Real Make-Believe Applications
It's not make believe that the art in make-believe is to be real.
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Plans or blueprints are as necessary to the building trade as air is to breathing. They present the products in print. They are models or representations of the products, and in that respect simulate them. They are make-believe versions of what is to become real.
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You write a story, okay? Maybe it's a television play, or a movie -- a drama or documentary. In the story you likely include a variety of people in any of a number of different situations performing a medley of tasks. What you do in the writing is to represent the situation dynamics as if they were real. You write a pretend vehicle and create a world in make-believe.
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Explorers need as much information about new ground as they can muster. Of course some information has to be available just to start -- the area must be defined well enough to at least have something to investigate. You need enough information to create a substantial version of the real exploration dynamics. Whatever is known has to be given in some form, whether written, as in a story, or remembered, as in someone's imaginings. The representation, or map, depicts the situation to some extent. It stands for, or simulates it.
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When we speak of learning, we most likely refer to learning as it occurs in finding out about some thing or process. This mode of learning may be carried out by reading an article or book, or by listening to a lecture, or watching a film, whatever. In each case the aim is to get information about the subject. In this mode of learning, the subject matter appears in the form of words and pictures or film clips and in this way it represents the target subject. The representation is thus a depiction of the real subject -- a simulation. It is creative in that you acquire something you didn't have before.
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The goal of marketing and sales is to sell and profit from the sale of products or services. And the art of marketing and sales is to represent the products or services in a most desirable way to convince potential buyers they couldn't do without them. A physical replica is often used as a model of a product, and an ad is typically a brief story of the products and services. The models and advertisements represent those products and services. They simulate them.
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Mathematics is the prima diva or prima ballerina of model making. It is the ultimate model maker, for representation is its mission in life. But it must still reflect the dynamics you had in mind for it. It even symbolizes itself, or at least certain aspects of itself, like arithmetic or sets -- for math knows no boundaries. In the sciences -- at least in physics, where concepts have gone past the understanding that can be derived from everyday experience -- math is the only modeling tool that can do them justice.
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Your memories may be real enough, but they're only make-believe, if not pure figments of your imagination. At best they are only representations of past real events -- stand-ins for what might have occurred in earlier days. That may have been the house you grew up in, or the friend you used to play with when you were small. But the house and neighbor kid aren't physically in your head, as you well know. They may be recollections, but as such they only simulate real things, however real they might seem.
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Whether you're a fur trapper and trader or a stock market guru, it helps to know what the business is all about. You need to know the trading dynamics. It helps to be able to make reasonable guesses about market conditions and about the effect those conditions may have on prices. To this end, you need a model of the market -- a scheme of indicators that has predictive value, that can tell you when it's time to buy or sell. This model is a stand-in for the real market events and in that sense represents the market. The model thus simulates the market for the purpose of making a profit on a trade.
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Everyday experiences are only representations of the real world. They are constructions. Like the arrangement of bricks and mortar in fashioning a building, they are creations of your mind, organized out of the many neural impulses generated by your many sensors. You filter, shape, adjust, arrange, control, and otherwise manage the continuous input flow, and in the process you create your world, your very personal virtual reality.
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We commonly make use of simulation in training. Obvious and well-known examples are the simulators used by the airlines to train their pilots. The army, navy, marines, and air force also use simulators, as you may know. We use simulation in the form of games to sharpen our skills prior to important events, like a forthcoming battle, concert, or sports match. We even have special words for these pre-trial performances. Words like war-games, dress rehearsals, or pre-season games.
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Traveling to a foreign country may be for real, but the maps you use to find your way around the country are only representations, or models, of the territory of interest. The maps identity and depict roads, airports, points of scenic and historic interest, hotels, eateries, and other commonly expressed items of travel interest. The maps simulate the territory.
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