Talk:Abstraction

See Category talk:Abstraction.

Brianjd 08:14, Nov 6, 2004 (UTC)

Some problems

Problems begin to arise, however, when we try to define specific rules by which we can determine which things are abstract, and which concrete.

I see no problems that are brought out to reify this point. I see only eamples that show abstraction is a continuum. Perhaps the article should say that instead.

We might look at other graphs, in a progression from cat to mammal to animal, and see that animal is more abstract than mammal; but on the other hand mammal is a harder idea to express, certainly in relation to marsupial.

This seems wrong-headed. We should expect increasingly abstract things to be increasingly easy to understand (except perhaps at the fringes, like with "being" or "totality"). The more concrete an object is, the more difficult it is to grasp a concept that clearly delineates that object. Hardness of expression hardly seems to be a relevant criteria for abstraction.

Finally, I'd like a reference and some detail for the neurology bit. KSchutte 04:23, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Introduction

In the intro:

An abstraction is an idea, concept, or word which defines the phenomena that make up its referents (those concrete events or things to which the abstraction refers).

Shouldn't it be "an idea, concept, or word which represents the phenomena"? How can an idea, concept or word define a phenomenon?

Montalvo 16:43, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

If no one objects, I'm going to change this definition to

An abstraction is an idea, concept, or word which describes the phenomena that make up its referents (those concrete events or things to which the abstraction refers).

because the word defines in this definition is wrong. I could also settle for represents in here. But defines is too strong because abstractions necessarily leave some things out. They are not a total characterization of a phenomenon.

Montalvo 19:06, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Your change would definitely be an improvement, Montalvo, but the given definition still seemed broken. That is, the referrents mentioned should not be the abstraction's referrents but rather the referrents of the words for the concrete objects to which the abstraction applies. If they were really the referrents of the abstraction, we'd have a circular definition (because every word necessarily describes its own referents). So, I rewrote it and added a simple example, as follows:

An abstraction is an idea, conceptualization, or word for the collection of qualities that identify the referent of a word used to describe concrete objects or phenomena. For example, the abstraction applehood is the collection of qualities that identify the referrent of the word "apple" in the phrase "the apple on the table".

How does that sound? The Rod 06:12, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Plato

I think plato was the first one to realize the importance of abstration and how our minds are built upon it. He talked about it in different terms, and he maybe thought that the abstractions where the only things that really existed. But I think he is the father of the whole concept and therfore I think it would be appropriate to somehow mention this.--Mandelum 13:23, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Computer Science

Abstraction is an incredibly important concept in computer science, especially as it relates to object-oriented programming; a section has been added (following the paradigm "Abstraction in the {name of field}".--BishopOcelot 00:15, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Abstration in Art

What is the point of the "Robert Stark" quote?