Re: abstractions & ontologies

[Ayten Aydin <***>]

Tim,
I agree that abstract is a kind of 'Closure', but it is usually done to
facilitate the first step grasp/understanding of something big and more
importantly intended get the gist of something. That very being a gist makes
the abstract different. As a seed it is ready to grow beyond its present
boundary. It seeks a right condition to grow. It has the potential of
openness.  I guess here there is a difference, perhaps slight, between
Lawson's Closure and the RR's Abstract, I guess.
A.A
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tim Gwinn" <***>
To: <***>
Sent: Thursday, April 01, 2004 10:25 PM
Subject: Re: abstractions & ontologies


> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: ROSEN Forum [mailto:*** Behalf Of John
> > Kineman
> > Sent: Thursday, April 01, 2004 12:46 PM
> > To: ***
> > Subject: abstractions & ontologies
> >
> >
> > I had a bit of a breakthrough thinking through the adaptation/selection
> > arguments and re-reading AS. I won't repeat that all here, as it opens
> > too many questions that will naturally surface as our discussion
> > continues. But I will raise a key issue which helped me cut through my
> > muddle.
> >
> > In AS Rosen refers to "acts of abstraction." In a colloquial sense of
> > the term "abstract" (as he points out most people intuitivly  consider
> > it) I often imagined abstract to mean something vague and even expansive
> > and in that way implicit of a broad ranging psyche. He points out that
> > it is the opposite. An abstraction is equivalent to an observation,
> > which is the basis of a model. It is thus a simplification of reality,
> > not an expansion of it. I wonder how many other on the list were clear
> > on this point. In that sense the observable world is also an
> > abstraction, i.e., what constitutes the simple mechanistic model of
> > reality. Other abstractions can be different from this one, and in that
> > sense "broader" than it, but all are simplifications from many
> > possibilities. Few would complain if I said our inner percepts of a
> > spirit world are "mere" abstractions from reality, but how many fully
> > grasp the extent to which sensory percepts are equally abstract, drawn
> > from a more complex whole?
> >
> > This gets at the ontological aspects of the view.
>
> Agree with you (and Rosen) about the nature of abstractions. But I
question
> whether this gets at the ontological view at all. Since we cannot step
> outside of these abstractions, but only step into a different abstraction,
> we remain confined - epistemologically speaking - within these
abstractions.
> Even the notion of there being a complex something 'out there' (i.e., "all
> these abstractions must therefore be an abstraction OF something,
right?"),
> of which these abstractions are representative, is itself an abstraction.
>
> This is why I was so taken with Hilary Lawson's book "Closure" (2001). It
> provides a comprehensive view of our 'closures' (essentially, our
> abstractions via modelling relations) that occur pervasively:
intrapersonal,
> individual, linguistic, religious, scientific, social, political, etc. And
> yet, Lawson maintains consistency in that he does not claim to be somehow
> 'meta' to all this and is somehow telling us the 'real story' of reality,
> but instead recognizes that this account is itself a closure.
>
> Regards,
> Tim
>