It is nearly impossible for a human being to write a correct program just by thinking really hard. And that is a situation where everything is cut and dried, mathematically exact. Mathematicians do fairly well at proving theorems rigorously, but they have an easier task than programmers, for they only have to convince people, not machines. Outside of those domains, abstract argument on its own is nothing more than abstract art, unless it is continually compared with the object level and exposed to modus delens.
And the object level is what we’re all doing this for, or what’s the point?
And the object level is what we’re all doing this for, or what’s the point?
What’s the point of concrete ideas, compared to more abstract ideas? The reasons seem similar, just with different levels of grounding in experience, like with a filter bubble that you can only peer beyond with great difficulty. This situation is an argument against emphasis on the concrete, not for it.
(I think there’s a mixup between “meta” and “abstract” in this subthread. It’s meta that exists for the object level, not abstractions. Abstractions are themselves on object level when you consider them in their own right.)
Abstractions are a central example of things considered on the object level, so I don’t understand them as being in opposition to the object level. They can be in opposition to more concrete ideas, those closer to experience, but not to being considered on object level.
The point is the relationship between the levels of the ladder of abstraction. Outside of mathematics and programming, long arguments at high levels go wrong without being checked against experience. If experience contradicts, so much the worse for the argument.
Unsure of mathematics, but software development goes wrong in exactly the same way—designs and ideas too far removed from the silicon go wildly wrong and don’t match at all what actually gets built. Eventually, the code wins and the arguments lose (or more often, the code fails and everybody loses).
Engagement with the object level.
It is nearly impossible for a human being to write a correct program just by thinking really hard. And that is a situation where everything is cut and dried, mathematically exact. Mathematicians do fairly well at proving theorems rigorously, but they have an easier task than programmers, for they only have to convince people, not machines. Outside of those domains, abstract argument on its own is nothing more than abstract art, unless it is continually compared with the object level and exposed to modus delens.
And the object level is what we’re all doing this for, or what’s the point?
What’s the point of concrete ideas, compared to more abstract ideas? The reasons seem similar, just with different levels of grounding in experience, like with a filter bubble that you can only peer beyond with great difficulty. This situation is an argument against emphasis on the concrete, not for it.
(I think there’s a mixup between “meta” and “abstract” in this subthread. It’s meta that exists for the object level, not abstractions. Abstractions are themselves on object level when you consider them in their own right.)
Everything is on the object level when considered in its own right.
Abstractions are a central example of things considered on the object level, so I don’t understand them as being in opposition to the object level. They can be in opposition to more concrete ideas, those closer to experience, but not to being considered on object level.
The point is the relationship between the levels of the ladder of abstraction. Outside of mathematics and programming, long arguments at high levels go wrong without being checked against experience. If experience contradicts, so much the worse for the argument.
Unsure of mathematics, but software development goes wrong in exactly the same way—designs and ideas too far removed from the silicon go wildly wrong and don’t match at all what actually gets built. Eventually, the code wins and the arguments lose (or more often, the code fails and everybody loses).