“So, the reason they (small children) are saying things that sound childish, insane, ridiculous and so on… is not necessarily because they believe or actually want you to hear the meanings of the words, sentences and so on they select. It is, (in these cases) rather, first-order communication »about second-order matters.

What they actually want you to hear, then, are »the purposes and situations in perspective that might compel a person to say such things!

The actual message is here, not in the ordinary first-order interpretations of the words that adults are accustomed to presume or even enforce.

Any parent of a small child will have some inkling of this, but somehow usually manages to evade the implications. And our ‘adult’ thinking is ‘traditionally’ too utilitarian to admit such prodigy, let alone be corrected by it!”

— an intelligence agent