Wednesday, August 25, 2004
While the CD is burning
I'm burning a music CD right now and it's got about 10minutes left so I decided to post an interesting thought that DDM, Jess and I were discussing earlier today.
I had just gotten out of philosophy and I was going on about the people in my class who couldn't understand that the number four (not the word four, the actual idea of the number four) is an abstract one (as all mathematical concepts are). Eventually we figured out this.
All words & letters are concrete, dynamic (changing), individual objects which represent the abstract idea of a language which we use to represent the abstract concept of a general idea which we then use to define a concrete object.
Example: You use the word "table" to define a table. Well table is just a bunch of squiggles. It is a concrete thing (you can see it, touch it (if it were 3D) and etc.). But it, by itself, means nothing. You need the abstract idea of a language (English) and that these squiggles represent something. Once that, you can say that these particular squiggles in that particular order and in this abstract context (that of a language, specifically English) they represent the idea of a table. But this is still an abstract idea. It is an abstraction of the phyiscal object which we call a table. All words are that, abstract ideas which represent objects in the physical world. So far then, we have concrete squiggles in an abstract idea give us another abstract concept. We can then say that the abstract concept of the word table represents the abstract idea of a table (ie has legs, is off the ground, etc, etc, etc). But it's still abstract as it does not descrbe one particular table. From this we can then define which table we are talking about to referance to a concrete object. So there you have it, using concrete symbols to represent an abstract term in an abstract context for an abstract idea which represents a concrete thing. Also known as: Naming things in English so we can talk about them and being able to write out that name.
(that's my blurb, the CD is done and I am off to play minesweeper and listen to my music.)
later
I had just gotten out of philosophy and I was going on about the people in my class who couldn't understand that the number four (not the word four, the actual idea of the number four) is an abstract one (as all mathematical concepts are). Eventually we figured out this.
All words & letters are concrete, dynamic (changing), individual objects which represent the abstract idea of a language which we use to represent the abstract concept of a general idea which we then use to define a concrete object.
Example: You use the word "table" to define a table. Well table is just a bunch of squiggles. It is a concrete thing (you can see it, touch it (if it were 3D) and etc.). But it, by itself, means nothing. You need the abstract idea of a language (English) and that these squiggles represent something. Once that, you can say that these particular squiggles in that particular order and in this abstract context (that of a language, specifically English) they represent the idea of a table. But this is still an abstract idea. It is an abstraction of the phyiscal object which we call a table. All words are that, abstract ideas which represent objects in the physical world. So far then, we have concrete squiggles in an abstract idea give us another abstract concept. We can then say that the abstract concept of the word table represents the abstract idea of a table (ie has legs, is off the ground, etc, etc, etc). But it's still abstract as it does not descrbe one particular table. From this we can then define which table we are talking about to referance to a concrete object. So there you have it, using concrete symbols to represent an abstract term in an abstract context for an abstract idea which represents a concrete thing. Also known as: Naming things in English so we can talk about them and being able to write out that name.
(that's my blurb, the CD is done and I am off to play minesweeper and listen to my music.)
later
// posted by Dep @ 10:56:00 p.m.
