Article from: GENERAL SEMANTICS & RHINELAND MODEL Click on the arrows to follow the links; article + menu here , article + sitemap here: . General Semantics The ladder of abstractions The widely held impression about our human words and thoughts is that they are based on the real world we are living in. In fact, both words and thoughts are based on a model of the world, the model one has inside ones head, see right. So it could be argued that anyone needs a good understanding of model-making, in order to have any possibility of understanding the real world. The process of making this model is executed largely unconsciously, being run by the physiology of our sensory systems and the associated parts of the nervous system. The first step in understanding and harnessing it, is the realization that there a difference is between our words and thoughts and the world they stand for: the map is not the Or in other terms: the realization that what we have in our head and what we territory. are talking about are of the real world. abstractions The way to getting this understanding is greatly helped by the already mentioned fact that has this of reality inside his head, so everyone must everyone unconsciously know how it works, just like mathematics is in everyone’s head: a baseball player cannot hit a ball without internally calculating trajectories - even though consciously he may be absolutely ignorant about the mathematics of trajectories. The first explicit and systematic representation of the concepts used when describing the building of these models, abstractions and their relations is originated by in his book However, his treatment is a bit sophisticated for an introduction, so Science and Sanity. here we will adapt the version given by in , and specifically the way Hayakawa describes the relations between abstractions: the ladder of abstractions. To illustrate the working of these concepts, we will give a short introduction to Hayakawa's version, and then analyze what has been said in this introduction: Introduction: Hayakawa’s version starts with a real live animal, Bessie the cow. Bessie lives at a farm, together with a lot of other cows and animals. End of introduction. This simple two-line statement is already full of abstractions. Starting its analysis with the initial subject, this abstracting begins with the use of the word In fact, “Bessie”. being a real live animal, Bessie is made up of numerous components, that are in constant interaction through an even greater number of processes, leading to ever changing
Article from: GENERAL SEMANTICS & RHINELAND MODEL Click on the arrows to follow the links; article + menu here , article + sitemap here: . General Semantics The ladder of abstractions The widely held impression about our human words and thoughts is that they are based on the real world we are living in. In fact, both words and thoughts are based on a model of the world, the model one has inside ones head, see right. So it could be argued that anyone needs a good understanding of model-making, in order to have any possibility of understanding the real world. The process of making this model is executed largely unconsciously, being run by the physiology of our sensory systems and the associated parts of the nervous system. The first step in understanding and harnessing it, is the realization that there is a difference between our words and thoughts and the world they stand for: the map is not the territory. Or in other terms: the realization that what we have in our head and what we are talking about are abstractions of the real world. The way to getting this understanding is greatly helped by the already mentioned fact that everyone has this of reality inside his head, so unconsciously everyone must know how it works, just like mathematics is in everyone’s head: a baseball player cannot hit a ball without internally calculating trajectories - even though consciously he may be absolutely ignorant about the mathematics of trajectories. The first explicit and systematic representation of the concepts used when describing the building of these models, abstractions and their relations is originated by in his book Science and Sanity. However, his treatment is a bit sophisticated for an introduction, so here we will adapt the version given by in , and specifically the way Hayakawa describes the relations between abstractions: the ladder of abstractions. To illustrate the working of these concepts, we will give a short introduction to Hayakawa's version, and then analyze what has been said in this introduction: Introduction: Hayakawa’s version starts with a real live animal, Bessie the cow. Bessie lives at a farm, together with a lot of other cows and animals. End of introduction. This simple two-line statement is already full of abstractions. Starting its analysis with the initial subject, this abstracting begins with the use of the word “Bessie”. In fact, being a real live animal, Bessie is made up of numerous components, that are in constant interaction through an even greater number of processes, leading to ever changing
The%20Ladder%20of%20Abstraction.docx