Parsimony, a simplicity of assumptions, the use of the fewest possible foundation concepts, is the expression of uniqueness in thought. We love simplicity and parsimony because we crave uniqueness and we believe that fastening artifacts are unique when they are simple. Abstraction Uniqueness explains the shifts between the Elements - symbols, universals, objects, environments, artifacts. Abstraction has proven to be a very powerful and yet very elusive idea. While we use it all of the time to describe thought, we never seem to get a full grasp of it.
Uniqueness provides a measure of clarity.
The abstractness and uniqueness of artifacts are clearly connected. The more abstract an artifact is, the broader its reach and the more likely it is to be unique. When we think, we try to construct the largest idea that we can to hold our experiences, for that idea will necessarily be rarer, more unique. It will also be more abstract. We are always trying to replace many entities with fewer entities, many sites with fewer sites, many fasteners with fewer fasteners.