Individual objects and categories
Look again at the objects you highlighted in your subject area. Can you say that when you did Exercise 1.6, you actually envisioned a real object that either already exists in the physical world or could appear, be discovered there? Or did you mean categories of objects at the moment of highlighting, individual objects didn't concern you? Or did you highlight some abstractions, ideas altogether?
The answer can be different. If you actually cook meals at home, you may have envisioned a bag of potatoes purchased yesterday, not of very good quality for this time of year. And also your favorite knife for cutting meat made of armory steel with a bone handle.
If the kitchen situation is more theoretical for you, and you just know from general considerations that there are knives and pots there, then you didn’t have anything specific in mind, just mentioned that "knives" and "pots" may be of interest to a cook.
A construction worker, thinking about his workplace, will imagine his comfortable helmet and the usual hammer with a handle wrapped in insulating tape. The manager of a construction company is interested in "helmets in general" as necessary equipment on the construction site and "hammers" as necessary tools to complete work on time. While the manager organizes safety briefings for workers, his object is the abstract "worker". If the briefing is already in progress, then specific workers Ivanov, Petrov, and Sidorov should become objects for tracking their briefing attendance.
So, both options for highlighting objects are correct; the choice also depends on the role and its practices, that is, for what purposes objects are highlighted in your model.
We will call real physical objects "physical objects," individual objects, individuals. The check for "reality" and "physicality" is very simple. You can "knock" on an individual - touch it in reality, see, hear, even smell, or at least imagine these actions in your imagination. For some individuals, we only know of their existence because our devices (cameras, microscopes, telescopes, radar, etc.) have recorded them, but these are also individuals.
All other objects we will call "categories," but sometimes we will say "abstract objects" or "concepts." Why in the most general approaches to modeling these are the same thing will become clear in our course later.
Look at your objects again. Evaluate how you chose the names for the objects, what words you used. Can one understand what you meant by the names of the objects you used? Can a reader unmistakably tell from your notes whether you highlighted individuals or categories?
Objects are usually named with nouns in the nominative case. Most likely, you did the same - used words like "potato," "knife," "warehouse," "hammer." Some people with experience in modeling their subject area can highlight various processes as objects of the world using verbal nouns in their names, for example, "cutting," "cooking," "hammering."
If you think about interpreting such names, you will understand that it is easier to understand nouns as names of categories, abstract objects. Even if the object names are supplemented with specifications - "meat knife," "aluminum fork" - an outside reader who cannot read your mind will assume that you mean a category, an abstract object. To have someone interpret the name as the name of an individual object without your hints, you need to use some unique identifier.
"A worker" is a category of people for whom you can plan safety briefings. "Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov" is already a specific person whom you are interested in, whether he has completed this briefing. In a real work model (in a document, for example), it is better to use an even more precise name, "Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov, born 01.01.1998," or even "Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov, born 01.01.1998, passport series... number...".
In real projects, almost all individuals have some unique identifiers that can be used in their names: serial numbers, codes, inventory numbers, labeling. If you are modeling a real situation and need to refer specifically to a physical object, use these identifiers. In educational tasks to refer to an individual physical object, you can use constructions like "my": "my work computer," "my home computer," "Siemens kitchen processor on my kitchen countertop," and so on. In a conversation with a friend, you will most likely also say: "my knife broke," so we are accustomed to interpreting such names as indications of individuals.
For categories (abstract objects), it is best to use nouns, either nouns with specifications but without individual attributes.
If you are describing a subject area with some degree of formality, building a model for real activity, you can formulate additional naming rules and agree on their use with everyone who will model with you or use your model. For example, let's agree in our course to always enclose object names in quotes and write the names of individuals with a lowercase letter (except for full names), and the categories with a capital letter.
Then "my Siemens kitchen processor" or "screwdriver inventory number 1250564-678" will be understandable names for individuals, and "Siemens Kitchen Processor" or "Screwdriver" will be names of categories.
Another recommendation - in formalized (and especially in formal) modeling, use singular nouns for naming categories. In spoken language, a plural form sounds perfectly normal.