The act and result of observing a complex thing and replacing it with a simpler object that is meant to represent it. Abstraction allows us to reduce the complexity of objects in order to reason about them more easily. A name is an abstraction of the thing that is named. A map is an abstraction of the land. (See: Map is not the territory)
We apply abstraction to allow us to reason about Complex Systems that are unfathomable otherwise. We selectively decide what details to remove from our model to create the abstraction. If we’re not conscious when removing details, we may remove critical details required for our desired reasoning task. The goal of abstraction is to produce a concept or object that is easier to work with or emphasizes some desired attribute.
Abstraction in art. A landscape reduced to 5 shapes.
Left, a molecule “seen” by atomic force microscopy. Right, an abstraction of the molecule
Left, a molecule “seen” by atomic force microscopy. Right, an abstraction of the molecule