Scope note of event

posted by Franco on 21/5/2018

> Attempt of a new one:
>
>
> Scope note:         This class comprises in-principle observable,

I think that the CRM concerns ONLY observables; if so, the specification is superfluous.

> distinct and delimited processes of material nature, in cultural, social or physical systems, even in a human brain,

Definitely FORTH must have developed a telepathy machine .

What happens in the human brain is observable only (indirectly) with electro-encephalogram and the like, so: if this is the intended meaning, it is just a physical process as any other, e.g. those involving human like blood pressure vslue, hearth beat, etc. and not worth special mentioning. If instead this statement refers to (suggests?) observation of thinking, this is (luckily) not observable.

>  involving and affecting in a characteristic way instances of E77 Persistent Item, brought about by some coherent physical, social or technological phenomena. An instance of E5 Event may or may not

Only what *may* be affected, or *may not* be affected, somehow supports an identity criterium. What may or may not be affected looks as irrelevant, because we cannot understand from the consequences (or lack thereof) that some event took place, leading to an observed change (or lack of change), because the event may or may not have led to such change.

> lead
> to relevant permanent changes of properties and relations of items involved in it.

> Properties and kinds of things that may be affected are characteristic for the type of an event.
>

This is somehow contradictory with the previous statement: it states that there are things that may be affected, and other things that may not; perhaps also a third grouping that “may or may not". In all, it is a bit messy.

Franco

posted by CEO on 21/5/2018

'in-principle'  is in principle ok, but the term gives  a hint that what follows is not the case. At least for persons with knwlegde of the life in the former Soviet block.

It is better dropped.

posted by Martin on 21/5/2018

Hi Franco,

i
>
>> Attempt of a new one:
>>
>>
>> Scope note:         This class comprises in-principle observable,
> I think that the CRM concerns ONLY observables; if so, the specification is superfluous.
>
>> distinct and delimited processes of material nature, in cultural, social or physical systems, even in a human brain,
> Definitely FORTH must have developed a telepathy machine :).
>
> What happens in the human brain is observable only (indirectly) with electro-encephalogram and the like, so: if this is the intended meaning, it is just a physical process as any other, e.g. those involving human like blood pressure vslue, hearth beat, etc. and not worth special mentioning. If instead this statement refers to (suggests?) observation of thinking, this is (luckily) not observable.
Well, I know quite well what happens in my (conscious) brain, and I can give witness of it. I just observe myself. Not easy for others. My point was to see thought processes not as spiritual in the first place, without making any prejudice about spirituality.
>
>>  involving and affecting in a characteristic way instances of E77 Persistent Item, brought about by some coherent physical, social or technological phenomena. An instance of E5 Event may or may not
> Only what *may* be affected, or *may not* be affected, somehow supports an identity criterium. What may or may not be affected looks as irrelevant, because we cannot understand from the consequences (or lack thereof) that some event took place, leading to an observed change (or lack of change), because the event may or may not have led to such change.
What I had in mind where things like a fever, or seeing a bird flying by. I agree with you, but I did not say "may or may not affect"! I said "may or may not be permanent". In archaeology, you need permanent effects, but in history you may have witnesses of things that do not leave other traces than memories. Isn't it?
>
>> lead
>> to relevant permanent changes of properties and relations of items involved in it.
>> Properties and kinds of things that may be affected are characteristic for the type of an event.
>>
> This is somehow contradictory with the previous statement: it states that there are things that may be affected, and other things that may not; perhaps also a third grouping that “may or may not". In all, it is a bit messy.
Again, no: If I have fever, my temperature etc. is affected. Normally, not permanently. But having had fever during a meeting, may have had affect on my performance. Isn't it?

Does that make sense?

Posted by Martin on 21/5/2018

On 5/21/2018 9:39 PM, Christian-Emil Smith Ore wrote:
> 'in-principle'  is in principle ok, but the term gives  a hint that what follows is not the case. At least for persons with knwlegde of the life in the former Soviet block.
Don't agree, may need a better term. If someone dances on the road, but nobody is there, because the road is closed, it is not
observable, because there is no observer. But the same kind of event, in other circumstances, could be observed. There is nothing in intrinsic to itself which prevents observation.

A better idea how to say that?
 

Posted by Thanasis on 21/5/2018

I think "observable" on its own gives that meaning. Otherwise, simply
"potentially observed"?
 

Posted by Franco 22/5/2018

There is a subtle difference between “observed” and “observable”: “observed" is an “accident”, “observable” is “substance”.

So the lone moonlight dance is not observed for lack of observers, although it is observable. What the dancer thinks during the performance, and by the way also his intention to do so, are, instead, not observable, therefore can never observed, a fortiori.

Incidentally, the Event is defined as a change of state of some E77 Persistent Item, which curiously has participants as per P11, and also voyeurs as per P12, but cannot affect (=change the state of) anything for the lack of the related property e.g. P?? affects E77.

What’s the problem with the old scope note?
 

Posted by Robert Sanderson on 22/5/2018

Agreed entirely with this.  The proposed scope note seems more complicated than the current one, for no additional value.  The observability also brings into question the nature of the potential observer – can there be more than one observer for an event that lasts longer than a human lifetime? If there were an all-powerful, omni-present being, would that being count towards being observable (at which point, there’s no real meaning to “observable”) and if not, then what does count? Must all parts of the event be observable?

The lack of the relationship between the Event and an E77 has vexed us for a long time, such as for representing the ownership period (err, event) of an object.

Posted by George on 22/5/2018

Hi Rob et al.,

Just to jump in on the reason for this particular scope note reformulation work.

The reason behind the effort to articulate a new scope note lies in the reference to states in the previous scope note which has caused an ongoing debate regarding where then ‘states’ are in CIDOC CRM. Given that this debate recurs frequently, it seems worth the effort to kill the ‘states’ language..

When you say that E5 doesn’t have a relation to E77, what do you mean? There is p12 as the most general relation between an E2 kind of thing and and an E77. Or do you mean something else?

posted by Franco on 22/5/2018

I meant the following.

If I shoot a person in a street, this event has me as participant via P11 and all the people in the street as bystanders via P12. It looks strange that the victim has no direct relation with the omicide except P12 “was present”, like all the other people in the crime scene. Since an Event is a change in something, one could expect that there is a direct relationship with the thing(s) affected. I would also expect that in most cases, loosely speaking, an event modifies, and not destroys, for which there would be the dedicated property P13.

Look at this example, concerning an E5 Event that P2 has type E55 Type “Vandalism of art”

The fact: “On 30/12/56, Ugo Ungaza Villegas threw a rock at the painting [Mona Lisa]; this resulted in the loss of a speck of pigment near the left elbow” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vandalism_of_art).

the above E5 Event
P11 had participant E39 Ugo Ungaza Villegas
P12 occurred in the presence of “Le nozze di Cana” (painting by Veronese located in the same room, unaffected by the vandalic act)
P12 occurred in the presence of “Mona Lisa” (the victim)
P12 occurred in the presence of John Doe (an American Louvre visitor who was there by chance, not involved in the planned vandalism)
P12 occurred in the presence of a sofa (placed near the wall, for tired visitors; not sure there was one but could be)
P12 occurred in the presence of the stone (thrown at the painting, now in the Police archives as evidence n. 123456)

In conclusion, being present is often a poor property, bringing little information, except perhaps in the case of the Yalta Conference.

Incidentally, activities defined as subclasses of E7 (Acquisition, Move, transfer, etc.) allow to specify the thing they affect via an appropriate property; this is not the case for E7 itself, so for an activity not included in the CRM list one is confined to this “Presence” story.

Posted by Richard Sanderson on 22/5/2018

Similar to Franco’s response, I think what we’re missing is the equivalent of P16, but for Event or even Period. For example, the Period (or Event?) that represents the existence of an object occurs in the presence of many many objects, but only one is the object that the Period is for.

Posted by Martin on 23/5/2018

Dear All,

Thank you very much for the contributions. I'll try to reformulate the next days.

On one side, it is very difficult to have general properties of outcomes of events and activities. So, on this side I do not see easy progress to be made. We have to see case-by case. On the other side, we have the P11, which determines a level below mere presence. Many models distinguish passive and active participants. This is however only a nice theory, because in real interactions this distinction cannot easily be determined . Therefore we recognize active participation and general participation. However the latter is only for Actors.

We may think of extending P11 to "involved or affected" things. But such a property would anyhow be too abstract for data entry. It would only be useful for querying. One may even argue that P11 is too poorly defined and should be deprecated. We have preferred the "present" over the "involved", because equally often it is difficult to decide who was sleeping in a meeting and who not, but in other cases this distinction may be helpful. We would need a clear understanding of all the ways something can be involved.

"so for an activity not included in the CRM list one is confined to this “Presence” story." ....I may remind that CRM is meant to be extended, and developed bottom-up, in order to avoid bright generalizations poor semantics.

May I further remind that NO property or class of the CRM has a negative association: Being "present" does not imply or suggest having been inactive. There is the recall-over-precision principle of information integration.

Of course you all are invited to propose systematic interaction patterns to be modelled, which we have missed so far, but properties should be specific enough to be decidable.

The case described below is a Modification Event. It can accurately be described. So, what was the point?
 

Posted by Martin on 17/11/2018

Dear All,

After many objections to my last attempt, here my new reformulation of the scope note of E5 Event.

The reason is, that the definition previously given, makes the impression that events are complements of states.
The world however, to our best knowledge, is NOT compatible with an "Asynchronous State Machine". If events where complements of states and vice-versa, we would create a Closed World. The question is, in information integration, which concept has an ontological nature, i.e. can be recognized as something existing in a distinct way independent from the observer.

It appears that events are of that ontological kind, and states in general are an abstraction of the absence of events in certain parts of reality arbitrarily restricted by consideration.

Therefore, the definition of event must not use states as identifying criterion. Notwithstanding, events may initiate or terminate states however we define them.

Consider also the following: Four soldiers fight simultaneously each other. Are these 6 different fights, or one fight? Are the rats fleeing in panic part of it? I'd argue for one fight. Rats not being part, but present. That means however that the type "fighting" + the coherence of it makes up the unity and substance of the event. It appears to me, that not the states achieved, but the coherence and distinctness of some phenomena restricted to a specific type of process  make up what we intuitively regard as an event?

E5 Event

Subclass of:     E4 Period

Superclass of: E7 Activity

E63 Beginning of Existence

E64 End of Existence

Scope note:     This class comprises changes of states in cultural, social or physical systems, regardless of scale, brought about by a series or group of coherent physical, cultural, technological or legal phenomena. Such changes of state will affect instances of E77 Persistent Item or its subclasses.

The distinction between an E5 Event and an E4 Period is partly a question of the scale of observation. Viewed at a coarse level of detail, an E5 Event is an ‘instantaneous’ change of state. At a fine level, the E5 Event can be analysed into its component phenomena within a space and time frame, and as such can be seen as an E4 Period. The reverse is not necessarily the case: not all instances of E4 Period give rise to a noteworthy change of state.

Attempt of a new one:

Scope note:         This class comprises distinct, delimited and coherent processes and interactions of material nature, in cultural, social or physical systems, involving and affecting instances of E77 Persistent Item in a characteristic way according to the kind of process. Typical examples are meetings, birth, death, actions of decision taking, making or inventing things, but also more complex and extended ones such as conferences, elections, building a castle or battles. Whereas, for instance, the continuous growth of a tree lacks the limitation of an event, its germination from a seed qualifies as event. Whereas the blowing of the wind lacks distinctness and limitation, a hurricane, a flood or an earthquake qualify as events. We even comprise mental processes under events, in case they are connected with a material externalization of their results, such as the creation of a poem, a performance or a change of intention becoming obvious by respective actions o declarations. The effects of an instance of E5 Event may not lead to relevant permanent changes of properties and relations of the items involved in it, such as not recorded performances. Of course, in order to be documented, some kind of evidence for an event must exist, be it witnesses, traces or products of the event.

Whereas instances of E4 Period require some form of coherence between its constituent phenomena, in addition, the essential constituents of instances of E5 Event should contribute to an overall effect, such as the utterances during a meeting and the listening of the audience. Viewed at a coarse level of detail, an E5 Event may appear as if it had an ‘instantaneous’ overall effect, but any process or interaction of material nature is extended in time and space. At a fine level, instances of E5 Event may be analysed into component phenomena and phases within a space and timeframe, and as such are to be seen as a period, regardless the size of the phenomena. The reverse is not necessarily the case: not all instances of E4 Period give rise to a noteworthy overall effect.

Opinions?

Posted by  Massoomeh Niknia  on 22/11/2018

The new version of scope note is more understandable to me.

I had challenges in recognizing the events and found the borders among them.
I’m eager to know the others opinions on the new version of scope note.

Posted by Steve on 28/11/2018

Old New Scope Note

Scope note:         This class comprises distinct, delimited and coherent processes and interactions of material nature, in cultural, social or physical systems, involving and affecting instances of E77 Persistent Item in a characteristic way according to the kind of process. Typical examples are meetings, birth, death, actions of decision taking, making or inventing things, but also more complex and extended ones such as conferences, elections, building a castle or battles. Whereas, for instance, the continuous growth of a tree lacks the limitation of an event, its germination from a seed qualifies as event. Whereas the blowing of the wind lacks distinctness and limitation, a hurricane, a flood or an earthquake qualify as events. We even comprise mental processes under events, in case they are connected with a material externalization of their results, such as the creation of a poem, a performance or a change of intention becoming obvious by respective actions o declarations. The effects of an instance of E5 Event may not lead to relevant permanent changes of properties and relations of the items involved in it, such as not recorded performances. Of course, in order to be documented, some kind of evidence for an event must exist, be it witnesses, traces or products of the event.

Whereas instances of E4 Period require some form of coherence between its constituent phenomena, in addition, the essential constituents of instances of E5 Event should contribute to an overall effect, such as the utterances during a meeting and the listening of the audience. Viewed at a coarse level of detail, an E5 Event may appear as if it had an ‘instantaneous’ overall effect, but any process or interaction of material nature is extended in time and space. At a fine level, instances of E5 Event may be analysed into component phenomena and phases within a space and timeframe, and as such are to be seen as a period, regardless the size of the phenomena. The reverse is not necessarily the case: not all instances of E4 Period give rise to a noteworthy overall effect.

New Version

Scope note:         This class comprises distinct, delimited and coherent processes and interactions of a material nature, in cultural, social or physical systems, involving and affecting instances of E77 Persistent Item in a way characteristic of the kind of process. Typical examples are meetings, births, deaths, actions of decision taking, making or inventing things, but also more complex and extended ones such as conferences, elections, building of a castle, or battles.

While the continuous growth of a tree lacks the limits characteristic of an event, its germination from a seed does qualify as an event. Similarly the blowing of the wind lacks the distinctness and limits of an event, but a hurricane, flood or earthquake would qualify as an event. Mental processes are considered as events, in cases where they are connected with the material externalization of their results; for example the creation of a poem, a performance or a change of intention that becomes obvious from subsequent actions or declarations.

The effects of an instance of E5 Event may not lead to relevant permanent changes of properties or relations of the items involved in it, for example an unrecorded performances. Of course, in order to be documented, some kind of evidence for an event must exist, be it witnesses, traces or products of the event.

While instances of E4 Period always require some form of coherence between its constituent phenomena, in addition, the essential constituents of instances of E5 Event should contribute to an overall effect; for example the statements made during a meeting and the listening of the audience.

Viewed at a coarse level of detail, an E5 Event may appear as if it had an ‘instantaneous’ overall effect, but any process or interaction of material nature in reality have an extent in time and space. At a fine level, instances of E5 Event may be analysed into component phenomena and phases within a space and timeframe, and as such can be seen as a period, regardless of the size of the phenomena. The reverse is not necessarily the case: not all instances of E4 Period give rise to a noteworthy overall effect and are thus not instances of E5 Event.