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 independent 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.