:11:10.800 play fighting. Play fighting could be non pretend to play. 0:11:10.840 --> 0:11:13.040 It could be understood as just literally a form of 0:11:13.120 --> 0:11:17.360 kind of free form wrestling competition between children or kids 0:11:17.400 --> 0:11:20.760 engaging in play fighting might be assuming the non literal 0:11:20.800 --> 0:11:22.880 form of characters and a scenario. 0:11:23.960 --> 0:11:28.520 Yeah, my mind here instantly goes to lightsaber fighting because 0:11:29.640 --> 0:11:33.280 my own child did a lot of this and it 0:11:33.320 --> 0:11:36.000 took different forms, right, Because if you're going to pretend 0:11:36.040 --> 0:11:40.479 to fight with lightsabers. You can have a full official 0:11:40.720 --> 0:11:44.199 lightsaber toy with an extendable plastic cone that serves as 0:11:44.240 --> 0:11:48.400 the blade of the lightsaber or laser sort if you will. 0:11:50.400 --> 0:11:53.120 But then then you can have just a pre made 0:11:53.200 --> 0:11:58.280 hilt that you're pretending there is a light blade emanating from. 0:11:58.920 --> 0:12:02.160 You can do what my child did and take foil 0:12:02.960 --> 0:12:06.280 like roll of foil roll of saran wrap tubes, little 0:12:06.320 --> 0:12:10.080 cardboard tubes, dress those up as lightsaber hilts, and then 0:12:10.120 --> 0:12:12.600 you're fighting with those, pretending again that the blade is there. 0:12:12.920 --> 0:12:14.599 Or you can do what I think a lot of 0:12:14.720 --> 0:12:17.839 kids do, is you just pretend the hilt is there 0:12:17.880 --> 0:12:20.800 as well, So like I can draw a lightsaber right 0:12:20.840 --> 0:12:24.400 now and just go and you know, you know exactly 0:12:24.480 --> 0:12:26.880 what I have in my hand, and you can engage 0:12:26.880 --> 0:12:29.920 in battles. And so they are like different levels of 0:12:29.960 --> 0:12:33.920 having any kind of like actual physical property there to 0:12:34.000 --> 0:12:34.559 play off of. 0:12:35.160 --> 0:12:36.960 Yeah, that's right. So you can imagine there's sort of 0:12:37.040 --> 0:12:41.320 different levels of extension of the imagination depending on what 0:12:41.400 --> 0:12:45.800 physical props you're using or how far away the situation 0:12:45.960 --> 0:12:49.760 or scenario or object you're imagining is from the physical reality. 0:12:50.240 --> 0:12:53.440 So you know, there's a sort of greater imaginative leap 0:12:53.600 --> 0:12:57.439 involved in taking a paper towel tube and saying that's 0:12:57.440 --> 0:13:01.520 a lightsaber than holding like a toy painted up to 0:13:01.640 --> 0:13:04.120 look like a real lightsaber and saying that's a real lightsaber. 0:13:04.160 --> 0:13:07.400 Both involve some imagination, but one kind of is a 0:13:07.400 --> 0:13:09.720 bigger leap. And then it's even a bigger leap to 0:13:09.840 --> 0:13:12.920 take nothing at all, just you know, you're completely imagining 0:13:12.960 --> 0:13:16.720 the presence of a prop in any case, and say 0:13:16.720 --> 0:13:17.679 that's the lightsaber. 0:13:17.920 --> 0:13:20.439 And then is it me with the lightsaber to your point? 0:13:20.559 --> 0:13:22.800 Or am i obi wan? Am i anakin? 0:13:23.200 --> 0:13:23.520 Yeah? 0:13:23.559 --> 0:13:25.720 And so forth. So, yeah, there's so many different levels 0:13:25.800 --> 0:13:27.840 of the imagination to employ here. 0:13:37.520 --> 0:13:41.120 So the purpose of this review by Weisberg was to 0:13:41.200 --> 0:13:44.520 define pretend play, to differentiate it from other types of 0:13:44.520 --> 0:13:46.920 playful activities, and then to kind of look at ways 0:13:46.960 --> 0:13:50.920 that pretend to play fits into the development of various 0:13:51.000 --> 0:13:55.760 cognitive and social skills in childhood. And since pretend play 0:13:56.000 --> 0:13:58.520 seems to involve many of the same mental structures as 0:13:58.640 --> 0:14:03.520 complex adult capacity is like counterfactual reasoning, theory of mind, 0:14:04.240 --> 0:14:08.079 symbolic understanding, and so forth, looking at pretend to play 0:14:08.120 --> 0:14:10.880 really could help us better understand many aspects of the 0:14:10.880 --> 0:14:15.160 brain and the mind. So this review in particular looks 0:14:15.160 --> 0:14:19.320 at the relationship between pretend play and symbolic understanding, theory 0:14:19.360 --> 0:14:22.600 of mind, and counterfactual reasoning. I think we might save 0:14:22.680 --> 0:14:25.480 at least one of those. I think the deeper exploration 0:14:25.560 --> 0:14:27.880 of theory of mind for part two, because that gets 0:14:27.880 --> 0:14:29.840 into a lot of other stuff. But I'm going to 0:14:29.880 --> 0:14:33.280 try to talk about symbolic understanding and counterfactual reasoning today. 0:14:33.880 --> 0:14:36.600 But the author kicks things off by trying to define 0:14:36.600 --> 0:14:40.640 and characterize pretend to play itself. Now, even going back 0:14:40.680 --> 0:14:44.760 a step, not just pretend to play, but play as 0:14:44.800 --> 0:14:48.960 a concept has proven notoriously difficult for researchers. There's like 0:14:49.000 --> 0:14:53.640 a whole literature arguing over what play is, What definition 0:14:53.840 --> 0:14:56.640 best captures the essence of play? What do we mean 0:14:56.680 --> 0:15:00.640 when we call something play? Which types of edgec count 0:15:00.720 --> 0:15:04.640 and which do not. So play is just extremely variable 0:15:04.680 --> 0:15:08.920 from child to child, across different cultures. Different people look 0:15:08.920 --> 0:15:11.080 at the same activity and say that is play. No, 0:15:11.200 --> 0:15:13.800 that's not play. So there's really no way to draw 0:15:13.840 --> 0:15:17.400 a clean boundary around this concept that everybody's going to accept. 0:15:17.440 --> 0:15:20.360 You will just have to sit with the fact that 0:15:20.400 --> 0:15:22.200 some people are going to say, no, I don't agree 0:15:22.200 --> 0:15:23.240 that that's what play is. 0:15:23.720 --> 0:15:26.280 Right, And this is going to kind of continue through 0:15:26.320 --> 0:15:30.160 our whole analysis of pretend play, because there's going to 0:15:30.200 --> 0:15:31.800 be a lot of going back and forth. But will 0:15:31.880 --> 0:15:34.520 some researchers say this classifies as such and such and 0:15:34.560 --> 0:15:37.960 others disagree. Yeah, it just depends how you tease it apart. 0:15:38.560 --> 0:15:40.760 Yes, that's certainly the case. I mean, we are in 0:15:40.800 --> 0:15:43.720 the higher order sciences. We're more in the realm of 0:15:43.760 --> 0:15:46.360 psychology and cognitive science and a lot of things. They're 0:15:46.400 --> 0:15:49.040 just not as clean as they are in chemistry. Now, 0:15:49.120 --> 0:15:52.360 one of the main criteria that seems to be common 0:15:52.440 --> 0:15:56.400 to definitions of play is that it is what Weisberg 0:15:56.560 --> 0:16:02.520 calls non instrumental activity. It has no immediate goal or 0:16:02.560 --> 0:16:08.320 purpose other than enjoyment. So you might actually enjoy something 0:16:08.400 --> 0:16:12.360 that is not play. Maybe you enjoy splitting logs into firewood. 0:16:12.760 --> 0:16:16.040 But even if you do, most people would not think 0:16:16.080 --> 0:16:19.920 of splitting wood as play because it has an immediate 0:16:20.040 --> 0:16:25.360 functional goal. It's about transforming resources into a more usable form. 0:16:25.760 --> 0:16:27.880 So even if I don't know you bring a spirit 0:16:27.920 --> 0:16:30.600 of playfulness to your log splitting and you really enjoy 0:16:30.680 --> 0:16:33.480 the activity. Most people don't look at that and say 0:16:33.480 --> 0:16:34.160 that is play. 0:16:35.080 --> 0:16:38.640 This is really interesting to think about this distinction, because 0:16:39.200 --> 0:16:41.440 you know, I catch myself as what I like to 0:16:41.480 --> 0:16:45.360 think is a pretty pro play adult, rationalizing that some 0:16:45.480 --> 0:16:49.320 of my hobbies like many painting, for instance, rationalizing it 0:16:49.360 --> 0:16:51.680 on the basis that while this is going to result 0:16:51.760 --> 0:16:55.920 in something that can be utilized in another activity, generally 0:16:55.920 --> 0:16:59.680 a social activity, and therefore it's not like there's not 0:16:59.760 --> 0:17:02.320 this huge sunk cost to it. You know, it's not 0:17:02.400 --> 0:17:05.359 a big waste of time, which you know, there's a 0:17:05.359 --> 0:17:07.720 lot of false thinking and all of that, I think. 0:17:08.200 --> 0:17:11.240 And likewise, yeah, you know, I've often thought about, or 0:17:11.280 --> 0:17:13.080 at least I've thought about this more over the last 0:17:13.640 --> 0:17:16.320 ten years or so, about how, you know, especially in 0:17:16.400 --> 0:17:19.480 a very capitalist society, I think a lot of us 0:17:19.560 --> 0:17:22.960 end up buying into this corrupting notion that if we're 0:17:23.000 --> 0:17:24.879 good at something, if we or even if we just 0:17:25.000 --> 0:17:28.040 enjoy something, if it brings us pleasure, well, then shouldn't 0:17:28.040 --> 0:17:31.119 we be generating some profits off of our love or 0:17:31.200 --> 0:17:34.560 our talent or what have you? You know, And I should 0:17:34.600 --> 0:17:36.320 add the caveat you know, and there's nothing, absolutely nothing 0:17:36.320 --> 0:17:38.880 wrong with turning your passion, your hobby, your talent into 0:17:38.920 --> 0:17:42.040 a career or a side hustle making a few bucks 0:17:42.040 --> 0:17:43.760 off of it here and there, even if you're just 0:17:43.840 --> 0:17:46.400 sort of paying for part of that hobby. Certainly, yeah, 0:17:46.880 --> 0:17:50.280 go wild. But we should also feel free to play 0:17:50.680 --> 0:17:53.520 without having to deal with this inner voice saying, well, 0:17:53.680 --> 0:17:56.960 you're not good enough at it unless you can somehow 0:17:57.040 --> 0:18:01.280 transition that fun over into a profit. You know that 0:18:01.280 --> 0:18:05.600 that any time spent having fun, anytime spent playing, is 0:18:05.680 --> 0:18:08.879 like just wasted time. You know, it's okay to engage 0:18:08.880 --> 0:18:11.960 in passions that pay only in fun, you know, or 0:18:12.000 --> 0:18:15.920 maybe socialization. And this is a huge one for me too, 0:18:16.000 --> 0:18:20.440 that I distinctly remember somebody sharing this with me several 0:18:20.520 --> 0:18:23.399 years back, that you know, it's okay not to be 0:18:23.440 --> 0:18:25.960 perfect at your passions and hobbies. You know, I think 0:18:26.000 --> 0:18:28.720 a lot of times, like without even thinking about, without 0:18:28.720 --> 0:18:31.919 even rationalizing that like out loud in our or or 0:18:32.040 --> 0:18:34.479 you know, at a higher level of consciousness, you know, 0:18:34.840 --> 0:18:36.960 we still sort of buy into this idea that it's like, well, 0:18:37.160 --> 0:18:39.800 I'm a grown up. If I'm doing if I'm engaging 0:18:39.800 --> 0:18:42.280 in play, well then can I turn this into a business. 0:18:42.400 --> 0:18:45.200 Can I make it? You know, can I somehow rationalize 0:18:45.200 --> 0:18:49.040 it through the almighty dollar so that that ends up 0:18:49.080 --> 0:18:52.360 being how far removed we are as often are as 0:18:52.400 --> 0:18:55.600 adults from like the pure childhood essence of play. 0:18:56.600 --> 0:18:59.600 Yeah, I fully agree with all that. In fact, you know, 0:19:00.080 --> 0:19:02.600 people you may have heard some version of this advice before, 0:19:02.640 --> 0:19:06.760 but I would go against the grain with people who say, 0:19:06.800 --> 0:19:08.560 you know, find a way to get paid for doing 0:19:08.600 --> 0:19:12.119 what you love, or you know, it's like, take your 0:19:12.160 --> 0:19:15.840 passion and turn that into a job, because that may 0:19:16.040 --> 0:19:18.120 mean that every day you get to do what you love, 0:19:18.240 --> 0:19:20.679 or it may mean that what is something that you 0:19:20.840 --> 0:19:23.040 used to love just gets turned into a chore. 0:19:23.560 --> 0:19:26.640 Yeah. Yeah, And you know, certainly you hear stories about 0:19:26.640 --> 0:19:31.960 people who seem perfectly content with turning their passion into 0:19:32.000 --> 0:19:34.560 their job. But you also hear plenty of stories about 0:19:34.560 --> 0:19:37.199 people who have the reverse situation, or the thing they 0:19:37.240 --> 0:19:40.280 used to love has now become the thing they have 0:19:40.320 --> 0:19:41.120 to do every day. 0:19:41.240 --> 0:19:43.560 So yeah, I guess nobody can figure it out for 0:19:43.640 --> 0:19:45.880 you whether that's going to be true in your case 0:19:45.960 --> 0:19:48.840 or not, So you'll just have to experiment, but be 0:19:48.920 --> 0:19:50.680 aware that that does happen. 0:19:50.680 --> 0:19:53.040 But this is not a problem that the children have. 0:19:54.760 --> 0:19:57.600 Correct though, I do want to stress while we're here 0:19:57.760 --> 0:20:01.240 that though we most often associate play with childhood, I 0:20:01.280 --> 0:20:03.120 think I've said on the show before that I think 0:20:03.240 --> 0:20:06.240 play is the work of childhood. When children are playing, 0:20:06.280 --> 0:20:10.640 they're doing their job. It does extend through the entire lifespan. 0:20:10.720 --> 0:20:12.960 I mean, it's clear that even adults going all throughout 0:20:13.000 --> 0:20:16.600 the lifetime engage in different types of play. There are games, 0:20:16.680 --> 0:20:21.199 there's word play, construction play, role playing of various kinds. 0:20:21.920 --> 0:20:24.520 So you know it doesn't stop after childhood. But clearly 0:20:24.640 --> 0:20:29.760 childhood is the most intensive period of play in life. Now, 0:20:29.880 --> 0:20:34.439 pretend play specifically has an extended definition that takes it 0:20:34.480 --> 0:20:40.120 beyond just play generally, and Weisberg summarizes it as follows quote, 0:20:40.359 --> 0:20:45.920 pretend play crucially involves some form of representation or acting 0:20:46.080 --> 0:20:49.560 as if such that the behaviors or actions that take 0:20:49.600 --> 0:20:53.160 place in a pretend game are not meant to literally 0:20:53.320 --> 0:20:57.359 reflect reality. So there is some extent to which what 0:20:57.480 --> 0:21:00.919 happens in pretend play is under good by the people 0:21:00.960 --> 0:21:05.399 playing to not be literally real. Now, there are a 0:21:05.440 --> 0:21:09.200 lot of different types of pretend play, and I got 0:21:09.200 --> 0:21:12.679 interested in the taxonomy of these play These almost like 0:21:13.800 --> 0:21:18.840 family trees of play type. And one that is very 0:21:18.880 --> 0:21:24.439 familiar to most people is object substitution pretense. This is 0:21:24.520 --> 0:21:28.359 treating one object as if it were another. So we 0:21:28.400 --> 0:21:31.280 already mentioned the remote control is a telephone. It can't 0:21:31.320 --> 0:21:33.680 actually place calls, but you hold it up to your head, 0:21:33.720 --> 0:21:35.919 you say hello, you say ring, ring, you pretend to 0:21:35.960 --> 0:21:37.640 call your grandmother, whatever. 0:21:38.560 --> 0:21:40.440 Another one that I have to mention is, of course 0:21:40.480 --> 0:21:44.280 stick is a gun. This one I remember encountering this 0:21:44.320 --> 0:21:47.879 one a lot on the playground. Generally there you'd have 0:21:47.920 --> 0:21:51.520