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Reference
Abstraction in its main sense is a conceptual process where 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 outcome of this process—a concept that acts as a common noun for all subordinate concepts, and connects any related concepts as a group, field, or category.
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 subjectively valued 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, excluding, but not eliminating, the other phenomenal and cognitive characteristics of that particular ball.
In a type–token distinction, a type (e.g., a 'ball') is more abstract than its tokens (e.g., 'that leather soccer ball').
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.
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 Jacobean 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.[4] Thales (c. 624–546 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 (1642–1727)). When determining that the sun is the center of our solar system (Copernicus (1473–1543)), scientists had to utilize thousands of measurements to finally conclude that Mars moves in an elliptical orbit about the sun (Kepler (1571–1630)), or to assemble multiple specific facts into the law of falling bodies (Galileo (1564–1642)).
In mathematics
Main article: Abstraction (mathematics)
Abstraction in mathematics is the process of extracting the underlying structures, patterns or properties of a mathematical concept or object,[19] 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 another related area.
- Techniques and methods from one area can be applied to prove results in other related area.
- Patterns from one mathematical object can be generalized to other similar objects in the same class.
- The main disadvantage of abstraction is that highly abstract concepts are more difficult to learn, and might require a degree of mathematical maturity and experience before they can be assimilated.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstraction
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