Define “Abstraction” – something created which is relatively simple and not necessarily realistic.
Underneath everything is reality.
Then on top of that is the small percentage of reality we’re allowed to see, limited by space and time, as well as our limited ability to perceive it. Actually we perceive only a few narrow bands of electromagnetic radiation which stimulate nerve centers in our brain which are converted into signals which we then interpret, and call the end result “real.” So by perceiving the world around us, we’re already positing an abstract overlay between our consciousness and reality.
And then to describe what we perceive, to take our still-rich perceptions and boil them down to a series of letters, words, sentences, requires a further abstract overlay. Paintings, no matter how realistic, are not reality, and so all paintings are abstractions too. And music. And especially TV.
Well that’s abstract, what’s real? A question which goes far, far beyond the scope of this entry. All of this blog, even all of philosophy could be interpreted as an attempt at answering that question. My first hypothesis: Beauty is the measure of reality. My second: reality is that which is of God (not so quick to judge, you don’t know what I mean by the G word, or the B word earlier, for that matter).