• ucarr
    1.1k
    Proposition – Abstractionism is rooted in the cognitive compression<>expansion of the time interval.

    Let’s unpack the above proposition with a clarifying example.

    Clarifying example – an industrial chemist develops a liquid soap with a uniquely strong and delightful scent of jasmine. The commercial producer of the liquid soap is ecstatic with brisk sales of the soap until reports start streaming in about the soap quickly losing its scent. Turns out the soap, being packed in clear glass bottles, allows sunlight to convert the scent-bearing compound into a non-scent bearing variant. After the chemist discovers this, he conducts a test with the soap inside an opaque bottle. After exposure to sunlight, the soap still retains its uniquely strong and delightful scent of jasmine. He advises the producer about loading the soap into opaque bottles and soon after brisk sales of the product resume to the delight of everyone.

    What did the chemist initially do? He loaded soap into an opaque bottle and, after exposing it to sunlight, tested for scent. Success.

    What did the chemist ultimately do? He advised the producer about the use of opaque bottles for all containment of the product henceforth.

    Let’s look at the progression of the chemist from his initial step to his ultimate step. What did he do? He abstracted his understanding about one opaque bottle to a set of opaque bottles of unspecified volume (read here as quasi-infinite).

    An individual can, in this example, easily run a test for scent duration employing one opaque bottle.

    While of course it’s also possible to run a test for scent duration employing many opaque bottles, the production of such a test elongates the time interval.

    Contemplating running a test for a quasi-infinite volume of opaque bottles takes us into another category of difficulty altogether. And yet, it’s as if the chemist has done that because he abstracts his test run for one bottle to a test run for a quasi-infinity of bottles via an abstract mental concept in his head.

    Through conceptualization of an abstraction, set, the chemist compresses the beyond-loads and loads of practical time required for a test run for a quasi-infinity of bottles into a very small interval of time required for abstractionism applied in order to advance from one opaque bottle to all opaque bottles.

    Via his mental construction of set of all opaque bottles, an example of abstractionism, the chemist firstly compresses a beyond-long interval of time into a very short interval of time.

    Next, via his mental construction of marketing set of all opaque bottles, he secondly expands a very short interval of time into a beyond long interval of time.
  • T Clark
    13k


    Seems to me you are equating abstraction with generalization. Are they the same thing? I don't think so, but I'm not sure.

    I think the real generalization in your example is the chemist recognizing, based on his own and others' past experience that 1) sunlight can degrade chemical substances and 2) opaque containers can help prevent that degradation. I'm sure whatever decision was made wouldn't be made based on a single sample. There would certainly be a large enough number to allow a robust evaluation of performance, including statistics. They would probably try with several materials, levels of opacity, intensity of light, etc. They might also try to rule out other factors, e.g. temperature.
  • T Clark
    13k


    And welcome to the forum.
  • ucarr
    1.1k
    Hello T Clark,

    Thanks for the welcome to TPF and, also, thanks for taking the time to respond to my post.

    I sense that your distinction between abstraction and generalization is sound, and perhaps you can elaborate on their differences a bit more.

    Right now I'm wondering if perhaps there's some overlapping between the two concepts. My current thinking is that if one opaque bottle tests good, then the chemist makes an induction to the belief all opaque bottles shall test good. This is the generalization part.

    Believing he's made a sound induction, the chemist feels ready to advance to the robust evaluation you write about and then, lastly, advise the producer to roll out a batch of product in opaque bottles. It is in the last part involving the advice where abstractionism comes in as it is a mental picture that guides the chemist in the absence of hands-on empirical testing at the full volume of commercial production.
  • ucarr
    1.1k
    Some additional thoughts,

    To abstract and to generalize are closely related. To abstract means to take the general form of something out of its local context wherein it's a specific thing with distinguishing features that make it concrete. In its general form, the abstracted thing fits into a multitude of generally similar contexts.

    Perhaps the most accurate way to distinguish to abstract from to generalize is to declare that the first action is a cause whereas the second action is an effect.

    Perhaps here, within this examination, it's better to oppose to abstract with to multiply. With multiplication you can talk about taking a concrete thing and increasing its numbers without abstracting it from its concrete, distinguishing features. Even here, however, to multiply the numbers of a thing is to both abstract and generalize a concrete thing into generic members of a set.
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