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Kid Wisdom

By Peter Lloyd

The little girl looked down at the earth through her window in the airplane. It was her first time flying, and she was confused. Turning to the woman in the seat next to her, she asked, “When do we get small?”

This story was presented as true, not as a joke, on “Kid Logic,” an installment of the NPR radio program This American Life.

After sharing several similar stories, host Ira Glass points out that the conclusions the children draw make perfect, logical senses based on each child’s expectations. From the little girl’s experience, planes, and therefore the people in them, get smaller as they fly up and away.

In the same program, an interviewer asks several children to explain what they think the tooth fairy does with all the teeth she collects. One child suggests that she gives them to old people who lose their teeth. Another imagines that she uses them to build her castle.

When asked why the tooth fairy choses not to build with bricks, the child explains, “Because nobody has brick teeth.”

Of course! Perfectly logical. What other conclusion could one draw based on the given information?

Children’s inherent ability to reason logically appears early in life. Their occasional ridiculous conclusions, what we perceive as childlike humor, result directly from their lack of accurate information. Such conclusions seem ridiculous only in the light of what we adults understand, sometimes correctly, as more accurate information.

Within its own boundaries, logic never fails. When loaded with faulty premises, it comes to sometimes humorous conclusions.

God is love.
Love is blind.
Ray Charles is blind.
Therefore, Ray Charles is God.

The fact that we find such logical conclusions funny prompts the following definition of humor—a statement, conclusion, or observation that is both logical and illogical. Which raises the question, do we laugh at the folly of the reasoner or at the reasoning?

Everything that works, creative or ordinary, appears logical in retrospect. In other words, hindsight makes everything logical. Creativity calls for courage from creative thinkers—the courage to challenge premises, fool with logic, inspect all propositions, question all authorities, debunk all assumptions, slay all sacred cows.

Such intentional disrespect for established assumptions occasionally bears breakthrough creative results, but always at least a chuckle.

See also:

• The Scientist in the Crib: What Early Learning Tells Us About the Mind by Alison Gopnik, Andrew N. Meltzoff, Patricia K. Kuhl
  
• The Philosophical Baby: What Children’s Minds Tell Us About Truth, Love, and the Meaning of Life by Alison Gopnik

Songwriter, author, ghostwriter, copywriter, and content provider Peter Lloyd syndicates Right Brain Workouts and blogs for businesses including CoachQuest.

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