¶ Abstraction
RBF Definitions
Abstraction:
"What the mathematicians have been calling abstraction is reality. When they are inadequate in their abstraction then they are irrelevant to reality. The mathematicians feel they can do anything they want with their abstraction because they don’t relate it to reality. And, of course, they can really do anything they want with their abstractions but, like masturbation, it is irrelevant to the propagation of life.
“The only reality is the abstraction of the principles, the eternal generalized principles. . . Most people talk of reality as just the after-image effects-- the realization lags, which register superficially and are asymmetric and off center. (The principles themselves have different lag rates and different interferences.) When we get to reality it’s absolutely eternal.”
“The inherent inaccuracy is what people call the reality. Man’s way of apprehending is always slow: ergo the superficial and erroneous impressions of solids and things, which can actually be explained only in principle.”
Incorporated in SYNERGETICS at Sec. 220.10 (Gray) 15 Nov’72
¶ Citations
- RBF to EJA, 3200 Idaho, 24 Feb '72
