Background B: Making a “concrete” objective out of an “abstract” objective.

Two kinds of objective-making by a person can be distinguished:

• His making of a particular new concrete objective on the basis of a particular existing concrete objective.
  • That new concrete objective is an “in-between-objective” (milestone) defining the next step on his road to the realisation of his existing concrete objective. All humans make such “in-between-objectives” (milestones) all day long.
  • Human beings don’t experience this kind of objective-making as a difficult activity.
• The making of a particular new concrete objective on the basis of a particular existing abstract objective.
  • Human beings experience this kind of objective-making as a very difficult activity.

Examples of an abstract objective are:

• A person, who is dissatisfied with his current job has the abstract objective … “having a nice new job”.

  “Abstract”, because:

  • there exists a huge amount of different jobs he would judge to be nice jobs,
  • he does not know any of these jobs yet.
  • he only knows
    • (a few of the cognition-marks) of the “group of cognition-marks”, all these nice jobs have in common, and
    • the name “nice job” of that “group of cognition-marks”

• The management team of a company with poor financial prospects, has the “abstract objective”… “having a new and suitable way of making a profit”.

  “Abstract”, because:

  • potentially there exists a huge amount of different ”ways of making a profit” the management team would judge to be “a suitable way of making a profit”,
  • the management team does not know any of these different “suitable ways of making a profit” yet,
  • the management team only knows
    • (a few of the cognition-marks) of the “group of cognition-marks” all these different “suitable ways of making profit” have in common, and
    • the name “suitable way of making a profit” of that “group of cognition-marks”