This weekend I went to what I'm sure was the first one-year-old's birthday party since I was about one. I'm still not quite sure what to get for a one-year-old since I showed up late and didn't get to see what anyone else brought. I thought Mrs. Potato Head would be great, but apparently that's a toy more appropriate for two- to five-year-olds, who are better able to grasp the abstractions of anthropomorphizing something we as humans eat. I ended up getting a Mega(TM) blocks set where you can put together 3 blocks and make one of three animals. The cool thing is that you can actually put together blocks of different animals to create bizarre chimeras (they actually encourage you to do this on the packaging!). This must be a feature intended for the more advanced child on the higher end of the age range which was printed on the package and not for the one-year-old.
This naturally leads to the question of when an infant becomes capable of understanding abstractions like chimeras and Mrs. Potato Head. I would bet it happens at least after being potty trained but maybe before you wonder where you (and other babies) are coming from. Of course, when you get potty trained is entirely up to your parents, but I'm guessing they probably train you as soon as possible so as not to have to handle poop. And I think most people can probably figure out how to use a toilet without being able to fully comprehend the complexities of the Mrs. Potato Head toy. So that's why I'm guessing abstract thought comes after potty training. As for the upper limit, it's just sort of an arbitrary guess. For some people, the concern of the creation of other babies maybe be a very real concern affecting the number of toys they have access to, for instance. As opposed to those for whom it's purely a hypothetical question, they may start to wonder about babies before true abstract thought begins since the concern is actually a response to competiition.
I couldn't geto to a computer on Epiphany to share my internal revelations, so here are a few I've been storing up:
- There is a type of driver, and I'll call the type "crazy driver" for lack of a better word. I don't know how I never realized this before, but I'd guess it has something to do with preconceived notions about drivers. I probably restricted myself to thinking of drivers as either good or bad, but there are less subjective chacteristics one can use to discriminate drivers. If you're riding with the crazy driver it pretty much always feels like you're going 20 over the speed limit, even if you're not. For the crazy driver lanes mean nothing and for the most extreme crazy drivers red lights are optional. Getting to the next intersection as fast as possible is imperative. Crazy drivers are often good at driving by their rules, and so they shouldn't necessarily be considered bad drivers. Their actions aren't unpredictable if you understand their way of driving. Bad drivers are primarily bad because of their unpredictableness.
- There is some quality in a person's voice which allows me to tell if they're a large individual, e.g. (yes e.g. not i.e.), fat. I'm not sure if any linguist has ever addressed this issue, but if they haven't they should. Hopefully they'll google "linguistics fat voice" and find this.
- It's impossible to drink out of a flask without feeling . . . sneaky.