I just listened to this again for probably the fourth or fifth time, though I hadn’t listened to it for several months. This podcast is really helpful for me.
What do you find it helpful for?
I think it’s most helpful to me as a reference point and a starting point for additional study or context for how to study abstractions. I still don’t think that I have much understanding of abstractions but I occasionally linger on questions about abstractions. The podcast helped me think about what kinds of questions I might want to think about when studying computation. The point in the podcast about questions about abstractions depending on goals is also really helpful. I often forget to ask what my goals are, or what problem I’m trying to solve when I’m thinking about stuff. I think being able to reference/remember back to goals is one way I might eventually make progress on my lingering confusion regarding abstractions.
I think what you say about abstractions here is more concretized and down to earth than what has been written by DD and Ayn Rand (I haven’t read what Popper says about abstractions). Rand’s and DD’s writings about abstractions might be focused on solving different problems than what I’ve wondered about. I think this podcast is much closer to aligning with or answering my particular questions.