There are many possible accounts of why young children fail to conserve amount -- don't understand "quantity", are unduly influenced by "extent", focus on what changes, not what remains the same, lack of logic. "Every one of the explanations has some truth in it, but none reach the heart of the issue."
Minsky's key move is this: "The younger children possess the ideas they need but they don't know when to apply them! One might say that they lack adequate knowledge about their knowledge, or that they have not acquired the checks and balances required to select or override their hordes of agents with different perceptions and priorities."
(NB: On one hand, people might not be very interested in this point, saying "Oh yes, we've known for a long time that this is a problem of metacognition." However, don't dismiss it so! The really neat idea here, one that isn't well developed in psychology, is that failure to conserve reflects an inadequate control structure!)
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