Abstraction

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Abstraction in its main sense is a conceptual process by which general rules and concepts are derived
from the usage and classification of specific examples, literal ("real" or "concrete") signifiers, first
principles, or other methods. "An abstraction" is the product of this process a concept that acts as a
super-categorical noun for all subordinate concepts, and connects any related concepts as a group, field,
or category.[1]

Conceptual abstractions may be formed by filtering the information content of a concept or an

observable phenomenon, selecting only the aspects which are relevant for a particular purpose. For
example, abstracting a leather soccer ball to the more general idea of a ball selects only the information
on general ball attributes and behavior, eliminating the other characteristics of that particular ball.[1] In a
typetoken distinction, a type (e.g., a 'ball') is more abstract than its tokens (e.g., 'that leather soccer
ball').

Abstraction in its secondary use is a material process,[2] discussed in the themes below.

Contents
1 Origins
1.1 History
2 Themes
2.1 Compression
2.2 Instantiation
2.3 Material process
2.4 Ontological status
2.5 Physicality
2.6 Referencing and referring
2.7 Simplification and ordering
2.8 Thought processes
3 As used in different disciplines
3.1 In art
3.2 In computer science
3.3 In linguistics
3.4 In mathematics
3.5 In music
3.6 In neurology
3.7 In philosophy
3.8 In psychology
3.9 In social theory
 4 See also
5 Notes
6 References
7 External links

Origins
Thinking in abstractions is considered by anthropologists, archaeologists, and sociologists to be one of
the key traits in modern human behaviour, which is believed to have developed between 50 000 and 100
000 years ago. Its development is likely to have been closely connected with the development of human
language, which (whether spoken or written) appears to both involve and facilitate abstract thinking.

History

Abstraction involves induction of ideas or the synthesis of particular facts into one general theory about
something. It is the opposite of specification, which is the analysis or breaking-down of a general idea or
abstraction into concrete facts. Abstraction can be illustrated with Francis Bacon's Novum Organum
(1620), a book of modern scientific philosophy written in the late Elizabethan era[3] of England to
encourage modern thinkers to collect specific facts before making any generalizations.

Bacon used and promoted induction as an abstraction tool, and it countered the ancient deductive-
thinking approach that had dominated the intellectual world since the times of Greek philosophers like
Thales, Anaximander, and Aristotle. Thales (c. 624 BC c. 546 BCE) believed that everything in the
universe comes from one main substance, water. He deduced or specified from a general idea,
"everything is water", to the specific forms of water such as ice, snow, fog, and rivers.

Modern scientists can also use the opposite approach of abstraction, or going from particular facts
collected into one general idea, such as the motion of the planets (Newton (16421727)). When
determining that the sun is the center of our solar system (Copernicus (14731543)), scientists had to
utilize thousands of measurements to finally conclude that Mars moves in an elliptical orbit about the
sun (Kepler (15711630)), or to assemble multiple specific facts into the law of falling bodies (Galileo
(15641642)).

Themes
Compression

An abstraction can be seen as a compression process,[4] mapping multiple different pieces of constituent
data to a single piece of abstract data;[5] based on similarities in the constituent data, for example, many
different physical cats map to the abstraction "CAT". This conceptual scheme emphasizes the inherent
equality of both constituent and abstract data, thus avoiding problems arising from the distinction
between "abstract" and "concrete". In this sense the process of abstraction entails the identification of
similarities between objects, and the process of associating these objects with an abstraction (which is
itself an object).
 For example, picture 1 below illustrates the concrete relationship "Cat sits on Mat".

Chains of abstractions can be construed,[6] moving from neural impulses arising from sensory perception
to basic abstractions such as color or shape, to experiential abstractions such as a specific cat, to
semantic abstractions such as the "idea" of a CAT, to classes of objects such as "mammals" and even
categories such as "object" as opposed to "action".

For example, graph 1 below expresses the abstraction "agent sits on location". This conceptual
scheme entails no specific hierarchical taxonomy (such as the one mentioned involving cats and
mammals), only a progressive exclusion of detail.

Instantiation

Things that do not exist at any particular place and time are often considered abstract. By contrast,
instances, or members, of such an abstract thing might exist in many different places and times. Those
abstract things are then said to be multiply instantiated, in the sense of picture 1, picture 2, etc., shown
below. It is not sufficient, however, to define abstract ideas as those that can be instantiated and to
define abstraction as the movement in the opposite direction to instantiation. Doing so would make the
concepts "cat" and "telephone" abstract ideas since despite their varying appearances, a particular cat or
a particular telephone is an instance of the concept "cat" or the concept "telephone". Although the
concepts "cat" and "telephone" are abstractions, they are not abstract in the sense of the objects in
graph 1 below. 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 or monotreme.

Perhaps confusingly, some philosophies refer to tropes (instances of properties) as abstract particulars
e.g., the particular redness of a particular apple is an abstract particular. This is similar to qualia and
sumbebekos.

Material process

Still retaining the primary meaning of 'abstrere' or 'to draw away from', the abstraction of money, for
example, works by drawing away from the particular value of things allowing completely
incommensurate objects to be compared (see the section on 'Physicality' below). Karl Marx's writing on
the commodity abstraction recognizes a parallel process.

The state (polity) as both concept and material practice exemplifies the two sides of this process of
abstraction. Conceptually, 'the current concept of the state is an abstraction from the much more
concrete early-modern use as the standing or status of the prince, his visible estates'. At the same time,
materially, the 'practice of statehood is now constitutively and materially more abstract than at the time
when princes ruled as the embodiment of extended power'.[7]

Ontological status

The way that physical objects, like rocks and trees, have being differs from the way that properties of
abstract concepts or relations have being, for example the way the concrete, particular, individuals
pictured in picture 1 exist differs from the way the concepts illustrated in graph 1 exist. That difference
accounts for the ontological usefulness of the word "abstract". The word applies to properties and
relations to mark the fact that, if they exist, they do not exist in space or time, but that instances of them
can exist, potentially in many different places and times.

Physicality

A physical object (a possible referent of a concept or word) is considered concrete (not abstract) if it is a
particular individual that occupies a particular place and time. However, in the secondary sense of the
term 'abstraction', this physical object can carry materially abstracting processes. For example, record-
keeping aids throughout the Fertile Crescent included calculi (clay spheres, cones, etc.) which
represented counts of items, probably livestock or grains, sealed in containers. According to Schmandt-
Besserat (1981), these clay containers contained tokens, the total of which were the count of objects
being transferred. The containers thus served as something of a bill of lading or an accounts book. In
order to avoid breaking open the containers for the count, marks were placed on the outside of the
containers. These physical marks, in other words, acted as material abstractions of a materially abstract
process of accounting, using conceptual abstractions (numbers) to communicate its meaning.[8][9]

Abstract things are sometimes defined as those things that do not exist in reality or exist only as sensory
experiences, like the color red. That definition, however, suffers from the difficulty of deciding which
things are real (i.e. which things exist in reality). For example, it is difficult to agree to whether concepts
like God, the number three, and goodness are real, abstract, or both.

An approach to resolving such difficulty is to use predicates as a general term for whether things are
variously real, abstract, concrete, or of a particular property (e.g., good). Questions about the properties
of things are then propositions about predicates, which propositions remain to be evaluated by the
investigator. In the graph 1 below, the graphical relationships like the arrows joining boxes and ellipses
might denote predicates.

Referencing and referring

Abstractions sometimes have ambiguous referents; for example, "happiness" (when used as an
abstraction) can refer to as many things as there are people and events or states of being which make
them happy. Likewise, "architecture" refers not only to the design of safe, functional buildings, but also
to elements of creation and innovation which aim at elegant solutions to construction problems, to the
use of space, and to the attempt to evoke an emotional response in the builders, owners, viewers and
users of the building.

Simplification and ordering

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.
For example, many different things can be red. Likewise,
many things sit on surfaces (as in picture 1, to the right).
The property of redness and the relation sitting-on are
therefore abstractions of those objects. Specifically, the
conceptual diagram graph 1 identifies only three boxes, two Conceptual graph for A Cat sitting on the
ellipses, and four arrows (and their five labels), whereas the Mat (graph 1)
picture 1 shows much more pictorial detail, with the scores
of implied relationships as implicit in the picture rather than
with the nine explicit details in the graph.

Graph 1 details some explicit relationships between the objects of the diagram.
For example, the arrow between the agent and CAT:Elsie depicts an example of
an is-a relationship, as does the arrow between the location and the MAT. The
arrows between the gerund/present participle SITTING and the nouns agent and Cat on Mat (picture
location express the diagram's basic relationship; "agent is SITTING on 1)
location"; Elsie is an instance of CAT.[10]

Although the description sitting-on (graph 1) is more abstract than the graphic image of a cat sitting on a
mat (picture 1), the delineation of abstract things from concrete things is somewhat ambiguous; this
ambiguity or vagueness is characteristic of abstraction. Thus 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 Gdel, Escher, Bach (1979):[11]

(1) a publication

(2) a newspaper

(3) The San Francisco Chronicle

(4) the May 18 edition of The San Francisco Chronicle

(5) my copy of the May 18 edition of The San Francisco

Chronicle

(6) my copy of the May 18 edition of The San

Francisco 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 something, at progressively
deeper levels of detail, to solve a crime or a puzzle.

Thought processes

In philosophical terminology, abstraction is the thought process wherein ideas[12] are distanced from
objects.

As used in different disciplines

In art

Typically, abstraction is used in the arts as a synonym for abstract art in general. Strictly speaking, it
refers to art unconcerned with the literal depiction of things from the visible world it can, however,
refer to an object or image which has been distilled from the real world, or indeed, another work of art.
[13]
Artwork that reshapes the natural world for expressive purposes is called abstract; that which derives
from, but does not imitate a recognizable subject is called nonobjective abstraction. In the 20th century
the trend toward abstraction coincided with advances in science, technology, and changes in urban life,
eventually reflecting an interest in psychoanalytic theory.[14] Later still, abstraction was manifest in more
purely formal terms, such as color, freedom from objective context, and a reduction of form to basic
geometric designs.[15]

In computer science

Computer scientists use abstraction to make models that can be used and re-used without having to re-
write all the program code for each new application on every different type of computer. They
communicate their solutions with the computer by writing source code in some particular computer
language which can be translated into machine code for different types of computers to execute.
Abstraction allows program designers to separate categories and concepts related to computing problems
from specific instances of implementation. This means that the program code can be written so that it
does not depend on the specific details of supporting applications, operating system software or
hardware, but on an abstract concept of the solution to the problem that can then be integrated with the
system with minimal additional work.

In linguistics

Abstraction is frequently applied in linguistics so as to allow phenomena of language to be analyzed at

the desired level of detail. A commonly considered abstraction is the phoneme, which abstracts speech
sounds in such a way as to neglect details that cannot serve to differentiate meaning. Other analogous
kinds of abstractions (sometimes called "emic units") considered by linguists include morphemes,
graphemes, and lexemes. Abstraction also arises in the relation between syntax, semantics, and
pragmatics. Pragmatics involves considerations that make reference to the user of the language;
semantics considers expressions and what they denote (the designata) abstracted from the language user;
and syntax considers only the expressions themselves, abstracted from the designata.

In mathematics

Abstraction in mathematics is the process of extracting the underlying essence of a mathematical

concept, removing any dependence on real world objects with which it might originally have been
connected, and generalizing it so that it has wider applications or matching among other abstract
descriptions of equivalent phenomena.
The advantages of abstraction in mathematics are:

It reveals deep connections between different areas of mathematics

Known results in one area can suggest conjectures in a related area
Techniques and methods from one area can be applied to prove results in a related area

The main disadvantage of abstraction is that highly abstract concepts are more difficult to learn, and
require a degree of mathematical maturity and experience before they can be assimilated.

In music

In music, the term abstraction can be used to describe improvisatory approaches to interpretation, and
may sometimes indicate abandonment of tonality. Atonal music has no key signature, and is
characterized by the exploration of internal numeric relationships.[16]

In neurology

A recent meta-analysis suggests that the verbal system has greater engagement for abstract concepts
when the perceptual system is more engaged for processing of concrete concepts. This is because
abstract concepts elicit greater brain activity in the inferior frontal gyrus and middle temporal gyrus
compared to concrete concepts which elicit greater activity in the posterior cingulate, precuneus,
fusiform gyrus, and parahippocampal gyrus.[17] Other research into the human brain suggests that the left
and right hemispheres differ in their handling of abstraction. For example, one meta-analysis reviewing
human brain lesions has shown a left hemisphere bias during tool usage.[18]

In philosophy

Abstraction in philosophy is the process (or, to some, the alleged process) in concept formation of
recognizing some set of common features in individuals, and on that basis forming a concept of that
feature. The notion of abstraction is important to understanding some philosophical controversies
surrounding empiricism and the problem of universals. It has also recently become popular in formal
logic under predicate abstraction. Another philosophical tool for discussion of abstraction is thought
space.

In psychology

Carl Jung's definition of abstraction broadened its scope beyond the thinking process to include exactly
four mutually exclusive, different complementary psychological functions: sensation, intuition, feeling,
and thinking. Together they form a structural totality of the differentiating abstraction process.
Abstraction operates in one of these functions when it excludes the simultaneous influence of the other
functions and other irrelevancies, such as emotion. Abstraction requires selective use of this structural
split of abilities in the psyche. The opposite of abstraction is concretism. Abstraction is one of Jung's 57
definitions in Chapter XI of Psychological Types.
 There is an abstract thinking, just as there is abstract feeling, sensation and intuition.
Abstract thinking singles out the rational, logical qualities ... Abstract feeling does the same
with ... its feeling-values. ... I put abstract feelings on the same level as abstract thoughts. ...
Abstract sensation would be aesthetic as opposed to sensuous sensation and abstract
intuition would be symbolic as opposed to fantastic intuition. (Jung, [1921] (1971):par.
678).

In social theory

In social theory, abstraction is used as both an ideational and material process. Alfred Sohn-Rethel,
asked "Can there be abstraction other than by thought?"[2] He used the example of commodity
abstraction to show that abstraction occurs in practice as people create systems of abstract exchange that
extend beyond the immediate physicality of the object and yet have real and immediate consequences.
This work was extended through the 'Constitutive Abstraction' approach of writers associated with the
Journal Arena. Two books that have taken this theme of the abstraction of social relations as an
organizing process in human history are Nation Formation: Towards a Theory of Abstract Community.
(1996) and the second volume of Towards a Theory of Abstract Community, published in 2006:
Globalism, Nationalism, Tribalism: Bringing Theory Back InVolume 2 of Towards a Theory of
Abstract Community. These books argue that the nation is an abstract community bringing together
strangers who will never meet as such; thus constituting materially real and substantial, but abstracted
and mediated relations. The books suggest that contemporary processes of globalization and
mediatization have contributed to materially abstracting relations between people, with major
consequences for how we live our lives.

It can be easily argued that abstraction is an elementary methodological tool in several disciplines of
social science. These disciplines have definite and different man concepts that highlight those aspects of
man and his behaviour by idealization that are relevant for the given human science. For example, homo
sociologicus is the man as sociology abstracts and idealizes it, depicting man as a social being.
Moreover, we could talk about homo cyber sapiens[19] (the man who can extend his biologically
determined intelligence thanks to new technologies), or homo creativus[20] (who is simply creative).

Abstraction (combined with Weberian idealization) plays a crucial role in economics. Breaking away
from directly experienced reality was a common trend in 19th century sciences (especially physics), and
this was the effort which was fundamentally determined the way economics tried and still tries to
approach the economic aspects of social life. It is abstraction we meet in the case of both Newtons
physics and the neoclassical theory, since the goal was to grasp the unchangeable and timeless essence
of phenomena. For example, Newton created the concept of the material point by following the
abstraction method so that he abstracted from the dimension and shape of any perceptible object,
preserving only inertial and translational motion. Material point is the ultimate and common feature of
all bodies. Neoclassical economists created the indefinitely abstract notion of homo economicus by
following the same procedure. Economists abstract from all individual and personal qualities in order to
get to those characteristics that embody the essence of economic activity. Eventually, it is the substance
of the economic man that they try to grasp. Any characteristic beyond it only disturbs the functioning of
this essential core.[21]
See also

Abstract and concrete Conceptual model Nucleophilic abstraction

Abstract interpretation Emergence Object of the mind
Abstract labour and Engaged theory Platonic realism
concrete labour Gottlob Frege Reification (knowledge
Abstract structure Hypostatic abstraction representation)
Charles Sanders Peirce Leaky abstraction Symbol
Lyrical abstraction Inventor's paradox

Notes
1. Suzanne K. Langer (1953), Feeling and Form: a theory of art developed from Philosophy in a New Key p.
90: "Sculptural form is a powerful abstraction from actual objects and the three-dimensional space which we
construe ... through touch and sight."
2. Alfred Sohn-Rethel, Intellectual and manual labour: A critique of epistemology, Humanities Press, 1977
3. Hesse, M. B. (1964), "Francis Bacon's Philosophy of Science", in A Critical History of Western Philosophy,
ed. D. J. O'Connor, New York, pp. 14152.
4. Chaitin, Gregory (2006), The Limits Of Reason (PDF), archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-05-09
5. Murray Gell-Mann (1995) "What is complexity? Remarks on simplicity and complexity by the Nobel Prize-
winning author of The Quark and the Jaguar
(http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cplx.6130010105/pdf)" Complexity states the 'algorithmic
information complexity' (AIC) of some string of bits is the shortest length computer program which can print
out that string of bits.
6. Ross,L. (1987). The Problem of Construal in Social Inference and Social Psychology. In N. Grunberg, R.E.
Nisbett, J. Singer (eds), A Distinctive Approach to psychological research: the influence of Stanley Schacter.
Hillsdale, NJ: Earlbaum.
7. James, Paul (2006). Globalism, Nationalism, Tribalism: Bringing Theory Back InVolume 2 of Towards a
Theory of Abstract Community. London: Sage Publications., pages 318-19.
8. Eventually (Schmandt-Besserat estimates it took 4000 years
(http://www.laits.utexas.edu/ghazal/Chap1/dsb/chapter1.html) Archived
(https://web.archive.org/web/20120130084757/http://www.laits.utexas.edu/ghazal/Chap1/dsb/chapter1.html)
January 30, 2012, at the Wayback Machine.) the marks on the outside of the containers were all that were
needed to convey the count, and the clay containers evolved into clay tablets with marks for the count.
9. Robson, Eleanor (2008). Mathematics in Ancient Iraq. ISBN 978-0-691-09182-2.. p. 5: these calculi were in
use in Iraq for primitive accounting systems as early as 32003000 BCE, with commodity-specific counting
representation systems. Balanced accounting was in use by 30002350 BCE, and a sexagesimal number
system was in use 23502000 BCE.
10. Sowa, John F. (1984). Conceptual Structures: Information Processing in Mind and Machine. Reading, MA:
Addison-Wesley. ISBN 978-0-201-14472-7.
11. Douglas Hofstadter (1979) Gdel, Escher, Bach
12. But an idea can be symbolized. "A symbol is any device whereby we are enabled to make an abstraction." --
p.xi and chapter 20 of Suzanne K. Langer (1953), Feeling and Form: a theory of art developed from
Philosophy in a New Key: New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 431 pages, index.
13. "abstract art". Encyclopedia Britannica.
14. Catherine de Zegher and Hendel Teicher (eds.), 3 X Abstraction. NY/New Haven: The Drawing Center/Yale
University Press. 2005. ISBN 0-300-10826-5
 15. National Gallery of Art: Abstraction. (http://www.nga.gov/education/american/abstract.shtm) Archived
(https://web.archive.org/web/20110608000000/http://www.nga.gov/education/american/abstract.shtm) June
8, 2011, at the Wayback Machine.
16. Washington State University: Glossary of Abstraction.
(http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/GLOSSARY/ABSTRACT.HTM) Archived
(https://web.archive.org/web/20070911121123/http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/GLOSSARY/ABSTRACT.HTM)
September 11, 2007, at the Wayback Machine.
17. Wang, Jing; Conder, Julie A.; Blitzer, David N.; Shinkareva, Svetlana V. (2010). "Neural Representation of
Abstract and Concrete Concepts: A Meta-Analysis of Neuroimaging Studies". Human Brain Mapping. 31:
14591468. doi:10.1002/hbm.20950.
18. James W. Lewis "Cortical Networks Related to Human Use of Tools" 12 (3): 211231 The Neuroscientist
(June 1, 2006).
19. Steels, Luc (1995). The Homo Cyber Sapiens, the Robot Homonidus Intelligens, and the Artificial Life
Approach to Artificial Intelligence. Brussel: Vrije Universiteit, Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.
20. Inkinen, Sam (2009). "Homo Creativus Creativity and Serendipity Management in Third Generation
Science and Technology Parks". Science and Public Policy. 36 (7): 537548.
21. Galbcs, Peter (2015). "Methodological Principles and an Epistemological Introduction". The Theory of New
Classical Macroeconomics. A Positive Critique. Heidelberg/New York/Dordrecht/London: Springer. pp. 1
52. ISBN 978-3-319-17578-2.

References
The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 3rd edition, Houghton Mifflin
(1992), hardcover, 2140 pages, ISBN 0-395-44895-6
James, Paul (1996). Nation Formation: Towards a Theory of Abstract Community. London: Sage
Publications.
James, Paul (2006). Globalism, Nationalism, Tribalism: Bringing Theory Back In - Volume 2 of
Towards a Theory of Abstract Community. London: Sage Publications.
Jung, C.G. [1921] (1971). Psychological Types, Collected Works, Volume 6, Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-01813-8.
Sohn-Rethel, Alfred (1977) Intellectual and manual labour: A critique of epistemology,
Humanities Press.
Schmandt-Besserat, Denise (1981). "Decipherment of the Earliest Tablets". Science. 211 (4479):
283285. Bibcode:1981Sci...211..283S. doi:10.1126/science.211.4479.283. PMID 17748027..

External links
Abstraction (https://inpho.cogs.indiana.edu/idea/2013) at Look up abstraction in
the Indiana Philosophy Ontology Project Wiktionary, the free
Abstraction (http://philpapers.org/s/Abstraction) at dictionary.
PhilPapers
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Gottlob Frege Wikiquote has quotations
(http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/f/frege.htm) related to: Abstraction
Discussion at The Well concerning Abstraction hierarchy
(http://originresearch.com/sd/sd1.cfm)

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