Quote

Treating one object as if it were another is a cardinal form of “metarepresentation.” In pretense play other meta representational orders may be encountered as well. One can treat nothing as if it were something: “I will drink the tea out of this cup” even though the cup is in fact empty. One can treat something as if it were nothing: “I will talk about Susie as if she were not here.” Or one can distort a property so it is treated like another property: “I will treat this short hair as if it were long hair and wear it in a pony tail.” Operating in each of these cases of metarepresentation is a recognition that what is apparently the state of affairs can be intentionally bracketed, so as to bring about another state of affairs that the player wants to evoke.

Quote ID: 00878

Author

Howard Gardner

Source

The Unschooled Mind

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