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Creating a distinct new concept in one's mind is an expensive operation (with both short term and long term costs), so I think it's only to be expected that people will try to match a supposedly new concept to an existing one and see if they can get away with just reusing the existing concept. I suggest that if you don't want people to do that, you should define your new concept as clearly as possible, give lots of both positive and negative examples, explain how it differs from any nearby concepts that people might try to "round off" to, and why it makes sense to organize one's thinking in terms of the new concept. (It would also help to give it a googleable name so people can find all that information. Right now, Google defines physical cognition as "Physical cognition, or 'folk physics', is a common sense understanding of the physical world around us and how different objects interact with each other." which is obviously not what you're talking about.)
I think I've avoided rounding off your physical cognition to an existing concept, but I still don't understand how the concept is defined exactly or why it's a useful way of organizing one's thinking as it relates to the question of what kinds of children's activities are most valuable. Clearly there are distinct skills within what you call physical cognition, and all those skills are not equally valuable, nor does practicing one physical cognition skill improve all physical cognition skills equally (e.g., if you practice math skills you improve math skills more than piano skills, and vice versa). Given that, why does it make sense to group a bunch of different skills together into "physical cognition" and then say that practicing piano is valuable because it exercises physical cognition? Wouldn't it make more sense to talk about exactly what skills are improved by practicing piano, and how valuable the increase of those specific skills are?
Right, but I was reacting to a prior history with that particular commenter, who has been especially prone to doing this (very often where, in my view, it isn't appropriate).
But also: I regard concept-creation as being a large part of what we're in the business of ... (read more)