One might sense abstraction (e.g. a model, a stick figure, a pattern, yes, a word or… an axiom) as a form of ignorance. 

Before one explodes into an understandable offense, I invite you to bare-bear with this imagined linguistic equation and continue the read:

An abstraction might be understood as a type of metaphor, ignoring the complexity of the attributes of that what it refers to and of that what (at various times in various spaces) it is dynamically contextualized by. 


[1]

Firstly, yes, observed as inherently human, this narrative here is a media-massaged oversimplified abstraction of the idea of ‘abstraction’ as a form of ignorance. This text is what it describes.  It, as a conceit, had best never be confused with what it abstracts, & thus, with what it is a metaphor or and equation of.

Then again, the potential of confusion at times could lie at the basis of poetry, humor or rhetoric (in this text here, simplified to be, momentarily, irrespective of the perceived ethics of the assumed intent by its instigator and by its ‘translating’ interpreters ). In such manner the abstract could be denied its conceit (i.e. denied in at least its first and second denotations) in ‘favor’ of a construed 1:1 map of reality, or of a complex sub-system thereof. 

Softening the above statement one could actively maintain a mantra towards vigilance (and aid a learner, irrespective of age, in reminding):

they.are.not.the.same.things.

That stated, this neither must, at all times, imply the weighing of value of the metaphor versus that of the abstracted. This might occur while one continues wondering about the potential value of both (i.e. “so what, now what?”).

It might, additionally, be a good idea to continue realizing and maintaining, in one’s judging mindsets, that it, at times, is context-sensitive.

These realizations are potentially (metaphorically) liberating; or so this author here wants a reader to consider considering (yes,… layering). The realizations could offer access to the imagined (metaphorical / abstracted) yet also concrete relationship with humans, which includes oneself, and also, with acts driven by one’s ability in varying degrees of distinguishing a metaphor or an abstract, as an ‘ignorant’ construct.

This is imagined (by this author) to possibly occur, while paradoxically embracing both that ‘ignorance’ and the consideration that an abstraction or a model seems to reasonably, yet misused, tend toward shedding (too many a) complex contexts.

We tend to be perceived as (over)simplifying or making matters too complex. This process occurs irrespective of whether one would be doing so “objectively” and irrespective of the possibility that simplification, oversimplification, and of some references being made too complex, do occur simultaneously in one and the same text and diversified by the multitude of interpretations (e.g. translations, judgements, transcodings)

For instance, this text has been defined as oversimplifying in its opening sentences. And yet… it is simultaneously making something obvious, seemingly complex (to some). While the text might be perceived as pretentious and as offering its potential readers all of these paradoxical convolutions, its author is and could be (only) partially aware; unless extrinsically pointed out in further detail by others and if intrinsically welcomed by the author(s) in question. Then just perhaps dialog might occur (even if only sproutingly and then witheringly so).

These mechanisms can be transcoded to anyone and to any (inter- intra-)human (mediated) utterance.

In addition, these attributes, being triggered into awareness (e.g. as a ritual act similar to washing hands or brushing teeth), potentially, could be extrapolated to many observations of any act (thus to any experience & possibly to the influences on that what is being observed); which has been long established or recently innovated or delivered. e.g.: “I am not my offspring” (i.e. a bio-relation of that sort is often disturbingly confused via the many metaphors); …“offspring are not my avatar” (i.e. a potentially brutal and a tautologically reductionist metaphor, or abstraction, as a metaphorical techno-abstraction).

Hence, some, if not most, ‘metaphors’ might tend to be classifiable as ideological: the manner with which we conduct ourselves and others (yes, many are non-conspiratorially being conducted at one time or other), in-between and with, ourselves and those same or other-others; e.g.: I [= the me, myself] yelled: “Jimmy [=the other], what will the neighbors [=the other-others] think?!”

[2]

Secondly, yes, embrace it, in many areas of our thinking and acting we are child-like. This is not to be confused with ‘childish’ nor with an act of someone who we biologically taxonomized and hence defined as within the fluidly demarcated realm of developmentally being a child. All three can occur simultaneously (while then probably increasing the tautological overlap in some of the denotative or connotative attributes): “the childish child-like child”… (yes: silly, humorist, poetic, rhetorical; take your pick).

This evaluating demarcation too is weighed ideologically & thus culturally [e.g. “grow up, be a ‘man’, grow some hair, though, shave that hair in your nostrils & ears!” …what’s up with this hair obsession…] 

The “child-like” is an invitation (for the proclaimed “grownup”) to have compassion toward at least two human processes:

[a]

the imaginative toward the nurturing of a thought-seedling (however mundane or obvious to one);

[b]

the opportunity and potential for rapid failure and rapid intra-personal micro-innovation, by means of dialog with the other (“Jimmy”) and with the (imagined) other-other (“the neighbor”). 

The child, and maybe almost *any* of us, could intent to realize inherent (increasing) blind spots of the un-educated & not-knowledgeable, which are found spread out across metaphorical ‘non-insight-islands’ of our ‘Land of the Ignorant’; do hear this author whisper: “I’m your neighbor there”.

The learning and the exploration of thought, the observation and reflection of an act, and the non-linear process of integrating these, might not be the obtaining of “enlightenment” but rather of “neo-ignorance”. 

Yes, “neo-ignorance” as in “‘knowledgeable,’ intertwined with the modesty of some realization of the temporarily & the ephemerally, until falsified or revised; proverbially ad infinitum”. 

The “social,” in flesh- or digit-based networks, might best allow one self, and the less-or-more-connected other(-other), such processes. Surprise (Utopians, please, close your eyes for an upcoming spoiler):

we.do.not.yet.do.so.sufficiently.

This could be suggested so to enable us to call the “social”, *social*, rather than becoming lazy, singularly and linearly blaming the tech or the content-baring-bearing media, as a subset of the tech, while ignoring the human attributes in and in-between the entire mix-a-doodle.