Level of Abstraction

A level of abstraction is an explanation for a certain level of organization in a system. It is related to emergence. Strong emergence requires at least one completely new level of abstraction, if it is defined as the appearance of a new code. The "level of abstraction" is related to the "level of detail", the "scope of view" or the "degree of generality", since abstraction is a concept or idea not associated with any specific instance. A "level of abstraction" for computing is the number of layers between the physical layer (of bits and binary code) and the current representation. A layer is a code, language or protocol which offers a certain service. For example in a computer we have the language cascade from binary code to machine code, byte code and high level code, or the OSI Reference Model.

Links

• Wikipedia entry for Abstraction (computer science)

• Russ Abbott, The reductionist blind spot