Abstraction means assigning a symbol to reference a set of other symbols. It saves time and memory: time by allowing retrieval of data based on a set of rules, memory by shrinking the size of the reference.
For example: the words ‘natural’ and ‘artificial’: we sort things into one of these labels based on whether or not they were made by a human. A ‘natural’ thing could be ‘physical’ or ‘biological’. An ‘artificial’ thing could be ‘theory’ or ‘implementation’. If I don’t need to distinguish between physical and biological things, instead of referring to them directly, I can use the more abstract reference of ‘natural’ things, saving space and time in my statement.
The challenge with natural language abstraction is agreeing on definitions. Many would define the terms in the above example differently. The more we can agree on definitions of terms, the better we can reason about their subsets.
In a logically valid system of abstraction, any symbol can be related to every other symbol: either by a common parent reference, or by using one to refer to the other.
Abstraction means assigning a symbol to reference a set of other symbols. It saves time and memory: time by allowing retrieval of data based on a set of rules, memory by shrinking the size of the reference.
For example: the words ‘natural’ and ‘artificial’: we sort things into one of these labels based on whether or not they were made by a human. A ‘natural’ thing could be ‘physical’ or ‘biological’. An ‘artificial’ thing could be ‘theory’ or ‘implementation’. If I don’t need to distinguish between physical and biological things, instead of referring to them directly, I can use the more abstract reference of ‘natural’ things, saving space and time in my statement.
The challenge with natural language abstraction is agreeing on definitions. Many would define the terms in the above example differently. The more we can agree on definitions of terms, the better we can reason about their subsets.
In a logically valid system of abstraction, any symbol can be related to every other symbol: either by a common parent reference, or by using one to refer to the other.