Re: Abstract to concrete

Russ Hunt (HUNT who-is-at academic.stu.StThomasU.ca)
Fri, 20 Sep 1996 09:00:14 AST

Yrjo, I took it as a part of the definition of the terms that an
abstraction is a result of a mental operation across a class of
things and thus couldn't actually _be_, or be made, a concrete
object.

I may be missing something obvious here, but it seems to me implicit
in how I use those two words.

> Russ Hunt wrote: "Unless I'm real wrong about this, reification doesn't
> mean actually _making_ the abstraction concrete (an impossibility)...."
>
> Could Russ please explain why making an abstraction concrete is an
> impossibility?

Because I do have a tendency to think about these issues very, um,
simplemindedly, maybe somebody (Yrjo?) can help me by giving an
instance where an abstraction _is_ actually "made concrete"?

-- Russ
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