Mental Models XLII

"Nay farther, even with relation to that succession, we cou'd only admit of those perceptions, which are immediately present to our consciousness, nor cou'd those lively images, with which the memory presents us, be ever receiv'd as true pictures of past perceptions. The memory, senses, and understanding are, therefore, all of them founded on the imagination, or the vivacity of our ideas."(David Hume, "A Treatise of Human Nature A Treatise of Human Nature", 1739) 

"Every presentation of philosophy, whether oral or written, is to be taken and can only be taken in the sense of a means. Every system is only an expression or image of reason, and hence only an object of reason, an object which reason - a living power that procreates itself in new thinking beings - distinguishes from itself and posits as an object of criticism. Every system that is not recognized and appropriated as just a means, limits and warps the mind for it sets up the indirect and formal thought in the place of the direct, original and material thought." (Ludwig Feuerbach, "Towards a Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy", 1839) 

"The various languages placed side by side show that with words it is never a question of truth, never a question of adequate expression; otherwise, there would not be so many languages. The ‘thing in itself’ (which is precisely what the pure truth, apart from any of its consequences, would be) is likewise something quite incomprehensible to the creator of language and something not in the least worth striving for. This creator only designates the relations of things to men, and for expressing these relations he lays hold of the boldest metaphors. To begin with, a nerve stimulus is transferred into an image: first metaphor. The image, in turn, is imitated in a sound: second metaphor. And each time there is a complete overleaping of one sphere, right into the middle of an entirely new and different one." (Friedrich Nietzsche, "On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense", 1873) 

"Mental states of every kind - sensations, feelings, images - which were at one time present in consciousness and then have disappeared from it - have not with their disappearance absolutely ceased to exist. Although the inwardly - turned look may no longer be able to find them, nevertheless they have not been utterly destroyed and annulled, but in a certain manner they, continue to exist, stored up to speak, in the memory." (Hermann Ebbinghaus, "Memory: A contribution to experimental psychology", 1885) 

"To see is one thing; to picture or visualise is another. A person can see things, only when his eyes are open, and when his surroundings are illuminated; but he can have pictures in his mind’s eye, when his eyes are shut and when the world is dark." (Gilbert Ryle, "The Concept of Mind", 1949) 

"Nature is more subtle, more deeply intertwined and more strangely integrated than any of our pictures of her - than any of our errors. It is not merely that our pictures are not full enough; each of our pictures in the end turns out to be so basically mistaken that the marvel is that it worked at all." (Jacob Bronowski, "Science and Human Values", 1956)

"Perhaps our ultimate understanding of scientific topics is measured in terms of our ability to generate metaphoric pictures of what is going on. Maybe understanding is coming up with metaphoric pictures." (Per Bak, "How Nature Works: the science of self-organized criticality", 1996) 

"Science does not speak of the world in the language of words alone, and in many cases it simply cannot do so. The natural language of science is a synergistic integration of words, diagrams, pictures, graphs, maps, equations, tables, charts, and other forms of visual and mathematical expression. [… Science thus consists of] the languages of visual representation, the languages of mathematical symbolism, and the languages of experimental operations." (Jay Lemke, "Teaching all the languages of science: Words, symbols, images and actions", 2003)

"Images and pictures […] have played a key role in shaping our scientific picture of the world. […] Carefully constructed families of pictures can act as a calculus all their own. Like any successful systems of symbols, with an appropriate grammar they enlarge the number of things that we can do without consciously thinking." (John D Barrow, "Cosmic Imagery: Key Images in the History of Science", 2008)