Contexts are always explicit and juxtaposed.

in: The pattern of metapattern: ontological formalization of context and time for open interconnection

 

[T]he principle of multiple contexts […] allow[s] a special freedom for conceptual modeling.

in: Metapattern as context orientation: meeting Odell's challenge of object orientation

 

Metapattern is a technique for (meta)information analysis and modeling. Context and time are critically important, allowing for adjustment (or re-adjustment) of a model to time-induced and/or situational changes which it must account for in order to maintain its integrity. Context is included as a formal variable within information sets, instead of seeing context, often implicitly and therefore unrecognized, as an informal presupposition that is kept outside. An information object may appear in multiple contexts, with unambiguously corresponding variety of behavior. By paying consistent attention to the aspect of time, the approach is augmented even further.

in: The pattern of metapattern: ontological formalization of context and time for open interconnection

 

Metapattern solutions are superior where dynamic and/or multiple classification are required. […] This is now easily explained by context and time as fundamental categories.

in: Metapattern as context orientation: meeting Odell's challenge of object orientation

 

Metapattern implies a rigorous method for dealing with — the modeling of — perspective.

in: Notes on Metapattern, part 1

 

Metapattern is radically different. Context is not a mechanism that is applied on a context-independent, that is, overall object. Context does not happen, say, after the fact of establishing such a reference object. On the contrary, information is contextual in principle.

in: How so-called core components are missing the point

 

In Metapattern, priority is squarely given to context, not object. In general, the type is “on” the (whole) context.

in: Metapattern as context orientation: meeting Odell's challenge of object orientation

 

Imagine that a sign from an originally isolated information system is now prefixed by another sign as its context. The pair of them, that is, original sign and context made-explicit, (re)establish rigor for relevance. The formal mechanism for adding context is of course somewhat more elaborate, but this is the main idea.

in: note 23.1

 

Metapattern […] pervasively differentiates information according to context and time.

in: On metapattern and other themes in information management

 

Metapattern [postulates] two time variables. One controls the structure according to which the information is handled. The other time variable controls values for the information itself. Integrating both structural variety and instance variety at the operational level provides two additional orders of flexibility.

in: Notes on Metapattern, part 1

 

More generally, time may be included in context, too.

in: Notes on Metapattern and enneadic semiosis, part 2

 

[Metapattern] include[s] temporal variation at both the level of information and the level of metainformation. You'll appreciate it can take you a lot further when you're also empowered to change, not a particular part, but the structure of the parts. With variable metainformation, too, design is seamlessly supported.

in: Notes on Metapattern, part 1

 

The combined effect of context and time further guarantees that relevant differences can all be cohesively modeled.

in: The pattern of metapattern: ontological formalization of context and time for open interconnection

 

Just think about how the Internet enables pervasive interconnection. It mounts the immediately practical problem of confused meanings. How can order — still — be established and maintained when, for example, similar signs (words, sentences, drawings, etcetera) carry different meanings? Or when different signs should carry similar meanings? Traditional, that is, isolated information systems kept the problem of unbounded information order largely submerged. The user was, and could be, relied upon to switch. Now, what did her switching involve? The answer is: context. A user performs the move from one relevant context to another relevant context. Her move remains external to the information systems — to be — used. Indeed, as long as the user may be counted upon to switch her … use from one isolated information system to the next, no such systems need to take context-dependency of meanings into account.

in: note 23.1

 

Considering context—not object—as the first principle is the very paradigm shift of Metapattern. As a consequence, an object can only exist within one or more contexts. The type which determines behavior is no longer for an object-as-such but for an object-in-context. Actually, context is type.

in: The pattern of metapattern: ontological formalization of context and time for open interconnection

 

[C]ontext orientation is already a sufficient mechanism for precision in differentiation and coordination. The only objective of classification is to create necessary and sufficient differences. As its context is the complete classification of any information object, its type is immediately and fully defined by that very context.

in: Metapattern as context orientation: meeting Odell's challenge of object orientation

 

It must be emphasized again that an overall object does not have a single, overall type. Types are “limited” to the overall object’s contextual identities; that is, to its parts, which own a unique identity within a particular context.

in: The pattern of metapattern: ontological formalization of context and time for open interconnection

 

Everything depends, then, on how contexts are developed using object-and-relationship pairs to describe them. What is optimal should reflect relevant information requirements and their underlying problem.

in: The pattern of metapattern: ontological formalization of context and time for open interconnection

 

With Metapattern, a localized nil identity determines what counts as the object’s relevant context, and what as its relevant specification. From such a particular localized nil identity, the context in question may be aggregated as an upward decomposition and the corresponding specification as a downward decomposition.

in: How so-called core components are missing the point

 

[C]ontextual differentiation also supplies an excellent starting point to deal fundamentally with the aspect of time in conceptual information models. […] For Metapattern, change rather than continuity guides the life of information.

in: The pattern of metapattern: ontological formalization of context and time for open interconnection

 

The invariance-which-is-the-function is limited to a particular situation, or context. Then, Metapattern (also) helps to structure, or organize, 'functions.'

in: Notes on Metapattern and enneadic semiosis, part 1

 

[Metapattern] preserves (information) objects and their relationships as the basic building blocks of information models. However, the general approach to modeling has changed fundamentally from object- to context-oriented. By including time as a fundamental dimension of information, the set of basic concepts is still very limited. Applying those concepts can yield compact models featuring great variety. The actual information system is correspondingly flexible and adaptable.

in: Metapattern as context orientation: meeting Odell's challenge of object orientation

 

Metapattern replaces the traditional object principle with the context principle, giving context a privileged ontological status. Only within a particular context is an object supposed to exist. As the same object may exist in a multitude of contexts, its appearances are limited to contextual, i.e., partial, identities. Only within those identities and their context-bound intexts do they make sense from an information point of view.

in: Metapattern as context orientation: meeting Odell's challenge of object orientation

 

A particular context is always what determines the relevant part of an overall object; the particular part has a corresponding contextual identity. The state of any such object part covers the existence of its identifying node as well as its context and intext.

in: Metapattern as context orientation: meeting Odell's challenge of object orientation

 

Metapattern aims at multiple and dynamic typing. Each context completely or partly supplies a corresponding identity—one of possibly many of an overall object—with a relevant type. Again, this greatly shortens the gap between conceptual and implementation models. It’s a precondition for making an alliance between appropriate metamodels successful.

in: Metapattern as context orientation: meeting Odell's challenge of object orientation

 

By contrast, Metapattern assumes multiple contexts from the start. That is, specialized types are the rule, not the exception. An overall object, by definition, does not lead a general existence; it only works through specialized roles within corresponding contexts. A consequence is that subtyping […] is unnecessary because the various contexts […] constitute just as many types […]. Thus, every context is a type, not a subtype of a more general type. […] Type-on-context follows from the principle of context orientation.

in: Metapattern as context orientation: meeting Odell's challenge of object orientation

 

Factoring time into periods during which a particular existence mode and validity mode hold allows information to be entered both retrospectively and prospectively.

in: The pattern of metapattern: ontological formalization of context and time for open interconnection

 

Moving beyond a single, isolated and small-scale information system the requisite variety for semantics (more precisely: pragmatics) changes qualitatively. Beyond a narrow situation, information can no longer be depended upon to carry uniform meaning. Metapattern is the (modeling) language for accommodating variety by facilitating contextual and temporal differentiation.

in: On "nil" modality and Metapattern

 

My idea of structure amounts to an information model that is static at every particular point in time. Each and every node, say, includes a temporal indication. In other words, time is (re)present(ed) pervasively. This way, dynamics are added to what basically is a static orientation. And it is the closest I can so far imagine to practically cater for contextual time. Applying Metapattern allows you to register just any time, that is, future temporal indications included. In fact, the temporal indication just 'sits' in the information system. It is the process of comparing it with the reading of the system's clock that determines whether the node is about the past, present or future. In this sense, starting from a node valid at a future point in time, the present sort of glides past it.

in: Notes on Metapattern, part 1

 

M[etapattern’s] concept of 'context' precisely aims at approaching the problem from another direction, i.e. from specific behavior as the 'logical atom.' This different direction implies that [it] also do[es]n't apply the concept of constraint in the traditional manner. Specific behavior is not general behavior of the absolute object under some constraint(s). Rather, specific behavior is sui generis. In other words, it is not a subset of all of the object's behavior with that subset arrived at/determined by constraint(s). Instead, [Metapattern] assume[s] that there is no such 'thing' as all of an object's behavior. Again, specific behavior exists uniquely. And the measure of specificity is: context.

in: Notes on Metapattern and enneadic semiosis, part 1

 

Metapattern holds the explicit assumption that it's not just a matter of attributing meaning. Rather, it's a matter of attributing context ... and (only) then meaning is established with accuracy.

in: On metapattern and other themes in information management

 

Metapattern[‘s] first major area of application seems when an organization maintains a whole bunch of so-called legacy systems. With such different, separately developed systems, semantic order is simply missing. For example, one system may apply the meaning a to x, while another system applies meaning b to x.
The habitual response for integration is strict standardization. So, either a, or b. It always fails, though. For what happens is that the meaning with the most powerful constituency inside the organization prevails. Metapattern recognizes that both meanings are probably relevant. For that’s usually why there have been different systems developed in the first place. So, it just depends. Metapattern's formal mechanism for coordinating different meanings is context. So, in this abstract example, x will have two contexts, say y and z. Then x-in-context-y has meaning a and x-in-context-z has meaning b. As far as basic concepts for variety control go, that's all, really.

in: On metapattern and other themes in information management

 

(Also) what might be considered ‘meta,’ including when it is fitting to do so, all depends … So, when we want to bring such differences together in a single schema, we need a (modeling) language that sort of forces us to make explicit, too, what we believe to be the, say, controlling factor. Terms that present itself for that (f)actor are: circumstance, context, situation. Metapattern is designed as such a language. Yes, in some way, then, Metapattern exemplifies a metametamodel. Actually, that’s were its name comes from. With pattern taken as a metamodel, the pattern language requires a metametamodel. What results, is Metapattern as a language with the barest minimum of constructs. Precisely for that reason, it allows whatever actual (inter)dependencies to be expressed. As a contragram: the openness of variety is the variety of openness.

in: note 47.29

 

With opportunities for infrastructure regardless of scale, Metapattern’s principle of recursive contextual differentiation facilitates disambiguating variety. Temporal differentiation is included, because variety is also dynamic.

in: Perspectivism in federated practice

 

According to Metapattern, a particular perspective ‘situates’ the object, limiting what we can interpret at a time to a situated object with its relevant situated behavior.

in: Perspectivism in federated practice

 

When the term context is used more or less as a filler, it becomes hard to recognize an opportunity for conceptualization has been prematurely shut off. Metapattern, on the other hand, results from radicalized awareness of context. For context is even considered the only means available for, when avoiding it altogether is impossible, at least limiting ambiguity. The semiotic ennead positions context as an element of the system of cognitive dynamics. Put simply, for an interpreter context acts as the representation of situation.

in: Metapattern for complementarity modeling

 

Contextualism-the-ennead-way is at the same time, on account of irreducible interdependency, both situationism and motivationism. The formalism of Metapattern helps to bridge the shift in orientation with a single construct. Starting from a. behavior, it is attributed to b. a situated object. Next, this situated object is derived from c. originating situation and object.

in: Invitation to contextualism

 

The (meta)model of the semiotic ennead — but behavioral ennead would of course be an equally apt label, et cetera — acts to ‘ground’ a modeling method/language: Metapattern. Its succinct characterization is contextual differentiation.

in: note 53.10

 

Regarding flexibility, Metapattern includes a double temporal perspective, one structural and another pertaining to data values (as can be demonstrated with Metapattern’s software platform, KnitbITs).

in: note 56.5

 

With Metapattern, you don’t go for what is generally valid, but instead specify the always limited reaches of varied validity. That is why context — situation, really, but here I won’t bother you with enneadic subtleties — constitutes the reach for what is taken as valid about an object. Then, ‘within’ a particular context, what is described for an object is all positive. There is no need for negative statements (also read: propositions). For what might be seen as negative about an object’s description in one context, might be again positive about it in another. So, stick to the positive. However, it also follows — talk about logic :-) — that between contexts there is nothing to draw traditionally logical inferences from. In this sense, Metapattern is radical in its approach to so-called pre-coordination.

in: note 71.21