Stuff Erika has been saying lately
I posted some of her "pearls" on Facebook and Twitter over the last few months, but here they are in aggregate.
She asked me if she could write her name in one of her books, in a "this book belongs to" section. I said no, because once she's too old for that book, we might like to give it away to someone who has young children. Erika still insisted on writing her name there. However, she doesn't like the way it's spelled. She must have grasped that the most common spelling of her name in English-speaking countries is "Erica", because she said: "When I grow up, I'm going to change the 'k' in my name to a 'c'". And yet, she still wanted to write "Erika" in the book. Her reason? "I'll have a little girl, and her name will be Erika with a 'k'."
Here are other examples of her grappling with language, logic, and idioms:
In response to my use of a phrase "stealthy like a cat", she said: "did you steal a KitKat"?
Then one day she asked me: "Mom, does sticker glue stick to water?" I was puzzled how to answer this question, based as it was on flawed assumptions. So for the sake of simplicity I replied: "Umm, no, nothing sticks to water." She asked: "Because water is too rough?"
I almost felt like I was sinking deeper into a "have you stopped drinking beer for breakfast?" type of scenario. I was faced with a question I couldn't answer because it was based on incorrect premise.
Clearly, she needs to work on the concept of what it means to stick, and how the concept of sticking does not apply to liquids. You can't attach something immovably to the surface of a liquid, because, well, it's liquid. I'd have to think hard how to begin to explain this concept in terms understandable to a child. The notion that sticking can only happen to hard surfaces is one of those building blocks of knowledge we perceive on such an intuitive, visceral level, that it's hard to explain it in words. Luckily, I don't think I have to, because the understanding will come to her by observation, like it comes to all of us.
And yet it's interesting to see that not all such intuitive concepts are formed by the age of 5. (I don't suppose Erika is behind where she should be in her cognitive development, because she is on track in other cognitive aspects.) This reminded me of a public lecture by Doug Lenat, founder of Cycorp, a company whose aim is to create artificial intelligence. In his lecture at Center For Inquiry last year, he said Cycorp was approaching this task by feeding the AI system a huge collection of facts about the world, as well as rules how to derive some facts from others. I wonder if "it's impossible to stick to liquid" rule is somewhere in that collection, or is it derived from more basic ones? And is Cycorp's AI knowledge acquisition somewhat similar to that of a young child?
(Since I posted this on Facebook, one of my FB friends replied that there are chemical compounds that stick to water. I don't remember what they are called now, but googling the name I got an impression that what they really do is turn water into a gel. Which isn't quite the same. At least that's really not what Erika had in mind. :-))
But back to Erika -- here's her latest gem (as of 2 weeks ago). Seeing a "No parking" sign, she said: "You're not allowed to do a P-turn!"
She asked me if she could write her name in one of her books, in a "this book belongs to" section. I said no, because once she's too old for that book, we might like to give it away to someone who has young children. Erika still insisted on writing her name there. However, she doesn't like the way it's spelled. She must have grasped that the most common spelling of her name in English-speaking countries is "Erica", because she said: "When I grow up, I'm going to change the 'k' in my name to a 'c'". And yet, she still wanted to write "Erika" in the book. Her reason? "I'll have a little girl, and her name will be Erika with a 'k'."
Here are other examples of her grappling with language, logic, and idioms:
In response to my use of a phrase "stealthy like a cat", she said: "did you steal a KitKat"?
Then one day she asked me: "Mom, does sticker glue stick to water?" I was puzzled how to answer this question, based as it was on flawed assumptions. So for the sake of simplicity I replied: "Umm, no, nothing sticks to water." She asked: "Because water is too rough?"
I almost felt like I was sinking deeper into a "have you stopped drinking beer for breakfast?" type of scenario. I was faced with a question I couldn't answer because it was based on incorrect premise.
Clearly, she needs to work on the concept of what it means to stick, and how the concept of sticking does not apply to liquids. You can't attach something immovably to the surface of a liquid, because, well, it's liquid. I'd have to think hard how to begin to explain this concept in terms understandable to a child. The notion that sticking can only happen to hard surfaces is one of those building blocks of knowledge we perceive on such an intuitive, visceral level, that it's hard to explain it in words. Luckily, I don't think I have to, because the understanding will come to her by observation, like it comes to all of us.
And yet it's interesting to see that not all such intuitive concepts are formed by the age of 5. (I don't suppose Erika is behind where she should be in her cognitive development, because she is on track in other cognitive aspects.) This reminded me of a public lecture by Doug Lenat, founder of Cycorp, a company whose aim is to create artificial intelligence. In his lecture at Center For Inquiry last year, he said Cycorp was approaching this task by feeding the AI system a huge collection of facts about the world, as well as rules how to derive some facts from others. I wonder if "it's impossible to stick to liquid" rule is somewhere in that collection, or is it derived from more basic ones? And is Cycorp's AI knowledge acquisition somewhat similar to that of a young child?
(Since I posted this on Facebook, one of my FB friends replied that there are chemical compounds that stick to water. I don't remember what they are called now, but googling the name I got an impression that what they really do is turn water into a gel. Which isn't quite the same. At least that's really not what Erika had in mind. :-))
But back to Erika -- here's her latest gem (as of 2 weeks ago). Seeing a "No parking" sign, she said: "You're not allowed to do a P-turn!"