What is being suggested now is not that Black Boxes behave somewhat like real objects but that the real objects are in fact all Black Boxes, and that we have in fact been operating with Black Boxes all our lives. But tinkering isn't the only thing you can do with a black box, and the same mindset is useful far beyond the topic of learning. If you can learn how the smaller black boxes inside work and interact, it'll be easier to combine and re-combine them to produce new desired effects.