8. Concentration's Recess

The cloak of disappearance

Objective: To play with the concept of disappearance by wearing a cloak of invisibility!

Duration : 15 to 45 minutes

Material :

A cloak, a towel or a sheet

Instructions :

Invisibility is one of the most common magical powers found in fantasy worlds, whether it is obtained through an enchanted potion or an evil ring. In this activity, you will imagine wearing a cloak of invisibility to better understand the concept of disappearance!

...

Find your cloak of invisibility. In order to disappear from the world, you must first find a cloak of invisibility. A real cloak would be ideal, but you can also use your parents’ clothes, a towel or a sheet. Before you start, make sure to tell the people who live in your house that you are about to vanish, so they won't be able to see you for the next ten minutes…
Disappear. Wrap yourself in your cloak and... disappear! Then move from room to room, taking advantage of your invisibility: What do you want to do now that you are invisible? What would you like to know? You can prank people, but don't do anything dangerous... it could abruptly end your adventure in invisibility!
Think about your disappearance. After taking off your cloak—or while still wearing it so that people won’t disrupt your thinking—ask yourself the following questions: When something disappears, can it continue to exist? Can something be invisible to someone and yet be visible to someone else? Is it true that "the essential is invisible to the eyes," as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry once wrote? Why or why not?

Bonus : Still have some energy left? It's time to play a game of conceptual hide-and-seek by hiding... certain parts of your identity! To do so, for a few minutes try to:

Dress differently
Move differently
Talk differently
Have different opinions

If you have someone to play with at home, ask them to see whether they can recognize you when you’re hiding your identity. Then ask yourselves whether someone who had just met you would be able to know who you really are. Finally, think about the following questions: Is it possible to truly hide who you are? Is it sometimes necessary not to be totally yourself? Can it sometimes be fun, or even a relief, to "be someone else?" Why or why not?

What if a cape could make invisible?

Tricks for tots : Just because you're invisible doesn't mean you can't be heard! To make this game even more fun, try to be as quiet as possible when moving around the house. Will you be able to walk right behind someone without them hearing you? Ask yourself these questions: Can something be there even if you can't see it or hear it? Is it ever important to blend in? Or on the contrary, should you try to stand out as much as possible? Why or why not?

Tips for teens : In philosophy of science, the concept of the "unobservable" is important—the notion that we cannot directly observe something with our senses. We cannot, for example, directly see a gene or hear a black hole. There is a great debate between the "realists," who think that these things really exist even if we cannot directly observe them, and the "anti-realists," who think that concepts such as genes or black holes are very useful to explain the world, but that we can never know whether they really exist. What about you? Do you think it’s possible to know whether something unobservable really exists? Can knowledge only come from our experience? Which is more important: having useful beliefs or true beliefs? Why?

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