Abstraction

A general definition of abstraction is the process of removing characteristics from some entity to reduce it to some set of essential properties. This process of abstraction often requires the mental or conceptual manipulation of observable objects, facts, and events to reduce to essential properties and create a deeper or more complex description of a phenomenon or a set of phenomena. Consequently, abstract is often contrasted with concrete because abstract categories are not only more generalized in nature than other categories (due to the distillation of essential properties), but they often refer to representations of objects and events that are not located in time or space.

The utility of abstraction is demonstrable in the many ways the term and process have been used to understand and ...