Abstract thinking is a distraction from some specific features of specific circumstances, phenomena, events and the study of what is common in many phenomena or events. A remarkable example in this respect is found in the philosopher Hegel, who was one of the greatest philosophers of the 18th and early 19th centuries; it was he who perfected the dialectical method of research, that is, the consideration and identification of opposites – opposing forces or features. He has a remarkable example: when two merchants are fighting in the bazaar, each sees in the other not a specific person, but only a certain embodiment of abstract evil.
Thus, abstract thinking is very useful in order to identify general patterns that affect some event or phenomenon that interests us. Based on this knowledge of general patterns, it will already be possible to learn a lot about this event, or to predict the development of this phenomenon very far away. But then we need to move from abstract thinking to concrete thinking – that is, take into account some circumstances that do not manifest themselves in each case, but in this particular one-and on their basis already correct what we have learned in an abstract way. That is, abstract thinking helps us link an event to the knowledge we have already accumulated, and then concrete thinking allows us to clarify how this phenomenon or event differs from many similar ones.
Abstract thinking was de facto at the origin of the earliest civilizations. There was an object about which it was necessary to transmit information – an apple-a person saw it and received, first of all, neither a word, nor a sound, nor a taste, but an image of this object. This is due to the distinctive feature of a person's ability to think figuratively (after all, we perceive 85% of information visually). The main problem lies in the existence of one concept for one object, which due to circumstances was not static (apple green, red, rotten, dented, and so on). And at the mention of an apple in the human brain, the process of plastic representation begins-the search for the optimal abstraction for the image excited in consciousness, which is most acceptable in the current situation. This very abstraction is subjective and often dominates the real meaning of the mentioned thing.
The language-picture of the world of the Austrian logician Ludwig Wittgenstein assumes life in the conditions of human environment with certain semantic abstractions. He developed a model of the “Rab” statement, in which a certain object “a” is in a specific relation “R” about the object “b”. That is, we perceive the real thing (“b”) based on, for example, the synthesis of sensory data (“R”) as an abstract model (“a”), which we put in our minds under the form of object “b”. In the process of thinking, returning to the basics of our images, we perform “abstract thinking”, which gives rise to any other type of similar activity.
Answering the question: abstract thinking is the irrational principle that educates us and shapes our worldview during our lifetime, but alas, I increase the pit of subjectivity. Sometimes the price for beauty is too high.
Abstract thinking is a distraction from some specific features of specific circumstances, phenomena, events and the study of what is common in many phenomena or events. A remarkable example in this respect is found in the philosopher Hegel, who was one of the greatest philosophers of the 18th and early 19th centuries; it was he who perfected the dialectical method of research, that is, the consideration and identification of opposites – opposing forces or features. He has a remarkable example: when two merchants are fighting in the bazaar, each sees in the other not a specific person, but only a certain embodiment of abstract evil.
Thus, abstract thinking is very useful in order to identify general patterns that affect some event or phenomenon that interests us. Based on this knowledge of general patterns, it will already be possible to learn a lot about this event, or to predict the development of this phenomenon very far away. But then we need to move from abstract thinking to concrete thinking – that is, take into account some circumstances that do not manifest themselves in each case, but in this particular one-and on their basis already correct what we have learned in an abstract way. That is, abstract thinking helps us link an event to the knowledge we have already accumulated, and then concrete thinking allows us to clarify how this phenomenon or event differs from many similar ones.
Abstract thinking was de facto at the origin of the earliest civilizations. There was an object about which it was necessary to transmit information – an apple-a person saw it and received, first of all, neither a word, nor a sound, nor a taste, but an image of this object. This is due to the distinctive feature of a person's ability to think figuratively (after all, we perceive 85% of information visually). The main problem lies in the existence of one concept for one object, which due to circumstances was not static (apple green, red, rotten, dented, and so on). And at the mention of an apple in the human brain, the process of plastic representation begins-the search for the optimal abstraction for the image excited in consciousness, which is most acceptable in the current situation. This very abstraction is subjective and often dominates the real meaning of the mentioned thing.
The language-picture of the world of the Austrian logician Ludwig Wittgenstein assumes life in the conditions of human environment with certain semantic abstractions. He developed a model of the “Rab” statement, in which a certain object “a” is in a specific relation “R” about the object “b”. That is, we perceive the real thing (“b”) based on, for example, the synthesis of sensory data (“R”) as an abstract model (“a”), which we put in our minds under the form of object “b”. In the process of thinking, returning to the basics of our images, we perform “abstract thinking”, which gives rise to any other type of similar activity.
Answering the question: abstract thinking is the irrational principle that educates us and shapes our worldview during our lifetime, but alas, I increase the pit of subjectivity. Sometimes the price for beauty is too high.