Insight part 2

Protocol Thursday 3 May

Author: Jazz Eser

I.        Seeing and Understanding: Simultaneous or Separate Activities?

              a) While at first, it seems that they are separate activities, they are actually simultaneous.

              b) In the game, we already have an idea as soon as we see something and that identification of what we see to an idea is already understanding, therefore they are simultaneous.

              c) The reason we see both as separate activities is because of abstraction.

II.      Abstraction

              a) Comes from the word abstractio which means “to pull away”

              b) Abstraction is a tool in the analysis of insight or conceptual analysis

              c) Looking to what you need to ask

              d) Prescinding or disregarding the fundamental differences

              e) Looking at reality at a particular kind of way

              f) However, abstraction is dangerous when reality is only seen through that abstraction.

              g) Reality is abundant with meaning and cannot be defined through a single abstraction

       Example of abstraction in counting objects

1. We must first abstract from the certain aspect of the things we're trying to count. If we're counting people in a room, we disregard other objects in the room such as fans, blackboards, etc. 
2.   We must also abstract what we count to the things themselves. In counting people, we must ignore if they're boy or girl, tall or short, etc. otherwise, we'd be counting one for each different person.

Friendly comment:  Jazz, what do you mean by IIc ("Looking to what you need to ask")?  That phrase is unclear.  See you in class. -PJ Strebel