[Squeakland] the non universals

[Blake]

On Sat, 18 Aug 2007 14:44:22 -0700, Robert Parks <bobp at lightlink.com>  
wrote:

>     2. What IS a "powerful idea", and how does it become powerful?
> I'm particularly interested in asking whether ideas get their power
> from abstraction (finding similarity in structure), or generalization
> (finding similarity in features) - or from both.

Or what about specificity? In order for the wheel to be invented, someone  
had to have the idea that it could be used to transport. Or perhaps the  
idea was the general notion that something other than pure sinew could be  
used to move things around, and the wheel (among other things) was a  
specific instance of that.

I suspect the specific came first, then the generalization, then the  
abstraction--which in turn lead to more specifics. (At least in the case  
of the wheel.)