[devit]

Probably because humans are supposed to naturally live in groups where human friends are plentiful, but lots of human children instead live only with parents.

[numbsafari]

I grew up with six siblings on a cul-de-sac filled with other families with 3+ children (enough kids for two complete baseball teams) and had imaginary friends.

[xyzzy_plugh]

There's no such thing "supposed to naturally" as "supposed to."

We aren't "supposed to" be like the other animals on our planet? Or are many mothers and newborns "supposed to naturally" die during child birth?

It's difficult to have a productive, thoughtful conversation when it starts this way.

[sixo]

It's difficult to have a productive, thoughtful conversation when someone reads a moral imperative into the phrase "supposed to" and starts lecturing about it.

The sense of "supposed to" above is: the human system was "designed" for a certain environment, and its behaviors make sense there. Outside of that environment many behaviors won't make sense, but can easily be explained by reference to the original environment. This is not a moral point, although it is one often employed in moral arguments.

[WillPostForFood]

At the same time, you can't ignore what we are evolutionarily. If we evolved in small groups or tribes, it is natural to have traits that work better in tribes. Take the judgement out of "natural" or "supposed to" and call it "as designed", or "as evolved".

[jandrese]

Maybe better phrased as: "Humans evolved in small communities for thousands of years, but those communities had to be larger than a single family unit in order to survive, so there is an instinctive urge for humans to be in communities."

[andrewflnr]

This is where the steelman comes in. Replace "supposed to" with "have adapted to over the last thousands to millions of years" and enjoy the productive conversation.

[bmandale]

The idea that something is "supposed to" happen is a normative statement. But the idea that we aren't "supposed to" do anything is also normative, and is therefore self-contradictory. Any proposition that we are supposed to do one thing or another is not necessarily correct, but at least it is self consistent.

[Taek]

My first response to this comment was very poorly received. I initially thought I had been polite and straightforward, but upon reflection I guess it came across as pretty dismissive. That wasn't my intention at all, and I'm sorry for not presenting a more considerate comment.

My experience growing up had many friends who had imaginary friends, and the highly social ones with grandparents and other extended family at home also had imaginary friends. It's not my anecdotal experience that humans living in groups would lead to fewer imaginary friends.

I queued up a DeepResearch question, and got back the following result: "imaginary friends are by no means a purely “Western” phenomenon – the potential for children to imagine friends is a human trait that transcends culture" [1]

It does seem to be the case that communal upbringing results in lower rates of imaginary friends, but it does *not* seem to be the case that imaginary friends are a byproduct of children living only with their parents.

[1] https://chatgpt.com/share/67ea28bd-d674-8000-b4da-188bb56fe2...

[0_____0]

What reasoning do you have to back this vs. the researchers conclusion that they're doing it mostly "for fun?"

Like, it sounds plausible, but you'd need to show something like an increase in imaginary friend development in places where children are isolated or lonely.

[SecretDreams]

> Like, it sounds plausible

It sounds like ass talk that is hard to refute or confirm.

I could just as easily say we have imaginary friends to help in cognitive development/processing that the real world isn't adequately fulfilling.

It sounds great and might even be possible.. but it came from my ass.

[JackFr]

The authors cited a study saying just that:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38603042/

[jhanschoo]

By this line of reasoning, you'd say that play observed in cats is due to a lack of hunting opportunities, even though cats play in the wild.

[Taek]

Do you have links to research or other credible sources that establish kids who have plentiful friends don't also have imaginary friends?

Your statement intuitively feels false to me, and I would like you to defend it.

[jackyinger]

On the meta level, if a statement seems false the burden is on you to prove it. You’re asking your counterpart to do all the work.

On the subject level…

Have you ever seen a troop of monkeys hanging out? They definitely aren’t operating as modern atomic families, and we’re pretty closely related.

Geez, it was only several generations ago that multigenerational family cohabitation was common. And from my personal experience, growing up in a small town and hang out with other kids at will was great.