What is the thing that language itself abstracts?

Your thought's I'd say, but it's more of a two way street than what I think of as abstraction.

Okay, language was the original vehicle for abstraction if everyone wants to get pedantic about it. And yes, abstraction of thought. Only in computerland (programming, mathematics and physics) do you even have the opportunity to have leak-free functional abstractions. That is not the norm. LLM-like leaky abstractions are the norm.

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beepbooptheory 5 days ago | parent [-]

This is clearly not true. For example, the Pythagorean theorem is an old, completely leak free, abstraction with no computer required.

Sorry for being pedantic, I was just curious what you mean at all. Language as abstraction of thought implies that thought is always somehow more "general" than language, right? But if that was the case, how could I read a novel that brings me to tears? Is not my thought in this case more the "lossy abstraction" of the language than the other way around?

Or, what is the abstraction of the "STOP" on the stop sign at the intersection?

	▲	daveguy 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		Psst. Mathematics didn't come before language.