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what is abstraction? abstraction is ignoring the particulars keeping the raft under you, that is https://t.co/qgrSxv0foe


> the form of an abstraction, that is, we choose to ignore certain things as irrelevant abstraction is ignoring keywords: GEB https://t.co/i5WBT5Qur8


for the mind trained on STEM, there is nothing more powerful than considering the /particular/ of this moment not to generalise, not to abstract, but to experience the power of the particularity of a moment, and the powerless to bring it under a certain system of signification

susan sontag called this the violence of interpretation keeping the art in a certain power relation where it is helpless to affect you https://t.co/YIklB9xLc7

abstraction is a suppression of the particular https://t.co/ra0FTJ8vYE https://t.co/rbI5T5dBqy


a kind of keeping the particular under, so we can float on it on the raft we’ve built to the extent the particular threatens the raft, it threatens the power relationship between us and the concept and particular

it is no longer kept suppressed, underneath a manageable raft (the abstraction) https://t.co/fJ3hefkSkF


instead, we are submerged into something bigger the particular https://t.co/DUkmX7JQIY


/surfing abstractions/ https://t.co/kTlNNPfiKd


surfing is a kind of loose attachment one does not stay fixed to their board, no matter how beautiful th abstraction seems instead, the sense of reality is continually given by the ocean. is u upright? there is a sense of gravity abstractions are /surfed/ to get u where u need

in surfing, there is an acceptamce of the ocean a kind of readiness on part of the body to be immersed within it there is a gravity. a continual sense of uprightness, normativising the abstraction there is a dynamicism. what served in one moment may not serve the next

to the stem mind, the most important thing is to keep the raft squarely pointed between you and whatever else may be there often, these people end up being the most sensitive to be suddenly immersed by the ocean would be greatly uncomfortable

the ocean as the unknown https://t.co/HP3LjWRLyM

"equivalence classes and quotient sets . . . *is* abstraction" abstraction is caring about the things you decided in advance to care about abstraction is dimming the lights https://t.co/asOl2O7ZR4


abstraction is the way to massively scale for the bureaucracy trying to handle 100s of applicants a day. for the AWS function handling 100s of requests a minute reality conforms to its abstractions, rather than the other way around

"so much of mathematics is just asking when one thing is equal to another thing" https://t.co/dvyCdRC6YE