Changes

Although the elliptic strategy of approximation is tantamount to simply ''leaving off'' from the effort to describe a difficult object, in effect, ''throwing up one's hands'' in exasperation, exhaustion, supplication, or surrender, by this means hoping to escape from the self imposed part of the requirement to describe it more closely, and finally ''giving up'' the attempted description with the significance of the data already recorded, no matter how much the ''broken off'' approach ''falls short'' of its goal, the closely related strategies of abstraction and recursion are rather more persistent in their tries at describing the object.

Although the elliptic strategy of approximation is tantamount to simply ''leaving off'' from the effort to describe a difficult object, in effect, ''throwing up one's hands'' in exasperation, exhaustion, supplication, or surrender, by this means hoping to escape from the self imposed part of the requirement to describe it more closely, and finally ''giving up'' the attempted description with the significance of the data already recorded, no matter how much the ''broken off'' approach ''falls short'' of its goal, the closely related strategies of abstraction and recursion are rather more persistent in their tries at describing the object.

Is there a Bard of rustic song,

| colspan="2" | Is there a Bard of rustic song,

Who, noteless, steals the crowds among,

That weekly this area throng?

| colspan="2" | Who, noteless, steals the crowds among,

O, pass not by!

But, with a frater feeling strong,

| colspan="2" | That weekly this area throng?

Here, heave a sigh.

Robert Burns, A Bard's Epitaph, [CPW, 220]

| width="5%"  |   || O, pass not by!

| colspan="2" | But, with a frater feeling strong,

| width="5%"  |   || Here, heave a sigh.

 

 

| colspan="2" align="right" | — Robert Burns, ''A Bard's Epitaph'', [CPW, 220]

In effect, so long as an agent sticks to the object and persists in the purpose of describing it / this kind of object, ...  In other words, an agent is forced to resort to the stratagems of abstraction and recursion, where the same sign is used for many different objects and when the same sign is used to mark the progress of an activity at many different stages of its process, respectively.  The underlying principle involved here is a kind of "pragmatic pigeonhole principle" (P3)

A ''resilient enough system of interpretation'' (RESOI), if driven to the point of distraction by the task of describing an inexhaustibly complex reality, makes several strategies available to its interpretive agent, either for preventing its being driven over the edge or for recovering from the inevitable lapses of attention that nevertheless happen to occur.  The most salient of these strategies can be organized for discussion in the following manner:

Here pause  and, thro the starting tear,

A "resilient enough system of interpretation" (RESOI), if driven to the point of distraction by the task of describing an inexhaustibly complex reality, makes several strategies available to its interpretive agent, either for preventing its being driven over the edge or for recovering from the inevitale lapses of attention that nevertheless happen to occur. The most salient of these strategies can be organized for discussion in the following manner:

'''Approximation.'''  In resorting to approximation, one accepts the variety of natural bounds that apply to one's capacities for significant denotation, acknowledges the practical constraints that affect one's abilities for attending to detail and retaining exact records, and acts accordingly.  This means recognizing the limitations of one's capacity for attention, recording the amounts that one can at the levels of accuracy that are feasible, and restricting one's intentions appropriately to capturing an aspect of one's object or representing a fraction of its reality.

Approximation.  In resorting to approximation, one accepts the variety of natural bounds that apply to one's capacities for significant denotation, acknowledges the practical constraints that affect one's abilities for attending to detail and retaining exact records, and acts accordingly.  This means recognizing the limitations of one's capacity for attention, recording the amounts that one can at the levels of accuracy that are feasible, and restricting one's intentions appropriately to capturing an aspect of one's object or representing a fraction of its reality.

'''Abstraction.''' In resorting to abstraction, one is trying to escape the limitations of a ''strict democracy'' in one's representations, otherwise known as the "one object, one sign" rule.  Abstraction occurs when the same sign is used to refer to many different things, often conceived to form a class or a set of objects.  In effect, abstraction introduces a common name or a general concept that denotes each individual object in a multitude of particular objects.  Typically and most effectively, this comes about in recognition of a common attribute, a general feature, or a universal property that all of these objects share, giving the process of abstraction the beneficial side effect that the abstract sign can be newly re interpreted as referring to the abstract property in question.

Abstraction.  In resorting to abstraction, one is trying to escape the limitations of a "strict democracy" in one's representations, otherwise known as the "one object, one sign" rule.  Abstraction occurs when the same sign is used to refer to many different things, often conceived to form a class or a set of objects.  In effect, abstraction introduces a common name or a general concept that denotes each individual object in a multitude of particular objects.  Typically and most effectively, this comes about in recognition of a common attribute, a general feature, or a universal property that all of these objects share, giving the process of abstraction the beneficial side effect that the abstract sign can be newly re interpreted as referring to the abstract property in question.

Depending on the kinds of entities that are covered by an abstraction and the orders of logical complexity that are involved in this coverage, abstractions can be classified according to their domains of application and qualified according to their manners of construction and derivation.  The next topics for discussion are two varieties of abstraction, called ''recursion'' and ''polymorphism'', that are especially important for the purpose of building computational models of interpretation and that deserve special mention in the present inquiry.

The poor inhabitant below

The poor inhabitant below

Was quick to learn and wise to know,

Was quick to learn and wise to know,