According to many researchers, conceptual model (CM) development is a hard task, and system requirements are difficult to collect, causing many miscommunication problems. CMs require more than modeling ability alone - they first require an understanding of the targeted domain that the model attempts to represent. Accordingly, a preconceptual modeling (pre-CM) stage is intended to address ontological issues before typical CM development is initiated. It involves defining a portion of reality when entities and processes are differentiated and integrated as unified wholes. This pre-CM phase forms the focus of research in this paper. The purpose is not show how to model; rather, it is to demonstrate how to establish a metaphysical basis of the involved portion of reality. To demonstrate such a venture, we employ the so-called thinging machine (TM) modeling that has been proposed as a high-level CM. A TM model integrates staticity and dynamism grounded in a fundamental construct called a thimac (things/machine). It involves two modes of reality, existence (events) and subsistence (regions - roughly, specifications of things and processes). Currently, the dominant approach in CM has evolved to limit its scope of application to develop ontological categorization (types of things). In the TM approach, pre-CM metaphysics is viewed as a part and parcel of CM itself. The general research problem is how to map TM constructs to what is out there in the targeted domain. Discussions involve the nature of thimacs (things and processes) and subsistence and existence as they are superimposed over each other in reality. Specifically, we make two claims, (a) the perceptibility of regions as a phenomenon and (b) the distinctiveness of existence as a construct for events. The results contribute to further the understanding of TM modeling in addition to introducing some metaphysical insights.

翻译：许多研究者认为，概念模型（CM）的开发是一项困难的任务，系统需求也难以收集，由此引发诸多沟通问题。CM不仅需要建模能力——首先需要理解模型试图表征的目标领域。因此，预概念建模（pre-CM）阶段旨在在典型CM开发启动前解决本体论问题。它涉及在实体和过程被区分并整合为统一整体时，对现实片段的界定。这一预CM阶段构成了本文的研究焦点。本文的目的不在于展示如何建模，而在于论证如何为所涉及的现实片段建立形而上学基础。为展示这一探索，我们采用了被称为"事物机（TM）"的高层次CM建模方法。TM模型将静态性与动态性统一于一个基本构造"thimac"（事物/机器）之上。它涉及两种现实模式：存在（事件）与实存（区域——大致为事物与过程的规范）。当前CM的主流方法已将其应用范围局限于本体分类（事物类型）的构建。在TM方法中，预CM形而上学被视为CM本身的有机组成部分。一般性研究问题在于如何将TM构造映射到目标领域中的客观存在。讨论涉及thimac（事物与过程）的本质，以及在现实中相互叠加的实存与存在。具体而言，我们提出两个论断：（a）区域作为现象的可感知性；（b）存在作为事件构造的独特性。研究结果在引入一些形而上学见解的同时，有助于加深对TM建模的理解。