Well, I'm not so sure about that dear Mind-numbed Robot. It seems to me that Truth apperceived by the human mind can be described, at the cognitive level, as an "abstraction." But an abstraction from what? Well, it seems all abstractions are finally prompted by Nature (Reality) itself. That is, they are descriptions or models of Nature, not Nature itself.
Yet as A. N. Whitehead has pointed out, what people often lose sight of (in my words, FWIW) is the distinction between source and image in Reality. Science — because it is unavoidably abstract, so much so that its business can largely be conveyed in the universal language of mathematics — falls into the image category. At the same time, science is supposed to be in the business of exploring the source category.
Of course, the immediately foregoing assumes the reader accepts the natural law tradition as "true." Not all people do, nowadays. :^)
In short, I do not believe that "truth is an abstract." I believe Truth is the very foundation of, and plan for Reality itself.
To my mind, Reality is an "abstraction" from Truth, and not the other way around.
Whitehead was addressing a problem which he identified as "the fallacy of misplaced concreteness." Scientific theories are "abstractions" from Reality, not Reality itself. The fallacy consists of "reducing" the latter to the former, to the point where the generating Reality is entirely eclipsed by its image, or abstraction.
Well, I'm sure that's just as clear as mud....
Anyhoot, other than that one tiny quibble, please let me congratulate you, dear Mind-numbed Robot, for your outstanding essay/post! Excellent insights!
Just to annoy you (though if I cock my head in just the right way, I can perceive it the way you said)...
I suggest rather that Truth is the Master Class, and our "Reality" is an instantiation of a particular sub-class. /object-oriented gobbledygook>
Whitehead was addressing a problem which he identified as "the fallacy of misplaced concreteness." Scientific theories are "abstractions" from Reality, not Reality itself. The fallacy consists of "reducing" the latter to the former, to the point where the generating Reality is entirely eclipsed by its image, or abstraction.
And just to stir the pot some more, isn't it odd how much anthropomorphism goes into scientific explanations?
Listen to how many times we talk about what nature "wants" to do, or how elegant the "design" of an enzymatic binding site is, or the "purpose" of a particular adaptation (that last one is confusing the word "purpose" with "function"; and the two so often overlap in human experience, it is at least excusable as mere carelessness).
What makes it all the more jolly is that anthropomorphism is supposed to be the death-knell for any hope of veriferousness within theology, but quite understandable when explaining science. Given that God is held to be sentient, and with desires quite distinct from ours ("neither are my ways your ways, O House of Israel"), and humans are the most advanced conscious beings with whom we all agree we have dealings, shouldn't the discrediting be the other way around? (stir, stir, the pot)
(The use of abstractions and models is because they are the most *compact* representation, and the most reproducible, without worrying as much over any multicultural interpretations, and assurance that the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter really is PI, regardless of what language is spoken by the person with the tape measure; allowing, of course, for significant figures and assuming the experimental template is not out of round, and doesn't taper like a bowl.)
Cheers!
To my mind, Reality is an "abstraction" from Truth, and not the other way around.
That is close to what I am attempting to say and that is what leads me to call Truth an abstract. We can know truth well enough to get along in our everyday lives but do we really know the rest of the story? I see truth to be the ideal, an abstract, and an ideal we can't really know or describe. We simply keep looking as one theory gets replaced by another and some facts turn out to be something else altogether.
All of what you say is true for the practical purpose of logical discussion, for our everyday use, but it is all based on assumptions of what is supposedly apparent.
I see truth as interchangeable with essence and ideal and I posit that we cannot yet know essence, and may never be able to. Therefore, truth is an abstraction.