I notice comparing abstractions is kind of very difficult. This is especially true on the context of abstractions we don’t know about yet. So I am wondering about how we might be able to compare abstractions at a glance.
Since this involves thinking about abstraction space, I am inclined to just take the space part literally—we’ll look at 3 dimensions, with transformations and color. The question becomes, what the heck would these represent? Wild-ass-guesses:
Compactness/elegance of the abstraction
How much does the abstraction compress/explain
Computability
Perhaps we could also impose some kind of relationship between the abstraction and humans relationship to it, like how easy it is to fit in our heads, or to transmit to other humans. Then there could be some kind of orthographic projection where one projection shows the shape of the abstraction’s power, another of its ease of use, etc. where each of these is itself an abstraction in a different corner of abstraction space.
Graphical comparison of abstractions
I notice comparing abstractions is kind of very difficult. This is especially true on the context of abstractions we don’t know about yet. So I am wondering about how we might be able to compare abstractions at a glance.
Since this involves thinking about abstraction space, I am inclined to just take the space part literally—we’ll look at 3 dimensions, with transformations and color. The question becomes, what the heck would these represent? Wild-ass-guesses:
Compactness/elegance of the abstraction
How much does the abstraction compress/explain
Computability
Perhaps we could also impose some kind of relationship between the abstraction and humans relationship to it, like how easy it is to fit in our heads, or to transmit to other humans. Then there could be some kind of orthographic projection where one projection shows the shape of the abstraction’s power, another of its ease of use, etc. where each of these is itself an abstraction in a different corner of abstraction space.