> He's not saying that thoughts and mental images don't actually exist, it's that they don't exist before the game of language is played. And the game of language is turning sensations of physical objects into auditory representations of them.

We know this is wrong though. Memory of a chair is distinct from memory of the word "chair". If this wasn't true, then it would be difficult or impossible to speak multiple languages fluently. Also, animals wouldn't be able to understand the world around them, because they don't have language like we have language.