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'''Abstraction''' is the [[process]] or result of generalization by reducing the [[information]] [[content]] of a [[concept]] or an observable [[phenomenon]], typically to retain only information which is relevant for a particular [[purpose]]. For example, abstracting a leather soccer ball to a ball retains only the information on general ball [[attributes]] and [[behaviour]]. Similarly, abstracting [[happiness]] to an [[emotional]] [[state]] reduces the amount of information conveyed about the emotional state. [[Computer scientists]] use abstraction to understand and solve [[problems]] and [[communicate]] their solutions with the computer in some particular computer language.
In philosophical terminology, abstraction is the [[thought]] [[process]] wherein ideas are distanced from objects.
Abstraction uses a [[strategy]] of [[simplification]], wherein formerly concrete details are left [[ambiguous]], vague, or undefined; thus effective [[communication]] about things in the abstract requires an [[intuitive]] or common [[experience]] between the communicator and the communication recipient. This is true for all verbal/abstract communication. Something as simple as a newspaper might be specified to six levels, as in Douglas Hofstadter's illustration of that ambiguity, with a progression from abstract to concrete in Gödel, Escher, Bach (1979):
(1) a publication
:(2) a newspaper
::(3) The San Francisco Chronicle
:::(4) the May 18 edition of the Chronicle
::::(5) my copy of the May 18 edition of the Chronicle
:::::(6) my copy of the May 18 edition of the Chronicle as it was when I first picked it up (as contrasted with my copy
as it was a few days later: in my fireplace, burning)
An abstraction can thus encapsulate each of these levels of detail with no loss of generality. But perhaps a detective or philosopher/scientist/engineer might seek to learn about some thing, at progressively deeper levels of detail, to solve a crime or a puzzle.
==Bibliography==
* Eugene Raskin, Architecturally Speaking, 2nd edition, a Delta book, Dell (1966), trade paperback, 129 pages
* The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 3rd edition, Houghton Mifflin (1992), hardcover, 2140 pages, ISBN 0-395-44895-6
* Jung, C.G. [1921] (1971). Psychological Types, Collected Works, Volume 6, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-01813-8.
[[Category: Philosophy]]
'''Abstraction''' is the [[process]] or result of generalization by reducing the [[information]] [[content]] of a [[concept]] or an observable [[phenomenon]], typically to retain only information which is relevant for a particular [[purpose]]. For example, abstracting a leather soccer ball to a ball retains only the information on general ball [[attributes]] and [[behaviour]]. Similarly, abstracting [[happiness]] to an [[emotional]] [[state]] reduces the amount of information conveyed about the emotional state. [[Computer scientists]] use abstraction to understand and solve [[problems]] and [[communicate]] their solutions with the computer in some particular computer language.
In philosophical terminology, abstraction is the [[thought]] [[process]] wherein ideas are distanced from objects.
Abstraction uses a [[strategy]] of [[simplification]], wherein formerly concrete details are left [[ambiguous]], vague, or undefined; thus effective [[communication]] about things in the abstract requires an [[intuitive]] or common [[experience]] between the communicator and the communication recipient. This is true for all verbal/abstract communication. Something as simple as a newspaper might be specified to six levels, as in Douglas Hofstadter's illustration of that ambiguity, with a progression from abstract to concrete in Gödel, Escher, Bach (1979):
(1) a publication
:(2) a newspaper
::(3) The San Francisco Chronicle
:::(4) the May 18 edition of the Chronicle
::::(5) my copy of the May 18 edition of the Chronicle
:::::(6) my copy of the May 18 edition of the Chronicle as it was when I first picked it up (as contrasted with my copy
as it was a few days later: in my fireplace, burning)
An abstraction can thus encapsulate each of these levels of detail with no loss of generality. But perhaps a detective or philosopher/scientist/engineer might seek to learn about some thing, at progressively deeper levels of detail, to solve a crime or a puzzle.
==Bibliography==
* Eugene Raskin, Architecturally Speaking, 2nd edition, a Delta book, Dell (1966), trade paperback, 129 pages
* The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 3rd edition, Houghton Mifflin (1992), hardcover, 2140 pages, ISBN 0-395-44895-6
* Jung, C.G. [1921] (1971). Psychological Types, Collected Works, Volume 6, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-01813-8.
[[Category: Philosophy]]
