Abstraction

Abstraction is a process where general rules and concepts are derived from the use and classifying of specific examples, literal (real or concrete) signifiers, first principles, or other methods.

[1] Conceptual abstractions may be made by filtering the information content of a concept or an observable phenomenon, selecting only those aspects which are relevant for a particular purpose.

Thinking in abstractions is considered by anthropologists, archaeologists, and sociologists to be one of the key traits in modern human behaviour, believed[3] to have developed between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago.

Abstraction can be illustrated by Francis Bacon's Novum Organum (1620), a book of modern scientific philosophy written in the late Jacobean era[5] of England to encourage modern thinkers to collect specific facts before making any generalizations.

Newton (1642–1727) derived the motion of the planets from Copernicus' (1473–1543) simplification, that the Sun is the center of the Solar System; Kepler (1571–1630) compressed thousands of measurements into one expression to finally conclude that Mars moves in an elliptical orbit about the Sun; Galileo (1564–1642) compressed the results of one hundred specific experiments into the law of falling bodies.

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'.

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.

For example, record-keeping aids throughout the Fertile Crescent included calculi (clay spheres, cones, etc.)

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).

For example, "happiness" can mean experiencing various positive emotions, but can also refer to life satisfaction and subjective well-being.

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.

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.

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.

[17] 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.

Abstraction allows program designers to separate a framework (categorical concepts related to computing problems) from specific instances which implement details.

Anatol Rapoport wrote "Abstracting is a mechanism by which an infinite variety of experiences can be mapped on short noises (words).

"[19] Francis Fukuyama defines history as "a deliberate attempt of abstraction in which we separate out important from unimportant events".

[20] Researchers in linguistics frequently apply abstraction so as to allow an analysis of the phenomena of language at the desired level of detail.

Other analogous kinds of abstractions (sometimes called "emic units") considered by linguists include morphemes, graphemes, and lexemes.

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.

Abstraction in mathematics is the process of extracting the underlying structures, patterns or properties of a mathematical concept or object, 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.

In music, the term abstraction can be used to describe improvisatory approaches to interpretation, and may sometimes indicate abandonment of tonality.

For example, one meta-analysis reviewing human brain lesions has shown a left hemisphere bias during tool usage.

The notion of abstraction is important to understanding some philosophical controversies surrounding empiricism and the problem of universals.

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)[24] and an associated volume published in 2006, Globalism, Nationalism, Tribalism: Bringing Theory Back In.

It is abstraction we meet in the case of both Newton's physics and the neoclassical theory, since the goal was to grasp the unchangeable and timeless essence of phenomena.

Economists abstract from all individual and personal qualities in order to get to those characteristics that embody the essence of economic activity.