Readers, scientists and “artists”: on the uses of imagination

Just as little as readers of today read all of the individual words (let alone syllables) on a page – rather they pick about five words at random out of twenty and “guess” at the meaning that probably belongs to these five words – just as little do we see a tree exactly and completely with reference to leaves, twigs, color, and form; it is so very much easier for us simply to improvise some approximation of a tree. Even in the midst of the strangest experiences we still do the same: we make up the major part of the experience and can scarcely be forced notto contemplate some event as its “inventors.” All this means: basically and from time immemorial we are – accustomed to lying. Or to put it more virtuously and hypocritically, in short, more pleasantly: one is much more of an artist than one knows.

Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, §192 (trans. W. Kaufmann)