"Playing pretend is actually a good for of our critical thinking."

It seems to me, playing pretend is contrary to critical thinking. Playing pretend is a form of confirming to any given model, set, structure etc. Evan a parrot or a trained monkey can repeat and pretend what you are saying, but doesn't mean it's backed by critical thinking.

Besides, at a deeper level critical thinking maybe an oxymoron, since thought/thinking in general is based on a default confirming to prior knowledge, and therefore mostly lacks the independence required to discover something critical/new.

So maybe consider playing pretend to sharpen your critical thinking perspective skills. :) — Tiberiusmoon

Fake it until you make it.

And once you can fake critical thinking you've really made it.

Cool but thats not what the post is about, Its the consideration of another perspective used in critical thinking specifically not the entirety of critical thinking.

I agree that putting yourself into the shoes of other people is a powerful way to acquire new knowledge, especially about that person, their motives, and style. Not only do you understand them better, but you can integrate the positive qualities of them into yourself, while ridding yourself the negative qualities that become so clear when you pretend to be them.

Creatively, I find it helpful to pretend to be all kinds of people by imitating their work. When you copy a painting, a song, or a piece of writing line by line and stroke by stroke, you acquire a deep and penetrating understanding.

I gain a new love and respect for songs that I try to produce in a DAW. I become truly intimate with a piece of text by writing it down word for word until the point of memorization. I see things about a painting that I never would've known by copying it. When I know a work so well, not only do I develop powerful tools and skills to replicate it, but I can truly improve on and take inspiration from it.

However, it's important not to empathize too much with people. We can't actually ever know or understand the feelings of other people. All we can do is speculate, and our speculations are based on our experiences and understanding, not their experiences or understanding. So it's easy to assume they may be feeling one way, when they're not.

Sometimes the best thing to do is ask people how they feel and what they think and take it on face value, rather than to assume that you already know. Even this is questionable because their words potentially create a chasm from what they're actually feeling or thinking.