“The famous pipe. How people reproached me for it! And yet, could you stuff my pipe? No, it’s just a representation, is it not? So if I had written on my picture “This is a pipe”, I’d have been lying!”
— René Magritte
Polish-American scientist and philosopher Alfred Korzybski remarked that “the map is not the territory” and that “the word is not the thing”.
“all models are wrong” – George Box
“truth is much too complicated to allow anything but approximations.” – Neumann
…Plato argued that poetic imitation, like that in painting, imitates only appearance, ranking far below truth, and thus corrupts the soul by weakening the rational part’s control over other desires. For this reason, he believed it should be prohibited in a just city…
“[Y]et God in fashioning those of you who are fitted to hold rule mingled gold in their generation, for which reason they are the most precious—but in the helpers silver, and iron and brass in the farmers and other craftsmen. (…) and if sons are born to them with an infusion of brass or iron they shall by no means give way to pity in their treatment of them, but shall assign to each the status due to his nature and thrust them out among the artisans or the farmers. And again, if from these there is born a son with unexpected gold or silver in his composition they shall honor such and bid them go up higher, some to the office of guardian, some to the assistanceship, alleging that there is an oracle that the state shall then be overthrown when the man of iron or brass is its guardian.”
— Plato, Republic
Plato sure sounds like a fucking artist.
Amicus Plato, sed magis amica veritas 