Everything is Abstraction

Abstraction is everywhere. It is a philosophy that helps us to understand that our regular experience of the operating world has many other minute processes occurring under the surface at all times. Abstraction is a building block, a process that occurs in and around us. Computers offer us a classic example to consider: It is not merely from pressing a keystroke that we are able to type words and see them on a screen. Rather, it is from a process of electrical charges that alter a sequence of 1’s and 0’s arranged in a particular format to be translated on a user interface. You cannot see this happen, and in this case the affect is instant. All that happens ‘under the hood’ is abstraction. This concept is so intriguing to me that I want to take this time out to ramble on about it.

I think that where abstraction gets to be the most exciting is in reference to our physical self. While the philosophy of abstraction is observable in automobiles, electronics, and other perfunctory forms, the human body is by nature, a sophisticated mechanical being. The body has a very high degree of abstraction. Every function you are capable of doing or performing is made up of a deeper, less understood series of processes that you are either born with, or have had to learn through personal development. Even still, all of the underlying processes that make up our exact being are often times diminished by our thought process and assumed to be a regular part of reality.

I believe that in truth these smaller, individual processes also make up the bigger picture. It has to start at the smallest part, the quark inside an atom, or the string whose theory is yet to be proven. Without spending too much time on these minute details we are able to progress through our blood pumping, our lungs breathing and our minds thinking and processing. Outside of our immediate self is the world and everyone in it, all with their own abstractions occuring 'under the hood'. We interact and communicate with these people, and that in itself is also abstraction. The concept grows to a point that we cannot even see or directly experience. If I am boring you now please read no further.

There are moments in life that define us. There are moments in life that define the environment that we inhabit, and they are both unique to every single individual being. They are as unique as you and I, but collectively they create the global perspective. It is the culmination of these unique defining moments that make up the world. It starts as you, and expands to your home, your street, your locality, your city, your region, your state, your time zone, your country, oversees and beyond. There is a theory of everyone being connected to every person on the planet through five or six individuals ( more info ) . This theory connects me to tribes in Africa, Terrorists in Baghdad, Eskimos in Alaska, and even the man across the street that I’ve never met. Not only am I connected to these people, but my life affects their being in some way. The actions I take every day, even those that I am not aware of, can affect every single person in this world, somehow. This is also working conversely as they are affecting me.

If you conceptualize this view you can see that an action taken by me has an affect on you that will cause you to then take another action at some point that in turn affects me. It is a constantly moving process and although not simultaneous or observable, is at the essence of abstraction.

This view can open oneself up to how the process of karma works. We are at times performing similar action so that in a theoretical circle a series of actions is taking place. Each action has a reaction that then sets off another series of cyclical and circular patterns that intertwine and spread throughout the world, multiplying and maneuvering overseas through cultures and eventually some day in the future returning to you. You are affected by an action, either positively or negatively in the future that is directly connected to an untraceable action that you have performed in the past. The only difference is that your action has multiplied and returned to you most likely 2- or 3-fold, and not always at one time.

If one person is removed, the entire world will be affected because that one person is part of a process. Conversely, if you do not remove individuals then the world is also being affected because that person will be able to alter the process. Therefore, the world is completely dynamic. It is always changing. We as humans try to identify with sameness so that we can construct a feasible reality to inhabit. This ‘clinging’ to sameness has implication. We initially may have been intended for static reality, but as nations expanded and the world became flatter and flatter in terms of how easily we can communicate with those in other cultures, the more dynamic life became.

The process from the most obtuse level of human communication down to the smallest partical of matter is full of abstraction. That’s really all I’m saying. Abstraction is everywhere, and it often gets taken for granted.

Alex Bard