Re: The Meaning of Abstract
From: Herman Rubin (hrubin_at_odds.stat.purdue.edu)
Date: 06/02/04
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Date: 2 Jun 2004 10:01:51 -0500
In article <fa69ae35.0406010857.4d6ce246@posting.google.com>,
Eray Ozkural exa <erayo@bilkent.edu.tr> wrote:
>Greetings,
>I'm surprised that some people take "abstract" as a vague common-sense
>concept. To me, it has a precise technical meaning: lossy compression.
>A program is abstract, because it *loses* the architectural details of
>a computation, and it is concise. A blueprint of a house is abstract
>because it *loses* the architectural and material properties of an
>actual house, and it is concise.
You are confusing "abstract" with "abstraction". None
of these is abstract, although they are abstractions.
When understood, an abstract idea is a mental structure,
which may or may not arise by the process of abstraction.
It is likely to be better understood if it does not.
-- This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University. Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University hrubin@stat.purdue.edu Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558
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