Since you talk about programming, a few years ago I was called for a mission for a national firm to help them implement UML (Unified Modeling Langage) within their programers department. Why did they need me since for already two years they have been using the consultancy of a reputed specialist firm in that field I asked them ? Well their problem was that these specialists were totally abstract for their 50 programers . So there is a difference between abstract and concrete since the path between the two is not so evident . By coïncidence, I have just written before an essay I untitled UMO for "Unified Modeling Object" - unhappily I lost the paper and wouldn't even be capable to rewrite it - where I said that UML wasn't enough because it was just a mere convention of langage and not a method of conception by itself, that one needs one step further to really unify the Programming Objects World so I describe there the UMO where I unify everything to INTERFACE (you must be familiar with since Java or Microsoft COM architecture - with the amusing IUnknown Interface - strange name and I have found a funny story about that I will post it one day in chitchat ). I won't detail but I give this paper to some programmers and I was astonished that they didn't fear the level of abstraction since they didn't seem to much appreciate UML . So I accepted the mission and help them to implement UML with the dedicated tools like Rational Rose and a little RUP (Rational Unified Process). I then realise that contrary to most consultants in abstract field I have the advantage of being more concrete and that abstraction is not for me an end by itself but a mean. Concrete is the end but the realisation of a good ARCHITECTURE needs abstraction. Also the PROCESS of Abstraction by itself is CONCRETE although the object is abstract. This again rejoins Deming's philosophy of action: everything must at the end be concrete even the process of abstraction above. The inverse process - from abstract to concrete - is called REIFICATION and it is not EVIDENT because of details of REALITY that is why you cannot discard OUTER REALITY totally and think that all comes from your own mind at least when you are not God itself - if ever he exists or whatever he (it?) is . I'm doing somehow the same approach in Finance modeling: I'm always looking for Unification see http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=22833&perpage=6&pagenumber=6: "As for my model one can either says that it belongs to none of these three schools or that it belongs to all these three since their paragdim opposes with each other whereas my paradigm embraces all of them and add a new emerging one so that I can say that my model is at the same time fundamental, technical and quantitative (I won't extend and only summarize the reasons why : it is fundamental because I dind't use any analogy of Physics as premisces but economic reasoning, it is technical because the results are consistently near what technical analysts obtain but with some adding perspective and precision, and quantitative because it is based on mathematical equations like in "pure" physics model which is not the case of technicals who mostly justify technical analysis with "psychological" fads and so called market's irrationality whereas I reestablish rationality and economical reasons in stock market fundamental dynamics without denying the role of psychology but psychology is no more a cause but an effect in my paradigm)."
Right on harry I also noticed there seems to be a lot of people on both extremes, either too abstract (thinking all the time and elaborating concepts wont do much if nobody applies them) or too concrete (just gimme a nail I'll hit on it with my hammer ). I would tend to beware of those 'architects' that have never hit a nail too I would say the biggest quality (at least for a programmer, I'm sure it applies to any domain anyways) is to be a mix of both. Although in a big team everybody cant be both so its a matter of making the right mix. Altso to add something on abstraction vs concrete, reality (the concrete world) would still exist even if nobody made any abstraction of it. For example, animals, plants and other living being just exist without necessarily being able to do any abstraction about their world. Still, they are just there... On the other hand, making abstractions or conceptualizing our world is endless, and can be very different from one person to another, still we all live in the same world.
About your signature, Marylin Manson has a cool line in one of his songs : 'God is a number you cannot count to...' I personnaly like it
Since I change my signature EVERY DAY I must remind the old quote "God is <font color=red>real</font>, unless declared <font color=blue>integer</font>" - from Anonymous Man
Some sociological studies done have revealed that PERCEPTION of reality effect behaviour. Absolute reality can only be defined by god. Michael B.
I agree also and my signature today is from philosopher Merleau Ponty who says: Truth does not "inhabit" only "the inner man", or more accurately, there is no inner man, man is in the world, and only in the world does he know himself. Merleau Ponty - Phenomenology of Perception (1945) P.S.: I generally hate philosophers because many of them seem to be disconnected from concretness or action and just bla bla bla, so I make an exception for Merleau Ponty because he is a philosopher of action for him you become yourself as you are doing . I hate them all the more that they are responsible of fabrics of ideologies that were later used to justify inhuman acts like Communism through Karl Marx.
When I was young until about to enter engineering school I was a "beast" of abstraction in mathematics - I used to love particularly theorems demonstration - although today I think I wouldn't be able even to demonstrate a college level theorem - whereas I have always hated calculus - but after entering an engineering school I was expecting to discover more concretness I was very upset I learned nothing neither new nor concrete so I get bored I was no more interested by abstraction in fact by anything. I think I lost 2 years on the 3 years of high school. I made another engineering school same thing nothing really interesting - except financial and operational research methods . It is only when I entered real life that I really learned new interesting things. But when you enter real life I think you lose any taste for abstraction because you have to solve immediate problems you don't have always time to think about. Nevertheless you acquire experience and when you evoluate towards more conceptual job the experience you acquire allows to make the link between concept and reality more easily. I think that is the reason why some people are too abstract and stay abstract because they don't have enough experience. If we deal with trading, for example, when a novice read some trading rules although he think he understands he can't really because he doesn't have the experience to really understand. On the contrary people who are always been in pure execution task will have difficulty to understand abstraction - and so this thread . Abstraction is not necessary in every case, it can become necessary only in a big process or a process that you will have to repeat or a critical process.