"Show one a photograph of a chair, and ask him 'whatsit?', he will say: 'a chair' [121. For daily use, this sort of communicating is quite sufficient. For science, though, it is not sufficient at all."
"Why not Master?" said Tan.
"Because it IS only a photograph of a chair. Scientists would draw the wrong conclusions from such slap-dash statements. One would think that a chair can easely become lost among papers on a desk. Is it an idea of a chair then Ling?"
"Certainly not Master. An idea can only BE in a Mind, nowhere else."
"You are home to a peg Ling, yet, this sort of child-talk goes
on continuously in the so-called social sciences AND philosophy.
The truth is that the picture is a physical construct that, on
re-ception by the visual senses, MAY trigger-off the idea of a
chair."