Now try and replace all the information conveyed by the use of the word 'list' in the following sentence from perlsub, with the one or two dozen diagrams like the above, it would take to replace that one word.

If you return one or more aggregates (arrays and hashes), these will be flattened together into one large indistinguishable list.

The only purpose served by the "there's no such thing as a list in a scalar context" meme, is the promotion of one person's intimate knowledge of perl's internals over another's lack thereof; or lack of interest in same.