ON THE ABSTRACT AND THE TANGIBLE

Abstractions only exist because reality and its processes exist and abstractions should not be viewed as existing purely in our minds but should be viewed as being mental representations of processes in reality that are not always visual or fully tangible. Also abstractions in the normal sense of the word applies also as in abstract thinking existing in thought or idea but not necessarily existing in physical or practical existence. Abstractions are more useful when they are applied to reality in the sense of being conceptual representations of processes in reality that we have observed to exist but are not necessarily visually seen. A lot of the processes in reality are abstract and cannot be seen and abstractions cannot exist without actual processes in reality occurring therefore abstractions are analogous to processes in reality that are not always visual or not completely tangible. The a priori concept in some ways describes abstract processes in the sense of how people attain ideas and knowledge about the truth of reality which they have had and have not experienced directly through their senses. The many ideas that human beings have of abstractions must surely come from the fact that many processes in nature and reality itself seem very abstract. Also many of the processes in our genetic make-up itself and also in the workings of our minds seem very abstract and have their tangible source in the brain. Many of our simple ideas are abstract in either the imaginary or realistic sense of being a representation of something real. All simple ideas can be said to have an essence and nature of their own whether they be imaginary or real or whether in the concrete or tangible sense. All abstract ideas have an essence or distinguishing nature which enables us to know it and distinguish it from all other ideas and this essence and nature can be found also when simple ideas are part of a more complex idea that this simple idea may be a part of. The ideas that we have of imaginary abstractions come from the ideas we have of real abstractions and the ideas of real abstractions come from our sense impressions of reality and its processes. Ultimately all the abstractions that we can think of or conceive of come from the actual processes in reality, so that the best way to understand abstractions would be to attempt to understand the actual processes in reality and how they operate. The best way to try to understand the processes in reality or in nature generally is to picture them or think of them in an abstract way and also in a tangible way also whenever possible and this should be part of our thought experiments which in a lot of cases can yield good results except in situations where it is not possible to think of both of these things at the same time.