Programming in abstractions is very different from a system that is capable of its own 'abstracting'. But what does abstracting mean? We only know of its inputs and outputs, but we fail to describe its inner workings.

I like this short video about living in space. This is because it makes you realize the gaps in your knowledge when you turn off something (i.e. gravity) that you have always assumed to be present. https://t.co/9SRvDoN2lZ
Perhaps we can understand 'abstracting' better if we turn of many assumptions that we unconsciously carry around. Perhaps we need to get rid of the excess baggage that is confusing our thinking about abstraction.
Turning off gravity and living in space is a perfect analogy. We somehow have to turn off a cognitive process to understand the meaning of abstraction.
The first step to divorce ourselves from our habitual cognitive processes is to realize the pervasiveness of 'noun-thinking' . https://t.co/GLHdMeEyKX
We want our research agenda focused on the lower right quadrant of this chart:
Here's the paradox. The other quadrants are a consequence of the application of abstraction. We are so acclimatized with abstracting that we don't know how to turn it off to understand abstracting!
So like the absence of gravity reveals to us the effects of gravity, the absence of abstraction reveals to us how abstraction arises from non-abstraction.
Let's challenge two abstractions that are related. The Law of the Excluded Middle and the concept of infinity. https://t.co/KkdJXtPs36
Numbers are not things, they are processes. This is one of the more shocking ideas that I learned this week. But it should have been obvious.
The universe is computational and therefore is governed by intuitionistic logic.
The second false abstraction you have to rid yourself of is the notion of the 'all seeing eye'. Ever since formulation of relativity and quantum mechanics, Physics has been telling us that all of reality operates from the first-person perspective.
The consequence of this is the existence of the self and as a logical conclusion, the existence of something other than the self. This sets up a situation of co-evolution that is unimaginably rich and complex as a consequence of the mechanism of biological evolution.
Biological evolution and brains share a commonality. They are creative processes that do not have a single designer. Rather, innovation arises as a consequence of a multitude of designers in constant competition seeking design wins.
The designs that best fit the world in the present are the designs that persist in the future. But it's actually not as simple as this. Evolution and brains are creative in ways we see through the lens of gameplay. https://t.co/S9iv9wZeXe
A system like AlphaZero that is trained without the knowledge of human gameplay is of course unaware of the abstractions humans have invented to describe strategy and tactics. It just does what it does because it works best.
Yet, AlphaZero performs in a intuitionistic manner that demolishes other systems that are driven by abstractions and logic. https://t.co/Wr9nOQ6QB5
AlphaZero tells you that to learn the game, you must play the game. Rules and abstractions that describe the game will always take a back seat to participation and interaction.
Rules and abstractions are communicable expressions of previous designs. However, just like DNA requires a living cell to interpret its instructions, the same can be said about rules and instructions and the human mind.
A mind comes into being because it participates in this world, not because it has given instructions about this world.
What then are abstractions? Abstractions are metaphors that we use to communicate with minds other than ourselves.
@threadreaderapp unroll

More from Carlos E. Perez

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A thread of resources for aspiring & new Product Managers:

(should also be useful for Eng, Design, Data Science, Mktg, Ops folks who want to get better at PM work or want to build more empathy for your PM friends ☺️)

(oh, and pls also share *your* favorite resources below)

👇🏾

1/

Product Management - Start Here by @cagan
(hard to go wrong if you start with Marty Cagan’s

2/

Tips for Breaking into PM by @sriramk
(I’ve recommended this thread in my DMs more often than any other thread, by a pretty wide


3/

Top 100 Product Management Resources by @sachinrekhi
(well-categorized index so you can focus on whatever’s most useful right

4/

Brief interruption.

It’s important to understand your preferred learning style and go all in on that learning style (vs. struggling / procrastinating as you force a non-preferred learning
🚨 🦮 Seven ways to test for accessibility using only what is already in browser developer tools of Chromium browsers https://t.co/C7kdbigHGE

@MSEdgeDev @EdgeDevTools @ChromiumDev
#tools #accessibility #browsers
Also, a thread: 👇🏼


Issues pane, powered by @webhintio, listing accessibility issues with explanations why these are problems, links to more info and direct links to the tools where to fix the problem.
https://t.co/4K5RynHhbg


The inspect element overlay showing accessibility relevant information of the element, including contrast information, ARIA name, role and if it can be focused via keyboard.


Colour picker with contrast information offering colours that are AA/AAA compliant. You can also see compliant colours indicated by a line on the colour patch.
Note: the current algorithm fails to take font weight into consideration, that's why there will be a new one.


Vision deficit ("colour blindness") emulation. You can see what your product looks like for different visitors.
https://t.co/bxj1vySCAb
There are lots of problems with ad-tech:

* being spied on all the time means that the people of the 21st century are less able to be their authentic selves;

* any data that is collected and retained will eventually breach, creating untold harms;

1/


* data-collection enables for discriminatory business practices ("digital redlining");

* the huge, tangled hairball of adtech companies siphons lots (maybe even most) of the money that should go creators and media orgs; and

2/

* anti-adblock demands browsers and devices that thwart their owners' wishes, a capability that can be exploited for even more nefarious purposes;

That's all terrible, but it's also IRONIC, since it appears that, in addition to everything else, ad-tech is a fraud, a bezzle.

3/

Bezzle was John Kenneth Galbraith's term for "the magic interval when a confidence trickster knows he has the money he has appropriated but the victim does not yet understand that he has lost it." That is, a rotten log that has yet to be turned over.

4/

Bezzles unwind slowly, then all at once. We've had some important peeks under ad-tech's rotten log, and they're increasing in both intensity and velocity. If you follow @Chronotope, you've had a front-row seat to the

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