The need for a consistent network of all sensory experiences results in the formation of a coherent visual reference model in the brain, which adapts to the success of our thoughts and actions throughout our lives. By consciously examining our successes and failures, we mentally restructure our knowledge according to the principle of efficiency.
Through communication with the environment, we learn early on that there is always more to see everywhere than we already know. The evidence of this insight shows us the limitations of our own imagination and shapes our learning behavior. As children, we all have to realize that adults see far more possibilities for action in the things around us than we do. Through the vividly or verbally formulated question about the purpose of existence or use, we demand the entire explanatory context. This experience is repeated at school, except that here we usually have to accept the relevance of the content without question. This creates a basic contradiction that hinders learning success. Producing or showing pictures is just as insufficient for the development of spatial-visual competence as learning vocabulary is for language acquisition.
The learning success is based on the neuronal networking of our vividly acquired knowledge according to the causal principle of cause and effect. This is why we always see a purposefully arranged world in which things do what we expect them to do. If they don’t, we look for the reasons and adjust our expectations. Through this principle of empiricism, we create knowledge in a vivid way. The vividly visible works of nature and culture are therefore not simply there for us, but tell us about the “invisible” workings of the forces that we hold responsible for their creation. The principle of production conveys to us the intentionality of a work, its purpose of existence or use.
