Something I have been thinking about recently is abstraction and how there is a chasm between knowing about a thing and knowing that thing fully–what Robert Heinlein called grokking the thing.
Abstraction means we are talking about ideas, concepts, nebulous things. The opposite of Abstract might be tangible, or concrete–it is real, by sensory experience. I can talk about fruit, as a concept, or I can show you an apple.
The Chasm of Abstraction is important in a rhetorical sense, in a spiritual sense, and in an eschatological sense.
In the rhetorical sense, when we talk about abstractions we lose control of the ideas. If you are talking about theoretical widgets, then I will substitute my own real tangible experience with widgets, which may or may not be good, for whatever it is you had in mind. This immediately leads to conflict and argumentation because you will (rightly) argue I don’t understand what you mean, and I will (rightly) counterclaim that I understand perfectly and these are natural consequences of what you mean. The discussion gets lost in technicalities and ceases to be fun or interesting, but becomes a laborious chore.
So, when talking about ideas, the best next thing to do is to give a real, tangible, illustration. Then you have substituted the abstract with your own real example, and now you have illustrated what you have in mind. If someone else has a different experience with the concept you are discussing, then fine–but it changes the terms of the discussion. There is no longer the presumption of agreement, there is in fact a real and discernible disagreement, and that can be worked through.
Let me heed my own advice here. The article I linked above serves as kind of a post-op for an argument I started and lost control of. I started the argument by making an abstract claim, giving abstract proofs, and then walking away. Readers of the article substituted their own concrete experiences for my abstractions and boom: I lost control of the discussion. We were no longer talking about what I had in mind, but instead were talking about what each commenter individually had in mind.
Sometimes, though, it is necessary to talk about abstractions qua abstractions, and avoid making them concrete so we can understand the underlying ideas. This requires a fair amount of trust between interlocutors, and a common agreement of what is at play. If I wanted to do this in my offending article, I should have included a preface that disclaims that we aren’t talking about realities, we are talking about concepts. That would not have helped in my case, I needed to do the first thing–provide examples of my abstract idea. But it’s an option available to rhetoriticians.
In the Spiritual sense, we can see this idea play out in Genesis. God says (lazily paraphrasing) “Do not eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge”–and Adam and Eve are tempted to turn this abstraction into a reality. They cross the chasm by experience. JMSmith has noted in his own exegesis on this that “knowledge” is not in the “reading facts from a book” sense but in the ‘biblical’ sense–they come to know evil by doing it. They have crossed the chasm of abstraction, and there is no going back. Said another way, they have substituted God’s abstraction with their own experience.
This is important because this is exactly what it means to grok something. It means to internalize it, assume it into your being. Adam and Eve were aware of evil but didn’t grok it until they did it. This is why purity–sinlessness–is so important and so difficult. It is better to not grok evil and sin, but doing so takes tremendous trust and effort. That is why the only person who has ever done it perfectly is Mary, the mother of God. Mary was obviously aware of sin but never experienced evil by her own action. She did, however, experience evil through watching the sorrows of her son, our Lord. Getting such a lesson in Evil with her Son as subject is unimaginably cruel.
In the Eschatological sense, we know from the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus that an uncrossable Chasm separates heaven from hell. This Chasm exists because it is no longer possible to know evil the way Adam and Eve first knew evil. When we die, we go before God and reveal the choice of our lives–to choose God or to choose Hell. Those of us who choose God are purified of our sins and (as a result, or as a consequence) never again choose evil. The thought is abhorrent to us, it is impossible for us to sin. Those of us who choose Hell are cast into the eternal fire, and with perfect knowledge of God are left in the torment of His absence. These choices are irrevocable, and so those in Heaven cannot know evil or Hell because they cannot make that choice. Because they cannot experience it, Hell becomes an eternal abstraction–though I am sure our experience in purgation will give us a close understanding that we will not forget it’s existence. Likewise, souls in Hell cannot experience Heaven because they are permanently separated from God–Heaven becomes an abstraction they cannot substitute with their own experience.
These are my thoughts, anyway. I hope this has been an interesting topic to reflect upon.
AMDG
Times-Dispatch of Vichy Earth 
