Up and Down the Ladder of Abstraction (2011)

worrydream.com

142 points·semanser··5 comments

I would like to point out that the whole article can be treated as a metaphor for one of the major themes of mathematical and computational/CS thinking, i.e., exploring generalizations and "meta-generalizations". (edit: well I guess I just repeated the title+conclusion of the article, since "generalization" is similar to "abstraction", so we have "abstraction and meta-abstraction" which is alluded by the title plus the conclusion that says it's not just one linear ladder but a multi-dimensional multi-faceted construct).

Reminds me of a cool youtube playlist [1] (David Metzler - Ridiculously Huge Numbers)

[1] https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3A50BB9C34AB36B3

That is a very interesting video series, thank you!

I have been thinking about the next levels of repetition since watching vihart explain how all of elementary algebra is just "fancy counting" https://youtu.be/N-7tcTIrers

This was a wonderful continuation of that.

BV has indicated that his Realtalk group[0] at HARC might release new research by the end of the year.

I'm thoroughly excited to see what they are able to produce.

[0]https://harc.ycr.org/project/realtalk/

Tiny grey sans-serif body text means you hate your readers' eyes. So ironic on an article about clear communication. ;-P

Although some things went over my head, that was a wonderful explanation.

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