Carving Nature/Conceptual Models at Joints Using Thinging Machines

Abstract: To handle the complexity of our world, the carving metaphor has been used to build a conceptual system of reality. In such an endeavor, we can choose various joints to carve at; that is, we can conceptualize various aspects of reality. Conceptual modeling concerns carving (e.g., categorization) and specifying a conceptual picture of a subject domain. This paper concerns with applying the notion of carving to conceptual models. Specifically, it concerns modeling based on the so-called thinging machine (TM). The central problem is how to carve events when building a TM model. In TMs, an event is defined as a thimac (thing/machine) with a time feature that infuses dynamism into the static thimac, called a region. A region is a diagrammatic description based on five generic actions: create, process, release, transfer, and receive. The paper contains new material about TM modeling and generalization and focuses on the carving problem to include structural carving and dynamic events. The study s results provide a foundation for establishing a new type of reality carving based on the TM model diagrams.