” i see most of the interpretations of abstraction on your post as being closer to generalizations or symbolic reductions. to make something a true abstraction you must convert it into an idea, but much of what you’re offering is simply a reduction of a phenomenon into it’s most useful parts. for example, eliminating chess moves that don’t make much of a difference, or not defining a chair by what color it’s painted.
a true platonic ideal of a chair is an abstraction. it says that there is an idea of a chair, it is perfect and it is archetypal (that is, we all share it).”