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by a_gray
455 days ago
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> That's physical, not abstract. Our entire body's neural net is used to develop those physical skills. When it comes time to catch or throw a ball, no abstract thinking is involved, just doing. Abstraction is about generalising beyond the physical objects we experience. The ability to understand the physics behind how objects work is abstract, but it's a low enough level of abstraction that even simple animals are capable of it. > Just imagine how uni-level maths would be if there were no abstract concepts being taught with actual words. Language is pretty good for communication, obviously. > Are you saying that not only did your maths education only use diagrams, but that no verbal explanation was involved? My driving test also used language to convey the lesson. But I don't talk to myself before I decide which direction to turn the wheel... > Abstract concepts are built on the same logical network that facilitates our ability to process and produce language. Overlap, certainly. Anything else is conjecture. |
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No, it's a physical coordination of our body's neural net that connects our senses, brain, nerves, and musculature to perform coordinated feats. It's the direct opposite of abstract: it's concretely physical. And we share this neural net wetware wiring with our cousins, the animals.
There is nothing abstract about pulling your hand off the stove, but describing anything requires abstract concept-nets.
> Language is pretty good for communication, obviously.
It's essential for communicating abstract concepts, as well as contemplating them.
> My driving test also used language to convey the lesson. But I don't talk to myself before I decide which direction to turn the wheel...
That's because you have taught your wetware how to physicalize the concept net's decision tree by learning how to recognize the inputs and coordinate the proper responses. Lather, rinse, repeat.
> Overlap, certainly. Anything else is conjecture.
Anything that can be named exists as an abstract mental concept; that's what a concept is. The map is not the territory, because it is abstract, because the map exists only in our brain, even if we learned its contours from a paper document. That's what makes it abstract, because we have abstracted it to a mental concept, where its name refers to a network of other names in a describable way.
That is how langauge is built up from literally nothing but our elders' repetitive descriptions of objects and their interactions, kinda like typed values and functions where the typing describes their relationships to other typed values and functions. And the relationships are abstract concepts, too.
Thanks for this interesting philosophical discussion. Peace be with you.