- Started: 2023-12-19 - [[∙Melvil Decimal System (DDC)]] - [[0 - Information]] - [[00 - Computing and Information]] - [[003 - Systems Theory]] ## New words [[Deciduous]]: ![[Deciduous#^01c838]] ## Notes “A system isn’t just any old collection of things. A system is an interconnected set of elements that is coherently organised in a way that achieves something.” It needs to have three things: elements, interconnections, and a function or purpose. “A school is a system. So is a city, and a factory, and a corporation, and a national economy. An animal is a system. A tree is a system, and a forest is a larger system that encompasses subsystems of trees and animals. The earth is a system. So is the solar system; so is a galaxy. Systems can be embedded in systems, which are embedded in yet other systems.” What isn’t a system? Anything “without any particular interconnections or function. Sand scattered on a road by happenstance is not, itself, a system. You can add sand or take away sand and you still have just sand on the road.” “When a living creature dies, it loses its “system-ness.” The multiple interrelations that held it together no longer function, and it dissipates, although its material remains part of a larger food-web system.” *** The elements of a system are often the easiest parts to notice, because many of them are visible, tangible things. The elements that make up a tree are roots, trunk, branches, and leaves. If you look more closely, you see specialized cells: vessels carrying fluids up and down, chloroplasts, and so on. The system called a university is made up of buildings, students, professors, administrators, libraries, books, computers—and I could go on and say what all those things are made up of. Elements do not have to be physical things. Intangibles are also elements of a system. In a university, school pride and academic prowess are two intangibles that can be very important elements of the system. Once you start listing the elements of a system, there is almost no end to the process. You can divide elements into sub-elements and then sub-sub-elements. Pretty soon you lose sight of the system. As the saying goes, you can’t see the forest for the trees. *** The elements of a system are easiest to learn about. *** The purpose of a system can be hard to know. Often the best way to know is to watch the system and see how it behaves. *** The stated purpose of a system is not often the real purpose. A government may say its policies are about protecting the environment, whilst the system it implements doesn’t do so. *** ‘Function’ is often used to describe non-human systems. And ‘purpose’ is used to describe human systems. They mean the same thing. *** “An important function of almost every system is to ensure its own perpetuation.” ***