Only through models can data be used to say what will happen again, before subsequent measurements are made. Data alone predict nothing. Observer and observed both contribute to the scale of phenomena. Material systems have immutable scalar properties, but this does not mean that the material world fixes the scale of observation. The material world stubbornly retains its scalar properties, but scale of observation, like the criteria for foreground and background, comes from observer decisions.
Scale defines the dimensions of the measurement frames used in a sampling protocol.
Scope of a sampling protocol, which is simply the ratio of the extent to the grain, is useful for comparative work. In contrast, structure arises from the observer's criteria for selecting things and thus is rate-independent. In the face of pure flux, what makes definitions and criteria powerful is that they isolate repeating patterns. When a label is attached to a pattern, the effect is to make the dynamic become static. In other words, part of the flux is frozen to give rate-independent structure.