Dear All,
Tentatively here an extension of my previous scope note. If it becomes
more controversial, we may drop it:
Exxx Phase
Subclass of: E2 Temporal Entity
Superclass of:E3 Condition State
Scope note: This class comprises phases during the existence and
evolution of an instance of E18 Physical Thing characterized by a
substantial appearance, constitution or a behavior distinct from that in
other times of its existence, or distinct in the evolution of things of
comparable kind, such as the nestling, fledgling, juvenile and adult
forms of birds, but some kinds of phases may also be consequence of
incidental changes such as accidents.
*Begin and ending of an instance of ExxxPhase is regarded to be
observable, regardless how fuzzy they are, by the contrast of the
prevailing conditions that characterize the phase to the times before
and after. It is the kind of phase that determines which kinds of
conditions identify it. Different kinds of phases may overlap on the
same instance of E18 Physical Thing. Non-substantial properties, such as
being owner of something, do not justify a phase*.
Best,
Martin
*
*
On 2/19/2019 8:21 PM, Martin Doerr wrote:
Dear Thanasi,
On 2/19/2019 7:13 PM, Athanasios Velios wrote:
Thank you Francesco and Martin for articulating my question properly. I
can understand that we can already deal with the fuzzy temporal
boundaries of a phase. Martin's "observable properties" makes it clearer
for me and perhaps it is worth emphasising in the scope note.
1) Examples of observable properties in conservation:
* "pitting" is a type of damage on metals where small pits are formed on
the surface filled with metal salts and oxides. The existence of
white/light green powder in localised spots on copper is one property to
help observe pitting.
So the surface enters a phase of developing pitting?
* "not functional" is what we call machines in industrial heritage
collections which used to perform a function, such as a printing
machine, but they no longer do because they are broken. The observable
property is that the machine has the capacity to print paper.
Yes
2) However, thinking about this further (and I hope I am not going into
circles) I am struggling to articulate the differences between Phase and
E3 Condition State. They both apply to E18 Physical Thing. Martin says
in an email on 22/11/2018 that "Phase is like Condition State bound to
the evolution of a thing". This sounds like it should be a sub-class of
Condition State, i.e. states that are only related to evolution.
Francesco, if I understood correctly, refers to change of state also for
non E18 Physical Things, i.e. epistemological as well as phenomenal (is
this correct Francesco?).
I meant "Phase" to be superclass of Condition State. I wrote "but some
kinds of phases may also be consequence of incidental changes such as
accidents." to make clear that it is not only evolution.
3) I propose to change the first sentence of the scope note from:
"This class comprises phases during the existence..."
to:
"This class comprises temporal spans(?) during the existence..."
to avoid saying that a "Phase is a phase".
Yes, I know I made something nearly cyclic here, but I narrowed a
general notion of phase very much down by the following conditions. I
was tempted to write time span in order to avoid "phase", but I have
the impression that would come too close to the epistemological point
of view of arbitrariness. If we talk about a "phase", I at least imply
much more of a substantial coherence within the phase. Indeed, the
comments we received so far suggest that "phase" in the linguistic
sense is a much wider concept.
We could add and adjective to my definition to make it clearer, but I
found no good adjective either (material? substantial? behavioural?
all seems to be more special).
All the best,
Martin
All the best,
Thanasis
On 19/02/2019 11:12, Martin Doerr wrote:
Dear Thanasi,
I understand. This may need more elaboration. The type of the phase
determines the characteristic observable properties. We should see
examples.
These properties may begin and end fuzzily, but that does not affect
the
concept, as long as inner-outer bounds can be assigned.
Best,
martin
On 2/18/2019 11:38 PM, Athanasios Velios wrote:
I like this scope note but my only concern is that an observer cannot
tell when one phase ends and the next one begins. How can we explain
that a phase is no longer?
All the best,
Thanasis
On 17/02/2019 19:44, Martin Doerr wrote:
Dear All,
Here a first attempt to define "phase":
Exxx Phase
Subclass of: E2 Temporal Entity
Superclass of:E3 Condition State
Scope note:This class comprises phases during the existence and
evolution of an instance of E18 Physical Thing characterized by an
appearance, constitution or a behavior distinct from that in other
times
of its existence, or distinct in the evolution of things of
comparable
kind, such a
