It does apply to models and metaphors. In these types of discussions, when I think that somebody is trying to reduce meaning (or most any mental concept) to a singular something, perhaps in the head, I try to widen the focus to also include the environment and our achievements in that environment. The word "apple" loses its meaning if it doesn't somehow encompass apples and what we do with them (as well as what we think and feel about them).

For purposes of illustration, we might say that the meaning of something is smeared out a bit over space and time. You sometimes counter that is too complex and risks involving too much, whereas I think our talent as understanders is that we can manage such subtle complexities. We can learn from context all the different ways to apply the word "apple" (or "circle"). Experience shapes us into beings that are proficient in the world with such subjects.

Why can't you ever discuss models in a more direct fashion? You obviously see them playing a fundamental role. It seems that we should be able to better identify what they are and to characterize them.

Or, is that my problem here? I think that we should be able to talk about our philosophies, expand on them, and illustrate them with examples. Is that perhaps keeping me from seeing the truly important things philosophy has to show us? Are models (or consciousness, or selves, or perceptions, or anything else you and I bicker about endlessly) something I should be immediately and intuitively grasping through some special faculty of insight?

Instead of detailing models themselves, you just talk about what models supposedly enable people to do. But if all you can really talk about is human action, well, then that pretty much becomes my point that it is the action, and the contexts it occurs in, that matters here.

I agree with that. But I see modeling as, say, learning to drive an automatic car and then leveraging your skills at operating a steering wheel, gas pedal, brake, and transmission shifter to eventually operate a stick shift or maybe an airplane. We can say that we are modeling here without having to have formed a distinct model. We master the two or three different vehicle control interfaces. That's the "substrate," so to speak, of anything we can say about it. If we do choose to introduce the notion of "model", it still refers to achievements in the environment. "Model" is then be being used to illustrate the similarities between automatic, stick shift, and airplane controls and the similarities in the ways you operate them.

See how easy it is for me to talk about my philosophy? The world and all we do in it is available for my use. And a good deal of what I say is straightforward and understandable, even if you strongly disagree with its conclusions. Compare that to your explanation that follows for how someone comes to understand his model. (Don't get mad at me for saying that. These past few posts I have been trying to explain why I take the approach I do and why I think it may be better than the traditional or received approach.):

What I meant was if a person must form a model of "toy" to understand toys, how does he come to understand the model of toy he formed? A plastic model of the solar system must come to be understood if it is to help us understand the solar system it is a model of. How does a unified model make him intelligent about toys? I was also wondering if there are ways one could understand something that did not involve modeling that something. It seems mental models must be understandable without themselves needing yet another model (which would lead to an infinite regress of models.)

For contrast, the way I would put it is that once a person has experience with and develops some proficiency with a toy or some toys, including referring to them as toys, then he can leverage those same skills to talk about and identify, to ask Mommy to buy, and to play with other toys. This works because of both the characteristics of toys (the environment) and because experience has changed him. (Notice me widening the focus here somewhat, smearing your "unified model" a bit over space and time--not too wide, but wide enough to encompass the child, toys, and some of the surrounding circumstances.)

Notice that unification is achieved through the fact that toys share some similar features, have some similar uses, and that we can treat them in similar ways. Unification is a result of us acting economically, of leveraging existing skills, of treating this new toy like those other toys in some ways. Whereas you say a person notices his mind wanting to unify, I look to environmental factors and see how unified action benefits an organism.

A teacher has been teaching her students about circles. She asks Bobby to show her some circles. He draws here a circle on the chalkboard. He puts a ring and a coin on her desk. He points to the clock and to a hole in a sheet of punched looseleaf paper. She says, "Very good, Bobby. Yes, those five items are all circles." Bobby is being taught and encouraged to identify those objects as circles. Or consider art students practicing drawing circles and the teacher encouraging them for drawing good circles.

The point here is that the referents for "circle" are taught as being objects in the environment, but treated in a different way than say, "apple" might refer to apples. When Bobby later learns to use the phrase "circles exist in the mind," he does not discover a sixth item, a "circle in the mind." Rather, saying "circles exist in the mind" is just leveraging our grammatical skills at using the word-->object form to highlight the fact that the word "circle" is not used in quite the same ways the word "apple" is used. "Apples are on trees. Circles are in the mind." That is, we speak as if that in addition to the five items Bobby identified, there was a special sixth one, a "mental circle" that unified all the other five items.

So, I agree that it is correct to say, "circles exist in the mind." But I think it is also the case that such phrases refer to the wider context that includes objects in the environment and the ways we treat them.

To "notice things" and "find their characteristics" is an act that involves both the person and the objects. You haven't identified a more or less sophisticated unifying entity in that, but a more or less sophisticated way, say, a person may group objects together. There can be many reasons involving both the person's physiology, the objects, and the circumstances why he classifies this or that object as a circle. It doesn't all boil down to a singular, unifying entity.

No, when I draw a circle, I don't sketch my inner circle for you. Rather, I was drilled in a repeated process of tracing circles, presenting it to the teacher for critical review, and trying again to do better. Through that I became an organism that can draw a circle when prompted. (I am really being to kind to my drawing skills.) It's just like when I handwrite a note. I don't refer to a mental model of letter shapes and sketch them out on the paper. I learned to handwrite. In fact, if I was really just tracing an inner model of the letters, then I wouldn't properly be said to have learned to write. A person who is tracing is not yet proficient in the art of penmanship.

The reason I know size doesn't matter is that people don't correct me in such cases when I draw differently-sized circles. When I sign my name on the credit card receipt, the size of my signature tends not to draw funny looks from the cashier as long as it fits within the space provided. Again, the environment, my self, the requirements of those circumstances explain what I can get away with.

That's correct. That's another "form of life" that involves circles. But to the student first learning about circles, hula-hoops and the like are instances of circles. They never cease being instances of circles when the student extends his circle repertoire to include academic techniques.

Math teaches formulaic procedures. They are not species of "circle."

Notice that you find their "abilities" in dismal shape. They cannot deal with circles in many of the ways they could be doing so. The solution is going back to the classroom and drilling on new procedures. It's those procedures that concern us here. And that involves both the person and the environment. It doesn't reduce down to some singular unifying entity.