Proposition – Abstractionism is rooted in the cognitive compression<>expansion of the time interval.

Let’s unpack the above proposition with a clarifying example.

Clarifying example – an industrial chemist develops a liquid soap with a uniquely strong and delightful scent of jasmine. The commercial producer of the liquid soap is ecstatic with brisk sales of the soap until reports start streaming in about the soap quickly losing its scent. Turns out the soap, being packed in clear glass bottles, allows sunlight to convert the scent-bearing compound into a non-scent bearing variant. After the chemist discovers this, he conducts a test with the soap inside an opaque bottle. After exposure to sunlight, the soap still retains its uniquely strong and delightful scent of jasmine. He advises the producer about loading the soap into opaque bottles and soon after brisk sales of the product resume to the delight of everyone.

What did the chemist initially do? He loaded soap into an opaque bottle and, after exposing it to sunlight, tested for scent. Success.

What did the chemist ultimately do? He advised the producer about the use of opaque bottles for all containment of the product henceforth.

Let’s look at the progression of the chemist from his initial step to his ultimate step. What did he do? He abstracted his understanding about one opaque bottle to a set of opaque bottles of unspecified volume (read here as quasi-infinite).

An individual can, in this example, easily run a test for scent duration employing one opaque bottle.

While of course it’s also possible to run a test for scent duration employing many opaque bottles, the production of such a test elongates the time interval.

Contemplating running a test for a quasi-infinite volume of opaque bottles takes us into another category of difficulty altogether. And yet, it’s as if the chemist has done that because he abstracts his test run for one bottle to a test run for a quasi-infinity of bottles via an abstract mental concept in his head.

Through conceptualization of an abstraction, set, the chemist compresses the beyond-loads and loads of practical time required for a test run for a quasi-infinity of bottles into a very small interval of time required for abstractionism applied in order to advance from one opaque bottle to all opaque bottles.

Via his mental construction of set of all opaque bottles, an example of abstractionism, the chemist firstly compresses a beyond-long interval of time into a very short interval of time.

Next, via his mental construction of marketing set of all opaque bottles, he secondly expands a very short interval of time into a beyond long interval of time.