Can we truly define what is an abstraction?

[Werg22]

I just had a debate with my roommate who wouldn't agree that a color is an abstraction. I tried to explain to her that a property standing by itself is an abstraction, things that possesses this property can be concretions. She would say "color is a wavelength" to which I answered wavelengths provide sufficient and necessary conditions as to when we perceive a certain color, but the color red itself, in other words the property "redness", is an abstraction.

She finally ended up telling me that we have different definitions of abstraction and left at the debate at that. She told me that in my world "everything is an abstraction" which is obviously a gross oversimplification.

But I did tell her that, for example, what makes a table a table, in other words its defining properties, as seen by themselves, is an abstraction.

She didn't provide any convincing argument as to why I'm wrong, but if you can, by all means do.

 

[munky99999]

Comparing wavelength colour to preceived things is somewhat futile because we know perceptions are quite flawed.

http://www.planetperplex.com/en/item35

Good ole optical illusions.

Or go Cheech and Chong and do a load of hallucinogens.

We know colour can be defined by wavelength and thusly this isn't moving really.

The virtual world that is created in our heads for each and every one of us is just that... virtual or abstraction. For many people they aren't colour blind; so in a way their abstraction-virtual world is correct.

I think VS Ramachandran would interest you well.

 

[Pythagorean]

I agree with you, Werg. We percieve 650 nm EM waves as the color red, but 650 nm EM waves are not the same thing as red light. It's how our brain organizes and stores the information that gives us the sensation "red".

The same can be said about smells and tones. For instance, a dog stores smells in his brain like we store tones. They sense each aromatic as a separate tone and can tell what "tones" are occurring at the same time (the way a musician could tell the notes in a chord being played).

 

[WaveJumper]

Looking at the "basement" of the universe is quite funny. You get to understand how different the universe actually is compared to our perception of it. This Newtonean world of ours is like a hologram arising in a dead world of quantum fields. It's unreal how life and death bring about very high self-orgnisation of charges at the quantum level. It's funny when you know you are dead in the quantum world and alive at the same time in the Newtonean. So yes, everything is an abstraction, that's just how we perceive reality.

 

[Q_Goest]

Hi Werg,
You're correct. Those experiences we have (such as the experience of the color red) are generally called "qualia". There is no debate that such things as the 'redness' of blood is not a property of blood, but an experience of it. The only real debate is how such experiences can be created by the brain.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

Color is an abstraction. Here is http://www.allposters.com/gallery.a...tcyclopedia.com/artists/pollock_jackson.html". I've always admired the ability of philosophers to get paid for what they do.

 

[baywax]

Abstraction or not, the "experience" of red can save your life. And that sort of abstraction becomes rather useful in a concrete way. Red stop signs, red stop lights etc.. come in handy. Brake lights help too. All of these traffic tools are actually calibered to accommodate the colour blind among us. There is a specific amount of yellow in the red lights and pigments on the road to get their attention... and there is a specific amount of blue in the green traffic light to keep them in the loop.

As abstract as colour may seem, it has its practical uses. Similarly, the wave lengths of various coloured light also stimulate plant growth and reproduction. Various wavelengths of light act as stimulants that are specific to anatomical and tissue responses.

WILLIAM HENNING, N.D., O.D.

William Henning in his book, The Practice of Modern Optometry (Actino Laboratories, Inc. Chicago, 1939) , described two fundamental responses: contraction and expansion. Although all frequencies are stimuli, application of the blue-indigo-violet frequencies induce expansion; disinhibition; dilation; relaxation; decreased secretions; increased absorption; pleasure, relief, etc. Red-yellow-orange frequencies elicit contraction; stimulation; constriction; tension; spasm; increased secretions; increased metabolism; decreased absorption; and increased pain and discomfort.

http://www.syntonicphototherapy.com/online/page.cfm?Directory=42&SubPage=43

When combined with photosenstive chemicals, red light is extremely effective in causing apoptosis (cell death) in targeted tumours.

The Litx device contains a tiny array of LEDs at the end of a very narrow (only 1.2 mm wide) flexible coated micro-wire. Administering physicians insert the LED array into a tumor using a biopsy-like procedure, followed by intravenous injection of LS11. The device emits red light at a discrete frequency and intensity, for a fixed time period, to activate LS11 and create a “kill zone” around the LED array. Unlike radiation therapy, laser-based light-activated therapies, or thermal tissue destruction methods, Litx does not require expensive equipment.

http://www.lsoncology.com/litx_therapy

Lastly I'll have to note that we have come to associate colours with certain conditions. If red liquid is spurting from your neck you know you're bleeding. If green liquid is sprouting from your nose, you know you should blow your nose. So, as abstract as you might think "colour" is, it remains a universally accepted measurement of a person's condition as well as having a universally recorded stimulation upon specific tissues, organs and organisms.

 

[WaveJumper]

It's not just the red colour that's an abstraction. All the information in this thread, conveyed by contrasting colours and having implied/perceived meaning, is nothing but an abstraction created/deciphered by the mind.

 

[WaveJumper]

In fact, i'd be hard pressed to think of a single anything that's not an abstraction.

 

[octelcogopod]

Wave,
I agree.

To take this one step further though..

There are many ways that reality could 'spawn' in our consciousness.
We could for example be living organisms on planet Earth who have been given a brain and sensory system that is capable of being (self) aware, and aware of its surroundings, or we could have been given this reality, maybe our consciousness exists elsewhere, and we are projected into the universe so that we create the entire reality.
It could all be a dream..

I've pondered over why neuroscientists haven't gotten any closer to actually solving 'the hard problem', nor find out what qualia really means.
There's been so much discussion about subjective and objective, sensory perception, the brain and metaphysics even, yet nobody has come any closer to understanding how this works.

But to be honest, I hope we do not figure it out.. If we could one day create consciousness at will, it would imo ruin everything that is beautiful about this place.
Slightly off topic, but this topic is both mysterious and saddening at the same time.

 

[Pythagorean]

In fact, i'd be hard pressed to think of a single anything that's not an abstraction.

well, allegedly, there's actually something out there that isn't an abstraction. The abstraction is a result of us sensing that thing (we call it reality, though some may confuse their abstraction of reality with the actual reality).

 

[octelcogopod]

Everything we know is an abstraction, so how can we prove reality is out there?

 

[baywax]

Everything we know is an abstraction, so how can we prove reality is out there?

Oh, I see, this is another... "everything is a holograph" thread.

Let's put it another way... an "abstraction" compared to what? If you can call "everything" an abstraction... you must be using a comparable as a contrasting state...

what is your comparable?

 

[octelcogopod]

Right but that doesn't prove reality is the comparable.. Reality could still be a dreamworld inside our heads, where the contrasting reality is outside of our senses reach.

 

[WaveJumper]

Oh, I see, this is another... "everything is a holograph" thread.

Let's put it another way... an "abstraction" compared to what? If you can call "everything" an abstraction... you must be using a comparable as a contrasting state...

what is your comparable?

Comparable to all the things that we know through our consciousness from our everyday Newtonian world.

 

[Pythagorean]

Right but that doesn't prove reality is the comparable.. Reality could still be a dreamworld inside our heads, where the contrasting reality is outside of our senses reach.

While technically, it may be true, it's a useless point of view since nothing can be gained from it.

 

[Werg22]

In fact, i'd be hard pressed to think of a single anything that's not an abstraction.

But there needs to be a hiearchy of abstraction. At the very bottom, we would find the abstraction "object", color, shape, distance would be a little higher.

But this brings an interesting point. Smell for example is a sensory experience. The word in itself, "smell", is an abstraction, maybe the best evidence to that is that we are capable of making smells defining properties of objects (for example, I could say a banana is that which smells thus, and I could identify more than one object fitting the description). Of course, smells are hardly defining properties of objects in an age where we can artificially reproduce them, but you get the point. Now some animals scavenge for food. It's important for these animals to be able to identify their food, and often they do so using their sense of smell. So even at the animal level, we find evidence of abstraction.

 

[baywax]

Right but that doesn't prove reality is the comparable.. Reality could still be a dreamworld inside our heads, where the contrasting reality is outside of our senses reach.

This doesn't answer the question I've asked...

How is it that we can assign a word like "abstract" to colour or any other condition without using a universal comparison that isn't "abstract"?

We have brains and we base our assumptions on the interpretations our brains make of nature. In fact we assume nature is "nature" based on what we are able to decipher with these brains.

There is no other way to do otherwise. We build computers to do some interpretation for us but it is inevitably our brains that process that information.

So, are there some "things" in nature that are more "abstract" than others, thus providing benchmarks for a reality of "less abstract" phenomena...?

 

[Hurkyl]

While technically, it may be true, it's a useless point of view since nothing can be gained from it.

Wrong; it is an extraordinarily useful point of view. For example, it serves to soundly refute many naïve philosophical positions.

 

[baywax]

One more point to consider... the concept of "abstraction" is probably the only real abstraction our brain will be able to identify edit... as an abstraction).

 

[WaveJumper]

So, are there some "things" in nature that are more "abstract" than others, thus providing benchmarks for a reality of "less abstract" phenomena...?

I'd say no, but in our classical realm of existence, all "things" are abstractions created by the mind, and made possible through our "coarse" sensory apparatus. It's a twisted picture(perception) of an otherwise cold, dead and bleak quantum reality. It's hard to say how we are able to ascribe so much meaning to dumb quantum fields interactions.

 

[Werg22]

Why shouldn't there be things that are more abstract than others? Like I said in my previous post, the concept of "object" is less abstract than the concept of "color".

 

[WaveJumper]

Why shouldn't there be things that are more abstract than others? Like I said in my previous post, the concept of "object" is less abstract than the concept of "color".

In what way is an object less abstract than colour? I could get the point you were trying to make in your previous post. It'd be useful if you could tell us how you define "abstraction" to avoid confusion.

 

[baywax]

I'd say no, but in our classical realm of existence, all "things" are abstractions created by the mind, and made possible through our "coarse" sensory apparatus.

"Course" compared to what?

It's a twisted picture(perception)

In your opinion.

an otherwise cold, dead and bleak quantum reality. It's hard to say how we are able to ascribe so much meaning to dumb quantum fields interactions.

Now you're bringing up the quantum state which we are only able to observe because we are in the state of the macrocosm. Are you using quantum reality as a comparable?

Your illusion and abstraction is that quantum reality is dead and bleak. How have you arrived at this conclusion (or is it an abstraction)?

 

[Werg22]

In what way is an object less abstract than colour? I could get the point you were trying to make in your previous post. It'd be useful if you could tell us how you define "abstraction" to avoid confusion.

Maybe I'm wrong to say that "object" is less abstract than color. One could live in a reality where all he sees is a uniform "sheet" with no identifiable parts. If that so called "sheet" changed colors in cyclic manner, then we could still abstract the concept of color, without the need of the concept of object.

But that's speaking objectively. For humans at least, who live in a particular reality, I think we learn to differentiate between objects before colors, and so abstraction builds up in a pyramidal scheme.

 

[WaveJumper]

"Course" compared to what?

Coarse enough to allow us to "see" only the necessary portion of the EMR spectrum so as to avoid seeing "daylight" when the sun is not shining. Coarse enough so that we don't see molecules and atoms. If we did, we wouldn't know where one object's atoms end and where the atoms of air take over.

Now you're bringing up the quantum state which we are only able to observe because we are in the state of the macrocosm. Are you using quantum reality as a comparable?

Yes, the quantum reality is the true real nature of the universe. Our human sensory perception of it is incomplete and twisted so as to create the rather coherent picture we have of the universe, but fundamentally it's just a universe of quantum energy fields.

Your illusion and abstraction is that quantum reality is dead and bleak. How have you arrived at this conclusion (or is it an abstraction)?

I have no reason to believe elementary particles have a mind of their own or that they are somehow alive. Everything that's "alive" is alive at our realm of existence, not in the quantum world. Quantum mechanically you are a collection of "dead" 14 billion years old atoms. This collection of atoms that you are, comes alive at a different realm/level, the upper macro level where we reside. One day after 90-100 years, your death will not bring death to the atoms that comprised you, that's just how things go in nature.

 

[baywax]

Coarse enough to allow us to "see" only the necessary portion of the EMR spectrum so as to avoid seeing "daylight" when the sun is not shining. Coarse enough so that we don't see molecules and atoms. If we did, we wouldn't know where one object's atoms end and where the atoms of air take over.

Compared to what? Is there some other way to experience these things?

Yes, the quantum reality is the true real nature of the universe. Our human sensory perception of it is incomplete and twisted so as to create the rather coherent picture we have of the universe, but fundamentally it's just a universe of quantum energy fields.

Now for some reason, you know that quantum reality is the "true real nature of the universe"... when physicists have always maintained that the microcosm and macrocosm are separate states and incomparable.

I have no reason to believe elementary particles have a mind of their own or that they are somehow alive. Everything that's "alive" is alive at our realm of existence, not in the quantum world.

As I've said, the two states, micro and macrocosms are not comparable and do not offer material for analogies of each other. As far as metaphors go... they are truly abstract in nature...

Quantum mechanically you are a collection of "dead" 14 billion years old atoms.

That isn't a quantum reality. Its just a macrocosmic reality.

 

[Werg22]

Yes, the quantum reality is the true real nature of the universe. Our human sensory perception of it is incomplete and twisted so as to create the rather coherent picture we have of the universe, but fundamentally it's just a universe of quantum energy fields.

I find this statement ambiguous. We can only examine the quantum world with the same eye we see our macro-reality. We apply abstractions we draw from our reality to the quantum world; we speak of particles as objects, movement, collision, etc. In other words, we are already supposing a certain reality and real concepts a priori.

 

[Q_Goest]

Hi werg. Calling color an “abstraction” is not as far as I have ever read, a term of the art. That is, I believe what you mean by “abstraction” is the commonly accepted view that color is a phenomenal property of the mind. As http://books.google.com/books?id=0f...hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result"points out:

It seems reasonable to say that together, the psychological and the phenomenal exhaust the mental. That is, every mental property is either a phenomenal property, a psychological property, or some combination of the two. … There is no third kind of manifest explanandum, and the first two sources of evidence – experience and behavior – provide no reason to believe in any third kind of nonphenomenal, nonfunctional properties (with perhaps a minor exception for relational properties, discussed shortly).

So by that, Chalmers points out that phenomenal properties are such things as the experience of pain or color. In contrast, psychological properties are behavioral or emperically measurable. When you say: “Maybe I'm wrong to say that "object" is less abstract than color.” You should probably reword that to say that “Maybe I’m wrong to say that an “object” is less of a phenomenal property of the mind than is color.” Is that what you mean? If so, you are not wrong. You should state that objects (and wavelengths of light) are most certainly not phenomenal properties, but that color is. Color is not a property of the wavelength of light, it is a phenomena which you experience when your brain has a certain input from the light receptors in your eyes. The wavelength of light and the shape of an object on the other hand, are independent of any experience one has of it such as the color red. The color red is not a property of light, it is a phenomena produced by the brain. The experience of 'red' is independant of the wavelength of light. We could experience 'green' instead, and we might go through life calling it red (this is called inverted qualia) because there is no way to determine that one person's 'red' isn't another person's 'green'.

 

[Werg22]

This is not exactly what I mean by abstraction. There is no doubt that the perception of red is something the mind is responsible for. Any sensory experience is ultimately created by the mind for that matter. You could take a not-so-intelligent animal and, assuming it can perceive different colors, show it a red flag every time you are going to feed it. That animal could very well anticipate to be fed even when you show it a flag of a different color. That animal hasn't abstracted "red" and as such doesn't differentiate one flag from the other. Yet, your discourse applies perfectly to the mind of that animal. Some abstractions are built in or become part of our nature, some aren't. We don't need to think to recognize that a red flag is different from a blue one, but the animal question "would".

I don't see evidence as to why an object is less of a phenomenal property than color. You could very well come up with scenarios in which you and someone else have reversed perceptions of two different kind of objects.

 

[octelcogopod]

This doesn't answer the question I've asked...

How is it that we can assign a word like "abstract" to colour or any other condition without using a universal comparison that isn't "abstract"?

We have brains and we base our assumptions on the interpretations our brains make of nature. In fact we assume nature is "nature" based on what we are able to decipher with these brains.

There is no other way to do otherwise. We build computers to do some interpretation for us but it is inevitably our brains that process that information.

So, are there some "things" in nature that are more "abstract" than others, thus providing benchmarks for a reality of "less abstract" phenomena...?

In theory if our consciousness had been projected into a dreamworld, that consciousness would have built a reality that IT found 'concrete' (namely what it perceives), and since it already had abstraction capability before the world was even created, a separation between the concrete abstractions and the mental abstractions happen all inside one big abstraction.
The comparable is in fact just an illusion of the mind..

But that's bordering on silly even. I would have to say I do not believe this to be the case, but the point is the mind could in theory create both the concrete and the abstract, even when everything is abstract.. It's all how the mind defines it.

Of course, all these problems will be gone if we could one day create consciousness ourselves, and we had a complete understanding of ourselves, but that doesn't seem to happen anytime soon.

 

[baywax]

In theory if our consciousness had been projected into a dreamworld, that consciousness would have built a reality that IT found 'concrete' (namely what it perceives), and since it already had abstraction capability before the world was even created, a separation between the concrete abstractions and the mental abstractions happen all inside one big abstraction.
The comparable is in fact just an illusion of the mind..

But that's bordering on silly even. I would have to say I do not believe this to be the case, but the point is the mind could in theory create both the concrete and the abstract, even when everything is abstract.. It's all how the mind defines it.

Of course, all these problems will be gone if we could one day create consciousness ourselves, and we had a complete understanding of ourselves, but that doesn't seem to happen anytime soon.

Cool. But humans would not have survived 3 million years without building concrete abstractions out of the sensory data collected by their cognitive processes. That's why we trust what we perceive so much. It might be a mistake in certain cases... such as drinking sand that once was the mirage of water, etc...

 

[baywax]

Hi werg. Calling color an “abstraction” is not as far as I have ever read, a term of the art. That is, I believe what you mean by “abstraction” is the commonly accepted view that color is a phenomenal property of the mind. As http://books.google.com/books?id=0f...hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result"points out: So by that, Chalmers points out that phenomenal properties are such things as the experience of pain or color. In contrast, psychological properties are behavioral or emperically measurable. When you say: “Maybe I'm wrong to say that "object" is less abstract than color.” You should probably reword that to say that “Maybe I’m wrong to say that an “object” is less of a phenomenal property of the mind than is color.” Is that what you mean? If so, you are not wrong. You should state that objects (and wavelengths of light) are most certainly not phenomenal properties, but that color is. Color is not a property of the wavelength of light, it is a phenomena which you experience when your brain has a certain input from the light receptors in your eyes. The wavelength of light and the shape of an object on the other hand, are independent of any experience one has of it such as the color red. The color red is not a property of light, it is a phenomena produced by the brain. The experience of 'red' is independant of the wavelength of light. We could experience 'green' instead, and we might go through life calling it red (this is called inverted qualia) because there is no way to determine that one person's 'red' isn't another person's 'green'.

Because there has been no statistical data collected regarding the empirical measurements of the psychological effects of colour (specific wavelengths of light) on the brain does not mean there are none to collect.

Because specific wavelengths of light (which 97 percent of humans will label the same 'colour') do have (and have been recorded to have had) a physiological effect on plants, animals and photosensitive chemicals it becomes obvious to me that specific wavelengths of light are in no way exclusively abstracted or cognitively constructed by our brains and not nature.

And there is one more point to the discussion about abstraction... the very concept... the very "qualia" that is "abstract" is actually a very concrete and measurable phenomenon. That's because it only takes place when a specific combination of neurons fire in a human brain. How much more concrete can you get? Abstraction is sullied by the very fact that it, as a phenomenon, is a concrete/material state.

 

[CaptainQuasar]

I have to agree with werg's roommate. This seems like an issue of semantics. Or, not really semantics, but it's an arbitrary aspect of how you choose to apply the notions of concreteness and abstractness. I would expect that when she said that everything in your world is an abstraction, what she really meant is that your approach to the discussion could be used to designate anything as an abstraction.

It's like, on one occasion I was having a discussion with someone and they were making an argument framed around the notion that a knife is an object and sharpness is merely a property of the knife - in essence that for an object to be a knife is a more fundamental aspect of its existence than for it to be sharp. My counterargument was that you could just as well say that you've got a sharp object with the property of knifeness.

So are the common aspects between the phenomena that produce an experience of redness the abstraction, and the other aspects like wavelength the more concrete ones, or is the thing that is common amongst everything - which we're designating "redness" whatever might produce that experience - more concrete and the dissimilar aspects more abstract? Meh.

You could try to say that redness is only in the experience, and hence be trying to advance the notion that red things aren't red when no one is looking, but that does seem like semantics to me - like you'd be intentionally misunderstanding your interlocutor to gird your own position in the discussion.

⚛​

 

[baywax]

You could try to say that redness is only in the experience, and hence be trying to advance the notion that red things aren't red when no one is looking, but that does seem like semantics to me - like you'd be intentionally misunderstanding your interlocutor to gird your own position in the discussion.

⚛​

Knifeness

I'd agree except for one thing... when no one is looking, the wave length of light that is redness is acting to initiate flowering in plants, changing chemical properties and so on.

One would have to say light is an abstraction to say colour is an abstraction because in the absence of light, colour is at best, ill defined.

I once worked with a scenic artist who at one time worked for the first shows on CBC television. He told me about the difficulties involved in painting a set for black and white TV. For the most part he spent his time mixing colours in a bathroom with the lights out. In this sense he had to work, abstractly, backwards from colour to black and white. The black and white television most certainly offered an abstraction of colour in the form of various grays.

 

[Pythagorean]

Wrong; it is an extraordinarily useful point of view. For example, it serves to soundly refute many naïve philosophical positions.

That doesn't sound very useful to me, especially since it's unfalsifiable. It sounds more like something for being persuasive rather than informative. You also seem to have implied that it's free of naivety itself.

I think a better argument is to get straight to the point and show examples where people are habitually wrong about the world that is detectable, rather than show how they might be wrong about something that we can't sense (how do you show that anyway? How does that "soundly refute" a philosophical position?)

Of course, we could both admit that it's usefulness is a matter of opinion, but that would be boring I guess.

 

[WaveJumper]

Compared to what? Is there some other way to experience these things?

Compared to a hypothetical being that could see the whole picture of reality - all the EMR spectrum, the quantum world, time at the Planck scale. We are NOwhere near being that, our existence is marred by the few percent of the whole picture that we can see. But even if we had all those capabilities, everything would still be abstraction.

Now for some reason, you know that quantum reality is the "true real nature of the universe"... when physicists have always maintained that the microcosm and macrocosm are separate states and incomparable.

Everyone should know this. If life dies out on this planet, the classical world would disappear and the only thing left will be the quantum reality. There is no classical, Newtonian world without living things. So yes, the fundamental, true universe is that of phase space and quantum reality.

As I've said, the two states, micro and macrocosms are not comparable and do not offer material for analogies of each other. As far as metaphors go... they are truly abstract in nature...

This i believe is partly true... physicists would not try to unite those 2 worlds in a theory of everything if they thought the worlds ruled by QM and GR were incomparable. I don't think they are wasting their time and billions of tax payers' dollars.

Quantum mechanically you are a collection of "dead" 14 billion years old atoms.

That isn't a quantum reality. Its just a macrocosmic reality.

When we are talking about atoms and/or about the particle zoo, we are leaving what you call the macrocosmic reality and entering the quantum world. Even at the level of the size of your human body, talking about the charges that make up your body still takes us at the quantum level where there are no dead or alive entities, but constant movement of waves/zero-volume point particles. And this has been so for a good 14 billion years.

 

[WaveJumper]

That doesn't sound very useful to me, especially since it's unfalsifiable. It sounds more like something for being persuasive rather than informative. You also seem to have implied that it's free of naivety itself.

I think a better argument is to get straight to the point and show examples where people are habitually wrong about the world that is detectable, rather than show how they might be wrong about something that we can't sense (how do you show that anyway? How does that "soundly refute" a philosophical position?)

I'll get straight to the point about the examples - people think objects are at rest when every particle they are made of is in constant motion at immense speeds. People think objects are made of "stuff", when solid objects feel solid because of a force called electromagnetism. Switch off electromagnetism and the strong nuclear force and the otherwise "solid" looking objects will disappear. People think solid objects are solid and physical when even the biggest physical thing they have ever seen in their lives - the Sun will disappear into a zero dimensional "point" without a trace if it hits a black hole. This event seems mind boggling only because people usually think of "solid" matter from the perspective of their everyday lives at the Newtonian level. But that's an abstraction created by the mind and the inputs of our "coarse" sensory apparatuses at our level of existence.
People think the universe is lit when in reality it's fundamentally dark. We've "picked" one wavelength of the EMR spectrum and "learned" to use it to find our way in the dark, but fundamentally there is no light and the universe is dark. It's lit only to us, who have this peculiar humany sensory apparatus(and to the animals).
At the fundamental level, the universe is much different to what we think of it, due to the way we see it. Had we used neutrinos instead of photons for our vision, we'd see only extreme light and empty space. Neutrinos can pass through your body, then go on on their journey and pass right through the Earth and exit on other side and head for the sun and pass straigth through it like nothing ever happened and go on on their journey.
So in a sentence, everything we experience at our level of existence is an abstraction - a viewpoint at the universe that is limited, incomplete and rather bizzare.

 

[Pythagorean]

I'll get straight to the point about the examples - people think objects are at rest when every particle they are made of is in constant motion at immense speeds. People think objects are made of "stuff", when solid objects feel solid because of a force called electromagnetism. Switch off electromagnetism and the strong nuclear force and "solid" objects will disappear. People think the universe is lit when in reality it's fundamentally dark. We've "picked" one wavelength of the EMR spectrum and "learned" to use it to find our way in the dark, but fundamentally there is no light and the universe is dark. It's lit only to us, who have this peculiar humany sensory apparatus(and to the animals).
At the fundamental level, the universe is much different to what we think of it, due to the way we see it. Had we used neutrinos instead of photons for our vision, we'd see only dark empty space. Neutrinos can pass through your body, then go on on their journey and pass right through the Earth and exit on other side and head for the sun and pass straigth through it like nothing ever happened and go on on their journey.
So in a sentence, everything we experience at our level of existence is an abstraction - a viewpoint at the universe that is limited, incomplete rather bizzare.

Your arguments seem to support my conclusion; that there's a tangible reality that we can measure (otherwise, your previous arguments are meaningless)

For instance, when you make arguments like "people think objects are at rest when every particle they are made of is in constant motion at immense speeds" you're saying one view is right and one is wrong, so you're admitting that you have access to what is the correct perspective (i.e. more attuned to the actual reality behind our abstractions).

It's just a matter of intuition vs. empirical data.

What I'm refuting here is the hint of solipsism: "everything is an abstraction". This implies that I may as well not pursue science because it could all be wrong anyway. In this regard, it's useless to me, because I make predictions based on initial conditions and physical laws (as a scientist).

Instead, I think it's more relevant to point out (as you did) where we've had concrete misconceptions about the way things work and actually show how we were wrong (cause, unlike the philosophical argument, it can actually be shown).

 

[Werg22]

I have to agree with werg's roommate. This seems like an issue of semantics. Or, not really semantics, but it's an arbitrary aspect of how you choose to apply the notions of concreteness and abstractness. I would expect that when she said that everything in your world is an abstraction, what she really meant is that your approach to the discussion could be used to designate anything as an abstraction.

It's like, on one occasion I was having a discussion with someone and they were making an argument framed around the notion that a knife is an object and sharpness is merely a property of the knife - in essence that for an object to be a knife is a more fundamental aspect of its existence than for it to be sharp. My counterargument was that you could just as well say that you've got a sharp object with the property of knifeness.

So are the common aspects between the phenomena that produce an experience of redness the abstraction, and the other aspects like wavelength the more concrete ones, or is the thing that is common amongst everything - which we're designating "redness" whatever might produce that experience - more concrete and the dissimilar aspects more abstract? Meh.

You could try to say that redness is only in the experience, and hence be trying to advance the notion that red things aren't red when no one is looking, but that does seem like semantics to me - like you'd be intentionally misunderstanding your interlocutor to gird your own position in the discussion.

⚛​

Is a blurry picture still a picture? Some defining properties of objects include what they used to be and what they serve for. We call a knife a knife because of what it serves for. A knife doesn't have to be of a certain shape, color, smell or texture to be called a knife. I could use a saber in my kitchen and it would be called a knife. A dull knife is still a knife. Is a knife that has been recycled and used to make a fork still a knife? We seem to have some sense of a what can be done to an object before we identify it as something else.

Indeed a sharp object would be a knife it were to be used as a knife. In all cases, "sharpness" is a property that an object called knife must have had at some point, it's not enough to define it though. I'm not really interested in the question "red things aren't red when no one is looking". What I'm interested in is the question of properties of objects that we retain and consider all by themselves. At the basic level, we get a sense of a relationship; a red flower and a red apple have a similar property, at the next level there is usually an adjective: a red apple, a red flower. Finally there is the complete abstraction of the property in question, namely "red".

 

[baywax]

physicists would not try to unite those 2 worlds in a theory of everything if they thought the worlds ruled by QM and GR were incomparable. I don't think they are wasting their time and billions of tax payers' dollars.

A US President would not spend a trillion dollars invading a country that he thought had WMDs if it didn't have WMDs. But the country didn't have them and he did invade it.

When we are talking about atoms and/or about the particle zoo, we are leaving what you call the macrocosmic reality and entering the quantum world. Even at the level of the size of your human body, talking about the charges that make up your body still takes us at the quantum level where there are no dead or alive entities, but constant movement of waves/zero-volume point particles. And this has been so for a good 14 billion years.

I think you'll find that the macrocosm ends at the atom and the quantum level starts with electrons, photons and other "sub-atomic particles".

http://www.thebigview.com/spacetime/quantumtheory.html

 

[CaptainQuasar]

Is a blurry picture still a picture? Some defining properties of objects include what they used to be and what they serve for. We call a knife a knife because of what it serves for. A knife doesn't have to be of a certain shape, color, smell or texture to be called a knife. I could use a saber in my kitchen and it would be called a knife. A dull knife is still a knife. Is a knife that has been recycled and used to make a fork still a knife? We seem to have some sense of a what can be done to an object before we identify it as something else.

Is a blurry picture that has been framed still blurry? We call a sharp object a sharp object because it can cut or pierce. A sharp object doesn't have to be of a certain shape, color, smell or texture to be called a sharp object. I could use a sharp object in my kitchen to spread peanut butter on bread, rather than cut anything, and it would be called a sharp object. A rusty sharp object is still a sharp object. Is a sharp object that has been recycled and used to make a smooth, round ball still a sharp object?

(I'm not mocking you, just demonstrating that you can pick any property of an object and treat it the same way you treated the identification of something as a knife.)

Indeed a sharp object would be a knife it were to be used as a knife. In all cases, "sharpness" is a property that an object called knife must have had at some point, it's not enough to define it though. I'm not really interested in the question "red things aren't red when no one is looking". What I'm interested in is the question of properties of objects that we retain and consider all by themselves. At the basic level, we get a sense of a relationship; a red flower and a red apple have a similar property, at the next level there is usually an adjective: a red apple, a red flower. Finally there is the complete abstraction of the property in question, namely "red".

What I'm saying is that your designation of redness as the abstract aspect of these phenomena, as opposed to designating it as a concrete aspect, is arbitrary. We could just as well say that there are two red objects and the facts that one of them has appleness and the other has flowerness are the abstractions, the "properties of objects that we retain and consider all by themselves."

Declaring "what that object really, fundamentally is is a knife, and sharpness is just a property of it" or "what that object really, fundamentally is is an apple, and redness is just a property of it" is arbitrary.

⚛​

 

[baywax]

Declaring "what that object really, fundamentally is is a knife, and sharpness is just a property of it" or "what that object really, fundamentally is is an apple, and redness is just a property of it" is arbitrary.

⚛​

Are properties such as sharpness and redness arbitrary if they are actually inherent functions of an object? For instance, the colours displayed by flowers are often determined by the time of year during which the flower blooms. By way of evolution this sort of arrangement has come to pass in that the colour corresponds to and acts as an attractor to the specific insects that are present during a season (edit:enabling efficient pollination).

 

[CaptainQuasar]

Are properties such as sharpness and redness arbitrary if they are actually inherent functions of an object? For instance, the colours displayed by flowers are often determined by the time of year during which the flower blooms. By way of evolution this sort of arrangement has come to pass in that the colour corresponds to and acts as an attractor to the specific insects that are present during a season (edit:enabling efficient pollination).

Function is arbitrary too. You can use just about anything to hammer a nail into a piece of wood. Some things might work really well, be well-fit for that purpose: a steel meat tenderizer or the medieval weapon called a mace for example, and while they're being used to hammer in nails that's their function even if it was not the intention of the craftsman who made them.

⚛​

 

[baywax]

Function is arbitrary too. You can use just about anything to hammer a nail into a piece of wood. Some things might work really well, be well-fit for that purpose: a steel meat tenderizer or the medieval weapon called a mace for example, and while they're being used to hammer in nails that's their function even if it was not the intention of the craftsman who made them.

⚛​

And so assigning abstract or concrete qualities to any function or other property is arbitrary. Or, to put it another way... its all relative.

 

[CaptainQuasar]

And so assigning abstract or concrete qualities to any function or other property is arbitrary. Or, to put it another way... its all relative.

I would go even further and say that assigning abstract qualities, concrete qualities, or even function to any phenomenon is arbitrary.

⚛​

 

[baywax]

I would go even further and say that assigning abstract qualities, concrete qualities, or even function to any phenomenon is arbitrary.

⚛​

OK then, what is the framework... what's the benchmark... what do we compare all phenomenon to in order to deem it "arbitrary"? In other words you can't label everything arbitrary without having an opposite as a comparison.

Edit: Perhaps it is the individual's opinion that everything is arbitrary that renders all phenomenon arbitrary.
Like an overall, blanketing bias on the individual's part. Especially since the only benchmark I can find to compare
all phenomenon against is the person who decides all phenomenon is arbitrary.

This could be illustrated by a hypothetical person thinking that all phenomenon has arms and legs like they do.

So, in the end perhaps it is the construct of "arbitrariness" that's the only arbitrary phenomenon.

 

[Werg22]

Is a blurry picture that has been framed still blurry? We call a sharp object a sharp object because it can cut or pierce. A sharp object doesn't have to be of a certain shape, color, smell or texture to be called a sharp object. I could use a sharp object in my kitchen to spread peanut butter on bread, rather than cut anything, and it would be called a sharp object. A rusty sharp object is still a sharp object. Is a sharp object that has been recycled and used to make a smooth, round ball still a sharp object?

(I'm not mocking you, just demonstrating that you can pick any property of an object and treat it the same way you treated the identification of something as a knife.)

This is a dishonest strawman. " A rusty sharp object is still a sharp object.", no. As soon as the object in question starts losing the property sharpness, it is no longer a sharp object. When a knife loses the property sharpness, it may still qualify as a knife. The difference here is that one is described through a number of properties including use and, to a certain extent, what it used to be, while the other is described on the basis of a single property.

What I'm saying is that your designation of redness as the abstract aspect of these phenomena, as opposed to designating it as a concrete aspect, is arbitrary. We could just as well say that there are two red objects and the facts that one of them has appleness and the other has flowerness are the abstractions, the "properties of objects that we retain and consider all by themselves."

Declaring "what that object really, fundamentally is is a knife, and sharpness is just a property of it" or "what that object really, fundamentally is is an apple, and redness is just a property of it" is arbitrary.

⚛​

The abstractions are not arbitrary. They are the abstractions that serve us the most and by which most definitions of objects can be decomposed. I could abstract "appleness" but that would have little use, aside from describing a relatively small class of objects. On the other hand, "redness", "roundness", "sharpness" and the likes are much more commonly found and can be combined to describe many classes of objects. When we retain abstractions, they should have the desirable property that they are almost if not entirely irreducible in terms of others, and that they can be found in many classes of objects.

 

[jreelawg]

This is a dishonest strawman. " A rusty sharp object is still a sharp object.", no. As soon as the object in question starts losing the property sharpness, it is no longer a sharp object. When a knife loses the property sharpness, it may still qualify as a knife. The difference here is that one is described through a number of properties including use and, to a certain extent, what it used to be, while the other is described on the basis of a single property.

I agree, but in a sense could say the color red be a property as well in the sense that our perception is an effect of that object. For example, a knife may be sharp, and it can cut your finger. But it is also a specific material which can reflect certain wavelengths of light into your eyes causing the sensation of color. The property "sharp" cuts things, the property we call red causes a specific sensation. True that only a mind perceives the color as a sensation, but a plastic knife can't cut a diamond. So the plastic knife is only sharp when cutting things like butter, and the object is only "red" when it hits our eyes and causes a perception.

The catch is that an objects properties are many, and based on what that object can do, and how it can effect other objects. You could break an object up into atoms, and then even more fundamental particles, and their properties would be associated with what they do, but as a knife, or as a rock, in those terms, they are to us, what they do.

 

[baywax]

The comparable for determining the arbitrariness of an object or property seems to be whether or not the object or property serves the individual that is making the determination.