嘉寶 的來信 on abstraction

Hi Leechard,

(Pardon my English email, I'm not very good at typing Chinese) I have started reading your column in Ming Pao since I was little. I still remember the cat cartoon that went along with your column. I always find your column very...abstract yet it seems to make a lot of sense.

I research about computer hardware verification at the university. It is very hard to verify computer hardware regardless of the level of "abstraction" because of the complexity. You can verify the lower level like the transistors or you can verify the higher level which can be the correctness of a computer program (e.g. does it do what the programmer intended?). There is research in all of these different levels of abstraction. Usually the "verification engineers" need to make certain assumptions about the lower or higher level when they verify the their level of concern. For example, they may need to assume that the transistors will behave as they should. Basically the technique of "abstraction" is to throw away details that don't concern us.

Your article today on "What is "future"?" reminded me of my research. When people think of their own future, is that an abstraction? They abstract away things that don't concern them. Yet these details do exist and work together to create their "future".

嘉寶