Deleted UserAugust 23, 2025 at 11:023625 views190 comments
I am curious, does philosophy have a definition of a [I]system[/I], or even better, a [I]general systems theory[/I]? The word is bandied about ad nauseam and I am not convinced that it is always correctly used!
Systems are coherencies of (self-recreating in the case of autopoietic systems) differences between themselves and an environment. (I can't remember what Luhmann's formulation is, but that springs to mind).
Luhmann draws heavily on Humberto Maturana and George Spencer-Brown.
I am curious, does philosophy have a definition of a system, or even better, a general systems theory? The word is bandied about ad nauseam and I am not convinced that it is always correctly used!
Yes. The modern notion of Systems*1 sometimes gets mired in details. And Bertalanffy's definition was too technical for the layman. 19th century Reductive Science was unable to see the forest for the trees. Which is what made 20th century Quantum Physics so woo-woo mysterious. The forest is not a physical thing (objective), but a metaphysical collective concept (subjective).
So, I prefer to substitute another unfamiliar term, "Holism"*2, which may be somewhat easier to grasp. The 21st century science of Complexity*3 is the study of systems that are typically too complicated for reductionist methods to deal with. A key concept is Emergence, which sounds like magic for reductionist thinkers. For example, the sub-atomic phenomenon, that physicists call "Entanglement", is simply a Holistic effect of two or more particles that act like a single unit.
If you prefer Social Systems applications, such as Luhmann, one example is when individual people "aggregate" into a holistic crowd or mob or gang, and a novel collective behavior emerges : "The wisdom of crowds theory suggests that the collective opinion of a group of people is often more accurate than the opinion of any single individual, even an expert. This idea, popularized by James Surowiecki's book of the same name, relies on the idea that diverse perspectives and independent judgments can lead to better outcomes when aggregated". :smile:
*1. General Systems Theory (GST)is an interdisciplinary framework, pioneered by Ludwig von Bertalanffy, that views phenomena as interconnected whole systems rather than isolated components, aiming to identify fundamental principles applicable across natural and social sciences. Key concepts include open systems, which interact with their environment; emergent properties, characteristics unique to the whole system; and feedback loops, where output informs new input, leading to self-regulation or homeostasis. GST offers a holistic perspective, contrasting with traditional reductionist approaches, and has influenced fields from biology to management science.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=general+systems+theory%3F+
*2. Holism ; Holon : Philosophically, a whole system is a collection of parts (holons) that possesses properties not found in the parts. That something extra is an Emergent quality that was latent (unmanifest) in the parts. For example, when atoms of hydrogen & oxygen gases combine in a specific ratio, the molecule has properties of water, such as wetness, that are not found in the gases. A Holon is something that is simultaneously a whole and a part A system of entangled things that has a function in a hierarchy of systems. In the Enformationism worldview, our space-time physical reality is a holon that is a component of the enfernal G*D-Mind.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page11.html
Note --- Oooops. That last line may sound too woo for you.
*3. "Santa Fe systems theory"refers to the field of complexity science and complex adaptive systems (CAS), which is heavily associated with the Santa Fe Institute (SFI) in New Mexico. SFI, founded in 1984, is a leading nonprofit research center dedicated to understanding how complex systemssuch as biological, social, economic, and technological systemsevolve and adapt. These systems are characterized by interconnected elements, emergent behavior, and the capacity to learn from experience, rather than simple linear cause-and-effect.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=santa+fe+systems+theory
For what its worth I'll toss in a definition of a mathematical system:
"A mathematical system consists of:
A set or universe, U.
Definitions: sentences that explain the meaning of concepts that relate to the universe. Any term used in describing the universe itself is said to be undefined. All definitions are given in terms of these undefined concepts of objects. Axioms: assertions about the properties of the universe and rules for creating and justifying more assertions. These rules always include the system of logic that we have developed to this point. Theorems: the additional assertions mentioned above."
Al Doerr & Ken Levasseur
University of Massachusetts Lowell
Reply to Pieter R van Wyk A system is formed of its interactions rather than constructed from its components. So a general systems theory is successful to the degree it takes that idea to its metaphysical extreme.
Aristotles four causes were the first clear expression of this logic and so he is still the patron saint of systems scientists and hierarchy theorists. German philosophy was systems oriented through the 18th and 19th C and that tradition showed through in modern sciences like biology, ecology and sociology.
CS Peirce was the preeminent philosopher in modern times, framing the most abstracted and logical systems-based metaphysics, but the importance of that only started to be recognised quite recently.
Von Bertalanffy was of course a key figure in the 1920s. And then hierarchy theory followed on from his general systems theory in the 1980s, with Stanley Salthe publishing two key books.
So there is a long history of this approach to causal modelling. But it has always existed on the margins as its focus is on complexity rather than simplicity. A systems thinker would say that Nature is irreducibly complex and so nothing about it can be properly understood until this is understood. But reductionism thrives as folk get quick payback from treating Nature as a mechanical construction.
Reductionism believes there is only simplicity and its complication. Anglo philosophy holds to that belief with ontological fervour.
Holism makes the point that simplicity arises out of hierarchical order. To use the jargon, a system is a hierarchy of top-down constraints that shape the bottom-up degrees of freedom. And the purpose of the constraints is indeed to shape those dof - make then the simple atomistic components that they are.
If you want to build a sturdy shelter in the least effort way, you are guided to the idea of setting up a brick manufacturing business.
If you want to mobilise your empire against another, you want a structure of discipline that turns a tribal mob into hierarchy of fighting units that behave in simple and predictable fashion.
You can build more complex structures to the degree you can mass produce more simplified materials.
So simplicity and complexity go hand in hand as the causal feedback loop that is the basis of the systems view. Material simplicity and telic complexity co-arise in Nature.
Reductionism is then the attempt to cut that loop and just view Nature as a store of materials with varying degrees of complication. Mass-produced components sitting about waiting for someone with a plan and a reason to use them.
So you can see that this divergence of metaphysics aint value neutral. Ecologists cant help but be systems thinkers. The rest of society earns its coin by becoming skilled at feeding Nature into the maw of its excellently engineered machinery. :grin:
A rock is coherent and there is a difference between a rock and a hard place.
Yes, but I am not that difference unless I am the system. The system itself is the observer here.
The definition needs fleshing out for sure. There are also the ideas of open/closed, boundary and complexity. In one sense, a system represents a different category of reality from its environment.
Just to add to that: We can only establish a difference by being some form of coherence that is different from the difference. Coherency in this observationally displaced sense is self-reflexive and is inhered in systems that self establish themselves as distinct from an environment. This (self-reflexive) coherency is more than a difference that makes a difference (it's not just information), it's a difference that grounds the possibility of difference from its perspective, allowing for information There's a kind of semantic bootstrapping here. Significance arising from an originary signification---this vs that, which is grounded in something that is not this or that but that can establish the distinction, i.e. a coherence. Without a corresponding coherence (observer/observation) there is naught. All this is to say there's a sense of "coherence" that inheres self-reflexivity that a difference like the difference between a rock and a tree does not in itself establish, i.e. a coherence that implicates a system as observer.
So if you posit a difference, you must posit a system that establishes difference through a coherency. But a rock cannot itself establish difference in relation to itself. From that point of view, it's not a coherency. The coherency can only reside in that case in the observer who states that the rock is a coherency. Short version, if coherency is understood self reflexively as semantically grounding then the definition above suffices. Coherency inheres the idea of a process of observation. If it's understood just as coherency as difference (something that can coherently be distinguished from something else), it doesn't.
This is a great question. I really enjoy these kinds of questions because at first glance they seem self-evident, but for me, answering them is always a challenge. So, I'll try to formulate what I think about this without using any reference books, based on my own reflections.
I don't even know where to begin. The first thing that comes to mind is that a system is a construct of cognitive activity. Can we assert that something is a system on its own? For example, an organism is certainly a system, but is it truly independent, not being part of an even larger system? This leads to the conclusion that a system, in our everyday understanding, is a conscious construct. Outside of our cognition, there can't be a separate system apart from other systems.
Second, a system is a collection of elements that interact with each other dynamically, forming something new with properties that no single element possesses individually. For example, a broom is a system of twigs. Separately, they aren't a broom, but only together can they sweep. This characteristic has two conditions:
The combination of different things.
Mandatory dynamic interaction with each other.
A third characteristic I would name is a certain stability over time. If a collection of something instantly falls apart into separate parts, it's hard to call it a system.
The final definition I've arrived at is:
A system is a cognitive construct consisting of individual elements that interact dynamically, forming new properties in relation to the individual elements and maintaining stability over time.
A system is formed of its interactions rather than constructed from its components.
Well said!. That description implies that a System is not a material thing but an energetic process (individual change or group interaction). For example, the human Mind is not the physical brain (neural correlates of consciousness), but one of many command & control Functions of brain processes. The human brain is 2% of body weight, but 20% of energy usage. What is that energy doing besides processing information?
I just Googled the words "interaction" & "information"*1 and got the wiki definition below. That description sounds very similar to Holism*2*3. But I'm surprised that the scientific & philosophical concept of Holism (Systems, Complexity, Entanglement, etc) is not very familiar to posters on this forum. It provides a simple framework for understanding such conundrums as the "hard problem of consciousness", which is one of the most frequently posted topics on the forum.
For Physics, Interaction is an exchange of Energy (causation). And for Philosophy, Interaction is an exchange of Information (meaning). Yet, the relationship of Information & Energy*4 is not well known. { https://bothandblog8.enformationism.info/page30.html } Perhaps the best way to define a holistic System is to describe it in terms of Synergy*5 : energy + together. :smile:
*1. Interaction informationexpresses the amount of information (redundancy or synergy) bound up in a set of variables, beyond that which is present in any subset ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interaction_information
*2. Holismis the interdisciplinary concept that systems possess emergent properties as wholes, which are greater than the sum of their individual parts, making them irreducible to their components. This approach emphasizes the interconnectedness of parts within a system and their collective function, contrasting with reductionism, which seeks to understand a whole by analyzing its smallest constituent elements. Holism is applied in various fields, including health, psychology, social sciences, and physics, to understand how bodies, minds, societies, or physical phenomena operate as integrated units
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=holism+information
*3. Holism : Philosophically, a whole system is a collection of parts (holons) that possesses properties not found in the parts. That something extra is an Emergent quality that was latent (unmanifest) in the parts.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page11.html
*4. Energy & Information : Energy is the physical capacity to do work, while information is the description or organization of matter and energy. Although distinct, energy and information are deeply interconnected: information requires energy to be processed and organized, and changes in information are accompanied by changes in energy, such as the heat generated when bits are erased in a computer, following Landauer's principle. This relationship is evident in biological systems, where information controls energy flow, and in physics, where the manipulation of information can be converted into energy and vice versa.
*5. *4. Synergy : the interaction or cooperation of two or more organizations, substances, or other agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects.
___ Oxford Dictionary
Srap TasmanerAugust 24, 2025 at 17:50#10091990 likes
There's an issue I don't think has been raised yet: "system" often carries a connotation of rigidity, though we can certainly point to systems that are flexible and adaptive. My point is, it's always a question with systems.
In your semantic terms, I was thinking about the use of the phrase "the System" (capital S) in the 60s and 70s counterculture. The imputation was of a particular kind of rigidity, a rigidity that extended to this semantic level. Thus the System was thought to see everything in terms of wealth and power and status, and to be blind to, say, art and feeling, on the one hand, or injustice and suffering, on the other. There were categories of no use to the System, and so it did not recognize them at all. You get the idea.
(( The classic Monty Python version of this is the banker who struggles to make sense of the concept of charity. ))
You'd find another popular usage in gambling: some guys go to the track and pick horses for dumb reasons, or whimsical reasons, or based on their "feeling" the horse will win; other guys are said to "have a system." The system guy may generally do better, but in trying to treat the problem of prediction rigidly, he will never get a big payout on a long shot.
And of course this is the thing about systems in interaction with their environments: they attempt to achieve predictability (and thus a kind of rigidity) not just by refusing to see what doesn't fit (as the counterculture would have it) but by making their environment more predictable, by eliminating what doesn't fit. Adaptation is required for the system to persist, but it can adapt itself to its environment or its environment to itself.
I guess I could also say, people do seem to nurse worries that the sort of rigidity some systems are prone to is perhaps even irrational, in addition to whatever other fault one might find.
Established, mainstream philosophy? Most assuredly. Such definitions can be found strewn about this discussion.
All philosophies in general? Some do, some don't.
A system, in general, is two or more entities or "points" that operate in recognition of one another with the intent to perform or otherwise reach an expected outcome or function. They can be simple, take "the buddy system" or "the honor system." They can be complex such as the human immune system or what is commonly referred to as "The System" (ruling power or influence in governed society).
What they all have in common is they either handle or process expected (and often unexpected) input, influence, material, or resource and attempt to output a certain desired outcome, result, or product.
There are also inherently or perhaps intentionally chaotic systems that are somewhat of the opposite affect. Say psychological warfare, for example. The goal of that system is disruption, chaos, confusion, and decrease in moral. It doesn't matter how it's done, yet it still demands or at least attempts to reach a single final outcome or product, that product being chaos and disarray. Not unlike a heckler at a political rally or entertainment venue.
We often don't even know we're part, or otherwise performing the functions perfectly, of many systems. A system can be physical, such as your bodily functions. A system can also be ideological, such as systems of belief, including karma or divine punishment. A great much can be said in further detail to expand the definition or idea of a system or systems, but what's important before attempting to do so is to establish what the "bare bones" definition or criteria for such are, which I believe I have done for you quite nicely.
This leads to the conclusion that a system, in our everyday understanding, is a conscious construct. Outside of our cognition, there can't be a separate system apart from other systems.
Does this mean that Systems only exist for rational observers? Does a bear have a "conscious construct" of the forest he defecates in, or just the sensory observation of tree A, B, C, etc? Much of the disputation on this forum is about the reality & importance of individual things (Matter) versus our human tendency & ability to categorize real things into ideal aggregations & hierarchies & ecosystems (Mind). :smile:
This leads to the conclusion that a system, in our everyday understanding, is a conscious construct.
That could be an implication. But the evidence is against it.
A systems metaphysics is usually understood as being about closure under causality. A system in some fundamental way makes itself. It bootstraps into being.
Systems science is thus usually founded on thermodynamics. And more particularly, on dissipative structure theory or self-organising systems. So it is a physicalist story. But very different from reductionism in believing that a natural system is also telic in some basic sense. It is driven to structured order by the need to run down a gradient. It emerges as there is a Darwinian selection just to be optimised for entropy production.
Then within this strictly physical story we must account for life and mind. And that is easy enough to do if we see organisms as the further evolution of entropic structure. Life and mind are what come next in the hierarchy of nature when systems that can model their worlds - using codes: genes, neurons, words, numbers - arise and become selfish feeders on this world.
So life and mind are no longer blindly entropic. As systems, they represent a real shift. A causal novelty. And yet they are still completely part of this world with its over-riding and causally closed thermalising imperative. Life and mind are more of the same in the most general physical sense of being evolved dissipative structure. They just happen to spend energy on modelling their environments so as better exploit them.
For Physics, Interaction is an exchange of Energy (causation). And for Philosophy, Interaction is an exchange of Information (meaning). Yet, the relationship of Information & Energy*4 is not well known. { https://bothandblog8.enformationism.info/page30.html } Perhaps the best way to define a holistic System is to describe it in terms of Synergy*5 : energy + together.
My problem with this is it lapses into substance ontology which is reductionist. An ontology of stuffs rather than of processes or the holism of systems of self-stabilising interaction.
So I would point out that energy and information do indeed speak to the connection between the entropic world and the informational creatures who construct models of the world so as to entropify it more cleverly. There is something both essentially the same but also absolutely different when we apply a systems metaphysics lens to Nature. Our theories have to handle that.
But to approach this from the process philosophy point of view, it is important to capture the architectural holism of the causality. A system has a distinct causal structure which is the hierarchy. And a hierarchy is the self-balancing and emergent mix which is top-down constraints shaping bottom-up degrees of freedom.
If we are using physical jargon, then entropy-information is a good dichotomy but also locks us into an ontology of substance rather than process. Whereas constraints-degrees of freedom is how physics speaks about an ontology of hierarchically-organised causality. It speaks directly to the architectural principles that apply to thermalising systems of any kind - physical or biological.
Yes, it is a cognitive construct. I justify this by the fact that a system in the world itself can be both an ordered set of everything and a chaotic one. We have no evidence for either the first or the second approach. But inside our minds (or inside the systems we create, like AI), a system can be identified and exist in an organized manner. Thus, the word system itself acquires meaning exclusively in the context of epistemology
A third characteristic I would name is a certain stability over time. If a collection of something instantly falls apart into separate parts, it's hard to call it a system
This is key. And it goes deeper as a system in fact exists on the edge of chaos, as they say. It feeds off instability. It is the stability that arises in organising instability into a predictable flow.
So water is an eroding source of instability. And a landscape shapes it into an efficient collection of drainage channels. A system is the global pattern of constraints that emerge to create an efficient collection of local actions. Nature is visibly hierarchical when you can see it organised into a fractal pattern of dissipation.
So a system is all about stabilising instability. And it indeed has to optimise this as a dynamical balance. It needs to exist in a persistent state of criticality, or at the hinge point between building itself up and falling apart.
Any organism is exactly this. A balance of its growth and decay. Every molecule of the body is being turned over. This is how the body as a system can stay optimised within its own ever changing environment.
There's an issue I don't think has been raised yet: "system" often carries a connotation of rigidity, though we can certainly point to systems that are flexible and adaptive. My point is, it's always a question with systems.
In your semantic terms, I was thinking about the use of the phrase "the System" (capital S) in the 60s and 70s counterculture. The imputation was of a particular kind of rigidity, a rigidity that extended to this semantic level. Thus the System was thought to see everything in terms of wealth and power and status, and to be blind to, say, art and feeling, on the one hand, or injustice and suffering, on the other. There were categories of no use to the System, and so it did not recognize them at all. You get the idea.
Indeed, in some ways a system might also be seen as a heuristic, a simplifying device that helps us navigate complexity, but it can just as readily function as a framework, or even as a symbolic stand-in for realities that remain intricate and puzzling.
Many systems seem designed to make complex things easier to organize and understand, to bring coherence to chaos, but in doing so they may leave out important elements or even distort the picture. As a general rule I avoid people who believe they have created system for understanding reality - it's usually the hallmark of a crank and monomaniac.
I too see room for improvement. What is a "thing", in the simplest most "thingly" sense. Something that is noticeably or observably distinct from its environment. Take a bucket of paint. The smallest subatomic molecule of paint is in fact a unique object from the next molecule right next to it. It has its own "system". per se. that, while exactly identical to the molecule next to it, is theoretically possible to either be or become different, whether or not by external influence. That said, no human person will be able to distinguish the two and see anything more than "some paint in a bucket."
Reminds me of a different topic of "what is art" which led to one opinion of "that which is distinct from its environment and has been made so intentionally." Ooh, that's good. I feel that to be of great relevance. Not to toot my own horn here but, this is great stuff. Hope y'all are paying attention.
Edit: For context, the quoted user made a (now strangely deleted) post commenting on his (hard to say) either disapproval or genuine sense that the definition can be improved as far as the 2nd post on this topic by @Baden
I justify this by the fact that a system in the world itself can be both an ordered set of everything and a chaotic one. We have no evidence for either the first or the second approach.
A reductionist might say - on epistemic principle - that there is this either/or choice. But the holist would expect order and chaos to compose a system. :smile:
They would be the co-arising limits on Nature. The complementary qualities that form the dynamical balance.
And physics has the evidence. Nature is ruled by criticality. It is neither completely ordered nor completely chaotic but the balance of the two - as is recognised when we talk about a Universe closed under thermodynamics.
There's an issue I don't think has been raised yet: "system" often carries a connotation of rigidity, though we can certainly point to systems that are flexible and adaptive. My point is, it's always a question with systems.
This is a misunderstanding that arises if you view Nature as a piece of reductionist machinery. But not if you view it as an organic whole. Systems science starts with the very idea of a universalised dynamical balance. Rigidity and plasticity are always relative as the balance that a system must seek to optimise if it is to persist, and thus even exist.
To be able to adapt is to be able to live in a changing world by also changing. And this is then achieved by becoming a hierarchy of rates of change. You need the global laws that change only slowly and the local degrees of freedom that can be spent very fast.
You need the banking system as your global context and the small change in your pocket to make quick and simple choices. Rigidity and plasticity are just the same thing - a dynamical balance - viewed over vastly different organisational scales.
The money flows through the economic system over all scales. All that changes in a well-plumbed system is scale of that flow.
It then becomes a separate debate whether a society has an optimised hierarchy of capital flow. Is it too rigid or too fluid on any particularly level, or even as a general whole.
I really like your approach to this issue. It is multifaceted and takes into account different views.
However, the thing is that if you imagine yourself as a dictionary compiler: you need to somehow accurately, briefly and meaningfully state the definition of the concept so that anyone who reads it can grasp the meaning, and the definition itself at least does not contradict itself. It is for these reasons that I gave my own definition.
In this case, if we take a chaotic world order as a starting point, then "system" = A, if we take an ordered world order as a starting point, then "system" = B
But what if the system is just our idea? Chaos or order - our idea? Maybe everything is somehow different? Science is built on the basic assumptions that the universe has some kind of order. But this is precisely an assumption, which is confirmed by the existence of paradoxes.
So in this case, all our judgments are nothing more than opinions.
Srap TasmanerAugust 24, 2025 at 22:03#10092390 likes
a misunderstanding that arises if you view Nature as a piece of reductionist machinery
Which would itself be an example of rigidity, right? This style of thinking, I mean, not just the mechanical approach itself, but *sticking to it* when you ought not.
This is the sort of thing that starts to look irrational over the sort of time scales we deal with. "Drill, baby drill!" Sure, our global civilization will adapt eventually, but there's a lot of friction thrown up against adapting, which I would be inclined to describe as rigidity.
Rigidity is one of the hallmarks of neurosis, or what @180 Proof always calls "maladaptive" behavior. (Freud insisted that neurotic behavior has a purpose, it meets a need, just badly.) @Tom Storm, I would guess you have considerable experience with that sort of rigidity.
But if you zoom out and take a community as your system, instead of an individual, you would hope to see an increase in adaptability (and capacity for self-correction).
Except when you don't (because communities can be rigid and self-reinforcing too). So you need to zoom out more.
But at some point the zooming out needed exceeds the human perspective. The trick might be to avoid getting into situations like that. (Don't write a program so clever you can't debug it.)
In this case, if we take a chaotic world order as a starting point, then "system" = A, if we take an ordered world order as a starting point, then "system" = B
The interesting thing here is can you even have pure chaos or only a relative lack of order? If you look into chaos theory, it turns out to be the theory of fractal self-organisation in nature. The grand pattern that everything cant help but fall into when everything is as unconstrained as it can be, but then also still constrained to be in globally closed interaction.
So if it is a world but also chaotic, then you have a system as I have described it. A global state of constraint with its local degrees of freedom. Chaos theory describes such worlds where fluctuations are so unruly that - unlike a Gaussian bell curve degree of randomness - there is now a randomness that is fractal or powerlaw and so doesnt even have a mean. And yet that still leaves the world in a very definitely constrained state in that it is completely specified by its powerlaw fractal order. The degree of internal disorder is precisely measurable and predictable as a statistically emergent pattern.
But what if the system is just our idea? Chaos or order - our idea? Maybe everything is somehow different? Science is built on the basic assumptions that the universe has some kind of order. But this is precisely an assumption, which is confirmed by the existence of paradoxes.
So in this case, all our judgments are nothing more than opinions.
Well no. Science is distinguished by the way it freely proposes its ideas and then backs them up. So it is more than just opinion. And if we are here talking metaphysics, then even that relies on being able to demonstrate some conformity between our beliefs and our experiences. You want a logical approach to reality - a rational model of causality - that seems to apply in a universal fashion.
That would be the goal of traditional metaphysics anyway. A post modernist might of course like to claim the licence that everyone should have the right to their opinion and than judgement isnt about a process of collective wisdom that stands the test of time.
It was metaphysics that claimed reality was a Cosmos. And the first metaphysicians did not see paradoxes as the problem but rather as the essence of existence. A world could arise as the dynamical balance of its fundamental divisions. A principle Heraclitus popularised as the Unit of Opposites.
So philosophy itself was founded on the systems view. But the Greeks also invented atomism as the alternative reductionist paradigm. And that proved very appealing once 16th C Europe wanted to re-imagine the world as a giant mathematical clockwork - a machine that could be constructed. Reductionism became the religion of the Industrial Revolution as engineering is a very effective mindset if you want to impose human control on the natural world.
To run nature, you have to be doing something that nature itself isnt actually doing.
But at some point the zooming out needed exceeds the human perspective
Boom and bust is a natural thing. Speak to an environmentalist and they would say all legislation would have to be framed through the lens of how your latest proposal would be viewed through your grand childrens eyes. Or even out five generations hence.
But we have engineered our markets so that they can panic and crash in seconds with programmed trading. Then re-jigged them so they cant be allowed to crash as the national debt instead gets exponentialised to the point that even five generations of thrift couldnt repay it.
So our problems certainly dont exceed our grasp at an intellectual level. It is more that systems rigidity of this kind - laws that might bind us five generations out of- have become politically unthinkable.
It is all about balance. Traditional societies might have had the mindset of no social order change ever. Modern society might have fetishised not just change but infinite acceleration. No limits. Lets just blast through the singularity.
In between those two extremes, the environmentalist pushing a five generations rule would seem to have a better intellectual grasp of the worlds ecological and thermodynamical realities.
Edit: For context, the quoted user made a (now strangely deleted) post commenting on his (hard to say) either disapproval or genuine sense that the definition can be improved as far as the 2nd post on this topic by Baden
Its fine that it was deleted it was superficial. But to elaborate: I think the definition given (sincerely) is way too technical. Maybe it makes some sense and maybe its worth studying (as someone who respects Heideggers works, I grant that possibility) but outside academia, I dont see it being helpful in any way in life. I like Reply to T Clark s description.
Deleted UserAugust 25, 2025 at 11:05#10093400 likes
Reply to Baden
My understanding is that Luhmann worked on social systems, thus not a general systems theory
Deleted UserAugust 25, 2025 at 11:16#10093410 likes
Reply to Gnomon
Thank you for your contribution - I was hoping for a concise definition backed by a general systems theory. Notions of systems are a dime a dozen
Deleted UserAugust 25, 2025 at 11:18#10093420 likes
Reply to T Clark
I agree with your definition, even though I have used some different words. Do you know of any theory that backs up this definition?
Deleted UserAugust 25, 2025 at 11:21#10093430 likes
Reply to MoK
These "irreducible entities", is that the fundamental particle that the physicist are trying to find?
Deleted UserAugust 25, 2025 at 11:23#10093440 likes
Reply to 180 Proof
I don't think systems <=> coherencies is any definition.
I don't blame Mikie for his reaction (he didn't ask the question...). I'm reading a compilation of lectures by Luhmann at the moment, so these ideas are on my mind.
My understanding is that Luhmann worked on social systems, thus not a general systems theory
He built from the mathematical work of Spencer Brown and the biological work of Humberto Maturana a kind of general system's theory that could be applied to society, but can also be applied to e.g. consciousness and other (autopoietic) systems.
But, yes, others may be more on point re what you're specifically looking for.
Systems are coherencies of (self-recreating, in the case of autopoietic systems) differences between themselves and an environment
And I also clarified what I meant.
You asked a question. I answered with a definition and a detailed follow-up. I also gave you the theoretical context (Luhmann). You had everything you needed to make some sense of it.
If you don't want to get your brain out of first gear, don't ask in the first place.
[In general, if posters want non-academic, dumbed-down answers to their questions, why not just ask AI, why ask on a philosophy forum?]
Reply to Pieter R van Wyk
In its most general sense, a system can be understood as an organized interconnected set of at least two or more components that collectively constitute a unified whole. The behavior of the whole is conditioned by the interactions of its parts, while the parts, in turn, derive their functions and significance from their relation to the whole. In this respect, a system is indivisible, as the whole cannot exist independently of its parts, nor can the parts operate meaningfully apart from the whole. A genuine system necessarily gives rise to emergent properties, thereby becoming more than merely the sum of its parts.
I agree with your definition, even though I have used some different words. Do you know of any theory that backs up this definition?
It's not a principle, it's a definition, so there is no theory backing it up, just a consensus of the meaning of the word among users. What I posted is my understanding of the consensus in this particular case.
Here's my version as simple as I can make it. Do with it what you will.
A system can be seen as a "coherency of differences" as follows.
Difference A: Fundamentally, a system must establish a difference between itself and its environment.
Difference B: A system must "observe" / react to differences in that which is different to itself, i. e. its environment.
Difference C: A system must operate on the basis of internal differences. A pure homogeneity excludes operationality.
A, B, C, type differences must cohere in a system for a system to be identified singly as a system.
Therefore, a system can be seen as a coherency of differences.
(No meaningful difference can arise until all those differences arise coherently. A pure environment contains nothing to establish difference. Difference requires a coherent system that is different from its environment (A) and that is different within itself (C) for the differences described in (B) to manifest.)
My problem with this is it lapses into substance ontology which is reductionist. An ontology of stuffs rather than of processes or the holism of systems of self-stabilising interaction. . . .
If we are using physical jargon, then entropy-information is a good dichotomy but also locks us into an ontology of substance rather than process.
I don't understand that assessment. Energy & Entropy are Processes, not substances. Information --- or EnFormAction, as I like to spell it --- is also a process. Systems are mental concepts that categorize collections of interacting "stuffs" as-if unitary things. Which, as Organized Structures, we tend to think of as single substantial objects. So, I view Holism/Systems as an Ontology of Processes (causation ; change) instead of stable-but-malleable Matter.
If you agree with Donald Hoffman's Interface Theory*1, even Matter is a conscious construct, that humans use to guide their physical interactions with the world. Another way to look at Ontology is to view the Real World as a multilevel system of acting & reacting sub-systems. We physically "see" a superficial layer of reality, like "icons" on a computer screen. But lower, more fundamental, layers are where the action is. And, what we call Systems, are mostly interactions on the lower levels of reality. Our idea of a System*2 is based on our ability to conceive of invisible-intangible extra-sensory qualia --- "more than the sum" of material parts --- that makes it a Holistic concept.
That's an Idealistic philosophical approach, but for practical purposes, common-sense (science) may be a better guide to dealing with Reality. :smile:
*1. Matter in Mind : Donald Hoffman argues that matter is not a fundamental aspect of reality but rather a symbolic representation or "icon" constructed by consciousness, similar to icons on a computer interface. In his theory of conscious realism, he posits that consciousness is the fundamental reality, and the physical world, including matter and spacetime, emerges from a network of conscious agents. Matter, in this view, doesn't exist independently of consciousness but is a useful, though not literal, construct for interacting with the world.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=don+hoffman+on+matter
*2. Systems Theory : A system can be more than the sum of its parts if it expresses synergy or emergent behavior. Changing one part of the system usually affects other parts and the whole system, with predictable patterns of behavior. More parts, means more interrelationships, and more complex properties & activities, including mental functions.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page18.html
And of course this is the thing about systems in interaction with their environments: they attempt to achieve predictability (and thus a kind of rigidity) not just by refusing to see what doesn't fit (as the counterculture would have it) but by making their environment more predictable, by eliminating what doesn't fit. Adaptation is required for the system to persist, but it can adapt itself to its environment or its environment to itself.
Yes, and your examples were very interesting in that respect. A system must be less complex than its environment and it reduces complexity through a kind of code that "sees" only certain things in that environment. That becomes its reality. This is why I was saying earlier that systems establish different versions of reality. They observe and are perturbed by their environment but interpret it only according to a particular internal code that identifies them as a particular type of system. They create differences that determine their reality, and thus enable a form of "meaning" or "cognition" in a broad sense. That is, they are operationally closed (operate only according to their own internal rules or code), but they are cognitively open in that they are affected by their environment and interact with it. I'm not sure I would call this a "rigidity" but perhaps a structural limitation. But paradoxically, it is the reduction of complexity that allows systems to complexify (and adapt), and in fact reach higher orders of self-referential complexity (self-managing of complexity). The more efficiently they simplify, the more efficiently they can complexify in a sense.
Srap TasmanerAugust 25, 2025 at 19:21#10094090 likes
it is the reduction of complexity that allows systems to complexify (and adapt), and in fact reach higher orders of self-referential complexity (self-managing of complexity). The more efficiently they simplify, the more efficiently they can complexify in a sense.
I'm so glad you came back to this, because that's an excellent point. (And, for what it's worth, close to my own thinking about the utility of simplifications like logic, mathematics, language, music theory, maps, all that jazz.)
they are operationally closed (operate only according to their own internal rules or code), but they are cognitively open in that they are affected by their environment and interact with it.
Right. One thing I didn't like about my earlier post was it ends up sounding too much like we're only talking about modeling, but we want to be able talk not just about "this is how I symbolically represent and predict the outcomes of horse races" but also "this is how I cut planks to the lengths I need," where this later phrase refers not to a verbal description of me doing it, but to me doing it. The system in operation, interacting with the environment, rubber meeting the road in a more than cognitive sense.
What's tricky is to find the natural correlate of simplification by abstraction in non-cognitive (or, at least, not only cognitive) interaction. There is an obvious path in modifying the environment to simplify it (planks as simplifications of trees, extracted from them, with the rest of the tree physically abstracted away), but otherwise I'm not sure, so maybe this is just a hard difference between mental and physical interaction, that there is this freedom in cognitive behavior that you can't quite manage when dealing with the world in the raw, however it comes. Not sure.
SophistiCatAugust 25, 2025 at 20:46#10094410 likes
The question in the OP is much too broad to be interesting, since the word "system" has multiple meanings, and those meanings are in turn quite general without further qualification.
The meanings of "system" that have been largely left out of this discussion (except by @Srap Tasmaner) are, for example, system as a theory ("Kant's system"), method ("Dewey decimal system," "gambling system"), rules of behavior ("system of discipline").
Within the material context, some definitions that have been given are too restrictive. @Baden's is mostly about differentiating a system from its environment, but in some contexts, environment is irrelevant for our purposes and can be left out of consideration. The only internal differences required of any system are those between the whole and its parts. Stability and rigidity also do not always apply: systems can be dynamic in their composition and form, although it could be argued that some essential features of a system must be invariant within the scope of consideration for it to be recognized as one system. But that is true of any named entity.
@T Clark and @punos gave good general definitions of a material system, and it is pretty clear that not much more can be said on the subject without getting into specifics of particular kinds of systems, such living organisms or ecologies. If we stay at the most general level of a "system," then we are just doing amateur lexicography.
system must be less complex than its environment and it reduces complexity through a kind of code that "sees" only certain things in that environment. That becomes its reality.
So you wish to limit your definition of a system to an organism then? Which is fine, as code-based or semiotic systems are their own class of thing. Life and mind as opposed to mere physics.
But if talk about systems is talk about some general causal model, then it has to include the physical realm. And we do talk about weather systems, solar systems, atomic systems, ocean current systems and all the other systems that are globally coherent in being hierarchically self-organising.
And the big advance in biology and neurocognition has been to recognise the continuity that underlies the mind-world difference. The organism is a system with a code and the environment is also a system - lacking a code but still a system of constraints.
So reductionism is left with no where to hide. It is systems all the way down. And this is why both physics and organisms can make sense within the one larger causal model offered by dissipative structure theory.
The world was already doing something organised. The organism only had to latch onto that grand entropic enterprise as a bit of viral code.
I don't understand that assessment. Energy & Entropy are Processes, not substances. Information --- or EnFormAction, as I like to spell it --- is also a process.
But you had to invent your own term to turn information back into informing. So you clearly can see there is an issue to be sorted.
Entropy/information arose as a way to count bits. Put a number on distinctions - whether they were a difference that made a difference, or even when they were differences that were just noise.
So that was a valuable step. Science could count the differences that any kind of system - physical or organismic - could contain. Then came the difficult bit of adding back a distinction between information that indeed informed, and entropy that instead was work or free energy.
Eventually this has led to the current rich variety of models that put meaning and action back into any counting of bits. We now do have process accounts like dissipative structure theory in physics and the Bayesian Brain theory in neuroscience.
So first we reduce everything to the bare notion of countable differences. We reduce it so far that it completely loses its larger systematic structure - the coherent context that even allows the difference to count as a difference. And then we need to repair the damage by building back some story of a process that is organising this whole show.
Ideally, the whole of reality will then be described under this one common process. But as has been said, organisms are different as they encode their environments in terms of their selfish wants. So under the most general class of systems causality - which I say is dissipative structure theory - you have at least this one major sub-class that contains the novelty; which we can call semiosis, or very loosely, information processing.
If you agree with Donald Hoffman's Interface Theory*...That's an Idealistic philosophical approach, but for practical purposes, common-sense (science) may be a better guide to dealing with Reality.
As epistemology, his point is mundane. As an ontological commitment, it makes the usual idealist mistake.
Idealism is the reaction against reductionism an attempt to reject a world of only atoms blindly banging around in a void. But idealism fails to replace reductionism with anything better. It falls back on a mind stuff to replace the matter stuff. Making the same mistake in the other direction. Or tries to sustain a Cartesian dualism which tolerable to both the church and the scientist. Each side absolves itself in the other side's "great mystery".
But the holism of the systems science approach is perhaps much crueller than the Idealists ever had in mind. Systems thinking simply incorporates reductionism under its greater causal generality. It takes it in and then sits it firmly in its corner. :grin:
So reductionism models reality as a great complication built up from its fundamental degrees of freedom. Information/entropy are all about counting those. Instead of atoms or even fundamental particles, we can count the quantum numbers that are the discrete states being shuffled about the cosmic board by their wavefunctions. Reductionism goes as small as it could possibly go.
But then the systems view comes in and points out that all differences are differences in terms of larger context. And indeed, the context shapes those degrees of freedom to be the "simple as possible" things that they are. Quantum physics makes this plain too. A maths of symmetry and symmetry-breaking tells us why in Platonic strength fashion these basic quantum numbers emerge. The greater context defines its own smallest thing.
So idealism just doubles down on the mystery that reductionism creates. And systems science is the proper philosophical antidote. It shows that reductionism is one pole of the greater whole. The world can be simplified to a large degree. But in the end, it is revealed to be an irreducibly complex whole. And even physics says that directly these days. Idealism is still stuck in the 18th Century so far as metaphysical debate goes.
I think whats most interesting about this discussion is that, once again, its crucial to distinguish between common sense notions and technical notions. In the same way as work can mean all kinds of things in everyday life, what it means in physics is entirely different.
My problem with whats called philosophy and philosophers, is that much of the technical jargon often reeks of posturing, of self importance. Its an attempt to turn philosophy into physics looks important, and helps to justify academic funding, but one wonders how close this resembles what was done in Greek times.
That being said, why is it important to have a technical notion of system, and more importantly (echoing Chomsky): what explanatory theory does it belong to? Is there one?
(quotes from second paper in abstract and introduction part)
[i]"This monograph attempts a theory of every thing that can be distinguished from other things in a statistical sense. The ensuing statistical independencies, mediated by Markov blankets, speak to a recursive composition of ensembles (of things) at increasingly higher spatiotemporal scales. This decomposition provides a description of small things; e.g., quantum mechanics via the Schrödinger equation, ensembles of small things via statistical mechanics and related fluctuation theorems, through to big things via classical mechanics. These descriptions are complemented with a Bayesian mechanics for autonomous or active things. Although this work provides a formulation of every thing, its main contribution is to examine the implications of Markov blankets for self- organisation to nonequilibrium steady-state. In brief, we recover an information geometry and accompanying free energy principle that allows one to interpret the internal states of something as representing or making inferences about its external states. The ensuing Bayesian mechanics is compatible with quantum, statistical and classical mechanics and may offer a formal description of lifelike particles."
"To address the nature of things, we start by asking how something can be distinguished from everything else. In pursuing a formulation of self organisation, we will call on the notion of conditional independence as the basis of this separation. More specifically, we assume that for something to exist it must possess (internal or intrinsic) states that can be separated statistically from (external or extrinsic) states that do not constitute the thing. This separation implies the existence of a Markov blanket; namely, a set of states that render the internal and external states conditionally independent. The existence of things (i.e., internal states and their blanket) further implies a partition of the Markov blanket into active and sensory states that are not influenced by external and internal states, respectively. This may sound a bit arbitrary; however, this is the minimal set of conditional independencies" and implicit partition of states that licenses talk about things (that possess states). Specifically, it provides a partition that constitutes the self in self-organisation. The subsequent sections tackle the next obvious question: what are things? At this point, we deploy the Langevin formulation of random dynamical systems as an ansatz that is recursively self-verifying, when considered in the light of Markov blankets. In brief, the formulation on offer says that the states of things (i.e., particles) comprise mixtures of blanket states, where the Markov blanket surrounds things at a smaller scale. Effectively, this eludes the question what is a thing? by composing things from the Markov blanket of smaller things. By induction, we have Markov blankets all the way down, which means one never has to specify the nature of things."[/i]
So a system is a thing with a Markov blanket that separates the kind of thing it is from its environment. This can be applied to virtually anything complicated enough, from a rock to a brain to a planetary system to... virtually anything. The internal states of the system can then be descibed as modelling the states if its environment.
This can be applied to virtually anything complicated enough, from a rock to a brain to a planetary system to... virtually anything.
You may misunderstand. A rock doesnt actually have beliefs about its environment.
So Bayesian mechanics is based on thermo maths - the minimisation of free energy. And that formalism is a way to model the beliefs of organisms. An organism models its world with the intent to minimise its surprisal - an index of its prediction error that can be written down in thermo maths.
But a rock has no world model. Put a hot rock in a cold place and it will indeed minimise its free energy as the equations describe. It will go cold in a way that says its internal state could be regarded as a model of its external environment. But the rock never had any say in the matter.
Whereas put an organism in a place it doesnt like and it will keep moving until it finds some place it does.
But I have mentioned the Bayesian Brain as exactly this kind of exercise of marrying the science of organisms to the science of thermodynamical systems. So same mathematical framework. But with the essential twist that an organism is in a modelling relation with its world.
The organism is at root just another thermodynamic system. However it is also this special kind of thermodynamic system.
ApustimelogistAugust 26, 2025 at 06:40#10095700 likes
A rock doesnt actually have beliefs about its environment.
It does. Bayesian mechanics and Free energy principle can apply to anything sufficiently complicated. As said in the first paper I linked before: if something persists over time, it must be encoding a model of the relevant environment we have used in constructing or picking out this system. Doesn't matter if its a rock or a person or an ecosystem, a society. Obviously, a rock may not be very interesting though as a kind of dynamical system.
Well the notion of model being used is far more minimalist and general than what you're implying. The FEP does apply to any thing, and so provides a generic characterization of any system complicated enough to have anything interesting to say about it, including stones and even smaller, simpler systems for that matter than stones, I should think.
Obviously, a rock may not be very interesting though as a kind of dynamical system.
I was reacting to the first paper. The second by Friston is far more challenging and Im glad you flagged it.
A quick point is that the kind of dynamics that could even be coupled would have to be in a state of criticality. So a whole landscape of moving and eroding rock could be viewed as a hierarchical system in the way being suggested. It is a tectonic flow. A balance of geological and chemical forces over many scales of being. In some sense its own model as at some particular distance or horizon, the landscapes smallest fluctuations become a lower bound blur, and its largest fluctuations become so large the system now appears to live inside a fixed background, captured by its laws.
So Friston is walking familiar ground. But then you can see how the humble rock lacks that kind of dynamics which brings this systems perspective into things. The rock has congealed and merely erodes. If the tectonics could be considered lively, the rock is as unlively as it gets.
Ill have to read Fristons monograph more closely. But on a skim, I would say he is trying too hard to explain everything by the self-organising dynamics and being too glib about the self-information or measurement aspect of a hierarchical system. But a fun read so far.
So you wish to limit your definition of a system to an organism then?
Just a quick point for now. Definitely not (at least not literally). This is part of Luhmann's project, actually---to extend Maturana's concepts from biology to e.g. society (and also to find a mathematical basis for systems using Spencer-Brown's work). As for the connections to biosemiotics, I'm very interested in that, but my knowledge of biosemiotics is undeveloped. I'll try to come back to your post later anyhow.
Deleted UserAugust 26, 2025 at 12:40#10095960 likes
[In general, if posters want non-academic, dumbed-down answers to their questions, why not just ask AI, why ask on a philosophy forum?]
To my understanding, AI has not achieved the capability of abstract thought (yet) thus asking AI will have no utility - it will only regurgitate. As a really clever guy once said: "Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence; he is just using memory." - Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519).
Deleted UserAugust 26, 2025 at 12:52#10095980 likes
This definition looks very similar to one that has been published in 1923 by Lewis, C.I. [I]Facts, Systems and the Unity of the World[/I]. The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 20, No. 6, pp 141 - 151. Apparently without much success.
Deleted UserAugust 26, 2025 at 12:56#10095990 likes
A system is a cognitive construct consisting of individual elements that interact dynamically, forming new properties in relation to the individual elements and maintaining stability over time.
Thank you for your frank and honest input - this is a good description, one that is generally accepted by the 'systems-thinkers'. But it has a few problems, specifically one that is really a bother to the systems-scientists: How, in general does one determine what is part of a system and what is not. Or in other words, how does one, in general, determine the boundary of a system?
Deleted UserAugust 26, 2025 at 13:11#10096020 likes
A system is formed of its interactions rather than constructed from its components. So a general systems theory is successful to the degree it takes that idea to its metaphysical extreme.
In my opinion: interactions without components makes no sense at all. Neither does components without interactions. Please, what would entail a "metaphysical extreme"?
Deleted UserAugust 26, 2025 at 13:21#10096030 likes
Please, if a system is all about stabilising instability, where does instability come from? Also, is it not true that "instability" is the root cause of innovation, emergence or evolution?
Deleted UserAugust 26, 2025 at 13:55#10096070 likes
In its most general sense, a system can be understood as an organized interconnected set of at least two or more components that collectively constitute a unified whole. The behavior of the whole is conditioned by the interactions of its parts, while the parts, in turn, derive their functions and significance from their relation to the whole. In this respect, a system is indivisible, as the whole cannot exist independently of its parts, nor can the parts operate meaningfully apart from the whole. A genuine system necessarily gives rise to emergent properties, thereby becoming more than merely the sum of its parts.
No, it really doesnt. The information that the rock contains bears no resemblance to a system of belief.
You can present your evidence to the contrary if you wish of course.
Again, you're interpreting "belief" in a way that is more elaborate than the minimalist version used in the theory which is not much more than Bayesian probability. Bayesian probability is often linked clisely by people to a kind of subjectivist view of probabilities but Bayes' rule holds regardless of interpretation - its just probability theory. If you read the papers I linked you will see it explicitly expressed that even a rock comes under this formulation. If you like you can think of the word "belief" as just a metaphor. Its just saying that the internal system has information about the external system. The internal system is predictive of the external system (predictive define purely in terms of conditional probabilities) - as if the internal system could be said to have beliefs.
ApustimelogistAugust 26, 2025 at 15:54#10096220 likes
A quick point is that the kind of dynamics that could even be coupled would have to be in a state of criticality.
Well it depends on how complicated the system is, what it does. But again, the free energy principle applies in principle even to just a description of a normal rock that doesn't overtly display behavior like that.
A balance of geological and chemical forces over many scales of being. In some sense its own model as at some particular distance or horizon, the landscapes smallest fluctuations become a lower bound blur, and its largest fluctuations become so large the system now appears to live inside a fixed background, captured by its laws.
But then you can see how the humble rock lacks that kind of dynamics which brings this systems perspective into things.
Again, you are misinterpreting the theory somewhat. If you look at the paper, they say a rock can be described under the theory and its more or less mathematically proven that the principle can apply to something like a rock. What you are talking about is a special case of system that is highly complicated.
But on a skim, I would say he is trying too hard to explain everything by the self-organising dynamics and being too glib about the self-information or measurement aspect of a hierarchical system.
Can you specify what exactly you mean? Its a mathematical principle that applies generically and is not restricted to self-organizing dynamics.
But you had to invent your own term to turn information back into informing. So you clearly can see there is an issue to be sorted.
I did coin a novel term, EnFormAction, for my thesis, to indicate the equation of Information & Energy*1. But I didn't "invent" the physical interrelationship*2. Shannon defined information in terms of Entropy, but didn't pursue its reciprocal relation to Energy*3. Other scientists and philosophers in recent years have been exploring that connection between Causation & Life & Mind*4. So no, the equation of Causal Energy and Mental Information is not a figment of my imagination. Is that the "issue" you feel needs to be sorted? :cool:
*1. Information is Energy : Just as the principle of conservation of energy is essential to understanding energy, the principle of conservation of information leads to a deeper understanding of information.
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-658-40862-6
*2. The statement "information is energy" reflects a physical interpretation where information requires energy to be stored or transmitted, and conversely, information can be used to extract energy from a system, as seen in Maxwell's demon experiments, though information and energy are distinct concepts. While not identical, they are deeply connected, with some theories proposing an information-energy equivalence where information acts as a fundamental component of reality, much like matter and energy.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=information+is+energy
*3. Information-energy equivalencesuggests that information has mass, which is supported by Landauer's principle stating that information is physical and has an associated energy cost when erased, and by the emerging Mass-Energy-Information (MEI) equivalence principle. The MEI principle claims that stored information has mass and can be converted to energy, leading to a full hard drive being marginally heavier than an empty one. While information is not a new state of matter, this principle allows for the physical storage and energetic manipulation of information, with potentially transformative implications for quantum computing and our understanding of the universe.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=information+energy+equivalence
*4. From Matter to Life: Information and Causality : Recent advances suggest that the concept of information might hold the key to unravelling the mystery of life's nature and origin.
https://www.amazon.com/Matter-Life-Information-Causality/dp/1107150531
As epistemology, his point is mundane. As an ontological commitment, it makes the usual idealist mistake. . . .
But idealism fails to replace reductionism with anything better.
That assessment misses the point of Hoffman's thesis, and my own Information-centered worldview : not to "replace" pragmatic Reductionism, but to supplement it with philosophical Holism. Narrowly-focused Reductionism takes an Either/Or (true/false, black/white) stance, while the broader Enformationism worldview is BothAnd (Holistic, Complementary, YinYang).
Likewise, Hoffman's Idealism (Conscious Realism) is a moderate stance, between pure Platonic Idealism and modern absolute Materialism. Extreme forms of Idealism assert that we have no access to true or ultimate Reality. In that case, we would be completely in the dark. But, Hoffman describes a Veiled Reality, in which we do have some contact with Fundamental Essences, by means of the embodied Information that he calls "icons" (signs, symbols, semiology).
It's still true that we humans have no direct access to Kant's "ding an sich", or what d'Espagnat labeled "reality per se". So, Hoffman's Ontology describes Matter as a "useful fiction". In which case, we are not completely cut-off from ultimate Reality, because we can interface by means of ideas & information. :smile:
PS___ What is a System? : Semiotics is the systematic study of interpretation, meaning-making, semiosis and the communication of meaning. In semiotics, a sign is defined as anything that communicates intentional and unintentional meaning or feelings to the sign's interpreter. ___ Wiki
Donald Hoffman's "idealism,"more formally known as his Conscious Realism, posits that consciousness is fundamental, not matter, and that what we perceive as physical objects are "icons" or user interfaces designed by interacting conscious agents. He argues that spacetime and physical objects emerge from the dynamics of these agents, not the other way around. While sharing similarities with philosophical idealism, Hoffman's approach is distinct due to its emphasis on integrating mathematical structures beyond spacetime and its foundation in what he calls a "deeper theory of conscious agents"
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=donald+hoffman+idealism
Donald Hoffman's ontology, outlined in his theory of Conscious Realism, posits that consciousness and conscious agents are fundamental, and that the physical world, including spacetime, matter, and neurons, are not foundational but rather are emergent, useful fictions or a "user interface" to a deeper reality.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=donald+hoffman+ontology
Again, you are misinterpreting the theory somewhat. If you look at the paper, they say a rock can be described under the theory and its more or less mathematically proven that the principle can apply to something like a rock. What you are talking about is a special case of system that is highly complicated.
I come back to the point that to claim belief for a rock is to collapse your epistemology into ontological confusion.
Sure, one might have the intellectual purpose of modelling the continuity of all systems and Bayesian probability might be your candidate theory of everything. But my view is that this plainly is a wrong move as Bayesian reasoning is great as a general theory of the organism in its semiotic relation with the world, and so then loses its way when it goes beyond what it was meant to be and is bandied about as a theory of literally anything.
If we can no longer distinguish a rock from a mind under the Bayesian approach, then now the theory is a failure. It becomes the new panpyschism.
The best theory of absolutely everything in my book is dissipate structure theory. And that as a general systems theory does apply as happily to the Big Bang as neoliberal economics.
So no, the equation of Causal Energy and Mental Information is not a figment of my imagination. Is that the "issue" you feel needs to be sorted? :cool:
I plainly said that information and entropy are just mathematical systems of measurement. They dont tell us about informing or entropifying as real world processes. So the issue is about the how. You coined a term that suggest some general systems theory arises to cover this. But then the hand-waving begins. You speak as if information and energy are substantial things - like forces of nature - and so they just do it. Nuff said.
But, Hoffman describes a Veiled Reality, in which we do have some contact with Fundamental Essences, by means of the embodied Information that he calls "icons" (signs, symbols, semiology).
As I say, this part is epistemology 101 so far as it goes. What cognitive scientist doesnt say this sort of thing? Of course our notions of matter are useful fictions. Even physics says that.
But consciousness is likewise a useful epistemic fiction. It is easier to think in terms of powers and substances than to move on to a properly laid out and mathematical systems view of what reality really is.
So Hoffman states the obvious about cognition and then gets silly by saying this means the material world is our collective fiction and therefore consciousness is what is fundamental.
The mind and the world are both owed proper scientific accounts. Hoffmans idealism doesnt have anything help here.
ApustimelogistAugust 26, 2025 at 22:13#10097050 likes
Bayesian reasoning is great as a general theory of the organism in its semiotic relation with the world, and so then loses its way when it goes beyond what it was meant to be and is bandied about as a theory of literally anything
Bayesianism is just probability theory. There is absolutely no reason that this should be organism-centric, and the authors have literally constructed mathematical proofs describing its domain of applicability. Whether you like the theory or not, its just a mathematical fact that it can describe a rock. I don't actually see any constructive criticism in your comments other than an unexplained intuition that there is something about it you don't like. The theory fully accomodates characterizations of complicated life; and even so, the topic of the thread is "systems", a concept far more general than ypur favorite topic. The generality of Bayesian mechanics then fits it perfectly.
The best theory of absolutely everything in my book is dissipate structure theory.
Which is more or less just the free energy principle that has been talked about, or at least a corollary with regard to persistent, complicated structures.
This is just a strawman if you refuse to engage with the way "belief" is intended by the authors of the theory.
Which authors? I was discussing these things with Friston back in the 1990s when it was all about dynamical systems theory and generative neural networks. I'd be surprised if he now disagrees with what would be my position on this.
My point is that it is just dumb to confuse equilibrium systems with far from equilibrium systems. A hot rock has its internal state. Drop it in a bucket of cold water and it then shares the collective internal state of the thermal system that is the much colder rock and the now slightly warmer bucket of water.
Bringing Bayesian belief into this discussion is a publicity stunt and not serious science or philosophy.
But using the maths of Bayesian probability to model the hierarchical structure of dissipative systems that have the "purpose" of degrading entropy gradients could be a different matter. The question becomes whether anything new is being said that isn't already being said by regular approaches to dissipative structure theory.
So your strawman is a strawman. This is an area I have been busy in for a long time.
But with a point of view inserted. That is why it is so good for modelling life and mind, but becomes tenditiously hand-waving if you find yourself using the words rocks and beliefs in the same sentence.
Perhaps it might be done in an academic setting for the shock value. And as I say, it is really shocking if the difference between equilibrium systems and far from equilibrium systems doesn't make it immediately a bad analogy, even if it is only meant as an analogy.
ApustimelogistAugust 26, 2025 at 23:12#10097420 likes
My point is that it is just dumb to confuse equilibrium systems with far from equilibrium systems. A hot rock has its internal state. Drop it in a bucket of cold water and it then shares the collective internal state of the thermal system that is the much colder rock and the now slightly warmer bucket of water.
Yes, a point which refuses to engage with what I am talking about. Its very simple. Read the papers and they will tell you precisely what I have been saying. Nothing is being confused apart from yourself.
This is an area I have been busy in for a long time.
For someone who has apparently had discussions with Friston himself, its bewildering your inability to just engage with what is being said in these papers and the thread itself.
Bayes' rule is just as valid for objective probabilities. Thats why its just generic probability. Bayes' rule describes frequencies for things that have nothing to do with beliefs or minds or living systems. Its just generic probability theory.
The properties of living systems doesn't strictly come from Bayes but their complicated nature in the sense that if you characterize a system as performing Bayesian inference, but its state space is simple, its not going to look like a living thing. An often used example is a thermostat, sensing the temperature and regulating it. That can obviously be seen as active Bayesian inference, and aligns with your dissipative topic. But it doesn't look very much like a living creature does it.
ApustimelogistAugust 26, 2025 at 23:30#10097520 likes
Reply to apokrisis
They aren't criticisms, and if you just read the papers and try to understand what is being said then you will see that. Your best criticism was "belief is a silly word".
Reply to Apustimelogist I see nothing in Fristons monograph supporting the claim that rocks have beliefs in any normal sense. A note on p84 explicitly says that by Bayesian belief he does not mean a propositional belief but merely a belief in the mathematical and technical sense of belief updating and belief propagation.
So the use of the Bayesian maths is properly qualified in terms of what its jargon means and doesnt mean. We can move on from such silliness to the more interesting question of whether his Bayesian formalism is a better way of doing hierarchy theory. And I am perfectly open to that being the case.
It is a problem accounting for the topological phase transitions in complex systems as there is the question of whether emergent properties reflect simply the rearrangement of lower level complications or are indeed the top-down imposition of higher level novelty.
Hierarchy theory says top-down constraints do shape the emergent degrees of freedom that form any new level of topological order. A material particle like an electron is shaped by its Platonic-strength encounter with the constraints of U(1) symmetry, for example. As the simplest final organising structure, quantum field excitations had to eventually arrive at that fundamental state of being.
Friston shows that this is his own central question in his conclusion. But he comes down on the other side of this issue. He claims his Bayesian mechanics does away with the need for downward causation when talking about emergence.
So to me, the issues involved in Fristons monograph are clear enough. And I still side with the more is different camp. For reasons I have already mentioned.
I plainly said that information and entropy are just mathematical systems of measurement. They dont tell us about informing or entropifying as real world processes. So the issue is about the how. You coined a term that suggest some general systems theory arises to cover this. But then the hand-waving begins. You speak as if information and energy are substantial things - like forces of nature - and so they just do it. Nuff said.
Information & Energy are the processes that make the Culture & Nature systems do what they do. If you don't think that is "substantial", then you won't understand the point of the Enformationism thesis. :smile:
Substantial : of considerable importance, size, or worth. ___ Oxford Dictionary
The mind and the world are both owed proper scientific accounts. Hoffmans idealism doesnt have anything help here.
Hoffman is a cognitive scientist, and Systems such as Mind are cognitive concepts (ideas). Do you also consider Nobel-winning quantum theorists, such as Planck & Heisenberg, to be unhelpful, when they make non-empirical philosophical conjectures? :smile:
Donald Hoffman's theories, such as the Interface Theory of Perception and Conscious Realism, are not considered mainstream science, though he holds an established academic position and has conducted empirical research on visual perception. While his work incorporates scientific concepts and mathematical models to support philosophical claims about reality and consciousness, critics argue that much of his philosophy is metaphysical and unverifiable, lacking the falsifiability required for a scientific theory.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=is+donald+hoffman%27s+theory+scientific
Donald Hoffman's work represents a contemporary take on idealism, known as Conscious Realism, which posits that consciousness is the fundamental reality, and the physical world is an emergent property of interacting conscious agents, not the other way around. His theory centers on his Interface Theory of Perception (ITP), which, supported by the Fitness Beats Truth (FBT) Theorem, suggests our perceptions are "icons" that don't resemble objective reality but are rather adapted for evolutionary fitness, with reality being a deeper network of conscious agents. Hoffman uses mathematical models to explore how spacetime and physical laws can emerge from these dynamics of conscious agents.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=donald+hoffman+idealism
ApustimelogistAugust 27, 2025 at 17:13#10099460 likes
I don't really like these quantum examples because you are getting to a point where people don't really know what these things mean in a metaphysical sense. In other parts of science, I don't see arguments over downward causation being anything other than semantic, because it is clear that what is not necessarily reducible is an explanatory framework in an epistemic sense, rather than any genuinely novel strongly emergent metaphysics. You obviously get novel behavior, but again, my intuition is that arguments over the significance of this would largely be semantic. There is something like a downward causation in Friston's description, but it is does not invoke anything more than the same genre of mechanisms that you would talk about to explain natural selection in evolution which are "blind".
This is metaphysics we are talking about. Substance is a claim about what stands under. And ontologically that is usually regarded as a stuff. A passive and stable material that can be worked up into an unlimited variety of forms.
Of course, Aristotle came up with a better story. Which is where systems science got going.
This is metaphysics we are talking about. Substance is a claim about what stands under. And ontologically that is usually regarded as a stuff. A passive and stable material that can be worked up into an unlimited variety of forms.
.
That "passive & stable" stuff is indeed the fundamental substance of Ontological Materialism. But Aristotle defined his "Ousia" in terms of two elements : real Matter & ideal Form*1. Modern quantum physics concludes that active & dynamic Information (power to enform) is the essence of Matter*2. Shannon's "passive & stable" Information (data) has been found to also be active & causal (form giving), hence equated with Energy : E = MC^2.
My previous post linked to a book : Information is Energy. And. that creative-power-to-change-Form is the opposite of deforming Entropy*3. So, it seems that Aristotle was ahead of his time, to combine Matter (passive & stable) with Energy (power to transform). So, Matter (marble) is inert until it is given Form (sculpture) by its enforming Essence*4 (idea , concept), in the mind of the sculptor. Working together, inert Matter & causal Information (EnFormAction) are the System we call Evolution. Unfortunately, the metaphysics of Materialism ignores the active, causal half of the equation of Substance. :smile:
Note--- " be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you . . ."
Greek Apokrisis = answer
*1. Fundamental Substance : In Aristotle's philosophy, substance (ousia) refers to the fundamental, individual entities that exist independently and are the subjects of predication. It's a central concept in his metaphysics, distinguishing between primary substances (individual things) and secondary substances (species and genera). Furthermore, Aristotle connects substance with [i]matter and form, suggesting that all physical things are composed of these two elements[/i]
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=aristotle+substance
*2. Information is Fundamental : Information is more than just a description of our universe and the stuff in it: it is the most basic currency of existence.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/is-information-fundamental/
*3. Information is a Process : When spelled with an I, Information is a noun, referring to data & things. When spelled with an E, Enformation is a verb, referring to energy and processes.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page11.html
*4. Marble is the raw material, but the sculptor's concept of Form gives it meaning
Hoffman uses mathematical models to explore how spacetime and physical laws can emerge from these dynamics of conscious agents. Gnomon
Thanks for reminding me just how much of a crackpot he is.
Yes. From a Materialistic perspective, Hoffman is a heretical thinker, like Immanuel Kant, postulating a veiled noumenal reality (ding an sich) underlying the obvious phenomenal appearances of the physical senses. :smile:
Yes, Immanuel Kant is considered a profoundly important and influential thinker, often regarded as one of the greatest and most significant philosophers of all time.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=kant+important+thinker
Yes, Donald Hoffman is considered an important thinker for his work as a cognitive scientist and popular science author who has challenged the scientific consensus on perception and reality,
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=don+hoffman+important+thinker
that it is impossible to understand this thing we humans named reality?
that only cranks and monomaniacs can understand this thing we humans named reality?
This does not contain any absolutist pronouncements like the two dot points youve provided.
But if I treat these as follow-up questions, I would say that 'reality' is not something waiting to be uncovered but a word we use in shifting contexts to describe what we take to be fundamental. I am not inclined to affirm systems that present themselves as having secured the essence of what is, since what we call reality for me is probably better understood as a contingent product of language, culture, and historically situated practices rather than the disclosure of some underlying foundation.
In my experience, there is always someone on the periphery, doggedly trying to describe reality and reconcile all myths and principles into a single system. They invariably believe themselves misunderstood, refusing to accept that others regard them as cranks.
A fine literary satire of this familiar type was provided by a favourite English writer, George Eliot. In Middlemarch she created the elderly pedant Mr. Casaubon, forever labouring over his great tome, The Key to All Mythologies.
that only cranks and monomaniacs can understand this thing we humans named reality?
Maybe that would be better restated as, "only cranks and monomaniacs believe they can undertand reality."
In any case, I dont rule out possibilities, but I tend to see the idea of uncovering reality as an old-fashioned, romantic notion whose prospects are, at the very least, uncertain.
As a general rule I avoid people who believe they have created system for understanding reality - it's usually the hallmark of a crank and monomaniac.
Mm, surely you see there is ample room for a bit of irony or "reversing the argument" (whichever seems more apt) here.
Challenge: reply first without clicking 'Reveal'.
[hide="Reveal"]You, hypocritically, have in fact created a system for understanding reality, evidenced by your belief (founded or not) that it is "usually evidence someone is either wrong or wrongheaded".[/hide]
Theres nuance here. Im not claiming to have fully solved fundamental questions of reality, nor have I developed a system. I havent claimed to have understood the nature of reality, either. In fact, Im questioning whether 'reality' is even a useful term and provided soem reasons. What I have suggested is a provisional orientation, perhaps a soft form of postmodernism that remains open to revision. Which is why I also wrote:
At any rate, the point we're discussing is comprehensive explanations and system-building where there's a claim made that the precise nature of reality has been described, not whether people can hold certain pragmatic presuppositions or tendencies in their everyday lives. What defines a 'crank' (in most instances like this) I would say is the obsession with elaborate system building to 'resolve' age old questions, not the simple act of having opinions or beliefs.
Deleted UserAugust 30, 2025 at 11:48#10106060 likes
In my experience, there is always someone on the periphery, doggedly trying to describe reality and reconcile all myths and principles into a single system
Yes, on the face of it, describing reality with a single system does seem to be far fetched, perhaps even absurd. But then, this would depend on one's understanding of reality - an ambiguous notion it would seem - as well as one's understanding of a system - which is exactly the question contemplated by this discussion - also, it would seem, an ambiguous notion.
Perhaps a better question would be: How do we understand things? Please consider:
"If and when we consider things, contemplate things and try to understand things, we can consider anything. In doing this we must convert some anything into something. And there are only two ways we can do this: First we could designate some name (perceive some possible [I]purpose[/I]) to some [I]collection[/I] of anything and then contemplate some valid description of this specific [I]collection[/I]. If we can agree on the [I]unique[/I] things in this collection we have named, we could have a meaningful conversation about something. This is then the notion of a [I]system[/I], how we understand all physical things, even those physical things that give us a perception and an understanding of [I]abstract[/I] things. Let us name this [I]Systems[/I]-thinking, for future reference.
If it is not possible to name something and agree on its constituent parts - we could consider some anything in terms of something else. If we could agree on such a [I]relationship[/I], a meaningful conversation could also ensue. This is how we form an understanding of all conceptual things. And this we could name [I]Relation[/I]-thinking for future reference. In both instances some anything is understood as something. p16 [I]How I Understand Things. The Logic of Existence[/i]
Yes, on the face of it, describing reality with a single system does seem to be far fetched, perhaps even absurd. But then, this would depend on one's understanding of reality - an ambiguous notion it would seem - as well as one's understanding of a system - which is exactly the question contemplated by this discussion - also, it would seem, an ambiguous notion.
I was just describing something Ive seen. I dont think its a particularly important point. Whether someone is a monomaniac or not hardly matters. We can always ignore them. Who knows, one of them may eventually turn out to be Kant.
Deleted UserSeptember 17, 2025 at 15:53#10135580 likes
Thank you all for your contribution, and the debate that followed from: Does philosophy have a definition of a system? The second question, ... or better, a general systems theory; seemed to be a bit premature for philosophy.
Since the debate seemed to dry up, allow me to summarise the ten definitions that was mentioned. I will do this in the format; A system is ... that ...
@Baden a coherency of differences ... differentiate. @Gnomon a framework ... possesses properties. @T Clark a group of elements ... interact. @MoK irreducible entities ... has a set of properties. @jgill a set or universe ... explain meaning. @apokrisis interactions ... is successful. @Astorre elements that interact ... form properties that stabilise. @Outlander entities ... recognise with intent of an outcome. @punos a set of components ... constitute a whole. @Apustimelogist a Markov blanket ... separate a thing from its environment.
From this I conclude that the answer to my question is NO, only some notions with some similarities. But then, neither does systems- scientist and thinkers have an answer to this question.
Some follow-up questions, if you are thus inclined:
From your definition:
How do you determine what is part of the system and what is not?
Does philosophy have a definition of a system? The second question, ... or better, a general systems theory; seemed to be a bit premature for philosophy.
Apparently, you didn't get a definition that suited your purposes. Perhaps, you should specify a philosophical problem or application to which you want to apply Systems Thinking*1*2. For me, Jan Smuts' definition of Holism in Evolution*3 can also be applied to various philosophical questions. :smile:
PS___ You quoted Gnomon to say that a System has "properties". But it might be more accurate, for philosophical purposes, to say that an Integrated Whole System has non-physical Qualities, such as Life and Mind.
*1. Systems thinkingis a holistic approach to problem-solving that views issues as part of a larger, interconnected system, focusing on relationships, feedback loops, and patterns rather than isolated components.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=systems+thinking
*2. The philosophy of systems thinkingis a holistic approach that views phenomena as interconnected systems, moving beyond isolated problems to understand underlying structures, feedback loops, and long-term, systemic consequences. It emphasizes the whole being greater than the sum of its parts and is rooted in biology, cybernetics, and ecology, aiming to create more effective, adaptive, and sustainable solutions by considering the entire web of relationships within a complex situation.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=philosophy+of+systems+thinking
*3. Holism : Unfortunately, Holism is still controversial in Philosophy. That is primarily due to the practical and commercial success of reductive methods in the physical sciences. Methodological Reductionism attempts to understand a composite system by breaking it down into its component parts. And that approach works well for mechanical devices, but not so well for living things.
https://bothandblog8.enformationism.info/page33.html
Deleted UserSeptember 18, 2025 at 17:56#10137640 likes
Apparently, you didn't get a definition that suited your purposes. Perhaps, you should specify a philosophical problem or application to which you want to apply Systems Thinking
My purpose is clearly stated in my question, nothing more, nothing less. And, it would seem, I got me an answer.
Yes, on the face of it, describing reality with a single system does seem to be far fetched, perhaps even absurd. But then, this would depend on one's understanding of reality - an ambiguous notion it would seem - as well as one's understanding of a system - which is exactly the question contemplated by this discussion - also, it would seem, an ambiguous notion.
To describe cosmic reality with a "single system" might require omniscience. But that hasn't stopped ambitious philosophers from trying*1, including yours truly. I get the impression that System Building is offensive --- arrogant, absurd, ambiguous --- to those for whom everything is relative, or for whom the universe is random instead of systematic & logical.
Most major religions have diagnosed a broken System, and offer some approach to repairing the break. Many are faith-based, with solutions only available to blindfolded believers. Others are methodical, such as Buddhism, offering a psychological technology for mind control. But even the Buddha admitted that ego-snuffing Enlightenment is a rare achievement. And resurrection & reincarnation merely postpone a final solution to some indefinite future heaven or nirvana. Some religions & philosophies blame the victims for their suffering, due to inherent weaknesses of human nature. In that case, the broken System is blamed on physicality instead of spirituality, the duality of Soul & Body.
Apparently, the answer you were searching for is that Philosophy does not have an answer to "What is a System". Seems you prefer to avoid Systems Thinking in favor of Categorical Philosophy*2, such as Kant's Imperative, or your own "Logic of Existence"*3. Is your theory a complete system, a moral law, or just another "ambiguous notion"? Is the answer "that there is no logical answer" : that Faith is the only answer? :smile:
*1. Philosophical system buildingis the creation of a comprehensive and coherent worldview that provides answers to major philosophical questions about reality, knowledge, morality, and existence. This approach involves connecting diverse ideas into a unified structure, drawing inspiration from figures like Plato, Aristotle, Hegel, and Whitehead. Systems philosophy also represents a modern philosophical approach that applies systems concepts to construct worldviews, emphasizing interconnectedness and emergent properties.
*2. "Categorical philosophy" most commonly refers to Immanuel Kant's concept of the categorical imperative, a universal moral law stating that one should act only according to principles that could rationally be willed as a universal law for everyone, and always treat humanity as an end in itself, never merely as a means to an end. This means that moral actions are binding absolutely, regardless of personal desires or goals, making them universal and obligatory for all rational beings
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=categorical+philosophy
*3. "How I Understand Things: The Logic of Existence"is a book that questions traditional philosophical and logical frameworks to explore how we perceive and understand existence, challenging the notion that logic can fully capture the nature of being. The work critiques classic systems like rationalism and phenomenology, arguing that their separation of mind and body, or their overemphasis on conceptualization, fails to grasp the pervasive reality of existence itself. Instead, it proposes that existence is signified by the verb "to be" within a judgment, rather than residing in the subject or predicate, and invites readers to re-examine their perceptions of knowledge and reality.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=How+I+Understand+Things.+The+Logic+of+Existence
Note --- Heidegger's system, Dasein, is interwoven instead of isolated.
apokrisisSeptember 19, 2025 at 02:08#10138610 likes
How do you determine what is part of the system and what is not?
If you subtract a part from the system, does it cease to act as a system?
So one could remove any cog in a watch and it would stop telling the time. But if you got a bucket and tried to scoop out every whorl in a turbulent stream, whorls would just keep reappearing until you changed the whole system. Like cutting off the water flow or cooling it until it changed state and became a frozen block of ice.
You will note this is an easy way to tell mechanical systems and natural systems apart. And so why a mechanical view of nature is felt not to be enough by many philosophers.
Topological order tells you that systems form within systems to create a nested hierarchy of order. One kind of thing can become the ground for the next kind of thing. But now your maths and physics has to start getting sophisticated to handle that.
However a simple example might be that if a stream freezes, you can now walk across it. Constraints imposed at the level of H2O molecules become freedoms created at the level of some new system that can construct itself upon them.
The Greeks called it a Cosmos. We call it the Universe. Metaphysics would try to understand it as the metalogic of existence. A General Systems Theory such as you have already dismissed. :up:
Deleted UserSeptember 19, 2025 at 12:00#10139080 likes
*3. "How I Understand Things: The Logic of Existence"is a book that questions traditional philosophical and logical frameworks to explore how we perceive and understand existence, challenging the notion that logic can fully capture the nature of being. The work critiques classic systems like rationalism and phenomenology, arguing that their separation of mind and body, or their overemphasis on conceptualization, fails to grasp the pervasive reality of existence itself. Instead, it proposes that existence is signified by the verb "to be" within a judgment, rather than residing in the subject or predicate, and invites readers to re-examine their perceptions of knowledge and reality.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=How+I+Understand+Things.+The+Logic+of+Existence
I have read this response to my work by an artificial intelligent (AI) agent. One should keep in mind that AI has not obtained the capability of abstract thought as yet. Thus, AI is incapable to understand my work. I am still hoping to find an "astute reader", capable of abstract thought and who subscribe to Leonardo da Vinci's dictum, "Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence; he is just using memory."
Deleted UserSeptember 19, 2025 at 12:54#10139260 likes
So one could remove any cog in a watch and it would stop telling the time. But if you got a bucket and tried to scoop out every whorl in a turbulent stream, whorls would just keep reappearing until you changed the whole system. Like cutting off the water flow or cooling it until it changed state and became a frozen block of ice.
I understand what you are saying, but I fail to see its relevance to the question.
You will note this is an easy way to tell mechanical systems and natural systems apart. And so why a mechanical view of nature is felt not to be enough by many philosophers.
You cannot tell me, exactly, what is a system, yet you maintain that your notion (of a system) can distinguish between mechanical systems and natural [i]systems[/I]. Then you complain that philosophers finds this insufficient. How odd.
Topological order tells you that systems form within systems to create a nested hierarchy of order. One kind of thing can become the ground for the next kind of thing. But now your maths and physics has to start getting sophisticated to handle that.
Really, 'systems form within systems', how does this happen? By your definition interactions forms a system (by some unspecified process, I assume), then somehow decide to form a system within a system. How odd.
The meta-mathematics required to describe a fundamental general system is actually quite simple.
The Greeks called it a Cosmos. We call it the Universe. Metaphysics would try to understand it as the metalogic of existence.
You did not answer my question. From your definition then: some interactions formed a system of all systems and you call it the Universe. And this Universe is your 'metaphysical extreme'?
If you subtract a part from the system, does it cease to act as a system? apokrisis
Yes!
I believe the answer to this question is not as simple as yes or no. Removing a single part from a system does not necessarily mean it ceases to be a system, although it might. Removing a part may simply change how the system functions. Likewise, adding a part to the system will result in a functional change, or the new part may completely disrupt the system and cause it to collapse or break.
It seems to me that there exists a minimal construct that represents the simplest form of a particular kind of system. Subtracting any part from this minimal system will destroy it, while adding parts may or may not destroy it, depending of course on the compatibility of the new part with the existing system structure. This essentially allows a system to either evolve or go extinct.
So i do think your answer to the question is correct, but only in the context of a minimally viable system.
Thus, AI is incapable to understand my work. I am still hoping to find an "astute reader", capable of abstract thought and who subscribe to Leonardo da Vinci's dictum, "Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence; he is just using memory."
Is anyone on this forum capable of understanding your work? Have you found an "astute reader" elsewhere? If so, how do they answer your challenge : "what is a system?" Has anyone found a "fatal error" in your reasoning?
I don't consider Google's AI Overview to be an authority, but it is a good sifting filter for combing through complex verbiage, abstruse terminology, and esoteric discourse, in order to provide a capsule summary for non-experts. And it provides links to human-authored sources, where abstruse abstractions may be defined in common language.
Your cryptic descriptions in this thread seem to convey what your non-system is not, but leaves undefined (nebulous) what it is. Apparently, whatever-it-is is notGeneral Systems Theory, as defined by Bertalanffy, to distinguish Holism from Reductionism, and to broaden science's focus on isolated parts & sub-systems.
This thread has devolved to a sideline debate on whether "rocks have beliefs". Could you give us a dumbed-down hint, for us non-astute readers, of your ingenious definition of a System, to get us back on track? :smile:
*1. General Systems Theory : Systems theory is an interdisciplinary field of study that views the world as a complex network of interconnected and interdependent parts, where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. It emphasizes how these components interact and influence each other within a larger system, providing a holistic perspective that contrasts with reductionist approaches. Originating in biology with figures like Ludwig von Bertalanffy, it has been applied to diverse fields such as psychology, sociology, ecology, and engineering to understand and address complex problems.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=general+systems+theory
*2. How can you determine what is part of a system? first define the system's purpose and boundary, then identify its interrelated components (elements, interconnections, function) that, when working together, produce a whole greater than the sum of its parts. An essential component is one whose removal prevents the system from achieving its goals.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=how+to+determine+what+is+a+part+of+a+system
Note --- If the universe/cosmos is a System, what component is essential to its purpose? If the system has no function or purpose, is it actually a System? Is that your point?
ApustimelogistSeptember 19, 2025 at 21:25#10140130 likes
How do you determine what is part of the system and what is not?
Is it possible for a system to contain a system?
If yes, what exactly is a system of all systems?
In the Markov Blanket perspective, there are no strict boundaries and systems under this definition can be recursively nested within each other, which is natural; molecules in cellular components in cells in organs in people in societies, ecosystems, solar systems, etc, etc.
Because its a rigorous formal framework, it can be put into practise. An interesting proposal in this paper where they do this, producing algorithms for distinguishing systems and components of systems - "a Markov Blanket detection algorithm".
https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.21217
apokrisisSeptember 19, 2025 at 21:52#10140200 likes
It seems to me that there exists a minimal construct that represents the simplest form of a particular kind of system. Subtracting any part from this minimal system will destroy it, while adding parts may or may not destroy it, depending of course on the compatibility of the new part with the existing system structure. This essentially allows a system to either evolve or go extinct.
But this is just dumbing down the idea of a system to make it fit our idea of a machine as the canonical system.
The metaphysical definition of a system dates back to Aristotle's view of causality which said the natural world is formed of its four causes efficient and material cause coupled to formal and final cause. So a system has all four causes, and thus functionality is part of its essence. But a machine is merely, in itself, just a "system" of material and efficient cause. It is a severely reduced system in that half its reason for being has gone missing in the larger story that metaphysics would want to tell.
So consider this. Is a watch part of a system for telling the time?
And then is a cog also part of a system for telling the time? Or perhaps only a part of a system for the more general task of constructing clockworks and other systems where control over gearing ratios is off prime functional concern?
So a watch can be part of a time telling system. Humans can have this need to measure out the day as if time were itself a mechanical process. And then quite naturally, mechanisms that can do that job will start to emerge in the world. The desire is realised as a form that becomes imposed on material being as some precisely engineered arrangement of efficient cause.
The word "system" properly applies to the four cause level of analysis. The whole of what is going on. The systems view is what closes some set of interactions so that they exhibit emergence and self-organisation.
Humans want to tell the time. They might start by dividing the passing of the day using a sun-dial. Then clockwork might do the job better. Eventually a digital circuit can use the vibrations of a crystal to count out time beats with incredible precision.
But these devices just tell the time. That is, there is someone for whom the information matters. The someone that closes the system of causes by having a goal and determining its form.
If the watch on your wrist breaks say a cog snaps off then do you wait forever to see if the watch starts to heal itself, evolve its way back to functionality? Or do you take advantage of there being shops that fix watches, and shops that can sell you better watches in short, a general human system for time-telling that is self-organising in ways that come together to serve that general purpose.
So then a General Systems Theory would extend that very human-centric view of causality to Nature at its most generic level. The minimal system in that "whole of nature" regard.
We would get back to Aristotle's four causes, but now equipped with what modern science and maths has to say about self-organising complexity and dissipative structure.
But this is just dumbing down the idea of a system to make it fit our idea of a machine as the canonical system.
I wouldnt call it a dumbing down, but more of a focusing in. For me, a system is a kind of machine, and a machine is a kind of system, so i dont really make a distinction between the two terms.
As for the rest of what you wrote, i mostly agree, although i dont use Aristotles causal framework. I think youre right about the watch. The watch is both a product of and a part of the larger system of human timekeeping, and it serves the purpose of that larger system. The cog is to the watch as the watch is to the system of time keeping.
apokrisisSeptember 19, 2025 at 23:36#10140480 likes
For me, a system is a kind of machine, and a machine is a kind of system, so i dont really make a distinction between the two terms.
Well exactly. But system science does.
So at best you can argue that there are mechanical systems that exist as a subset of the more general metaphysical notion of a system, which is the Aristotelean four causes one.
You personally might not make this distinction. And indeed it is quite common for folk to fail to make this distinction. Yet it is a distinction that exists in philosophy and was about Aristotle's most important contribution to the history of ideas.
The cog is to the watch as the watch is to the system of time keeping.
As I also have said, systems can form nested hierarchies of systems. Aristotle's four causes describes the basic structure of a hierarchy a system that marries top-down formal and final constraint to its bottom-up material and efficient freedom. Then within this cosmic-level structure, you can have any number of systems within systems. Galaxies, stars and solar systems. Plate tectonics, landscapes, the paddocks of a farm.
So a cog is to the watch as the watch is to time-keeping. Except the watch as a system is caught between the clockwork that is its material and efficient causes, and the world of watch-wearers with their keen interest in keeping an accurate count of the passing of the hours, minutes, and even sometimes the seconds.
So yes, the watch has to be made of something its cogs as toothed disks of brass that can be locked into patterns of efficient cause. And it also has to do something in a functional sense. It exists in the final analysis as there is this top-down constraint in the form of a society of creatures who have the burning need to make a count of the passing of time.
Why does a watch exist? We can't answer that question fully without following Aristotle's four cause approach. The hierarchical logic that defines the holism of a system even if it is a sub-system within the system that is Cosmos as a whole.
So at best you can argue that there are mechanical systems that exist as a subset of the more general metaphysical notion of a system, which is the Aristotelean four causes one.
Why would that be the best i can argue?
And yes, i understand that systems science, and others, may or may not distinguish between a system and a machine, but i do not (for a reason, not out of ignorance), and that approach has not failed me so far. Im also certain that the Aristotelian way of looking at it is an excellent method for making these system determinations, but i prefer to use my own energy-information framework to work these things out. Each of the four Aristotelian causes is fundamentally an energy-information system, or the product of a one. Each one is some mixture of formative information and causal energy.
apokrisisSeptember 20, 2025 at 02:34#10140720 likes
And yes, i understand that systems science, and others, may or may not distinguish between a system and a machine, but i do not (for a reason, not out of ignorance),
but i prefer to use my own energy-information framework to work these things out.
Did you mean entropy-information? Kind of like holography, dissipative structure theory, and other examples of physics turning to explicit use of systems metaphysics?
Each of the four Aristotelian causes is fundamentally an energy-information system, or the product of a one. Each one is some mixture of formative information and causal energy.
Uh huh. So Aristotlean hylomorphism as the way his four causes cash out as a hierarchical systems view of substantial being?
Except probably not as hylomorphism arranges things into form/finality as top-down constraint and material/efficient causality as the bottom-up constructing degrees of freedom.
So what you describe is the division into the global structure that constrains and the local potential that gets thus shaped up. The whole produces the parts that are of the right type to (re)construct the whole. But then in contradiction, both the whole and parts are mixes of constraints and potentials themselves?
Perhaps you can explain what you would mean by formal and final cause, and material and efficient causes, being mixtures as you describe. Like what are the proportions in each case and how does that explain the differences between the four causes?
I mean one does want to be able to see how the four causes become the dichotomy of material and formal cause in the hylomorphic formulation. But that doesnt appear too hard to explain in terms of the local-global distinction being paired with a particular-general distinction.
Finality as the long-run general goal and formal causal as the immediate and particular structure achieving that goal. Then materiality as the long-run general potential and efficient cause as the immediate particular action that results from that general material possibility.
So four gets reduced to two x two. You get a global vs local division. But now also a particular vs general division that cuts across that.
This could be what you are angling at. Each of the four causes is itself a mix of the two directions in which the pie can be sliced. Local-global in scale and particular-general in terms of, well, scale.
Material cause would become the raw global potency that is also the sharply individuated possibility.
Efficient cause becomes the sharply particular action which is itself a general long-run feature of the causal order.
Likewise finality is the generality of a purpose that is then also being narrowed to a specific aim, while form is the specific structure that could in fact be a generic class on answers. You can any kind of drainage pattern to empty your bath or organise your thunderstorm, but actually it has to be vortical.
So yes, even duality looks to require duality to complete its duality. What gets broken one way must in return break that which could have broken it, thus returning everything to a unifying whole.
Kind of just like the BIg Bang universe as the double inversion of that which starts out ultimately hot and small in scale to become the ultimately cold and large. The story of a constant doubling in spacetime extent that produces the constant halving of its energy density content.
So hot=>cold because small=>large. And in the end, nothing has changed even though everything has indeed changed. You have inversions of scale in two different directions - extent and content - but each also cancels out the other. Least extent and maximum content become maximum extent and least content.
Im just pointing out that this kind of doubled inversion is both really complicated to imagine when it is an unfamiliar idea but also that systems logic is how we are now finding our universe to actually be.
It might be where your own metaphysics was headed. That might be why the four causes seem also to have their own further internal structure. As indeed I agree that they do. Each is defined by its positioning within a pair of reciprocal contrasts. The local-global and the particular-general. The kind of complex matrix multiplication that modern physics does need to employ to keep track of the symmetry breaking that is fundamental to the story of the Big Bang cosmos.
Deleted UserSeptember 21, 2025 at 07:07#10142420 likes
I believe the answer to this question is not as simple as yes or no. Removing a single part from a system does not necessarily mean it ceases to be a system, although it might. Removing a part may simply change how the system functions. Likewise, adding a part to the system will result in a functional change, or the new part may completely disrupt the system and cause it to collapse or break.
It seems to me that there exists a minimal construct that represents the simplest form of a particular kind of system. Subtracting any part from this minimal system will destroy it, while adding parts may or may not destroy it, depending of course on the compatibility of the new part with the existing system structure. This essentially allows a system to either evolve or go extinct.
So i do think your answer to the question is correct, but only in the context of a minimally viable system.
Perhaps an interesting argument but, surely, a valid definition of a system must answer the question that is implied by your argument, not so?
Deleted UserSeptember 21, 2025 at 07:57#10142480 likes
If you read this "thread" carefully you should find that I did not offered any definition of a system. In fact I asked whether philosophy has such a definition: Quoting Pieter R van Wyk
I am curious, does philosophy have a definition of a system, or even better, a general systems theory? The word is bandied about ad nauseam and I am not convinced that it is always correctly used!
Also, I think I have proved my point: The word system is bandied about ad nauseam without any agreed upon understanding, only some ambiguous notions.
Then, AI might be a good "sifting filter" but it cannot recognise a valid new contribution to knowledge. Yes, of course, it could tell you whether a certain understanding is in agreement with the understanding of: Aristotle, Jean Baudrillard, Georg Cantor, Charles Darwin, Kurt Godel, Douglas Kellner, Nicholas Reschar, Bertrand Russel, Ernst Zermelo or any other name one could add to this list; or not. Any new knowledge, real, abstract or imaginary is quite beyond its current capability. For these things you will have to use human intelligence.
I like sushiSeptember 21, 2025 at 07:59#10142490 likes
Reply to Pieter R van Wyk It would depend entirely on your use of the word 'system'. A quick look at a standard dictionary entry will reveal that the term can be applied in different ways.
Removing something from a system may or may not render it useless. A cog from a clock would likely render it useless, whereas removing the planet Neptune from the solar system would not result in the Solar System no longer existing.
Words can have mulitple meanings and used in an infinite number of sentences.
Abstractions are abstractions. How and why you apply them is up to you. The uses of doing so have limitations.
Perhaps an interesting argument but, surely, a valid definition of a system must answer the question that is implied by your argument, not so?
Not so. The manner in which we use language need not be rational. If anything it helps to either obscure or highlight irrational thoughts and deal with (or not).
A valid definition has nothing much to do with a valid argument.
P1: Potatoes only Eat People.
P2: A Potato has Eaten.
C: A Person has been Eaten.
How I am defining Potato/Potatoes, Person/People and Eat/Eaten is irrelevant.
If the term 'system' can be used in various ways for abstract and physical systems. What you are trying to ask for is something like the height of a human being. There is no definite answer to this, only a set of limits. Which is, ironically, probably a valid definition of what a system necessarily is. Such a definition also deals with the Set of All Sets, as this could not be a definition according to what I have just said as it has not limits.
Deleted UserSeptember 21, 2025 at 15:11#10142650 likes
A totally concede that the colloquial use of the word system is ambiguous, hence my question whether philosophy has a definition of a system. A definition that would remove this ambiguity.
Let me explain with an example: The colloquial use of the word set is just as ambiguous. But in mathematics, therefore also in engineering as well as technology; an ambiguous understanding of set is totally not acceptable. If I may quote the mathematician Charles Wells: "The word or phrase being defined may involve a word that already exists, but the connotations associated with that word are worthless when one undertake to prove something about the concept that the definition defines." or Alexander Backlund: "To bear Systems Theory in mind one should envision some sort of logical and mathematical basis as a formal unambiguous language."
The ambiguity of a set is removed, for example, with axioms such as those by Zermelo and Fraenkel. It would seem that no such understanding of a system is available.
I merely enquired whether philosophy has "some sort of logical" definition of a system - philosophers bandy the word around just as most other people. In fact, in 2000, Nicholas Rescher proposed that concepts such as: cohesive systematisation, systemic order, systemic role, system of explanatory understanding, ... just might pay The Price of an Ultimate Theory, but failed to define what he understood with the word system.
I have asked my question, I have my answer. Thank you for your participation.
By the way, if Neptune is removed from our solar system, all life on earth will cease to exist - we would not know whether the solar system would still exist or not.
I like sushiSeptember 22, 2025 at 02:16#10143550 likes
By the way, if Neptune is removed from our solar system, all life on earth will cease to exist - we would not know whether the solar system would still exist or not.
How so?
Deleted UserSeptember 22, 2025 at 08:48#10143800 likes
Reply to I like sushi
Our solar system is a finely balanced many-body problem, quite difficult to solve mathematically. A two-body problem can be solved analytically but a many-body problem can only be solved numerically. However, please consider the gravitational force exerted on system earth by the following celestial bodies and by system earth on these bodies:
F(sun) = 3.52E22 newton
F(moon) = 1.98E20 newton
F(Neptune) = 2.21E15 newton
In comparison, the worlds total population exerts a force of 4.86E12 newton on system earth.
If any of these celestial bodies would be "removed" from the solar system this fine balance would be catastrophically disrupted and the expected environmental disaster would not be a political talking point, it would be de facto. Or if our solar system evolved sans Neptune, our system earth would have evolved completely different to what it did.
I assume your question was just out of curiosity, or do you want to make a point?
I like sushiSeptember 22, 2025 at 09:20#10143820 likes
Oh, don't mind him. He's just a bit miffed his series of YouTube video lectures on philosophy didn't quite take off as he may have wished or expected. :wink:
Are you really that nice old man in your profile picture? What a fascinating life you must have lived. I do wish you'd share more, perhaps in the Lounge or Shoutbox? It's fine if not. Time is no commodity, for any of us, really. :confused:
Deleted UserSeptember 22, 2025 at 14:33#10144120 likes
@Outlander
Thank you for your kind words and yes the picture in my profile is actually mine. As for the "nice old man" ... that would depend on whom you ask: my grandchildren might agree, Reply to I like sushi might not.
At the moment I do not have any more pertinent questions for this forum. I will comment on some of the other discussions though. It is difficult to share more of my work: 'If I show you a few pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, they are the only things that you will see - a few pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. I had to build the puzzle to the extent that the picture starts to appear for you to understand the picture that I see.' p232 [I]How I Understand Things. The Logic of Existence[/I]
What exactly is the purpose, extent and method of the Lounge and Shoutbox? Could it help me get a decent, critical, honest review of my work?
OutlanderSeptember 22, 2025 at 14:46#10144140 likes
What exactly is the purpose, extent and method of the Lounge and Shoutbox?
Oh, my good sir, that depends wholly and entirely upon whom you ask! Some people consider the Lounge a metaphorically graveyard of sorts, where threads that are less than popular are sent to die. Others consider it a place to test one's ideas and theories to see how weighted they are, as far as value. Sort of a "throwing what have you at the wall to see what sticks" kind of free for all arena. As for me? I just use it to play Chess. :smile:
The Shoutbox is a bit of a random, sort of free-for-all chat. Not unlike the Lounge. Just a social element for "social-ness" sake, I suppose. That said, I've read many a great tale on such a venue. Just a place where if you have something on your mind you think others might find of value, no matter how small, so long as it's genuine, you might wish to comment on and just see what others have to say. Mutual engagement and mutual entertainment, one might reduce such to. Not unlike the regular forum, in which strict rules and prose are to be expected. Just a bit of a fun place really, to speak with others like-minded who may generally hold such concepts to a bit lower standard of necessity than the common person these days.
Could it help me get a decent, critical, honest review of my work?
It most certainly could. Though, and I don't mean to impose, are you familiar with recording and uploading video? It might do wonders to get your message across. It's quite simple these days, really. Why, even opening up YouTube almost explains the process perfectly. One side note, however. This website has an odd reputation for people "promoting their work" (which, unlike yours, is generally not of high quality) so the site owner, and as a result his staff, tend to frown upon self-promotion in general. But if done with tact, subtly, perhaps in a link in one's profile or as I said, interesting and engaging videos, such might occur. Such might occur.
It's great to have a published author engaging here, I'm sure @Jamal would agree. That said, there's a bit of a taboo in regards to self-promotion as far as links and book names and whatnot. But anything short of that, let this venue be your oyster, not unlike the market squares of olde! :smile:
I like sushiSeptember 22, 2025 at 14:46#10144150 likes
Our solar system is a finely balanced many-body problem, quite difficult to solve mathematically. A two-body problem can be solved analytically but a many-body problem can only be solved numerically. However, please consider the gravitational force exerted on system earth by the following celestial bodies and by system earth on these bodies:
F(sun) = 3.52E22 newton
F(moon) = 1.98E20 newton
F(Neptune) = 2.21E15 newton
In comparison, the worlds total population exerts a force of 4.86E12 newton on system earth.
If any of these celestial bodies would be "removed" from the solar system this fine balance would be catastrophically disrupted and the expected environmental disaster would not be a political talking point, it would be de facto. Or if our solar system evolved sans Neptune, our system earth would have evolved completely different to what it did.
Really? :D
I like sushiSeptember 22, 2025 at 14:51#10144170 likes
I tend not to involve myself in matters of which I am unfamiliar with. These are titles, vernacular, and above all formulae and mathematics I have never made the decision to study or be informed of, but above all remain ignorant of.
I do agree he is correct as to the "if one planetary body, no matter how minute or seemingly insignificant is removed, great disarray and unrest would follow" claim. I'm fairly certain that's scientific knowledge. Whether those great vanguards who protect such wish to promote it or not.
I like sushiSeptember 22, 2025 at 14:57#10144190 likes
Reply to Outlander I suggest you learn a little about gravity first and the scales we are talking about. It would do next to nothing.
OutlanderSeptember 22, 2025 at 15:01#10144210 likes
I suggest you learn a little about gravity first and the scales we are talking about. It would do next to nothing.
Gravity will be there. It was there before humans and will surely be there after. Why the rush? Why the offense at human error? You act as if you couldn't be an example of such. Couldn't any of us? At least at some point in life? :confused:
wonderer1September 22, 2025 at 15:42#10144270 likes
I do agree he is correct as to the "if one planetary body, no matter how minute or seemingly insignificant is removed, great disarray and unrest would follow" claim.
So we better not send anything from the Earth to the Moon or to Mars and leave it there, because doing so would result in the solar system flying apart.
Oh wait, we're doomed.
I like sushiSeptember 22, 2025 at 15:44#10144290 likes
So we better not send anything from the Earth to the Moon or to Mars and leave it there, because doing so would result in the solar system flying apart.
No human being has ever created or destroyed a planetary body. That would be space debris. Or a satellite, at best.
You're a fun one, now aren't you?
Deleted UserSeptember 22, 2025 at 15:53#10144320 likes
This website has an odd reputation for people "promoting their work" (which, unlike yours, is generally not of high quality) so the site owner, and as a result his staff, tend to frown upon self-promotion in general.
I have been warned, quite sternly, about self promoting, but was informed that I may reference my own work. I am trying my level best to adhere to this, quite ambiguous, rule.
Interesting place, this forum. I ask a simple question about a definition of a system and end up arguing about absurd nonsensical planetary questions. How odd.
OutlanderSeptember 22, 2025 at 15:59#10144330 likes
I ask a simple question about a definition of a system and end up arguing about absurd nonsensical planetary questions. How odd.
Is it really, though? They do call it "the solar system", after all. Surely there's some relevance. Fleeting or not. :grin:
Deleted UserSeptember 22, 2025 at 16:25#10144370 likes
@Outlander
Okey-okey, I get your point. But consider this:
We speak of the solar [i]system[/I].
We cannot agree on what, exactly, is a [i]system[/I].
We make the absurd postulate that one planet could be removed from the solar [i]system[/I].
This could tell us whether the solar system is in fact a [i]system[/I].
Which clever philosopher stated that from a false (absurd) statement, anything can be proved?
Deleted UserSeptember 22, 2025 at 16:30#10144390 likes
Ah. You have a self-published theory to push. And you don't seem to have any interest in placing it within the 2500 year old tradition of systems thinking. Explains a lot.
"If and when we consider things, contemplate things and try to understand things, we can consider anything. In doing this we must convert some anything into something. And there are only two ways we can do this: First we could designate some name (perceive some possible purpose) to some collection of anything and then contemplate some valid description of this specific collection. If we can agree on the unique things in this collection we have named, we could have a meaningful conversation about something. This is then the notion of a system, how we understand all physical things, even those physical things that give us a perception and an understanding of abstract things. Let us name this Systems-thinking, for future reference.
If it is not possible to name something and agree on its constituent parts - we could consider some anything in terms of something else. If we could agree on such a relationship, a meaningful conversation could also ensue. This is how we form an understanding of all conceptual things. And this we could name Relation-thinking for future reference.
So far, this is rather rudimentary. But it does lean towards the kind of distinction that a contemporary systems thinker like Stanley Salthe makes. The difference between compositional hierarchies based on the relation: "Is-a-part-of" versus subsumption hierarchies where the relation is: "Is-a-kind-of".
I'll let AI generate an instant summary for you....
Stanley Salthe distinguishes compositional (or scalar) hierarchies, which are based on spatiotemporal scale, from subsumption (or specification) hierarchies, which are based on developmental history or logical relationships. The two models help to analyze complex systems from different perspectives.
Compositional (or scalar) hierarchies
This hierarchy is based on nested parts of a whole, defined by differences in magnitude, size, and rate of activity. It provides a snapshot of a system at a given moment in space and time.
Relationship: "Is-a-part-of".
Structure: Portrayed as boxes within boxes, or levels within a system. For example, a population contains organisms, which contain cells, which contain macromolecules.
Dynamic relationships: Lower-level components are constrained by the next higher level. Importantly, downward regulation is not transitive across the entire hierarchy but must be converted at each level.
Way of knowing: Understanding a system involves subdividing it into its constituent parts (a reductionist approach).
Subsumption (or specification) hierarchies
This hierarchy is based on logical or historical sequence, where earlier, more general conditions are subsumed by later, more specific ones. It describes how a system develops over time or how different fields of knowledge build upon one another.
Relationship: "Is-a-kind-of" or "develops-from".
Structure: Portrayed as nested brackets, with more specific classifications contained within more general ones. For example, the biological world is a special type of the material world, which is itself a part of the physical world: {physical world {material world {biological world}}}.
Dynamic relationships: Control or influence from a higher, more specific level (e.g., biological forms) can extend down through all lower levels (e.g., physical forces), as the higher levels impose new informational constraints on the lower ones.
Way of knowing: Understanding a system requires looking at its history or ancestral conditions.
Deleted UserSeptember 23, 2025 at 08:10#10145750 likes
Pluto is no longer a 'Planet' it is a 'Dwarf Planet'. Systems can change without losing structure.
I would humbly suggest that you rethink your statement, carefully. Are you suggesting that changing the name or our understanding of a thing, indicates a change in the system[/I] that contains this thing? Surely not! You could change the name of Pluto to Sushi and our solar [i]system will stay exactly as it is!
While you are rethinking your statement, perhaps you should rethink your understanding of a system - or, even better, share your definition of a system in this thread. Perhaps that would help us to understand you better.
I like sushiSeptember 23, 2025 at 08:24#10145780 likes
Reply to Pieter R van Wyk The physical thing does not change. I gave an example of a physical change that did not alter the physiccal system, in any significant way, with the removal of Neptune from the Solar System.
With the example of Pluto we have seen, in our life times, the conceptual tweaking of how we regard Pluto. In this case an abstract part of the system has changed, but it has not undermined the whole system.
Systems are refined to better encapsulate our understanding. Removing key blocks from a system can undermine it entirely, but not necessarily.
What is often hard to distinguish with the term system is how it can remain wholly abstract, wholly physical and everywhere in between.
Deleted UserSeptember 23, 2025 at 09:04#10145840 likes
Quite so, but if we do not agree on the basic principles, then we cannot agree on where we are going.
Now, could we agree on the following:
"Physical things exist. We will most certainly argue on how or why they exist and how, exactly, we could understand this existence, but we cannot argue on the fundamental truth of this statement. This is so because I must assume that my perception that I exist, physically, is valid perception. Also, I must assume that my perception that you exist physically, is a valid perception, as are these words that I am typing on a laptop that you are reading, and the table that I am working at, and the chair that I am sitting on. You see, if these assumptions of mine are false, then I do not exist, you do not exist, and the understanding that I am trying to describe to you cannot exist. - then nothing else would make any sense, only our non-existence. However, if and only if we could agree on this, then we could continue with this discourse." p12 [i]How I Understand Things. The Logic of Existence[/I]
Stanley Salthe distinguishes compositional (or scalar) hierarchies, which are based on spatiotemporal scale, from subsumption (or specification) hierarchies, which are based on developmental history or logical relationships. The two models help to analyze complex systems from different perspectives.
So, according to this AI summary, a system is: two models, one a compositional hierarchy the other a [i]subsumption hierarchy[/I]. Do you agree with my understanding?
apokrisisSeptember 23, 2025 at 09:48#10145870 likes
So, according to this AI summary, a system is: two models, one a compositional hierarchy the other a subsumption hierarchy. Do you agree with my understanding?
Two models as two perspectives on the same thing. One offers the synchronic view and the other the diachronic. So one focuses on how a hierarchical systems is, the other on how it developed. One speaks to structure and the other to process.
You get the drift. Complementary views that help make the complexity of a system comprehensible.
Deleted UserSeptember 23, 2025 at 09:53#10145880 likes
I gave an example of a physical change that did not alter the physiccal system, in any significant way, with the removal of Neptune from the Solar System.
I deduce that you have read the AI assessment of "If Neptune disappeared". Since AI is incapable of abstract thought I would regard this assessment as highly suspect. This is apart from the fact that your example is still absurd - it is in the same league as: If the heaven should fall, then we will all be waring blue caps.
I am still, eagerly, awaiting your definition (or at least your understanding) of a system.
Deleted UserSeptember 23, 2025 at 09:58#10145890 likes
Reply to apokrisis
I get the drift. But, in my humble opinion, a complementary view that renders the complexity of systems more comprehensible, is neither a definition nor a fundamental understanding.
I like sushiSeptember 23, 2025 at 10:09#10145900 likes
Reply to Pieter R van Wyk If you are still unwilling to admit a simple and plain mistake you made I will you leave you to wallow in disbelief.
I would even make a guess a say when all the planets in the Solar System aligned, back in the 90's I believe, the gravitional impact on Earth was greater than what would happen if Neptune disappeared. I might be wrong, but my basic understanding of gravity tells me this is a correct statement--and the world has not ended.
Deleted UserSeptember 23, 2025 at 10:13#10145910 likes
But, in my humble opinion, a complementary view that renders the complexity of systems more comprehensible, is neither a definition nor a fundamental understanding.
Opinions are worth shit. Make the argument if you can.
Your whole schtick about give me a fundamental definition is crackpot talk. Systems science is a large and varied field of study. It would be like asking you as an engineer to give me one fundamental definition of an engine. One that unifies all the types of engineers that there are.
OutlanderSeptember 23, 2025 at 11:48#10145950 likes
Oh my. What ever is brewing on your kettle tonight? Something fierce, no doubt. Let us not mistake the strength of one's drink, that it may correlate as such to one's validity.
As an interesting point of fact, most of the fresh foods we eat are grown from manure. I'm not sure if this was the point of your critique or an unintentional backfire, however I leave this here to be judged as it may be.
It would be like asking you as an engineer to give me one fundamental definition of an engine. One that unifies all the types of engineers that there are.
Seems simple enough. A reliable machinery or other thing similar that can predictably intake an expected input and produce an expected result. Not that complicated really, now is it? :confused:
Deleted UserSeptember 23, 2025 at 11:48#10145960 likes
Systems science is a large and varied field of study.
Quite so, but then, systems science is only 100 years in the making (the first logic-mathematical definition I found was published in 1923) - and the systems scientists still disagree on what exactly is a system.
On the other hand, philosophy is more than 2,000 years in the making but if there is one thing that I realised is that one should not ask a philosopher for a definition of philosophy.
Please consider:
"If one cannot state a matter clearly enough so that even an intelligent twelve-year-old can understand it, one should remain within the cloistered walls of the university and laboratory until one gets a better grasp of one's subject matter" - Margaret Mead (1901 - 1978)
Deleted UserSeptember 23, 2025 at 11:51#10145970 likes
Reply to apokrisis
An engine is a system that converts energy into work.
apokrisisSeptember 23, 2025 at 20:10#10146570 likes
So which one is the correct one or are they all correct or perhaps only a particular sublist of this list?
I would say that you are looking for a quantifiable definition, so one that is mathematically framed. One that is a geometry of relations. And a geometry that includes the tricky thing of quantifying the notion of what a system is even for. A theory of systems has to account for finality or purpose in some useful way.
Another tricky thing is that a theory of systems has to capture its ability to develop and self-organise. To grow and to scale.
So a systems scientist understands that they are seeking to mathematise and quantify this Aristotelean package. There are then quite an array of such models. And it is a work very much in progress.
We had a burst of activity in the 1980s with chaos theory, complexity theory, dissipative structure theory, fractals, scalefree networks, and so forth. Category theory added an angle that set theory couldnt provide. And things continue. Topological order for example.
So it is curious that all this has been happening to advance systems science and yet you seem not to even know what the field is up to.
apokrisisSeptember 23, 2025 at 20:28#10146610 likes
An engine is a system that converts energy into work.
Correct. So it is a thermodynamic system, a mechanical system and an intentional system. Or at least part of a social and economic system that values free energy as work.
So somehow it is both a part and a whole. It exists in a world that is a multiplicity of systems and yet also a system in itself. Each its own little world of maths and quantification for the engineer.
All this seems quite normal and sensible. One doesnt demand that there be one Margaret Mead level of definition that would suit a small and impatient child.
I like sushiSeptember 24, 2025 at 01:13#10147290 likes
I deduce that you have read the AI assessment of "If Neptune disappeared". Since AI is incapable of abstract thought I would regard this assessment as highly suspect. This is apart from the fact that your example is still absurd
It is almost like a child being told 3x3=9 not 10, and then turning around and saying "I was wrong, but numbers are stupid anyway!"
As for a defintion? I guess something like: When items (physical or abstract) interact and/or organise resulting in a reasonably persistent cohesive pattern. This is called a System. All Systems are necessarily limit bound.
I have already given you an example of a physical system and one that straddles both the abstract and the physical. The means by which you can understand the effects of gravity is by using the abstract system of mathematics. I am System. You are a System.
Anyway, enjoy yourself here. I feel like I have wasted my time here for the most part. Should have left it, but I am an eternal optimist about the capacities of others and my ability to communicate (much less so the later!).
Deleted UserSeptember 24, 2025 at 06:54#10147790 likes
I would say that you are looking for a quantifiable definition, so one that is mathematically framed. One that is a geometry of relations. And a geometry that includes the tricky thing of quantifying the notion of what a system is even for. A theory of systems has to account for finality or purpose in some useful way.
Yes, I have such a definition. A definition with a theory behind it. A theory that is translated into the language of mathematics. A theory that is based on a geometry of relations. A theory that has definite utility.
So a systems scientist understands that they are seeking to mathematise and quantify this Aristotelean package. There are then quite an array of such models. And it is a work very much in progress.
I have contributed to this work in progress and I claim my contribution to be definitive. Subject to somebody finding a fatal flaw in my reasoning.
We had a burst of activity in the 1980s with chaos theory, complexity theory, dissipative structure theory, fractals, scalefree networks, and so forth. Category theory added an angle that set theory couldnt provide. And things continue. Topological order for example.
Yes, and "compartment theory, graph theory net theory, game theory, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera!" "Systems are a fundamental thing: it requires a theory of its own. Our understanding is such a theory." p140 [i]How I Understand Things. The Logic of Existence[/I]
So it is curious that all this has been happening to advance systems science and yet you seem not to even know what the field is up to.
Wrong assumption, I know what the field is up to. At least from: Lewis, C.I. (15 March 1923). Facts, Systems, and the Unity of the World. The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 20, No.6, pp. 141 - 151. to Mobus, G.E. (2022), System Science: Theory, Analysis, Modelling, and Design. Springer Nature.
I have a handbook on the science of electricity, written in the 1890's. In which the authors, in the introduction, concede that they know about this new theory of electrons. But this theory is too new and not fully developed and not necessary to understand the science of electricity. All science is a work in progress - this includes systems science.
Deleted UserSeptember 24, 2025 at 07:02#10147800 likes
All this seems quite normal and sensible. One doesnt demand that there be one Margaret Mead level of definition that would suit a small and impatient child.
Please do not misquote me or Margaret Mead.
Deleted UserSeptember 24, 2025 at 07:12#10147810 likes
I claim my contribution to be definitive. Subject to somebody finding a fatal flaw in my reasoning.
So you self-publish on Amazon and try to drum up attention on some random philosophy forum with aggressive demands for definitions of what is a system that you can then dismiss. Never getting around to explaining what is so definitive about your own new contribution.
Doesnt seem crackpot at all.
Deleted UserSeptember 24, 2025 at 08:53#10147900 likes
Reply to apokrisis
To my recollection, I never dismissed, only questioned. :blush:
I like sushiSeptember 24, 2025 at 08:59#10147910 likes
Quite so, but then there is absolutely no utility in arguing with a person that believe an AI story on face value and then try to sell it as fact.
You were wrong. AI story? It is pretty run-of-the-mill knowledge. Is a secondary school grade understanding of gravitional fields really something people need AI to understand? for you it seems, but even then you do not believe it because you lack the basic understanding
At least you are showing what you are plain and clear for everyone.
Deleted UserSeptember 24, 2025 at 09:15#10147930 likes
Kindly reference the mathematical proof of your statement (belief of) regarding the effect of the hypothetical removal of Neptune from our solar system
quote="I like sushi;1014791"]It is pretty run-of-the-mill knowledge[/quote]
At some time it was pretty 'run-of-the-mill knowledge' that the earth is actually flat.
OutlanderSeptember 24, 2025 at 09:24#10147950 likes
No problem. I see you have also wasted some time on Youtube with some philosophical ramblings.
Hey now, let's be fair. What the heck else is anyone here doing? He's the only one I've seen so far who actually puts his face and voice behind his belief aside from mindless typing to strangers in states of various dishevelment (I assume that's how everyone else posts, but perhaps that's just me).
And what a shame that is! Why doesn't the site owner post videos. Or the mods, especially the ones who have great things to say. It's a tragedy. That's what it is, a tragedy. That most of us are either so shy or so non-dedicated we refuse to put ourselves out there.
So I do praise @i like sushi for doing that much. At the very least. And you too, what with your book. However, and it may not be your fault as certain people are not good under pressure and not able to "instantly respond" and require a quiet, relaxed environment and steady pace to do so, especially with age... I mean, why not post a few videos promoting your book and what you have to say? It's not going to kill you! Will it? :chin:
Deleted UserSeptember 24, 2025 at 11:39#10148020 likes
Never getting around to explaining what is so definitive about your own new contribution.
I concede, unequivocally, it is rude of me to ask for a definition of a system in this forum and not offer my own. I will rectify this in a new open discussion.
OutlanderSeptember 24, 2025 at 12:25#10148030 likes
Now look what you've gone and done. You made a poor old man "concede". How noble. Surely all great men wake up each morning with such a desire in their heart.
You're a slick talker. I can admit I've been fooled by your veneer here more than once. Nevermore. But I'll tell you now. If I wasn't retired. The lesson me and my sword would teach the likes of you, would be legendary. Nothing short of cataclysmic.
apokrisisSeptember 24, 2025 at 19:49#10148600 likes
We speak of the solar system.
[s]We[/s] {you} cannot agree on what, exactly, is a system. We {?} make the absurd postulate that one planet could be removed from the solar system.
This could tell us whether the solar system is in fact a system.
Perhaps, to retain an air of mystery, you have avoided defining the key term in your thread*1. But you seem to have in mind a simplistic concept of a system : like the game Jenga, where players try to avoid removing the essential part of a stack of static wooden blocks. That's a simple gravitation system.
The solar system though is a complex and dynamic system of bodies moving in space, within a larger system of galaxies. It's not likely to fall apart if one planet was destroyed by an extra-solar asteroid. Who has ever made such an "absurd postulate"? Various theories have attempted to explain the asteroid belt as the debris from a collision that "removed one planet from the system". But nobody postulated that the Sol-dominated system itself would fall apart and fly off into space. There is a mysterious organizing force that holds the system together.
One problem with the solar system example is "where do you draw the line" : the boundary between planetary system and inter-stellar space? The other issue is "what makes a bunch of blobs arrayed around a medium yellow star into a system worthy of a name"? Why not include all the rest of the Milky Way galaxy in your system? What is the "function" of our local system that makes it unique for Earth-bound observers? Could it be that the "purpose" of a planet in the habitable zone is to provide a habitat for humans? If not Earth, perhaps an extra-solar planetoid could serve the purpose. In modern evolutionary theory, the solar system as-a-whole functions as a life-friendly gravitational system, allowing biological stuff to emerge.
Systems are like logical Sets*2 : there are sets within sets within sets : a nested set hierarchy. But the set is simply a definition . . . created by a human mind. So you can include as many elements (parts) as you like. If you remove one keystone element, that set may vanish and become a member of a larger set.
So, you are correct that there is no such thing as a System. It's just an idea, not an object : a definition, not a ding an sich ; an organization, not a mess.. :smile:
*1. Philosophical Systems : To determine what is part of a system, you must first define its purpose and boundaries, and then identify the interacting elements, interconnections, and the system's environment that together produce a unified whole. The process involves a self-determined definition of the system's scope, focusing on the parts essential for fulfilling its function rather than the entire universe of possibilities.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=how+to+determine+what+is+a+part+of+a+system
*2. Logical Sets : In logic and mathematics, a set is a well-defined collection of distinct objects (called elements or members) that are thought of as a whole. Set logic refers to the use of logical operations within set theory, where basic logical connectives like "and" correspond to set operations such as intersection, while the study of sets itself is a foundational branch of mathematics for precise definitions.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=set+logic+definition
IS THIS AN ORGANIZED SYSTEM OR A DISORGANIZED CHAOS?
What is the purpose of stacked rocks?
I like sushiSeptember 25, 2025 at 02:28#10149310 likes
Reply to Outlander I recommend you try it yourself even if you do not publish. It can be an eye opener to watch and listen to yourself trying to explain something as concisely as you can on the fly. I recommend it to everyone I meet when discussing more intellectual claptrap :)
I have had several video calls from members on this site with the intent to record and publish on youtube to perhaps help boost interest in the forum--which I hope they enjoyed as much as I do. Only one was happy to be recorded though, and they were in academia. Sadly I accidently lost/erased the video, but it needed editing anyway due to the natural rambling (which I did not have time for).
I prefer a more face-to-face dialogue as it usually cuts through the BS and is usually more time efficient, as well as genuine: can get just as messy as threads here though but certainly more amicable.
Deleted UserSeptember 25, 2025 at 11:21#10149800 likes
IS THIS AN ORGANIZED SYSTEM OR A DISORGANIZED CHAOS?
This will depend on a possible purpose, not so? In my younger days I did some mountaineering, we used stacked rocks (like your picture) to mark a road, thus it was part of a navigation system. Your picture though, looks like a piece of art (A deliberate transformation of the feelings and emotions of the artist [the life form making the art], into a physical form. p96)
This will depend on a possible purpose, not so? In my younger days I did some mountaineering, we used stacked rocks (like your picture) to mark a road, thus it was part of a navigation system. Your picture though, looks like a piece of art (A deliberate transformation of the feelings and emotions of the artist [the life form making the art], into a physical form. p96)
So, you agree that the seemingly haphazard stack of irregularly shaped rocks is a "system", in the sense that it was produced, not by Nature, nor by mountain goats, but by a sentient agent with a future purpose in mind : navigation aid or abstract art???
Hence, a "System" can be defined as the deliberately organized result of imagination or intention? That would imply some ultimate intent, not an accident, that arranged a collection of rocky & gassy planets into a life-bearing arrangement of factors necessary for animation to emerge. Yes? :smile:
PS___ Astrobiologists have produced theories of necessities for extra-solar life to emerge. But, for most, divine or design Intention is not one of the essential requirements for a Living habitat or System to coalesce from random patterns of stars & planets .
Deleted UserSeptember 25, 2025 at 18:18#10150220 likes
A system consist of components (things that are) and the interactions between these components (things that happen) contributing to a single unique purpose. p27, p135
thing := defined by the Zeroth Argument of Existence. For some physical things, I have a valid perception of its existence. p13
components := includes mass or energy and is perceived to exist but does not change. p29
interaction := a function depicting a change (transfer of mass or energy) between a pair of components. p30
purpose := from the colloquial understanding of the word according to the Oxford Concise Dictionary, the reason for which something is done or created or for which it exist.
From How I Understand Things. The Logic of Existence
Deleted UserSeptember 26, 2025 at 07:49#10151910 likes
The concept of a system can also be understood from the following cognitive axioms:
There is one, and only one, system that is not a component of any other system. Named the Universal system.
There is one, and only one, system that is a component of all other systems. Named the Fundamental system.
Anything in the Universal System is systems in space-time or a component of a system.
Each and every system has a purpose.
From How I Understand Things. The Logic of Existence
A system consist of components (things that are) and the interactions between these components (things that happen) contributing to a single unique purpose. p27, p135
Now we're getting somewhere : a definition of "System" that may be relevant to the covert purpose of this thread. Example : A System is a collection of things designed for a specific purpose or function*1. Question : designed (created?) by Accident or Intention? Or, in the case of universals*2, not designed, nor contingent, but eternal & self-existent, like Plato's Form. But is the Purpose/Function top-down intentional, or bottom-up inferred, or both? :chin:
Note --- I've learned a new mathematical or logical symbol ":=" for the purposes of this work, the word to the left is stipulated to mean the description on the right.
There is one, and only one, system that is not a component of any other system. Named the Universal system
Traditionally, "The Universal System" has been labeled God, or some variation like Brahman (ultimate, unchanging, and infinite reality) . But is that unique set-of-all-things Real (tangible) or Ideal (conceptual) ; Quanta or Qualia ; Immanent or Transcendent? Spinoza and Smuts*3 identified the "one and only one" System with the immanent Universe or Nature. But the Big Bang theory has raised the question of some prior or higher Set or System. Alas, Multiverse & Many Worlds systems seem to water-down the notion of uniqueness. :smile:
*1. A "whole system" refers to an entire, self-contained entity consisting of numerous interconnected components and their relationships, working together to achieve a specific purpose or function. It emphasizes the totality of the system, including its structure, behavior, interactions, and the environment in which it operates. The concept is central to systems thinking and highlights that changes to one part of the system can have cascading effects on all other parts.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=definition+of+whole+system
*2. In philosophy, universals are repeatable characteristics or qualities that can be shared by many different particular things, such as the "greenness" of two green apples or the "humanity" shared by all people. The philosophical problem of universals questions whether these abstract universals actually exist in reality, and if so, how they exist and relate to the particular objects that embody them. Key positions include realism (universals exist independently), nominalism (universals are just names or concepts), and conceptualism (universals are concepts in the mind).
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=philosophy+universals
*3. Holismis the philosophical idea, coined by Jan Smuts in his 1926 book Holism and Evolution, that the universe has a fundamental tendency to form wholes that are more than the sum of their parts through a process of creative evolution. This concept describes an inherent, unifying, and organizing activity in nature that drives the emergence of increasingly complex structures, from molecules to minds, in a progressive series of "wholes".
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=smuts+holism+def
Deleted UserSeptember 27, 2025 at 07:31#10153040 likes
Question : designed (created?) by Accident or Intention?
From the fundamental definition of a system, it is possible to identify seven fundamental classes of systems:
Class 1 - with foundational existence
Class 2 - capable of decision-making
Class 3 - capable of survival
Class 4 - capable of communicating
Class 5 - capable of reasoning
Class 6 - capable of creating
Class 7 - capable of abstraction
These classes emerged subsequently and consequently with cumulative capabilities. Thus, systems exist only in the real world - that is, all systems are physical systems, but there exist systems with the capability of abstraction.
Moreover, this classification provides a theory of evolution sans any tautologies.
From How I Understand Things. The Logic of Existence
all systems are physical systems, but there exist systems with the capability of abstraction.
Moreover, this classification provides a theory of evolution sans any tautologies.
OK. Now we have narrowed-down the kind of Systems this thread is about. As far as we know, only physical biological beings*1 are capable of abstracting Ideas from concrete Reality. And only one of those physical sub-Systems has the capability to communicate their intangible ideas in the form of meaningful symbols : e.g. auditory or visual Words. The jury is still out on parrots & dolphins, which apparently can produce two-way communication to some degree. Even dogs can understand a few words of spoken language, but can't reciprocate except via body language, including barking and button-pushing .
Given that the ability to abstract ideas has evolved on at least one planet, what does that fact imply about Evolution in general? Were living & thinking & abstracting entities inevitable, perhaps because that was the Purpose of the evolutionary System from its Big Bang beginning? Was the System programmed or designed to produce Thinking Beings?
Are you implying that Darwin's Theory of Evolution is based on Tautologies or Axioms? For example "survival of the fittest" is a generalized definition from limited observations. And it only specifies reproductive success, not technological prowess, such as that of the world's most successful species of idea abstractors : homo sapiens. Do you have a non-tautological Theory of Evolution, that might explain how & why immaterial Abstract Ideas could emerge from a physical thermodynamic system? Is homo technologicus the acme of abstract evolution, or just an incomplete intermediate solution to the ultimate purpose of the cosmic developmental System? :smile:
*1. Abstract Thinkers : Animals such as primates (including chimpanzees and baboons), dolphins, pigs, dogs, crows, and even ducklings and chicks have shown evidence of abstract thought.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=animals+capable+of+abstract+thinking
Deleted UserSeptember 28, 2025 at 08:16#10154420 likes
OK. Now we have narrowed-down the kind of Systems this thread is about. As far as we know, only physical biological beings*1 are capable of abstracting Ideas from concrete Reality. And only one of those physical sub-Systems has the capability to communicate their intangible ideas in the form of meaningful symbols : e.g. auditory or visual Words. The jury is still out on parrots & dolphins, which apparently can produce two-way communication to some degree. Even dogs can understand a few words of spoken language, but can't reciprocate except via body language, including barking and button-pushing .
I am not sure what you are trying to say here:
When you refer to "kind of systems", are you referring to my, defined, classes of systems or something else?
I do not know what you mean, exactly, by a "sub-system"? There exist a class of systems with the capability of communication (Class 4 systems) and there exist a class of systems with the capability of abstraction (Class 7 systems). There are certainly trees (and parrots and dolphins and dogs) that are Class 4 systems. The jury is most certainly still out on: Are humans the only example of Class 7 systems, Are all humans examples of Class 7 systems.
Are you implying that Darwin's Theory of Evolution is based on Tautologies or Axioms?
I am not implying anything about Darwin's Theory of Evolution. To my knowledge it is based on two principles (neither tautologies nor axioms):
The principle of common descent in that diverse forms of life on earth emerged by the branching of a few or possibly one primitive kind.
The principle of natural selection in that evolutionary change and the formation of a new and distinct species occur because individuals in a population differ in their ability to survive and reproduce. These abilities tend to be inherited by their offspring.
To my knowledge it is still the accepted wisdom from philosophy that evolutionary theory is, in fact, not an empirical theory with falsifiable hypothesis but rather an elaborate set of tautologies. Refer, for example, to: Hunt, T (December 2014), [i]Reconsidering the logical structure of the theory of natural selection.[/I] Communicative & Integrative Biology 7(6), e972848; Published with licence by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
It is my perception that we are starting to diverge from the thread of this discussion. I have the answer to my question. Just as the systems- thinkers, scientists and engineers, philosophers do not have a definition, nor is it backed by a theory, of a general system. I have provided my definition of a general system and mentioned the classes of systems that I have deduced from this definition. This provides a very small part of a big picture:
"This complete work could be described as:
A canvas, mostly done in black and white. It should be noted that black is symbolic of nothing and white is symbolic of everything. In some places, there might be a little bit of shading done in grey, but it is far from complete. What I maintain is that the picture on the canvas is clear, and the canvas is the whole canvas as it should be. The canvas is complete, but the picture is not yet." p 232 How I Understand Things. The Logic of Existence
It just might be interesting to view the full canvas.
OK. Now we have narrowed-down the kind of Systems this thread is about. Gnomon
I am not sure what you are trying to say here:
When you refer to "kind of systems", are you referring to my, defined, classes of systems or something else?
I do not know what you mean, exactly, by a "sub-system"?
It just might be interesting to view the full canvas.
A. By "kind of system" I mean an organization*1 with a particular logical-or-physical, structure-or-function-or-purpose, that can be distinguished from an ordered pattern with a different structure or purpose.
B. All I know about your "defined classes of systems" is that it sounds like a definition of God, or G*D as I like to spell it.
C. By "sub-system" I mean an organization or structure that is a part, or sub-set, of a larger or more comprehensive system of a similar type or kind : e.g. solar system is a sub-system of cosmos.
By "narrowed-down" I meant, that you have finally given me enough information to begin to understand what you mean by "system". But I'm still not sure how you interpret & apply that notion to a philosophical worldview. I won't take the time to "view the full canvas" until I'm convinced it will be worth the time invested. Meanwhile, we tip-toe around the margins of Systems as a universal concept.
For my own philosophical purposes, my current understanding of world Systems is amenable to Jan Smuts' concept of Holism*2. It's simple, but universal. He applied it specifically to biological Evolution. But it has since been used to explain a variety of scientific & philosophical questions : complexity, causation, organization, information, computation, communication, organism, ideology, theology, etc. :smile:
*1. Organization : In a scientific context, organization refers to the structured and hierarchical arrangement of components within systems, particularly living organisms, where parts are organized into increasingly complex levels (e.g., atoms to molecules to cells) to perform specific functions essential for life. This arrangement is a fundamental characteristic of life and is studied in various scientific fields, including biology, where it describes the hierarchy of life from molecules to ecosystems, and organizational science, which examines the structures, processes, and behaviors of groups and entities
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=science+organization+definition
*2. Holismis the interdisciplinary idea that systems possess properties as wholes apart from the properties of their component parts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holism
From the fundamental definition of a system, it is possible to identify seven fundamental classes of systems:
Class 1 - with foundational existence
Class 2 - capable of decision-making
Class 3 - capable of survival
Class 4 - capable of communicating
Class 5 - capable of reasoning
Class 6 - capable of creating
Class 7 - capable of abstraction
As I mentioned above, taken together, these characteristics of systems seem to add-up to a Creator God as the System-of-all-systems. Hence our space-time world is a sub-system of the Set-of-all-sets. In the abstract, this list could apply to A> the God of Abraham, Isaac & Jacob, or B> Hindu Brahman, or C> Spinoza's deus sive natura. Was that your intention? :smile:
1, Fundamental, non-temporal, non-contingent, self-existent
2. Election : ability to choose from alternatives
3. Eternal existence
4. Divine revelation, manifestation
5. Logos, rational Form
6. Creative & Causal
7. Generalizing universals from specifics : Ideas from Reals and vice-versa?
#. And the System rested on the seventh class . . . . .
Deleted UserSeptember 29, 2025 at 10:43#10155930 likes
I won't take the time to "view the full canvas" until I'm convinced it will be worth the time invested.
So be it, then.
But I do stipulate the following: "It is my claim that our (my) theory is reductionism and holism, not reductionism or holism. p200 How I Understand Things. The Logic of Existence
Meanwhile, we tip-toe around the margins of Systems as a universal concept.
Quite so, but consider, one of us is standing with his nose to the ground and expect the other one to explain his whole world (Universe?) to the one with his nose to the ground.
This leads to the conclusion that a system, in our everyday understanding, is a conscious construct.
You're asking for a lively discussion, not just references. And here's my first assertion:
The word "system" was invented by humans to describe phenomena.
This word successfully describes some phenomena and less so others: for example, "system" is suitable for describing the mechanism of a watch, but it's inappropriate for describing a phenomenon such as the system of the world order. In short, in my opinion, nothing is a system in itself, but we are comfortable calling a system some part of what we work on/study/research/create. A system is a concept we use to reflect the structures of the world. And since the word "system" is a concept, we (humanity as a whole) can agree on what we understand by this word, and that will be an accurate definition of the concept.
However, yesterday, walking down the street, I thought: Is there anything in the world around us that couldn't be called a system? A stone is a system of molecules, an anthill is a survival system, and the solar system is a system of orbits. Therefore, a system is everything: from any existing entity to the value system in our heads.
From the above theses, it follows that there cannot be any "matter" or "substance" of a system. A system is not a thing, but a way of talking about things.
So, can we name, define, and set boundaries for this concept? I think it's possible, but we should define it not by searching for the matter of a system, but by identifying the characteristics inherent in systems. In other words, the main idea is to define the characteristics of a system.
So, here are what I would call the characteristics of a system:
1. It consists of elements
2. The elements interact with each other
3. By "working" together, the elements develop new properties than each element individually
4. Boundaries (which the knower will name, since otherwise the system is everything)
5. The elements are structured (organized and ordered)
6. Stability over time (the pattern persists for a sufficiently long time, at least more than a single moment).
Deleted UserSeptember 30, 2025 at 07:59#10157280 likes
Quite so, and thank you for your contribution. Your "assertion" is similar to the general accepted colloquial understanding of a system. But then, there are those that postulate that the notion of a system might reveal more:
In 1994, Aerts et al made 23 proposal for study to help in the development of a world-view. One of them is systems. They state, however: "The status of systems theory itself deserves attention (a useful vocabulary or set of principles and theorems that have exploratory value).
Aerts et al, (1994). World Views: From fragmentation to integration. VUB Press: Brussels.
Then, in 2000, Nicholas Rescher addressed the possibility of a theory-of-everything, and show, logically, that such a theory is not possible. Rescher, however, speculated that an understanding of systems might provide the key to such a theory.
Rescher, N. (2000). The Price of an Ultimate Theory. Philosophia Naturalis, vol. 37, pp 1 - 20
The possibility exist that @Gnomon's notion of a system as a holism might be the key to such a theory - but I doubt that. You see: "To bear Systems Theory in mind one should envision some sort of logical and mathematical basis as a formal unambiguous language."
Backlund, A. (2000) The Definition of System. Kybernetes, Vol. 29 No. 4, pp 444 - 451
I have found, and published, this key. It provides not only a valid world-view, actually a universe-view, but also a valid theory-of-everything. Now I am trying to find a fatal flaw in my reasoning - you see to claim a solution to the impossible is frowned upon from the ivory towers. Engineers do it all the time ... the impossible.
Reply to Pieter R van Wyk
I used to be more of a positivist than I am now and believed that a universal tool could be provided. Systematic studies in philosophy, particularly ontology, forced me to reconsider my views in the spirit of postpositivism. The same fate befell Heidegger (as far as I know). He began by wanting to provide a universal tool, but ended by admitting that his works were metaphysics.
One could say that Heidegger moved from methodological optimism to profound doubt in the very project of universality and rational explanation. This, in a sense, echoes the transition from positivism to postpositivism in science and philosophy: the rejection of the idea of ??ultimate truth, the recognition of the contextuality of knowledge, the role of language, tradition, and historicity.
But if you manage to discover the foundation of all this, please share it.
Deleted UserSeptember 30, 2025 at 10:31#10157370 likes
"If I show you a few pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, they are the only things that you will see - a few pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. I had to build the puzzle to the extend that the picture starts to appear for you to understand the picture that I see." p232 [i]How I Understand Things. The Logic of Existence.[/I]
Yes, this picture is described in more than 200 pages.
The possibility exist that Gnomon's notion of a system as a holism might be the key to such a theory - but I doubt that. You see: "To bear Systems Theory in mind one should envision some sort of logical and mathematical basis as a formal unambiguous language."
Gnomon is not a professional Logician, or Mathematician, or Systems theorist. Just an amateur philosophical scrivener. So the general (non-technical) concept of Holism is sufficient for my needs, to make sense of complex physical & philosophical systems.
I am however, somewhat familiar with the Santa Fe Institute for research in complex systems. And their researchers are experts in various scientific fields, but are also encouraged to think outside the traditional boxes. Maybe you can find someone there to exchange technical cutting-edge esoteric ideas with. By the way, a general term for their approach to science is Holism, as opposed to Reductionism. :smile:
Santa Fe Institute (Cowan Campus)
1399 Hyde Park Road
Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501
United States of America
Phone: 505-984-8800
Contact : email@santafe.edu
What is Complex Systems Science? : Complexity arises in any system in which many agents interact and adapt to one another and their environments. Examples of these complex systems include the nervous system, the Internet, ecosystems, economies, cities, and civilizations. As individual agents interact and adapt within these systems, evolutionary processes and often surprising "emergent" behaviors arise at the macro level. Complexity science attempts to find common mechanisms that lead to complexity in nominally distinct physical, biological, social, and technological systems.
https://www.santafe.edu/about/overview
The Santa Fe Institute was founded in 1984 by a group of scientists frustrated with the narrow disciplinary confines of academia. They wanted to tackle big questions that spanned different fields, and they felt the only way these questions could be posed and solved was through the intermingling of scientists of all kinds: physicists, biologists, economists, anthropologists, and many others.
https://www.santafe.edu/
Deleted UserSeptember 30, 2025 at 17:29#10157710 likes
a professional Logician, or Mathematician, or Systems theorist
- just a retired engineer that likes to understand things. If the philosophical notion of holism works well for you ... good. It did not provide answers to my questions, at least not answers that made sense to me (has utility) and are consistent.
I know the work of the Santa Fe Institute - done a few of their online courses. Was very interesting, but did not provide answers to my questions either.
Deleted UserSeptember 30, 2025 at 17:40#10157740 likes
From my perspective, there is a new religion popping up, based on Holism and human consciousness. A religion that would be about as good as any religion we have (or had).
From my perspective, there is a new religion popping up, based on Holism and human consciousness. A religion that would be about as good as any religion we have (or had).
Since I'm an introvert and a loner, I have no interest in a structured religion, old or new*1. And not much need for the "peace & security" of belonging to a unified group of people : sect or social system. I guess you could say that Philosophy is my solo religion ; but it offers no final answers, and little existential comfort. In lieu of a biblical or tribal religion I have developed my own personal worldview*2, based partly on Holism, Information theory, and Quantum physics. No rules or rituals, wines or ganja, candles or incense, priests or preachers . . . . just a better understanding of why the world is the way it is. :halo:
*1. A new religion incorporating holism emphasizes the interconnectedness of all things, viewing the human being as a unified "mind, body, and spirit" rather than separate parts. This worldview aligns with the New Age movement's belief in the universe as a single, interconnected whole, rejecting scientific reductionism and traditional dualisms. Instead, it promotes individual and collective spiritual transformation to achieve a greater sense of peace and unity
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=new+religion+holism
*2. Enformationism : A philosophical worldview or belief system grounded on the 20th century discovery that Information, rather than Matter, is the fundamental substance of everything in the universe. It is intended to be the 21st century successor to ancient Spiritualism & Materialism. An Update from Bronze Age to Information Age. It's a Theory-of-Everything that covers, not just matter & energy, but also Life & Mind & Love.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html
I like sushiOctober 01, 2025 at 03:20#10158390 likes
@Gnomon Do you think hypostatization is a sensible route to take when trying to lay down the groundwork for a larger body of work?
Deleted UserOctober 01, 2025 at 08:13#10158650 likes
Gnomon Do you think hypostatization is a sensible route to take when trying to lay down the groundwork for a larger body of work?
I don't know. Why do you ask? What do you think has been reified*1 in this thread?
If you are thinking of Holism or Enformationism, they are philosophical theories & worldviews*2, not physical objects. Even Realism is not real, but Ideal. :smile:
*1. In philosophy, hypostatizationis the act of treating an abstract concept, mental construct, or social phenomenon as if it were a concrete, material thing or a real, independent substance. This often manifests as a fallacy where an idea or word that normally refers to a process or quality is given an independent existence, which can lead to misunderstandings and flawed arguments.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=hypostatization+definition+philosophy
*2. The "-ism" suffixforms a noun that can refer to a distinctive doctrine, belief system, or theory (like socialism or feminism), an action, process, or condition (such as criticism or pauperism), a characteristic behavior or quality (e.g., heroism), or an oppressive, discriminatory attitude (e.g., sexism or racism). It is a productive suffix of Greek origin used across various fields, from philosophy and politics to religion and behavior.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=ism+suffix+meaning
Comments (190)
Yes, see Nikhlas Luhmann.
Systems are coherencies of (self-recreating in the case of autopoietic systems) differences between themselves and an environment. (I can't remember what Luhmann's formulation is, but that springs to mind).
Luhmann draws heavily on Humberto Maturana and George Spencer-Brown.
Yes. The modern notion of Systems*1 sometimes gets mired in details. And Bertalanffy's definition was too technical for the layman. 19th century Reductive Science was unable to see the forest for the trees. Which is what made 20th century Quantum Physics so woo-woo mysterious. The forest is not a physical thing (objective), but a metaphysical collective concept (subjective).
So, I prefer to substitute another unfamiliar term, "Holism"*2, which may be somewhat easier to grasp. The 21st century science of Complexity*3 is the study of systems that are typically too complicated for reductionist methods to deal with. A key concept is Emergence, which sounds like magic for reductionist thinkers. For example, the sub-atomic phenomenon, that physicists call "Entanglement", is simply a Holistic effect of two or more particles that act like a single unit.
If you prefer Social Systems applications, such as Luhmann, one example is when individual people "aggregate" into a holistic crowd or mob or gang, and a novel collective behavior emerges :
"The wisdom of crowds theory suggests that the collective opinion of a group of people is often more accurate than the opinion of any single individual, even an expert. This idea, popularized by James Surowiecki's book of the same name, relies on the idea that diverse perspectives and independent judgments can lead to better outcomes when aggregated". :smile:
*1. General Systems Theory (GST) is an interdisciplinary framework, pioneered by Ludwig von Bertalanffy, that views phenomena as interconnected whole systems rather than isolated components, aiming to identify fundamental principles applicable across natural and social sciences. Key concepts include open systems, which interact with their environment; emergent properties, characteristics unique to the whole system; and feedback loops, where output informs new input, leading to self-regulation or homeostasis. GST offers a holistic perspective, contrasting with traditional reductionist approaches, and has influenced fields from biology to management science.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=general+systems+theory%3F+
*2. Holism ; Holon :
Philosophically, a whole system is a collection of parts (holons) that possesses properties not found in the parts. That something extra is an Emergent quality that was latent (unmanifest) in the parts. For example, when atoms of hydrogen & oxygen gases combine in a specific ratio, the molecule has properties of water, such as wetness, that are not found in the gases. A Holon is something that is simultaneously a whole and a part A system of entangled things that has a function in a hierarchy of systems. In the Enformationism worldview, our space-time physical reality is a holon that is a component of the enfernal G*D-Mind.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page11.html
Note --- Oooops. That last line may sound too woo for you.
*3. "Santa Fe systems theory" refers to the field of complexity science and complex adaptive systems (CAS), which is heavily associated with the Santa Fe Institute (SFI) in New Mexico. SFI, founded in 1984, is a leading nonprofit research center dedicated to understanding how complex systemssuch as biological, social, economic, and technological systemsevolve and adapt. These systems are characterized by interconnected elements, emergent behavior, and the capacity to learn from experience, rather than simple linear cause-and-effect.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=santa+fe+systems+theory
A system is a group of elements or components that interact to behave in a characteristic way.
We say that we have a system when there are at least two irreducible entities, each entity has at least a set of properties.
:up: Works for me.
A rock is coherent and there is a difference between a rock and a hard place.
"A mathematical system consists of:
A set or universe, U.
Definitions: sentences that explain the meaning of concepts that relate to the universe. Any term used in describing the universe itself is said to be undefined. All definitions are given in terms of these undefined concepts of objects.
Axioms: assertions about the properties of the universe and rules for creating and justifying more assertions. These rules always include the system of logic that we have developed to this point.
Theorems: the additional assertions mentioned above."
Al Doerr & Ken Levasseur
University of Massachusetts Lowell
Aristotles four causes were the first clear expression of this logic and so he is still the patron saint of systems scientists and hierarchy theorists. German philosophy was systems oriented through the 18th and 19th C and that tradition showed through in modern sciences like biology, ecology and sociology.
CS Peirce was the preeminent philosopher in modern times, framing the most abstracted and logical systems-based metaphysics, but the importance of that only started to be recognised quite recently.
Von Bertalanffy was of course a key figure in the 1920s. And then hierarchy theory followed on from his general systems theory in the 1980s, with Stanley Salthe publishing two key books.
So there is a long history of this approach to causal modelling. But it has always existed on the margins as its focus is on complexity rather than simplicity. A systems thinker would say that Nature is irreducibly complex and so nothing about it can be properly understood until this is understood. But reductionism thrives as folk get quick payback from treating Nature as a mechanical construction.
Reductionism believes there is only simplicity and its complication. Anglo philosophy holds to that belief with ontological fervour.
Holism makes the point that simplicity arises out of hierarchical order. To use the jargon, a system is a hierarchy of top-down constraints that shape the bottom-up degrees of freedom. And the purpose of the constraints is indeed to shape those dof - make then the simple atomistic components that they are.
If you want to build a sturdy shelter in the least effort way, you are guided to the idea of setting up a brick manufacturing business.
If you want to mobilise your empire against another, you want a structure of discipline that turns a tribal mob into hierarchy of fighting units that behave in simple and predictable fashion.
You can build more complex structures to the degree you can mass produce more simplified materials.
So simplicity and complexity go hand in hand as the causal feedback loop that is the basis of the systems view. Material simplicity and telic complexity co-arise in Nature.
Reductionism is then the attempt to cut that loop and just view Nature as a store of materials with varying degrees of complication. Mass-produced components sitting about waiting for someone with a plan and a reason to use them.
So you can see that this divergence of metaphysics aint value neutral. Ecologists cant help but be systems thinkers. The rest of society earns its coin by becoming skilled at feeding Nature into the maw of its excellently engineered machinery. :grin:
Yes, but I am not that difference unless I am the system. The system itself is the observer here.
The definition needs fleshing out for sure. There are also the ideas of open/closed, boundary and complexity. In one sense, a system represents a different category of reality from its environment.
So if you posit a difference, you must posit a system that establishes difference through a coherency. But a rock cannot itself establish difference in relation to itself. From that point of view, it's not a coherency. The coherency can only reside in that case in the observer who states that the rock is a coherency. Short version, if coherency is understood self reflexively as semantically grounding then the definition above suffices. Coherency inheres the idea of a process of observation. If it's understood just as coherency as difference (something that can coherently be distinguished from something else), it doesn't.
This is a great question. I really enjoy these kinds of questions because at first glance they seem self-evident, but for me, answering them is always a challenge. So, I'll try to formulate what I think about this without using any reference books, based on my own reflections.
I don't even know where to begin. The first thing that comes to mind is that a system is a construct of cognitive activity. Can we assert that something is a system on its own? For example, an organism is certainly a system, but is it truly independent, not being part of an even larger system? This leads to the conclusion that a system, in our everyday understanding, is a conscious construct. Outside of our cognition, there can't be a separate system apart from other systems.
Second, a system is a collection of elements that interact with each other dynamically, forming something new with properties that no single element possesses individually. For example, a broom is a system of twigs. Separately, they aren't a broom, but only together can they sweep. This characteristic has two conditions:
The combination of different things.
Mandatory dynamic interaction with each other.
A third characteristic I would name is a certain stability over time. If a collection of something instantly falls apart into separate parts, it's hard to call it a system.
The final definition I've arrived at is:
A system is a cognitive construct consisting of individual elements that interact dynamically, forming new properties in relation to the individual elements and maintaining stability over time.
Well said!. That description implies that a System is not a material thing but an energetic process (individual change or group interaction). For example, the human Mind is not the physical brain (neural correlates of consciousness), but one of many command & control Functions of brain processes. The human brain is 2% of body weight, but 20% of energy usage. What is that energy doing besides processing information?
I just Googled the words "interaction" & "information"*1 and got the wiki definition below. That description sounds very similar to Holism*2*3. But I'm surprised that the scientific & philosophical concept of Holism (Systems, Complexity, Entanglement, etc) is not very familiar to posters on this forum. It provides a simple framework for understanding such conundrums as the "hard problem of consciousness", which is one of the most frequently posted topics on the forum.
For Physics, Interaction is an exchange of Energy (causation). And for Philosophy, Interaction is an exchange of Information (meaning). Yet, the relationship of Information & Energy*4 is not well known. { https://bothandblog8.enformationism.info/page30.html } Perhaps the best way to define a holistic System is to describe it in terms of Synergy*5 : energy + together. :smile:
*1. Interaction information expresses the amount of information (redundancy or synergy) bound up in a set of variables, beyond that which is present in any subset ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interaction_information
*2. Holism is the interdisciplinary concept that systems possess emergent properties as wholes, which are greater than the sum of their individual parts, making them irreducible to their components. This approach emphasizes the interconnectedness of parts within a system and their collective function, contrasting with reductionism, which seeks to understand a whole by analyzing its smallest constituent elements. Holism is applied in various fields, including health, psychology, social sciences, and physics, to understand how bodies, minds, societies, or physical phenomena operate as integrated units
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=holism+information
*3. Holism :
Philosophically, a whole system is a collection of parts (holons) that possesses properties not found in the parts. That something extra is an Emergent quality that was latent (unmanifest) in the parts.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page11.html
*4. Energy & Information :
Energy is the physical capacity to do work, while information is the description or organization of matter and energy. Although distinct, energy and information are deeply interconnected: information requires energy to be processed and organized, and changes in information are accompanied by changes in energy, such as the heat generated when bits are erased in a computer, following Landauer's principle. This relationship is evident in biological systems, where information controls energy flow, and in physics, where the manipulation of information can be converted into energy and vice versa.
*5. *4. Synergy :
the interaction or cooperation of two or more organizations, substances, or other agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects.
___ Oxford Dictionary
This is all very interesting, thanks.
There's an issue I don't think has been raised yet: "system" often carries a connotation of rigidity, though we can certainly point to systems that are flexible and adaptive. My point is, it's always a question with systems.
In your semantic terms, I was thinking about the use of the phrase "the System" (capital S) in the 60s and 70s counterculture. The imputation was of a particular kind of rigidity, a rigidity that extended to this semantic level. Thus the System was thought to see everything in terms of wealth and power and status, and to be blind to, say, art and feeling, on the one hand, or injustice and suffering, on the other. There were categories of no use to the System, and so it did not recognize them at all. You get the idea.
(( The classic Monty Python version of this is the banker who struggles to make sense of the concept of charity. ))
You'd find another popular usage in gambling: some guys go to the track and pick horses for dumb reasons, or whimsical reasons, or based on their "feeling" the horse will win; other guys are said to "have a system." The system guy may generally do better, but in trying to treat the problem of prediction rigidly, he will never get a big payout on a long shot.
And of course this is the thing about systems in interaction with their environments: they attempt to achieve predictability (and thus a kind of rigidity) not just by refusing to see what doesn't fit (as the counterculture would have it) but by making their environment more predictable, by eliminating what doesn't fit. Adaptation is required for the system to persist, but it can adapt itself to its environment or its environment to itself.
I guess I could also say, people do seem to nurse worries that the sort of rigidity some systems are prone to is perhaps even irrational, in addition to whatever other fault one might find.
Established, mainstream philosophy? Most assuredly. Such definitions can be found strewn about this discussion.
All philosophies in general? Some do, some don't.
A system, in general, is two or more entities or "points" that operate in recognition of one another with the intent to perform or otherwise reach an expected outcome or function. They can be simple, take "the buddy system" or "the honor system." They can be complex such as the human immune system or what is commonly referred to as "The System" (ruling power or influence in governed society).
What they all have in common is they either handle or process expected (and often unexpected) input, influence, material, or resource and attempt to output a certain desired outcome, result, or product.
There are also inherently or perhaps intentionally chaotic systems that are somewhat of the opposite affect. Say psychological warfare, for example. The goal of that system is disruption, chaos, confusion, and decrease in moral. It doesn't matter how it's done, yet it still demands or at least attempts to reach a single final outcome or product, that product being chaos and disarray. Not unlike a heckler at a political rally or entertainment venue.
We often don't even know we're part, or otherwise performing the functions perfectly, of many systems. A system can be physical, such as your bodily functions. A system can also be ideological, such as systems of belief, including karma or divine punishment. A great much can be said in further detail to expand the definition or idea of a system or systems, but what's important before attempting to do so is to establish what the "bare bones" definition or criteria for such are, which I believe I have done for you quite nicely.
Does this mean that Systems only exist for rational observers? Does a bear have a "conscious construct" of the forest he defecates in, or just the sensory observation of tree A, B, C, etc? Much of the disputation on this forum is about the reality & importance of individual things (Matter) versus our human tendency & ability to categorize real things into ideal aggregations & hierarchies & ecosystems (Mind). :smile:
That could be an implication. But the evidence is against it.
A systems metaphysics is usually understood as being about closure under causality. A system in some fundamental way makes itself. It bootstraps into being.
Systems science is thus usually founded on thermodynamics. And more particularly, on dissipative structure theory or self-organising systems. So it is a physicalist story. But very different from reductionism in believing that a natural system is also telic in some basic sense. It is driven to structured order by the need to run down a gradient. It emerges as there is a Darwinian selection just to be optimised for entropy production.
Then within this strictly physical story we must account for life and mind. And that is easy enough to do if we see organisms as the further evolution of entropic structure. Life and mind are what come next in the hierarchy of nature when systems that can model their worlds - using codes: genes, neurons, words, numbers - arise and become selfish feeders on this world.
So life and mind are no longer blindly entropic. As systems, they represent a real shift. A causal novelty. And yet they are still completely part of this world with its over-riding and causally closed thermalising imperative. Life and mind are more of the same in the most general physical sense of being evolved dissipative structure. They just happen to spend energy on modelling their environments so as better exploit them.
My problem with this is it lapses into substance ontology which is reductionist. An ontology of stuffs rather than of processes or the holism of systems of self-stabilising interaction.
So I would point out that energy and information do indeed speak to the connection between the entropic world and the informational creatures who construct models of the world so as to entropify it more cleverly. There is something both essentially the same but also absolutely different when we apply a systems metaphysics lens to Nature. Our theories have to handle that.
But to approach this from the process philosophy point of view, it is important to capture the architectural holism of the causality. A system has a distinct causal structure which is the hierarchy. And a hierarchy is the self-balancing and emergent mix which is top-down constraints shaping bottom-up degrees of freedom.
If we are using physical jargon, then entropy-information is a good dichotomy but also locks us into an ontology of substance rather than process. Whereas constraints-degrees of freedom is how physics speaks about an ontology of hierarchically-organised causality. It speaks directly to the architectural principles that apply to thermalising systems of any kind - physical or biological.
I don't know how a bear understands a forest. Honestly.
Yes, it is a cognitive construct. I justify this by the fact that a system in the world itself can be both an ordered set of everything and a chaotic one. We have no evidence for either the first or the second approach. But inside our minds (or inside the systems we create, like AI), a system can be identified and exist in an organized manner. Thus, the word system itself acquires meaning exclusively in the context of epistemology
This is key. And it goes deeper as a system in fact exists on the edge of chaos, as they say. It feeds off instability. It is the stability that arises in organising instability into a predictable flow.
So water is an eroding source of instability. And a landscape shapes it into an efficient collection of drainage channels. A system is the global pattern of constraints that emerge to create an efficient collection of local actions. Nature is visibly hierarchical when you can see it organised into a fractal pattern of dissipation.
So a system is all about stabilising instability. And it indeed has to optimise this as a dynamical balance. It needs to exist in a persistent state of criticality, or at the hinge point between building itself up and falling apart.
Any organism is exactly this. A balance of its growth and decay. Every molecule of the body is being turned over. This is how the body as a system can stay optimised within its own ever changing environment.
Indeed, in some ways a system might also be seen as a heuristic, a simplifying device that helps us navigate complexity, but it can just as readily function as a framework, or even as a symbolic stand-in for realities that remain intricate and puzzling.
Many systems seem designed to make complex things easier to organize and understand, to bring coherence to chaos, but in doing so they may leave out important elements or even distort the picture. As a general rule I avoid people who believe they have created system for understanding reality - it's usually the hallmark of a crank and monomaniac.
I too see room for improvement. What is a "thing", in the simplest most "thingly" sense. Something that is noticeably or observably distinct from its environment. Take a bucket of paint. The smallest subatomic molecule of paint is in fact a unique object from the next molecule right next to it. It has its own "system". per se. that, while exactly identical to the molecule next to it, is theoretically possible to either be or become different, whether or not by external influence. That said, no human person will be able to distinguish the two and see anything more than "some paint in a bucket."
Reminds me of a different topic of "what is art" which led to one opinion of "that which is distinct from its environment and has been made so intentionally." Ooh, that's good. I feel that to be of great relevance. Not to toot my own horn here but, this is great stuff. Hope y'all are paying attention.
Edit: For context, the quoted user made a (now strangely deleted) post commenting on his (hard to say) either disapproval or genuine sense that the definition can be improved as far as the 2nd post on this topic by @Baden
A reductionist might say - on epistemic principle - that there is this either/or choice. But the holist would expect order and chaos to compose a system. :smile:
They would be the co-arising limits on Nature. The complementary qualities that form the dynamical balance.
And physics has the evidence. Nature is ruled by criticality. It is neither completely ordered nor completely chaotic but the balance of the two - as is recognised when we talk about a Universe closed under thermodynamics.
This is a misunderstanding that arises if you view Nature as a piece of reductionist machinery. But not if you view it as an organic whole. Systems science starts with the very idea of a universalised dynamical balance. Rigidity and plasticity are always relative as the balance that a system must seek to optimise if it is to persist, and thus even exist.
To be able to adapt is to be able to live in a changing world by also changing. And this is then achieved by becoming a hierarchy of rates of change. You need the global laws that change only slowly and the local degrees of freedom that can be spent very fast.
You need the banking system as your global context and the small change in your pocket to make quick and simple choices. Rigidity and plasticity are just the same thing - a dynamical balance - viewed over vastly different organisational scales.
The money flows through the economic system over all scales. All that changes in a well-plumbed system is scale of that flow.
It then becomes a separate debate whether a society has an optimised hierarchy of capital flow. Is it too rigid or too fluid on any particularly level, or even as a general whole.
I really like your approach to this issue. It is multifaceted and takes into account different views.
However, the thing is that if you imagine yourself as a dictionary compiler: you need to somehow accurately, briefly and meaningfully state the definition of the concept so that anyone who reads it can grasp the meaning, and the definition itself at least does not contradict itself. It is for these reasons that I gave my own definition.
In this case, if we take a chaotic world order as a starting point, then "system" = A, if we take an ordered world order as a starting point, then "system" = B
But what if the system is just our idea? Chaos or order - our idea? Maybe everything is somehow different? Science is built on the basic assumptions that the universe has some kind of order. But this is precisely an assumption, which is confirmed by the existence of paradoxes.
So in this case, all our judgments are nothing more than opinions.
Which would itself be an example of rigidity, right? This style of thinking, I mean, not just the mechanical approach itself, but *sticking to it* when you ought not.
This is the sort of thing that starts to look irrational over the sort of time scales we deal with. "Drill, baby drill!" Sure, our global civilization will adapt eventually, but there's a lot of friction thrown up against adapting, which I would be inclined to describe as rigidity.
Rigidity is one of the hallmarks of neurosis, or what @180 Proof always calls "maladaptive" behavior. (Freud insisted that neurotic behavior has a purpose, it meets a need, just badly.) @Tom Storm, I would guess you have considerable experience with that sort of rigidity.
Burns's Theorem.
But if you zoom out and take a community as your system, instead of an individual, you would hope to see an increase in adaptability (and capacity for self-correction).
Except when you don't (because communities can be rigid and self-reinforcing too). So you need to zoom out more.
But at some point the zooming out needed exceeds the human perspective. The trick might be to avoid getting into situations like that. (Don't write a program so clever you can't debug it.)
Sure. Thats the game here. To the degree you state something clear, then there is something to expand upon or challenge. :up:
Quoting Astorre
The interesting thing here is can you even have pure chaos or only a relative lack of order? If you look into chaos theory, it turns out to be the theory of fractal self-organisation in nature. The grand pattern that everything cant help but fall into when everything is as unconstrained as it can be, but then also still constrained to be in globally closed interaction.
So if it is a world but also chaotic, then you have a system as I have described it. A global state of constraint with its local degrees of freedom. Chaos theory describes such worlds where fluctuations are so unruly that - unlike a Gaussian bell curve degree of randomness - there is now a randomness that is fractal or powerlaw and so doesnt even have a mean. And yet that still leaves the world in a very definitely constrained state in that it is completely specified by its powerlaw fractal order. The degree of internal disorder is precisely measurable and predictable as a statistically emergent pattern.
Quoting Astorre
Well no. Science is distinguished by the way it freely proposes its ideas and then backs them up. So it is more than just opinion. And if we are here talking metaphysics, then even that relies on being able to demonstrate some conformity between our beliefs and our experiences. You want a logical approach to reality - a rational model of causality - that seems to apply in a universal fashion.
That would be the goal of traditional metaphysics anyway. A post modernist might of course like to claim the licence that everyone should have the right to their opinion and than judgement isnt about a process of collective wisdom that stands the test of time.
It was metaphysics that claimed reality was a Cosmos. And the first metaphysicians did not see paradoxes as the problem but rather as the essence of existence. A world could arise as the dynamical balance of its fundamental divisions. A principle Heraclitus popularised as the Unit of Opposites.
So philosophy itself was founded on the systems view. But the Greeks also invented atomism as the alternative reductionist paradigm. And that proved very appealing once 16th C Europe wanted to re-imagine the world as a giant mathematical clockwork - a machine that could be constructed. Reductionism became the religion of the Industrial Revolution as engineering is a very effective mindset if you want to impose human control on the natural world.
To run nature, you have to be doing something that nature itself isnt actually doing.
To a Louse or group theory? Both work. Which did you have in mind?
Added:
I'm not sure the presumption of hierarchy is needed - you might understand me, and I, you.
Boom and bust is a natural thing. Speak to an environmentalist and they would say all legislation would have to be framed through the lens of how your latest proposal would be viewed through your grand childrens eyes. Or even out five generations hence.
But we have engineered our markets so that they can panic and crash in seconds with programmed trading. Then re-jigged them so they cant be allowed to crash as the national debt instead gets exponentialised to the point that even five generations of thrift couldnt repay it.
So our problems certainly dont exceed our grasp at an intellectual level. It is more that systems rigidity of this kind - laws that might bind us five generations out of- have become politically unthinkable.
It is all about balance. Traditional societies might have had the mindset of no social order change ever. Modern society might have fetishised not just change but infinite acceleration. No limits. Lets just blast through the singularity.
In between those two extremes, the environmentalist pushing a five generations rule would seem to have a better intellectual grasp of the worlds ecological and thermodynamical realities.
Its fine that it was deleted it was superficial. But to elaborate: I think the definition given (sincerely) is way too technical. Maybe it makes some sense and maybe its worth studying (as someone who respects Heideggers works, I grant that possibility) but outside academia, I dont see it being helpful in any way in life. I like s description.
If nothing else, it has the virtue of brevity.
My understanding is that Luhmann worked on social systems, thus not a general systems theory
Thank you for your contribution - I was hoping for a concise definition backed by a general systems theory. Notions of systems are a dime a dozen
I agree with your definition, even though I have used some different words. Do you know of any theory that backs up this definition?
These "irreducible entities", is that the fundamental particle that the physicist are trying to find?
I don't think systems <=> coherencies is any definition.
I don't blame Mikie for his reaction (he didn't ask the question...). I'm reading a compilation of lectures by Luhmann at the moment, so these ideas are on my mind.
Quoting Pieter R van Wyk
He built from the mathematical work of Spencer Brown and the biological work of Humberto Maturana a kind of general system's theory that could be applied to society, but can also be applied to e.g. consciousness and other (autopoietic) systems.
But, yes, others may be more on point re what you're specifically looking for.
I didn't say they just were that. I said this:
Quoting Baden
And I also clarified what I meant.
You asked a question. I answered with a definition and a detailed follow-up. I also gave you the theoretical context (Luhmann). You had everything you needed to make some sense of it.
If you don't want to get your brain out of first gear, don't ask in the first place.
[In general, if posters want non-academic, dumbed-down answers to their questions, why not just ask AI, why ask on a philosophy forum?]
In its most general sense, a system can be understood as an organized interconnected set of at least two or more components that collectively constitute a unified whole. The behavior of the whole is conditioned by the interactions of its parts, while the parts, in turn, derive their functions and significance from their relation to the whole. In this respect, a system is indivisible, as the whole cannot exist independently of its parts, nor can the parts operate meaningfully apart from the whole. A genuine system necessarily gives rise to emergent properties, thereby becoming more than merely the sum of its parts.
Yes, in the context of physicalism.
It's not a principle, it's a definition, so there is no theory backing it up, just a consensus of the meaning of the word among users. What I posted is my understanding of the consensus in this particular case.
A system can be seen as a "coherency of differences" as follows.
Difference A: Fundamentally, a system must establish a difference between itself and its environment.
Difference B: A system must "observe" / react to differences in that which is different to itself, i. e. its environment.
Difference C: A system must operate on the basis of internal differences. A pure homogeneity excludes operationality.
A, B, C, type differences must cohere in a system for a system to be identified singly as a system.
Therefore, a system can be seen as a coherency of differences.
I don't understand that assessment. Energy & Entropy are Processes, not substances. Information --- or EnFormAction, as I like to spell it --- is also a process. Systems are mental concepts that categorize collections of interacting "stuffs" as-if unitary things. Which, as Organized Structures, we tend to think of as single substantial objects. So, I view Holism/Systems as an Ontology of Processes (causation ; change) instead of stable-but-malleable Matter.
If you agree with Donald Hoffman's Interface Theory*1, even Matter is a conscious construct, that humans use to guide their physical interactions with the world. Another way to look at Ontology is to view the Real World as a multilevel system of acting & reacting sub-systems. We physically "see" a superficial layer of reality, like "icons" on a computer screen. But lower, more fundamental, layers are where the action is. And, what we call Systems, are mostly interactions on the lower levels of reality. Our idea of a System*2 is based on our ability to conceive of invisible-intangible extra-sensory qualia --- "more than the sum" of material parts --- that makes it a Holistic concept.
That's an Idealistic philosophical approach, but for practical purposes, common-sense (science) may be a better guide to dealing with Reality. :smile:
*1. Matter in Mind :
Donald Hoffman argues that matter is not a fundamental aspect of reality but rather a symbolic representation or "icon" constructed by consciousness, similar to icons on a computer interface. In his theory of conscious realism, he posits that consciousness is the fundamental reality, and the physical world, including matter and spacetime, emerges from a network of conscious agents. Matter, in this view, doesn't exist independently of consciousness but is a useful, though not literal, construct for interacting with the world.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=don+hoffman+on+matter
*2. Systems Theory :
A system can be more than the sum of its parts if it expresses synergy or emergent behavior. Changing one part of the system usually affects other parts and the whole system, with predictable patterns of behavior. More parts, means more interrelationships, and more complex properties & activities, including mental functions.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page18.html
Yes, and your examples were very interesting in that respect. A system must be less complex than its environment and it reduces complexity through a kind of code that "sees" only certain things in that environment. That becomes its reality. This is why I was saying earlier that systems establish different versions of reality. They observe and are perturbed by their environment but interpret it only according to a particular internal code that identifies them as a particular type of system. They create differences that determine their reality, and thus enable a form of "meaning" or "cognition" in a broad sense. That is, they are operationally closed (operate only according to their own internal rules or code), but they are cognitively open in that they are affected by their environment and interact with it. I'm not sure I would call this a "rigidity" but perhaps a structural limitation. But paradoxically, it is the reduction of complexity that allows systems to complexify (and adapt), and in fact reach higher orders of self-referential complexity (self-managing of complexity). The more efficiently they simplify, the more efficiently they can complexify in a sense.
I'm so glad you came back to this, because that's an excellent point. (And, for what it's worth, close to my own thinking about the utility of simplifications like logic, mathematics, language, music theory, maps, all that jazz.)
Quoting Baden
Right. One thing I didn't like about my earlier post was it ends up sounding too much like we're only talking about modeling, but we want to be able talk not just about "this is how I symbolically represent and predict the outcomes of horse races" but also "this is how I cut planks to the lengths I need," where this later phrase refers not to a verbal description of me doing it, but to me doing it. The system in operation, interacting with the environment, rubber meeting the road in a more than cognitive sense.
What's tricky is to find the natural correlate of simplification by abstraction in non-cognitive (or, at least, not only cognitive) interaction. There is an obvious path in modifying the environment to simplify it (planks as simplifications of trees, extracted from them, with the rest of the tree physically abstracted away), but otherwise I'm not sure, so maybe this is just a hard difference between mental and physical interaction, that there is this freedom in cognitive behavior that you can't quite manage when dealing with the world in the raw, however it comes. Not sure.
The meanings of "system" that have been largely left out of this discussion (except by @Srap Tasmaner) are, for example, system as a theory ("Kant's system"), method ("Dewey decimal system," "gambling system"), rules of behavior ("system of discipline").
Within the material context, some definitions that have been given are too restrictive. @Baden's is mostly about differentiating a system from its environment, but in some contexts, environment is irrelevant for our purposes and can be left out of consideration. The only internal differences required of any system are those between the whole and its parts. Stability and rigidity also do not always apply: systems can be dynamic in their composition and form, although it could be argued that some essential features of a system must be invariant within the scope of consideration for it to be recognized as one system. But that is true of any named entity.
@T Clark and @punos gave good general definitions of a material system, and it is pretty clear that not much more can be said on the subject without getting into specifics of particular kinds of systems, such living organisms or ecologies. If we stay at the most general level of a "system," then we are just doing amateur lexicography.
So you wish to limit your definition of a system to an organism then? Which is fine, as code-based or semiotic systems are their own class of thing. Life and mind as opposed to mere physics.
But if talk about systems is talk about some general causal model, then it has to include the physical realm. And we do talk about weather systems, solar systems, atomic systems, ocean current systems and all the other systems that are globally coherent in being hierarchically self-organising.
And the big advance in biology and neurocognition has been to recognise the continuity that underlies the mind-world difference. The organism is a system with a code and the environment is also a system - lacking a code but still a system of constraints.
So reductionism is left with no where to hide. It is systems all the way down. And this is why both physics and organisms can make sense within the one larger causal model offered by dissipative structure theory.
The world was already doing something organised. The organism only had to latch onto that grand entropic enterprise as a bit of viral code.
But you had to invent your own term to turn information back into informing. So you clearly can see there is an issue to be sorted.
Entropy/information arose as a way to count bits. Put a number on distinctions - whether they were a difference that made a difference, or even when they were differences that were just noise.
So that was a valuable step. Science could count the differences that any kind of system - physical or organismic - could contain. Then came the difficult bit of adding back a distinction between information that indeed informed, and entropy that instead was work or free energy.
Eventually this has led to the current rich variety of models that put meaning and action back into any counting of bits. We now do have process accounts like dissipative structure theory in physics and the Bayesian Brain theory in neuroscience.
So first we reduce everything to the bare notion of countable differences. We reduce it so far that it completely loses its larger systematic structure - the coherent context that even allows the difference to count as a difference. And then we need to repair the damage by building back some story of a process that is organising this whole show.
Ideally, the whole of reality will then be described under this one common process. But as has been said, organisms are different as they encode their environments in terms of their selfish wants. So under the most general class of systems causality - which I say is dissipative structure theory - you have at least this one major sub-class that contains the novelty; which we can call semiosis, or very loosely, information processing.
As epistemology, his point is mundane. As an ontological commitment, it makes the usual idealist mistake.
Idealism is the reaction against reductionism an attempt to reject a world of only atoms blindly banging around in a void. But idealism fails to replace reductionism with anything better. It falls back on a mind stuff to replace the matter stuff. Making the same mistake in the other direction. Or tries to sustain a Cartesian dualism which tolerable to both the church and the scientist. Each side absolves itself in the other side's "great mystery".
But the holism of the systems science approach is perhaps much crueller than the Idealists ever had in mind. Systems thinking simply incorporates reductionism under its greater causal generality. It takes it in and then sits it firmly in its corner. :grin:
So reductionism models reality as a great complication built up from its fundamental degrees of freedom. Information/entropy are all about counting those. Instead of atoms or even fundamental particles, we can count the quantum numbers that are the discrete states being shuffled about the cosmic board by their wavefunctions. Reductionism goes as small as it could possibly go.
But then the systems view comes in and points out that all differences are differences in terms of larger context. And indeed, the context shapes those degrees of freedom to be the "simple as possible" things that they are. Quantum physics makes this plain too. A maths of symmetry and symmetry-breaking tells us why in Platonic strength fashion these basic quantum numbers emerge. The greater context defines its own smallest thing.
So idealism just doubles down on the mystery that reductionism creates. And systems science is the proper philosophical antidote. It shows that reductionism is one pole of the greater whole. The world can be simplified to a large degree. But in the end, it is revealed to be an irreducibly complex whole. And even physics says that directly these days. Idealism is still stuck in the 18th Century so far as metaphysical debate goes.
My problem with whats called philosophy and philosophers, is that much of the technical jargon often reeks of posturing, of self importance. Its an attempt to turn philosophy into physics looks important, and helps to justify academic funding, but one wonders how close this resembles what was done in Greek times.
That being said, why is it important to have a technical notion of system, and more importantly (echoing Chomsky): what explanatory theory does it belong to? Is there one?
Quoting Mikie
Beyond language, there is the maths. Is that what perturbs you?
No.
An account that is extremely general, simple but I believe mathematically rigorous, well-defined.
https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?cluster=7909771384315425233&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&as_vis=1
https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?cluster=10954599080507512058&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&as_vis=1
(quotes from second paper in abstract and introduction part)
[i]"This monograph attempts a theory of every thing that can be distinguished from other things in a statistical sense. The ensuing statistical independencies, mediated by Markov blankets, speak to a recursive composition of ensembles (of things) at increasingly higher spatiotemporal scales. This decomposition provides a description of small things; e.g., quantum mechanics via the Schrödinger equation, ensembles of small things via statistical mechanics and related fluctuation theorems, through to big things via classical mechanics. These descriptions are complemented with a Bayesian mechanics for autonomous or active things. Although this work provides a formulation of every thing, its main contribution is to examine the implications of Markov blankets for self- organisation to nonequilibrium steady-state. In brief, we recover an information geometry and accompanying free energy principle that allows one to interpret the internal states of something as representing or making inferences about its external states. The ensuing Bayesian mechanics is compatible with quantum, statistical and classical mechanics and may offer a formal description of lifelike particles."
"To address the nature of things, we start by asking how something can be distinguished from everything else. In pursuing a formulation of self organisation, we will call on the notion of conditional independence as the basis of this separation. More specifically, we assume that for something to exist it must possess (internal or intrinsic) states that can be separated statistically from (external or extrinsic) states that do not constitute the thing. This separation implies the existence of a Markov blanket; namely, a set of states that render the internal and external states conditionally independent. The existence of things (i.e., internal states and their blanket) further implies a partition of the Markov blanket into active and sensory states that are not influenced by external and internal states, respectively. This may sound a bit arbitrary; however, this is the minimal set of conditional independencies" and implicit partition of states that licenses talk about things (that possess states). Specifically, it provides a partition that constitutes the self in self-organisation. The subsequent sections tackle the next obvious question: what are things? At this point, we deploy the Langevin formulation of random dynamical systems as an ansatz that is recursively self-verifying, when considered in the light of Markov blankets. In brief, the formulation on offer says that the states of things (i.e., particles) comprise mixtures of blanket states, where the Markov blanket surrounds things at a smaller scale. Effectively, this eludes the question what is a thing? by composing things from the Markov blanket of smaller things. By induction, we have Markov blankets all the way down, which means one never has to specify the nature of things."[/i]
So a system is a thing with a Markov blanket that separates the kind of thing it is from its environment. This can be applied to virtually anything complicated enough, from a rock to a brain to a planetary system to... virtually anything. The internal states of the system can then be descibed as modelling the states if its environment.
You may misunderstand. A rock doesnt actually have beliefs about its environment.
So Bayesian mechanics is based on thermo maths - the minimisation of free energy. And that formalism is a way to model the beliefs of organisms. An organism models its world with the intent to minimise its surprisal - an index of its prediction error that can be written down in thermo maths.
But a rock has no world model. Put a hot rock in a cold place and it will indeed minimise its free energy as the equations describe. It will go cold in a way that says its internal state could be regarded as a model of its external environment. But the rock never had any say in the matter.
Whereas put an organism in a place it doesnt like and it will keep moving until it finds some place it does.
But I have mentioned the Bayesian Brain as exactly this kind of exercise of marrying the science of organisms to the science of thermodynamical systems. So same mathematical framework. But with the essential twist that an organism is in a modelling relation with its world.
The organism is at root just another thermodynamic system. However it is also this special kind of thermodynamic system.
It does. Bayesian mechanics and Free energy principle can apply to anything sufficiently complicated. As said in the first paper I linked before: if something persists over time, it must be encoding a model of the relevant environment we have used in constructing or picking out this system. Doesn't matter if its a rock or a person or an ecosystem, a society. Obviously, a rock may not be very interesting though as a kind of dynamical system.
Quoting apokrisis
Information theory. Rather than calling that thermo math, we should be talking about thermodynamics in terms of a statistical mech.. oh wait!
Quoting apokrisis
Well the notion of model being used is far more minimalist and general than what you're implying. The FEP does apply to any thing, and so provides a generic characterization of any system complicated enough to have anything interesting to say about it, including stones and even smaller, simpler systems for that matter than stones, I should think.
No, it really doesnt. The information that the rock contains bears no resemblance to a system of belief.
You can present your evidence to the contrary if you wish of course.
I was reacting to the first paper. The second by Friston is far more challenging and Im glad you flagged it.
A quick point is that the kind of dynamics that could even be coupled would have to be in a state of criticality. So a whole landscape of moving and eroding rock could be viewed as a hierarchical system in the way being suggested. It is a tectonic flow. A balance of geological and chemical forces over many scales of being. In some sense its own model as at some particular distance or horizon, the landscapes smallest fluctuations become a lower bound blur, and its largest fluctuations become so large the system now appears to live inside a fixed background, captured by its laws.
So Friston is walking familiar ground. But then you can see how the humble rock lacks that kind of dynamics which brings this systems perspective into things. The rock has congealed and merely erodes. If the tectonics could be considered lively, the rock is as unlively as it gets.
Ill have to read Fristons monograph more closely. But on a skim, I would say he is trying too hard to explain everything by the self-organising dynamics and being too glib about the self-information or measurement aspect of a hierarchical system. But a fun read so far.
Just a quick point for now. Definitely not (at least not literally). This is part of Luhmann's project, actually---to extend Maturana's concepts from biology to e.g. society (and also to find a mathematical basis for systems using Spencer-Brown's work). As for the connections to biosemiotics, I'm very interested in that, but my knowledge of biosemiotics is undeveloped. I'll try to come back to your post later anyhow.
Please explain then, in terms of your definition, how to determine what is part of the system, and what is part of the environment?
Quoting Baden
To my understanding, AI has not achieved the capability of abstract thought (yet) thus asking AI will have no utility - it will only regurgitate. As a really clever guy once said: "Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence; he is just using memory." - Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519).
This definition looks very similar to one that has been published in 1923 by Lewis, C.I. [I]Facts, Systems and the Unity of the World[/I]. The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 20, No. 6, pp 141 - 151. Apparently without much success.
You answer thus, then, seemingly, concede to my point:Quoting Pieter R van Wyk
Thank you for your frank and honest input - this is a good description, one that is generally accepted by the 'systems-thinkers'. But it has a few problems, specifically one that is really a bother to the systems-scientists: How, in general does one determine what is part of a system and what is not. Or in other words, how does one, in general, determine the boundary of a system?
In my opinion: interactions without components makes no sense at all. Neither does components without interactions. Please, what would entail a "metaphysical extreme"?
Please, in terms of your "bare bones", is it possible for Quoting Outlander to be a system?
Quoting apokrisis
Please, if a system is all about stabilising instability, where does instability come from? Also, is it not true that "instability" is the root cause of innovation, emergence or evolution?
In my opinion, a spot-on description. Thank you
That is an excellent opinion. Thank you.
:smile: :up:
Again, you're interpreting "belief" in a way that is more elaborate than the minimalist version used in the theory which is not much more than Bayesian probability. Bayesian probability is often linked clisely by people to a kind of subjectivist view of probabilities but Bayes' rule holds regardless of interpretation - its just probability theory. If you read the papers I linked you will see it explicitly expressed that even a rock comes under this formulation. If you like you can think of the word "belief" as just a metaphor. Its just saying that the internal system has information about the external system. The internal system is predictive of the external system (predictive define purely in terms of conditional probabilities) - as if the internal system could be said to have beliefs.
Well it depends on how complicated the system is, what it does. But again, the free energy principle applies in principle even to just a description of a normal rock that doesn't overtly display behavior like that.
Quoting apokrisis
Not really clear to me what is being said here.
Quoting apokrisis
Again, you are misinterpreting the theory somewhat. If you look at the paper, they say a rock can be described under the theory and its more or less mathematically proven that the principle can apply to something like a rock. What you are talking about is a special case of system that is highly complicated.
Quoting apokrisis
Can you specify what exactly you mean? Its a mathematical principle that applies generically and is not restricted to self-organizing dynamics.
I did coin a novel term, EnFormAction, for my thesis, to indicate the equation of Information & Energy*1. But I didn't "invent" the physical interrelationship*2. Shannon defined information in terms of Entropy, but didn't pursue its reciprocal relation to Energy*3. Other scientists and philosophers in recent years have been exploring that connection between Causation & Life & Mind*4. So no, the equation of Causal Energy and Mental Information is not a figment of my imagination. Is that the "issue" you feel needs to be sorted? :cool:
*1. Information is Energy :
Just as the principle of conservation of energy is essential to understanding energy, the principle of conservation of information leads to a deeper understanding of information.
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-658-40862-6
*2. The statement "information is energy" reflects a physical interpretation where information requires energy to be stored or transmitted, and conversely, information can be used to extract energy from a system, as seen in Maxwell's demon experiments, though information and energy are distinct concepts. While not identical, they are deeply connected, with some theories proposing an information-energy equivalence where information acts as a fundamental component of reality, much like matter and energy.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=information+is+energy
*3. Information-energy equivalence suggests that information has mass, which is supported by Landauer's principle stating that information is physical and has an associated energy cost when erased, and by the emerging Mass-Energy-Information (MEI) equivalence principle. The MEI principle claims that stored information has mass and can be converted to energy, leading to a full hard drive being marginally heavier than an empty one. While information is not a new state of matter, this principle allows for the physical storage and energetic manipulation of information, with potentially transformative implications for quantum computing and our understanding of the universe.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=information+energy+equivalence
*4. From Matter to Life: Information and Causality :
Recent advances suggest that the concept of information might hold the key to unravelling the mystery of life's nature and origin.
https://www.amazon.com/Matter-Life-Information-Causality/dp/1107150531
That assessment misses the point of Hoffman's thesis, and my own Information-centered worldview : not to "replace" pragmatic Reductionism, but to supplement it with philosophical Holism. Narrowly-focused Reductionism takes an Either/Or (true/false, black/white) stance, while the broader Enformationism worldview is BothAnd (Holistic, Complementary, YinYang).
Likewise, Hoffman's Idealism (Conscious Realism) is a moderate stance, between pure Platonic Idealism and modern absolute Materialism. Extreme forms of Idealism assert that we have no access to true or ultimate Reality. In that case, we would be completely in the dark. But, Hoffman describes a Veiled Reality, in which we do have some contact with Fundamental Essences, by means of the embodied Information that he calls "icons" (signs, symbols, semiology).
It's still true that we humans have no direct access to Kant's "ding an sich", or what d'Espagnat labeled "reality per se". So, Hoffman's Ontology describes Matter as a "useful fiction". In which case, we are not completely cut-off from ultimate Reality, because we can interface by means of ideas & information. :smile:
PS___ What is a System? : Semiotics is the systematic study of interpretation, meaning-making, semiosis and the communication of meaning. In semiotics, a sign is defined as anything that communicates intentional and unintentional meaning or feelings to the sign's interpreter. ___ Wiki
Donald Hoffman's "idealism," more formally known as his Conscious Realism, posits that consciousness is fundamental, not matter, and that what we perceive as physical objects are "icons" or user interfaces designed by interacting conscious agents. He argues that spacetime and physical objects emerge from the dynamics of these agents, not the other way around. While sharing similarities with philosophical idealism, Hoffman's approach is distinct due to its emphasis on integrating mathematical structures beyond spacetime and its foundation in what he calls a "deeper theory of conscious agents"
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=donald+hoffman+idealism
Donald Hoffman's ontology, outlined in his theory of Conscious Realism, posits that consciousness and conscious agents are fundamental, and that the physical world, including spacetime, matter, and neurons, are not foundational but rather are emergent, useful fictions or a "user interface" to a deeper reality.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=donald+hoffman+ontology
I come back to the point that to claim belief for a rock is to collapse your epistemology into ontological confusion.
Sure, one might have the intellectual purpose of modelling the continuity of all systems and Bayesian probability might be your candidate theory of everything. But my view is that this plainly is a wrong move as Bayesian reasoning is great as a general theory of the organism in its semiotic relation with the world, and so then loses its way when it goes beyond what it was meant to be and is bandied about as a theory of literally anything.
If we can no longer distinguish a rock from a mind under the Bayesian approach, then now the theory is a failure. It becomes the new panpyschism.
The best theory of absolutely everything in my book is dissipate structure theory. And that as a general systems theory does apply as happily to the Big Bang as neoliberal economics.
I plainly said that information and entropy are just mathematical systems of measurement. They dont tell us about informing or entropifying as real world processes. So the issue is about the how. You coined a term that suggest some general systems theory arises to cover this. But then the hand-waving begins. You speak as if information and energy are substantial things - like forces of nature - and so they just do it. Nuff said.
As I say, this part is epistemology 101 so far as it goes. What cognitive scientist doesnt say this sort of thing? Of course our notions of matter are useful fictions. Even physics says that.
But consciousness is likewise a useful epistemic fiction. It is easier to think in terms of powers and substances than to move on to a properly laid out and mathematical systems view of what reality really is.
So Hoffman states the obvious about cognition and then gets silly by saying this means the material world is our collective fiction and therefore consciousness is what is fundamental.
The mind and the world are both owed proper scientific accounts. Hoffmans idealism doesnt have anything help here.
This is just a strawman if you refuse to engage with the way "belief" is intended by the authors of the theory.
Quoting apokrisis
Bayesianism is just probability theory. There is absolutely no reason that this should be organism-centric, and the authors have literally constructed mathematical proofs describing its domain of applicability. Whether you like the theory or not, its just a mathematical fact that it can describe a rock. I don't actually see any constructive criticism in your comments other than an unexplained intuition that there is something about it you don't like. The theory fully accomodates characterizations of complicated life; and even so, the topic of the thread is "systems", a concept far more general than ypur favorite topic. The generality of Bayesian mechanics then fits it perfectly.
Quoting apokrisis
Which is more or less just the free energy principle that has been talked about, or at least a corollary with regard to persistent, complicated structures.
Which authors? I was discussing these things with Friston back in the 1990s when it was all about dynamical systems theory and generative neural networks. I'd be surprised if he now disagrees with what would be my position on this.
My point is that it is just dumb to confuse equilibrium systems with far from equilibrium systems. A hot rock has its internal state. Drop it in a bucket of cold water and it then shares the collective internal state of the thermal system that is the much colder rock and the now slightly warmer bucket of water.
Bringing Bayesian belief into this discussion is a publicity stunt and not serious science or philosophy.
But using the maths of Bayesian probability to model the hierarchical structure of dissipative systems that have the "purpose" of degrading entropy gradients could be a different matter. The question becomes whether anything new is being said that isn't already being said by regular approaches to dissipative structure theory.
So your strawman is a strawman. This is an area I have been busy in for a long time.
Quoting Apustimelogist
But with a point of view inserted. That is why it is so good for modelling life and mind, but becomes tenditiously hand-waving if you find yourself using the words rocks and beliefs in the same sentence.
Perhaps it might be done in an academic setting for the shock value. And as I say, it is really shocking if the difference between equilibrium systems and far from equilibrium systems doesn't make it immediately a bad analogy, even if it is only meant as an analogy.
Of the papers I linked, including Friston! Friston has even talked about examples like the rock in zoom discussions.
Quoting apokrisis
Yes, a point which refuses to engage with what I am talking about. Its very simple. Read the papers and they will tell you precisely what I have been saying. Nothing is being confused apart from yourself.
Quoting apokrisis
How? The thread is about systems in the most generic sense. You're the one who started unnecessarily complicating things with your misunderstandings.
Quoting apokrisis
Quoting apokrisis
For someone who has apparently had discussions with Friston himself, its bewildering your inability to just engage with what is being said in these papers and the thread itself.
Quoting apokrisis
Bayes' rule is just as valid for objective probabilities. Thats why its just generic probability. Bayes' rule describes frequencies for things that have nothing to do with beliefs or minds or living systems. Its just generic probability theory.
The properties of living systems doesn't strictly come from Bayes but their complicated nature in the sense that if you characterize a system as performing Bayesian inference, but its state space is simple, its not going to look like a living thing. An often used example is a thermostat, sensing the temperature and regulating it. That can obviously be seen as active Bayesian inference, and aligns with your dissipative topic. But it doesn't look very much like a living creature does it.
They aren't criticisms, and if you just read the papers and try to understand what is being said then you will see that. Your best criticism was "belief is a silly word".
So the use of the Bayesian maths is properly qualified in terms of what its jargon means and doesnt mean. We can move on from such silliness to the more interesting question of whether his Bayesian formalism is a better way of doing hierarchy theory. And I am perfectly open to that being the case.
It is a problem accounting for the topological phase transitions in complex systems as there is the question of whether emergent properties reflect simply the rearrangement of lower level complications or are indeed the top-down imposition of higher level novelty.
Hierarchy theory says top-down constraints do shape the emergent degrees of freedom that form any new level of topological order. A material particle like an electron is shaped by its Platonic-strength encounter with the constraints of U(1) symmetry, for example. As the simplest final organising structure, quantum field excitations had to eventually arrive at that fundamental state of being.
Friston shows that this is his own central question in his conclusion. But he comes down on the other side of this issue. He claims his Bayesian mechanics does away with the need for downward causation when talking about emergence.
So to me, the issues involved in Fristons monograph are clear enough. And I still side with the more is different camp. For reasons I have already mentioned.
Information & Energy are the processes that make the Culture & Nature systems do what they do. If you don't think that is "substantial", then you won't understand the point of the Enformationism thesis. :smile:
Substantial : of considerable importance, size, or worth. ___ Oxford Dictionary
Hoffman is a cognitive scientist, and Systems such as Mind are cognitive concepts (ideas). Do you also consider Nobel-winning quantum theorists, such as Planck & Heisenberg, to be unhelpful, when they make non-empirical philosophical conjectures? :smile:
Donald Hoffman's theories, such as the Interface Theory of Perception and Conscious Realism, are not considered mainstream science, though he holds an established academic position and has conducted empirical research on visual perception. While his work incorporates scientific concepts and mathematical models to support philosophical claims about reality and consciousness, critics argue that much of his philosophy is metaphysical and unverifiable, lacking the falsifiability required for a scientific theory.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=is+donald+hoffman%27s+theory+scientific
Donald Hoffman's work represents a contemporary take on idealism, known as Conscious Realism, which posits that consciousness is the fundamental reality, and the physical world is an emergent property of interacting conscious agents, not the other way around. His theory centers on his Interface Theory of Perception (ITP), which, supported by the Fitness Beats Truth (FBT) Theorem, suggests our perceptions are "icons" that don't resemble objective reality but are rather adapted for evolutionary fitness, with reality being a deeper network of conscious agents. Hoffman uses mathematical models to explore how spacetime and physical laws can emerge from these dynamics of conscious agents.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=donald+hoffman+idealism
I don't really like these quantum examples because you are getting to a point where people don't really know what these things mean in a metaphysical sense. In other parts of science, I don't see arguments over downward causation being anything other than semantic, because it is clear that what is not necessarily reducible is an explanatory framework in an epistemic sense, rather than any genuinely novel strongly emergent metaphysics. You obviously get novel behavior, but again, my intuition is that arguments over the significance of this would largely be semantic. There is something like a downward causation in Friston's description, but it is does not invoke anything more than the same genre of mechanisms that you would talk about to explain natural selection in evolution which are "blind".
This is metaphysics we are talking about. Substance is a claim about what stands under. And ontologically that is usually regarded as a stuff. A passive and stable material that can be worked up into an unlimited variety of forms.
Of course, Aristotle came up with a better story. Which is where systems science got going.
Thanks for reminding me just how much of a crackpot he is.
:chin: :chin:
That "passive & stable" stuff is indeed the fundamental substance of Ontological Materialism. But Aristotle defined his "Ousia" in terms of two elements : real Matter & ideal Form*1. Modern quantum physics concludes that active & dynamic Information (power to enform) is the essence of Matter*2. Shannon's "passive & stable" Information (data) has been found to also be active & causal (form giving), hence equated with Energy : E = MC^2.
My previous post linked to a book : Information is Energy. And. that creative-power-to-change-Form is the opposite of deforming Entropy*3. So, it seems that Aristotle was ahead of his time, to combine Matter (passive & stable) with Energy (power to transform). So, Matter (marble) is inert until it is given Form (sculpture) by its enforming Essence*4 (idea , concept), in the mind of the sculptor. Working together, inert Matter & causal Information (EnFormAction) are the System we call Evolution. Unfortunately, the metaphysics of Materialism ignores the active, causal half of the equation of Substance. :smile:
Note--- " be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you . . ."
Greek Apokrisis = answer
*1. Fundamental Substance :
In Aristotle's philosophy, substance (ousia) refers to the fundamental, individual entities that exist independently and are the subjects of predication. It's a central concept in his metaphysics, distinguishing between primary substances (individual things) and secondary substances (species and genera). Furthermore, Aristotle connects substance with [i]matter and form, suggesting that all physical things are composed of these two elements[/i]
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=aristotle+substance
*2. Information is Fundamental :
Information is more than just a description of our universe and the stuff in it: it is the most basic currency of existence.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/is-information-fundamental/
*3. Information is a Process :
When spelled with an I, Information is a noun, referring to data & things. When spelled with an E, Enformation is a verb, referring to energy and processes.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page11.html
*4. Marble is the raw material, but the sculptor's concept of Form gives it meaning
Yes. From a Materialistic perspective, Hoffman is a heretical thinker, like Immanuel Kant, postulating a veiled noumenal reality (ding an sich) underlying the obvious phenomenal appearances of the physical senses. :smile:
Yes, Immanuel Kant is considered a profoundly important and influential thinker, often regarded as one of the greatest and most significant philosophers of all time.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=kant+important+thinker
Yes, Donald Hoffman is considered an important thinker for his work as a cognitive scientist and popular science author who has challenged the scientific consensus on perception and reality,
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=don+hoffman+important+thinker
Are you saying:
As you'll note I said :-
Quoting Tom Storm
This does not contain any absolutist pronouncements like the two dot points youve provided.
But if I treat these as follow-up questions, I would say that 'reality' is not something waiting to be uncovered but a word we use in shifting contexts to describe what we take to be fundamental. I am not inclined to affirm systems that present themselves as having secured the essence of what is, since what we call reality for me is probably better understood as a contingent product of language, culture, and historically situated practices rather than the disclosure of some underlying foundation.
In my experience, there is always someone on the periphery, doggedly trying to describe reality and reconcile all myths and principles into a single system. They invariably believe themselves misunderstood, refusing to accept that others regard them as cranks.
A fine literary satire of this familiar type was provided by a favourite English writer, George Eliot. In Middlemarch she created the elderly pedant Mr. Casaubon, forever labouring over his great tome, The Key to All Mythologies.
Quoting Pieter R van Wyk
Maybe that would be better restated as, "only cranks and monomaniacs believe they can undertand reality."
In any case, I dont rule out possibilities, but I tend to see the idea of uncovering reality as an old-fashioned, romantic notion whose prospects are, at the very least, uncertain.
Mm, surely you see there is ample room for a bit of irony or "reversing the argument" (whichever seems more apt) here.
Challenge: reply first without clicking 'Reveal'.
[hide="Reveal"]You, hypocritically, have in fact created a system for understanding reality, evidenced by your belief (founded or not) that it is "usually evidence someone is either wrong or wrongheaded".[/hide]
I wrote :- Quoting Tom Storm
Theres nuance here. Im not claiming to have fully solved fundamental questions of reality, nor have I developed a system. I havent claimed to have understood the nature of reality, either. In fact, Im questioning whether 'reality' is even a useful term and provided soem reasons. What I have suggested is a provisional orientation, perhaps a soft form of postmodernism that remains open to revision. Which is why I also wrote:
Quoting Tom Storm
At any rate, the point we're discussing is comprehensive explanations and system-building where there's a claim made that the precise nature of reality has been described, not whether people can hold certain pragmatic presuppositions or tendencies in their everyday lives. What defines a 'crank' (in most instances like this) I would say is the obsession with elaborate system building to 'resolve' age old questions, not the simple act of having opinions or beliefs.
Quoting Tom Storm
Yes, on the face of it, describing reality with a single system does seem to be far fetched, perhaps even absurd. But then, this would depend on one's understanding of reality - an ambiguous notion it would seem - as well as one's understanding of a system - which is exactly the question contemplated by this discussion - also, it would seem, an ambiguous notion.
Perhaps a better question would be: How do we understand things? Please consider:
"If and when we consider things, contemplate things and try to understand things, we can consider anything. In doing this we must convert some anything into something. And there are only two ways we can do this: First we could designate some name (perceive some possible [I]purpose[/I]) to some [I]collection[/I] of anything and then contemplate some valid description of this specific [I]collection[/I]. If we can agree on the [I]unique[/I] things in this collection we have named, we could have a meaningful conversation about something. This is then the notion of a [I]system[/I], how we understand all physical things, even those physical things that give us a perception and an understanding of [I]abstract[/I] things. Let us name this [I]Systems[/I]-thinking, for future reference.
If it is not possible to name something and agree on its constituent parts - we could consider some anything in terms of something else. If we could agree on such a [I]relationship[/I], a meaningful conversation could also ensue. This is how we form an understanding of all conceptual things. And this we could name [I]Relation[/I]-thinking for future reference. In both instances some anything is understood as something. p16 [I]How I Understand Things. The Logic of Existence[/i]
I was just describing something Ive seen. I dont think its a particularly important point. Whether someone is a monomaniac or not hardly matters. We can always ignore them. Who knows, one of them may eventually turn out to be Kant.
Since the debate seemed to dry up, allow me to summarise the ten definitions that was mentioned. I will do this in the format; A system is ... that ...
@Baden a coherency of differences ... differentiate.
@Gnomon a framework ... possesses properties.
@T Clark a group of elements ... interact.
@MoK irreducible entities ... has a set of properties.
@jgill a set or universe ... explain meaning.
@apokrisis interactions ... is successful.
@Astorre elements that interact ... form properties that stabilise.
@Outlander entities ... recognise with intent of an outcome.
@punos a set of components ... constitute a whole.
@Apustimelogist a Markov blanket ... separate a thing from its environment.
From this I conclude that the answer to my question is NO, only some notions with some similarities. But then, neither does systems- scientist and thinkers have an answer to this question.
Some follow-up questions, if you are thus inclined:
From your definition:
Apparently, you didn't get a definition that suited your purposes. Perhaps, you should specify a philosophical problem or application to which you want to apply Systems Thinking*1*2. For me, Jan Smuts' definition of Holism in Evolution*3 can also be applied to various philosophical questions. :smile:
PS___ You quoted Gnomon to say that a System has "properties". But it might be more accurate, for philosophical purposes, to say that an Integrated Whole System has non-physical Qualities, such as Life and Mind.
*1. Systems thinking is a holistic approach to problem-solving that views issues as part of a larger, interconnected system, focusing on relationships, feedback loops, and patterns rather than isolated components.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=systems+thinking
*2. The philosophy of systems thinking is a holistic approach that views phenomena as interconnected systems, moving beyond isolated problems to understand underlying structures, feedback loops, and long-term, systemic consequences. It emphasizes the whole being greater than the sum of its parts and is rooted in biology, cybernetics, and ecology, aiming to create more effective, adaptive, and sustainable solutions by considering the entire web of relationships within a complex situation.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=philosophy+of+systems+thinking
*3. Holism :
Unfortunately, Holism is still controversial in Philosophy. That is primarily due to the practical and commercial success of reductive methods in the physical sciences. Methodological Reductionism attempts to understand a composite system by breaking it down into its component parts. And that approach works well for mechanical devices, but not so well for living things.
https://bothandblog8.enformationism.info/page33.html
Quoting Gnomon
My purpose is clearly stated in my question, nothing more, nothing less. And, it would seem, I got me an answer.
Quoting Pieter R van Wyk
To describe cosmic reality with a "single system" might require omniscience. But that hasn't stopped ambitious philosophers from trying*1, including yours truly. I get the impression that System Building is offensive --- arrogant, absurd, ambiguous --- to those for whom everything is relative, or for whom the universe is random instead of systematic & logical.
Most major religions have diagnosed a broken System, and offer some approach to repairing the break. Many are faith-based, with solutions only available to blindfolded believers. Others are methodical, such as Buddhism, offering a psychological technology for mind control. But even the Buddha admitted that ego-snuffing Enlightenment is a rare achievement. And resurrection & reincarnation merely postpone a final solution to some indefinite future heaven or nirvana. Some religions & philosophies blame the victims for their suffering, due to inherent weaknesses of human nature. In that case, the broken System is blamed on physicality instead of spirituality, the duality of Soul & Body.
Apparently, the answer you were searching for is that Philosophy does not have an answer to "What is a System". Seems you prefer to avoid Systems Thinking in favor of Categorical Philosophy*2, such as Kant's Imperative, or your own "Logic of Existence"*3. Is your theory a complete system, a moral law, or just another "ambiguous notion"? Is the answer "that there is no logical answer" : that Faith is the only answer? :smile:
*1. Philosophical system building is the creation of a comprehensive and coherent worldview that provides answers to major philosophical questions about reality, knowledge, morality, and existence. This approach involves connecting diverse ideas into a unified structure, drawing inspiration from figures like Plato, Aristotle, Hegel, and Whitehead. Systems philosophy also represents a modern philosophical approach that applies systems concepts to construct worldviews, emphasizing interconnectedness and emergent properties.
*2. "Categorical philosophy" most commonly refers to Immanuel Kant's concept of the categorical imperative, a universal moral law stating that one should act only according to principles that could rationally be willed as a universal law for everyone, and always treat humanity as an end in itself, never merely as a means to an end. This means that moral actions are binding absolutely, regardless of personal desires or goals, making them universal and obligatory for all rational beings
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=categorical+philosophy
*3. "How I Understand Things: The Logic of Existence"is a book that questions traditional philosophical and logical frameworks to explore how we perceive and understand existence, challenging the notion that logic can fully capture the nature of being. The work critiques classic systems like rationalism and phenomenology, arguing that their separation of mind and body, or their overemphasis on conceptualization, fails to grasp the pervasive reality of existence itself. Instead, it proposes that existence is signified by the verb "to be" within a judgment, rather than residing in the subject or predicate, and invites readers to re-examine their perceptions of knowledge and reality.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=How+I+Understand+Things.+The+Logic+of+Existence
Note --- Heidegger's system, Dasein, is interwoven instead of isolated.
If you subtract a part from the system, does it cease to act as a system?
So one could remove any cog in a watch and it would stop telling the time. But if you got a bucket and tried to scoop out every whorl in a turbulent stream, whorls would just keep reappearing until you changed the whole system. Like cutting off the water flow or cooling it until it changed state and became a frozen block of ice.
You will note this is an easy way to tell mechanical systems and natural systems apart. And so why a mechanical view of nature is felt not to be enough by many philosophers.
Quoting Pieter R van Wyk
Topological order tells you that systems form within systems to create a nested hierarchy of order. One kind of thing can become the ground for the next kind of thing. But now your maths and physics has to start getting sophisticated to handle that.
However a simple example might be that if a stream freezes, you can now walk across it. Constraints imposed at the level of H2O molecules become freedoms created at the level of some new system that can construct itself upon them.
Quoting Pieter R van Wyk
The Greeks called it a Cosmos. We call it the Universe. Metaphysics would try to understand it as the metalogic of existence. A General Systems Theory such as you have already dismissed. :up:
I have read this response to my work by an artificial intelligent (AI) agent. One should keep in mind that AI has not obtained the capability of abstract thought as yet. Thus, AI is incapable to understand my work. I am still hoping to find an "astute reader", capable of abstract thought and who subscribe to Leonardo da Vinci's dictum, "Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence; he is just using memory."
Yes!
Quoting apokrisis
I understand what you are saying, but I fail to see its relevance to the question.
Quoting apokrisis
You cannot tell me, exactly, what is a system, yet you maintain that your notion (of a system) can distinguish between mechanical systems and natural [i]systems[/I]. Then you complain that philosophers finds this insufficient. How odd.
Quoting apokrisis
Really, 'systems form within systems', how does this happen? By your definition interactions forms a system (by some unspecified process, I assume), then somehow decide to form a system within a system. How odd.
The meta-mathematics required to describe a fundamental general system is actually quite simple.
Quoting apokrisis
You did not answer my question. From your definition then: some interactions formed a system of all systems and you call it the Universe. And this Universe is your 'metaphysical extreme'?
Quoting apokrisis
"Those who say it cannot be done, should not interrupt those who are doing it."
I believe the answer to this question is not as simple as yes or no. Removing a single part from a system does not necessarily mean it ceases to be a system, although it might. Removing a part may simply change how the system functions. Likewise, adding a part to the system will result in a functional change, or the new part may completely disrupt the system and cause it to collapse or break.
It seems to me that there exists a minimal construct that represents the simplest form of a particular kind of system. Subtracting any part from this minimal system will destroy it, while adding parts may or may not destroy it, depending of course on the compatibility of the new part with the existing system structure. This essentially allows a system to either evolve or go extinct.
So i do think your answer to the question is correct, but only in the context of a minimally viable system.
Is anyone on this forum capable of understanding your work? Have you found an "astute reader" elsewhere? If so, how do they answer your challenge : "what is a system?" Has anyone found a "fatal error" in your reasoning?
I don't consider Google's AI Overview to be an authority, but it is a good sifting filter for combing through complex verbiage, abstruse terminology, and esoteric discourse, in order to provide a capsule summary for non-experts. And it provides links to human-authored sources, where abstruse abstractions may be defined in common language.
Your cryptic descriptions in this thread seem to convey what your non-system is not, but leaves undefined (nebulous) what it is. Apparently, whatever-it-is is not General Systems Theory, as defined by Bertalanffy, to distinguish Holism from Reductionism, and to broaden science's focus on isolated parts & sub-systems.
This thread has devolved to a sideline debate on whether "rocks have beliefs". Could you give us a dumbed-down hint, for us non-astute readers, of your ingenious definition of a System, to get us back on track? :smile:
*1. General Systems Theory :
Systems theory is an interdisciplinary field of study that views the world as a complex network of interconnected and interdependent parts, where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. It emphasizes how these components interact and influence each other within a larger system, providing a holistic perspective that contrasts with reductionist approaches. Originating in biology with figures like Ludwig von Bertalanffy, it has been applied to diverse fields such as psychology, sociology, ecology, and engineering to understand and address complex problems.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=general+systems+theory
*2. How can you determine what is part of a system?
first define the system's purpose and boundary, then identify its interrelated components (elements, interconnections, function) that, when working together, produce a whole greater than the sum of its parts. An essential component is one whose removal prevents the system from achieving its goals.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=how+to+determine+what+is+a+part+of+a+system
Note --- If the universe/cosmos is a System, what component is essential to its purpose? If the system has no function or purpose, is it actually a System? Is that your point?
In the Markov Blanket perspective, there are no strict boundaries and systems under this definition can be recursively nested within each other, which is natural; molecules in cellular components in cells in organs in people in societies, ecosystems, solar systems, etc, etc.
Because its a rigorous formal framework, it can be put into practise. An interesting proposal in this paper where they do this, producing algorithms for distinguishing systems and components of systems - "a Markov Blanket detection algorithm".
https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.21217
But this is just dumbing down the idea of a system to make it fit our idea of a machine as the canonical system.
The metaphysical definition of a system dates back to Aristotle's view of causality which said the natural world is formed of its four causes efficient and material cause coupled to formal and final cause. So a system has all four causes, and thus functionality is part of its essence. But a machine is merely, in itself, just a "system" of material and efficient cause. It is a severely reduced system in that half its reason for being has gone missing in the larger story that metaphysics would want to tell.
So consider this. Is a watch part of a system for telling the time?
And then is a cog also part of a system for telling the time? Or perhaps only a part of a system for the more general task of constructing clockworks and other systems where control over gearing ratios is off prime functional concern?
So a watch can be part of a time telling system. Humans can have this need to measure out the day as if time were itself a mechanical process. And then quite naturally, mechanisms that can do that job will start to emerge in the world. The desire is realised as a form that becomes imposed on material being as some precisely engineered arrangement of efficient cause.
The word "system" properly applies to the four cause level of analysis. The whole of what is going on. The systems view is what closes some set of interactions so that they exhibit emergence and self-organisation.
Humans want to tell the time. They might start by dividing the passing of the day using a sun-dial. Then clockwork might do the job better. Eventually a digital circuit can use the vibrations of a crystal to count out time beats with incredible precision.
But these devices just tell the time. That is, there is someone for whom the information matters. The someone that closes the system of causes by having a goal and determining its form.
If the watch on your wrist breaks say a cog snaps off then do you wait forever to see if the watch starts to heal itself, evolve its way back to functionality? Or do you take advantage of there being shops that fix watches, and shops that can sell you better watches in short, a general human system for time-telling that is self-organising in ways that come together to serve that general purpose.
So then a General Systems Theory would extend that very human-centric view of causality to Nature at its most generic level. The minimal system in that "whole of nature" regard.
We would get back to Aristotle's four causes, but now equipped with what modern science and maths has to say about self-organising complexity and dissipative structure.
I wouldnt call it a dumbing down, but more of a focusing in. For me, a system is a kind of machine, and a machine is a kind of system, so i dont really make a distinction between the two terms.
As for the rest of what you wrote, i mostly agree, although i dont use Aristotles causal framework. I think youre right about the watch. The watch is both a product of and a part of the larger system of human timekeeping, and it serves the purpose of that larger system. The cog is to the watch as the watch is to the system of time keeping.
Well exactly. But system science does.
So at best you can argue that there are mechanical systems that exist as a subset of the more general metaphysical notion of a system, which is the Aristotelean four causes one.
You personally might not make this distinction. And indeed it is quite common for folk to fail to make this distinction. Yet it is a distinction that exists in philosophy and was about Aristotle's most important contribution to the history of ideas.
Quoting punos
As I also have said, systems can form nested hierarchies of systems. Aristotle's four causes describes the basic structure of a hierarchy a system that marries top-down formal and final constraint to its bottom-up material and efficient freedom. Then within this cosmic-level structure, you can have any number of systems within systems. Galaxies, stars and solar systems. Plate tectonics, landscapes, the paddocks of a farm.
So a cog is to the watch as the watch is to time-keeping. Except the watch as a system is caught between the clockwork that is its material and efficient causes, and the world of watch-wearers with their keen interest in keeping an accurate count of the passing of the hours, minutes, and even sometimes the seconds.
So yes, the watch has to be made of something its cogs as toothed disks of brass that can be locked into patterns of efficient cause. And it also has to do something in a functional sense. It exists in the final analysis as there is this top-down constraint in the form of a society of creatures who have the burning need to make a count of the passing of time.
Why does a watch exist? We can't answer that question fully without following Aristotle's four cause approach. The hierarchical logic that defines the holism of a system even if it is a sub-system within the system that is Cosmos as a whole.
Why would that be the best i can argue?
And yes, i understand that systems science, and others, may or may not distinguish between a system and a machine, but i do not (for a reason, not out of ignorance), and that approach has not failed me so far. Im also certain that the Aristotelian way of looking at it is an excellent method for making these system determinations, but i prefer to use my own energy-information framework to work these things out. Each of the four Aristotelian causes is fundamentally an energy-information system, or the product of a one. Each one is some mixture of formative information and causal energy.
What would you be arguing over? The mathematical notion of subsets? That the set of two things is a subset of the set of four things?
Quoting punos
So what is this reason?
Quoting punos
Did you mean entropy-information? Kind of like holography, dissipative structure theory, and other examples of physics turning to explicit use of systems metaphysics?
Quoting punos
Uh huh. So Aristotlean hylomorphism as the way his four causes cash out as a hierarchical systems view of substantial being?
Except probably not as hylomorphism arranges things into form/finality as top-down constraint and material/efficient causality as the bottom-up constructing degrees of freedom.
So what you describe is the division into the global structure that constrains and the local potential that gets thus shaped up. The whole produces the parts that are of the right type to (re)construct the whole. But then in contradiction, both the whole and parts are mixes of constraints and potentials themselves?
Perhaps you can explain what you would mean by formal and final cause, and material and efficient causes, being mixtures as you describe. Like what are the proportions in each case and how does that explain the differences between the four causes?
I mean one does want to be able to see how the four causes become the dichotomy of material and formal cause in the hylomorphic formulation. But that doesnt appear too hard to explain in terms of the local-global distinction being paired with a particular-general distinction.
Finality as the long-run general goal and formal causal as the immediate and particular structure achieving that goal. Then materiality as the long-run general potential and efficient cause as the immediate particular action that results from that general material possibility.
So four gets reduced to two x two. You get a global vs local division. But now also a particular vs general division that cuts across that.
This could be what you are angling at. Each of the four causes is itself a mix of the two directions in which the pie can be sliced. Local-global in scale and particular-general in terms of, well, scale.
Material cause would become the raw global potency that is also the sharply individuated possibility.
Efficient cause becomes the sharply particular action which is itself a general long-run feature of the causal order.
Likewise finality is the generality of a purpose that is then also being narrowed to a specific aim, while form is the specific structure that could in fact be a generic class on answers. You can any kind of drainage pattern to empty your bath or organise your thunderstorm, but actually it has to be vortical.
So yes, even duality looks to require duality to complete its duality. What gets broken one way must in return break that which could have broken it, thus returning everything to a unifying whole.
Kind of just like the BIg Bang universe as the double inversion of that which starts out ultimately hot and small in scale to become the ultimately cold and large. The story of a constant doubling in spacetime extent that produces the constant halving of its energy density content.
So hot=>cold because small=>large. And in the end, nothing has changed even though everything has indeed changed. You have inversions of scale in two different directions - extent and content - but each also cancels out the other. Least extent and maximum content become maximum extent and least content.
Im just pointing out that this kind of doubled inversion is both really complicated to imagine when it is an unfamiliar idea but also that systems logic is how we are now finding our universe to actually be.
It might be where your own metaphysics was headed. That might be why the four causes seem also to have their own further internal structure. As indeed I agree that they do. Each is defined by its positioning within a pair of reciprocal contrasts. The local-global and the particular-general. The kind of complex matrix multiplication that modern physics does need to employ to keep track of the symmetry breaking that is fundamental to the story of the Big Bang cosmos.
Quoting punos
Perhaps an interesting argument but, surely, a valid definition of a system must answer the question that is implied by your argument, not so?
If you read this "thread" carefully you should find that I did not offered any definition of a system. In fact I asked whether philosophy has such a definition: Quoting Pieter R van Wyk
Also, I think I have proved my point: The word system is bandied about ad nauseam without any agreed upon understanding, only some ambiguous notions.
Then, AI might be a good "sifting filter" but it cannot recognise a valid new contribution to knowledge. Yes, of course, it could tell you whether a certain understanding is in agreement with the understanding of: Aristotle, Jean Baudrillard, Georg Cantor, Charles Darwin, Kurt Godel, Douglas Kellner, Nicholas Reschar, Bertrand Russel, Ernst Zermelo or any other name one could add to this list; or not. Any new knowledge, real, abstract or imaginary is quite beyond its current capability. For these things you will have to use human intelligence.
Removing something from a system may or may not render it useless. A cog from a clock would likely render it useless, whereas removing the planet Neptune from the solar system would not result in the Solar System no longer existing.
Words can have mulitple meanings and used in an infinite number of sentences.
Abstractions are abstractions. How and why you apply them is up to you. The uses of doing so have limitations.
Quoting Pieter R van Wyk
Not so. The manner in which we use language need not be rational. If anything it helps to either obscure or highlight irrational thoughts and deal with (or not).
A valid definition has nothing much to do with a valid argument.
P1: Potatoes only Eat People.
P2: A Potato has Eaten.
C: A Person has been Eaten.
How I am defining Potato/Potatoes, Person/People and Eat/Eaten is irrelevant.
If the term 'system' can be used in various ways for abstract and physical systems. What you are trying to ask for is something like the height of a human being. There is no definite answer to this, only a set of limits. Which is, ironically, probably a valid definition of what a system necessarily is. Such a definition also deals with the Set of All Sets, as this could not be a definition according to what I have just said as it has not limits.
A totally concede that the colloquial use of the word system is ambiguous, hence my question whether philosophy has a definition of a system. A definition that would remove this ambiguity.
Let me explain with an example: The colloquial use of the word set is just as ambiguous. But in mathematics, therefore also in engineering as well as technology; an ambiguous understanding of set is totally not acceptable. If I may quote the mathematician Charles Wells: "The word or phrase being defined may involve a word that already exists, but the connotations associated with that word are worthless when one undertake to prove something about the concept that the definition defines." or Alexander Backlund: "To bear Systems Theory in mind one should envision some sort of logical and mathematical basis as a formal unambiguous language."
The ambiguity of a set is removed, for example, with axioms such as those by Zermelo and Fraenkel. It would seem that no such understanding of a system is available.
I merely enquired whether philosophy has "some sort of logical" definition of a system - philosophers bandy the word around just as most other people. In fact, in 2000, Nicholas Rescher proposed that concepts such as: cohesive systematisation, systemic order, systemic role, system of explanatory understanding, ... just might pay The Price of an Ultimate Theory, but failed to define what he understood with the word system.
I have asked my question, I have my answer. Thank you for your participation.
By the way, if Neptune is removed from our solar system, all life on earth will cease to exist - we would not know whether the solar system would still exist or not.
How so?
Our solar system is a finely balanced many-body problem, quite difficult to solve mathematically. A two-body problem can be solved analytically but a many-body problem can only be solved numerically. However, please consider the gravitational force exerted on system earth by the following celestial bodies and by system earth on these bodies:
F(sun) = 3.52E22 newton
F(moon) = 1.98E20 newton
F(Neptune) = 2.21E15 newton
In comparison, the worlds total population exerts a force of 4.86E12 newton on system earth.
If any of these celestial bodies would be "removed" from the solar system this fine balance would be catastrophically disrupted and the expected environmental disaster would not be a political talking point, it would be de facto. Or if our solar system evolved sans Neptune, our system earth would have evolved completely different to what it did.
I assume your question was just out of curiosity, or do you want to make a point?
Looks like you are lacking in multiple fields and still not worth talking to.
Bye
Oh, don't mind him. He's just a bit miffed his series of YouTube video lectures on philosophy didn't quite take off as he may have wished or expected. :wink:
Are you really that nice old man in your profile picture? What a fascinating life you must have lived. I do wish you'd share more, perhaps in the Lounge or Shoutbox? It's fine if not. Time is no commodity, for any of us, really. :confused:
Thank you for your kind words and yes the picture in my profile is actually mine. As for the "nice old man" ... that would depend on whom you ask: my grandchildren might agree, might not.
At the moment I do not have any more pertinent questions for this forum. I will comment on some of the other discussions though. It is difficult to share more of my work: 'If I show you a few pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, they are the only things that you will see - a few pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. I had to build the puzzle to the extent that the picture starts to appear for you to understand the picture that I see.' p232 [I]How I Understand Things. The Logic of Existence[/I]
What exactly is the purpose, extent and method of the Lounge and Shoutbox? Could it help me get a decent, critical, honest review of my work?
Oh, my good sir, that depends wholly and entirely upon whom you ask! Some people consider the Lounge a metaphorically graveyard of sorts, where threads that are less than popular are sent to die. Others consider it a place to test one's ideas and theories to see how weighted they are, as far as value. Sort of a "throwing what have you at the wall to see what sticks" kind of free for all arena. As for me? I just use it to play Chess. :smile:
The Shoutbox is a bit of a random, sort of free-for-all chat. Not unlike the Lounge. Just a social element for "social-ness" sake, I suppose. That said, I've read many a great tale on such a venue. Just a place where if you have something on your mind you think others might find of value, no matter how small, so long as it's genuine, you might wish to comment on and just see what others have to say. Mutual engagement and mutual entertainment, one might reduce such to. Not unlike the regular forum, in which strict rules and prose are to be expected. Just a bit of a fun place really, to speak with others like-minded who may generally hold such concepts to a bit lower standard of necessity than the common person these days.
Quoting Pieter R van Wyk
It most certainly could. Though, and I don't mean to impose, are you familiar with recording and uploading video? It might do wonders to get your message across. It's quite simple these days, really. Why, even opening up YouTube almost explains the process perfectly. One side note, however. This website has an odd reputation for people "promoting their work" (which, unlike yours, is generally not of high quality) so the site owner, and as a result his staff, tend to frown upon self-promotion in general. But if done with tact, subtly, perhaps in a link in one's profile or as I said, interesting and engaging videos, such might occur. Such might occur.
It's great to have a published author engaging here, I'm sure @Jamal would agree. That said, there's a bit of a taboo in regards to self-promotion as far as links and book names and whatnot. But anything short of that, let this venue be your oyster, not unlike the market squares of olde! :smile:
Quoting Pieter R van Wyk
Really? :D
I am not at all concerned about your character. Maybe you are a saint for all I know. Regardless, you are wrong. That is what matters here.
I tend not to involve myself in matters of which I am unfamiliar with. These are titles, vernacular, and above all formulae and mathematics I have never made the decision to study or be informed of, but above all remain ignorant of.
I do agree he is correct as to the "if one planetary body, no matter how minute or seemingly insignificant is removed, great disarray and unrest would follow" claim. I'm fairly certain that's scientific knowledge. Whether those great vanguards who protect such wish to promote it or not.
Gravity will be there. It was there before humans and will surely be there after. Why the rush? Why the offense at human error? You act as if you couldn't be an example of such. Couldn't any of us? At least at some point in life? :confused:
So we better not send anything from the Earth to the Moon or to Mars and leave it there, because doing so would result in the solar system flying apart.
Oh wait, we're doomed.
I will keep in mind what you have pointed out here in the future.
No human being has ever created or destroyed a planetary body. That would be space debris. Or a satellite, at best.
You're a fun one, now aren't you?
I have been warned, quite sternly, about self promoting, but was informed that I may reference my own work. I am trying my level best to adhere to this, quite ambiguous, rule.
Interesting place, this forum. I ask a simple question about a definition of a system and end up arguing about absurd nonsensical planetary questions. How odd.
Is it really, though? They do call it "the solar system", after all. Surely there's some relevance. Fleeting or not. :grin:
Okey-okey, I get your point. But consider this:
We speak of the solar [i]system[/I].
We cannot agree on what, exactly, is a [i]system[/I].
We make the absurd postulate that one planet could be removed from the solar [i]system[/I].
This could tell us whether the solar system is in fact a [i]system[/I].
Which clever philosopher stated that from a false (absurd) statement, anything can be proved?
Yes, you are right (I am wrong); but then, anything can be proved from an absurd statement.
You were just factually wrong. Absurdity has nothing to do with this.
Pluto is no longer a 'Planet' it is a 'Dwarf Planet'. Systems can change without losing structure.
Ah. You have a self-published theory to push. And you don't seem to have any interest in placing it within the 2500 year old tradition of systems thinking. Explains a lot.
Quoting Pieter R van Wyk
So far, this is rather rudimentary. But it does lean towards the kind of distinction that a contemporary systems thinker like Stanley Salthe makes. The difference between compositional hierarchies based on the relation: "Is-a-part-of" versus subsumption hierarchies where the relation is: "Is-a-kind-of".
I'll let AI generate an instant summary for you....
I would humbly suggest that you rethink your statement, carefully. Are you suggesting that changing the name or our understanding of a thing, indicates a change in the system[/I] that contains this thing? Surely not! You could change the name of Pluto to Sushi and our solar [i]system will stay exactly as it is!
While you are rethinking your statement, perhaps you should rethink your understanding of a system - or, even better, share your definition of a system in this thread. Perhaps that would help us to understand you better.
With the example of Pluto we have seen, in our life times, the conceptual tweaking of how we regard Pluto. In this case an abstract part of the system has changed, but it has not undermined the whole system.
Systems are refined to better encapsulate our understanding. Removing key blocks from a system can undermine it entirely, but not necessarily.
What is often hard to distinguish with the term system is how it can remain wholly abstract, wholly physical and everywhere in between.
Quite so, but if we do not agree on the basic principles, then we cannot agree on where we are going.
Now, could we agree on the following:
"Physical things exist. We will most certainly argue on how or why they exist and how, exactly, we could understand this existence, but we cannot argue on the fundamental truth of this statement. This is so because I must assume that my perception that I exist, physically, is valid perception. Also, I must assume that my perception that you exist physically, is a valid perception, as are these words that I am typing on a laptop that you are reading, and the table that I am working at, and the chair that I am sitting on. You see, if these assumptions of mine are false, then I do not exist, you do not exist, and the understanding that I am trying to describe to you cannot exist. - then nothing else would make any sense, only our non-existence. However, if and only if we could agree on this, then we could continue with this discourse." p12 [i]How I Understand Things. The Logic of Existence[/I]
So, according to this AI summary, a system is: two models, one a compositional hierarchy the other a [i]subsumption hierarchy[/I]. Do you agree with my understanding?
Two models as two perspectives on the same thing. One offers the synchronic view and the other the diachronic. So one focuses on how a hierarchical systems is, the other on how it developed. One speaks to structure and the other to process.
You get the drift. Complementary views that help make the complexity of a system comprehensible.
I deduce that you have read the AI assessment of "If Neptune disappeared". Since AI is incapable of abstract thought I would regard this assessment as highly suspect. This is apart from the fact that your example is still absurd - it is in the same league as: If the heaven should fall, then we will all be waring blue caps.
I am still, eagerly, awaiting your definition (or at least your understanding) of a system.
I get the drift. But, in my humble opinion, a complementary view that renders the complexity of systems more comprehensible, is neither a definition nor a fundamental understanding.
I would even make a guess a say when all the planets in the Solar System aligned, back in the 90's I believe, the gravitional impact on Earth was greater than what would happen if Neptune disappeared. I might be wrong, but my basic understanding of gravity tells me this is a correct statement--and the world has not ended.
Quoting Pieter R van Wyk
Quoting Pieter R van Wyk
Opinions are worth shit. Make the argument if you can.
Your whole schtick about give me a fundamental definition is crackpot talk. Systems science is a large and varied field of study. It would be like asking you as an engineer to give me one fundamental definition of an engine. One that unifies all the types of engineers that there are.
Oh my. What ever is brewing on your kettle tonight? Something fierce, no doubt. Let us not mistake the strength of one's drink, that it may correlate as such to one's validity.
As an interesting point of fact, most of the fresh foods we eat are grown from manure. I'm not sure if this was the point of your critique or an unintentional backfire, however I leave this here to be judged as it may be.
Quoting apokrisis
Seems simple enough. A reliable machinery or other thing similar that can predictably intake an expected input and produce an expected result. Not that complicated really, now is it? :confused:
At least an engineer knows what is mass, and energy, and entropy, and ... damn, we even know what is a set!
As for the question, what is a system? You (or rather your AI summary) only added one more definition to the list I gleaned from this thread:
A system is ...
So which one is the correct one or are they all correct or perhaps only a particular sublist of this list?
Quoting apokrisis
Perhaps so, but then, if we cannot agree on what this thing is we are talking about, then how the hell can we talk about it?
Quoting apokrisis
Quite so, but then, systems science is only 100 years in the making (the first logic-mathematical definition I found was published in 1923) - and the systems scientists still disagree on what exactly is a system.
On the other hand, philosophy is more than 2,000 years in the making but if there is one thing that I realised is that one should not ask a philosopher for a definition of philosophy.
Please consider:
"If one cannot state a matter clearly enough so that even an intelligent twelve-year-old can understand it, one should remain within the cloistered walls of the university and laboratory until one gets a better grasp of one's subject matter" - Margaret Mead (1901 - 1978)
An engine is a system that converts energy into work.
I would say that you are looking for a quantifiable definition, so one that is mathematically framed. One that is a geometry of relations. And a geometry that includes the tricky thing of quantifying the notion of what a system is even for. A theory of systems has to account for finality or purpose in some useful way.
Another tricky thing is that a theory of systems has to capture its ability to develop and self-organise. To grow and to scale.
So a systems scientist understands that they are seeking to mathematise and quantify this Aristotelean package. There are then quite an array of such models. And it is a work very much in progress.
We had a burst of activity in the 1980s with chaos theory, complexity theory, dissipative structure theory, fractals, scalefree networks, and so forth. Category theory added an angle that set theory couldnt provide. And things continue. Topological order for example.
So it is curious that all this has been happening to advance systems science and yet you seem not to even know what the field is up to.
Correct. So it is a thermodynamic system, a mechanical system and an intentional system. Or at least part of a social and economic system that values free energy as work.
So somehow it is both a part and a whole. It exists in a world that is a multiplicity of systems and yet also a system in itself. Each its own little world of maths and quantification for the engineer.
All this seems quite normal and sensible. One doesnt demand that there be one Margaret Mead level of definition that would suit a small and impatient child.
Here: Quoting Pieter R van Wyk
And here: Quoting Pieter R van Wyk
It is almost like a child being told 3x3=9 not 10, and then turning around and saying "I was wrong, but numbers are stupid anyway!"
As for a defintion? I guess something like: When items (physical or abstract) interact and/or organise resulting in a reasonably persistent cohesive pattern. This is called a System. All Systems are necessarily limit bound.
I have already given you an example of a physical system and one that straddles both the abstract and the physical. The means by which you can understand the effects of gravity is by using the abstract system of mathematics. I am System. You are a System.
Anyway, enjoy yourself here. I feel like I have wasted my time here for the most part. Should have left it, but I am an eternal optimist about the capacities of others and my ability to communicate (much less so the later!).
Yes, I have such a definition. A definition with a theory behind it. A theory that is translated into the language of mathematics. A theory that is based on a geometry of relations. A theory that has definite utility.
Quoting apokrisis
Yes, my theory contains an understanding of emergence <=> evolution, based on the understanding of mathematically framed classes of systems.
Quoting apokrisis
I have contributed to this work in progress and I claim my contribution to be definitive. Subject to somebody finding a fatal flaw in my reasoning.
Quoting apokrisis
Yes, and "compartment theory, graph theory net theory, game theory, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera!" "Systems are a fundamental thing: it requires a theory of its own. Our understanding is such a theory." p140 [i]How I Understand Things. The Logic of Existence[/I]
Quoting apokrisis
Wrong assumption, I know what the field is up to. At least from: Lewis, C.I. (15 March 1923). Facts, Systems, and the Unity of the World. The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 20, No.6, pp. 141 - 151. to Mobus, G.E. (2022), System Science: Theory, Analysis, Modelling, and Design. Springer Nature.
I have a handbook on the science of electricity, written in the 1890's. In which the authors, in the introduction, concede that they know about this new theory of electrons. But this theory is too new and not fully developed and not necessary to understand the science of electricity. All science is a work in progress - this includes systems science.
So, is an engine your "metaphysical extreme", conforming to your definition of a system?
Quoting apokrisis
Please do not misquote me or Margaret Mead.
Quite so, but then there is absolutely no utility in arguing with a person that believe an AI story on face value and then try to sell it as fact.
Quoting I like sushi
No problem. I see you have also wasted some time on Youtube with some philosophical ramblings.
So you self-publish on Amazon and try to drum up attention on some random philosophy forum with aggressive demands for definitions of what is a system that you can then dismiss. Never getting around to explaining what is so definitive about your own new contribution.
Doesnt seem crackpot at all.
To my recollection, I never dismissed, only questioned. :blush:
:D
It was very useful actually.
Quoting Pieter R van Wyk
You were wrong. AI story? It is pretty run-of-the-mill knowledge. Is a secondary school grade understanding of gravitional fields really something people need AI to understand? for you it seems, but even then you do not believe it because you lack the basic understanding
At least you are showing what you are plain and clear for everyone.
Kindly reference the mathematical proof of your statement (belief of) regarding the effect of the hypothetical removal of Neptune from our solar system
quote="I like sushi;1014791"]It is pretty run-of-the-mill knowledge[/quote]
At some time it was pretty 'run-of-the-mill knowledge' that the earth is actually flat.
Hey now, let's be fair. What the heck else is anyone here doing? He's the only one I've seen so far who actually puts his face and voice behind his belief aside from mindless typing to strangers in states of various dishevelment (I assume that's how everyone else posts, but perhaps that's just me).
And what a shame that is! Why doesn't the site owner post videos. Or the mods, especially the ones who have great things to say. It's a tragedy. That's what it is, a tragedy. That most of us are either so shy or so non-dedicated we refuse to put ourselves out there.
So I do praise @i like sushi for doing that much. At the very least. And you too, what with your book. However, and it may not be your fault as certain people are not good under pressure and not able to "instantly respond" and require a quiet, relaxed environment and steady pace to do so, especially with age... I mean, why not post a few videos promoting your book and what you have to say? It's not going to kill you! Will it? :chin:
I concede, unequivocally, it is rude of me to ask for a definition of a system in this forum and not offer my own. I will rectify this in a new open discussion.
Now look what you've gone and done. You made a poor old man "concede". How noble. Surely all great men wake up each morning with such a desire in their heart.
You're a slick talker. I can admit I've been fooled by your veneer here more than once. Nevermore. But I'll tell you now. If I wasn't retired. The lesson me and my sword would teach the likes of you, would be legendary. Nothing short of cataclysmic.
Perhaps, to retain an air of mystery, you have avoided defining the key term in your thread*1. But you seem to have in mind a simplistic concept of a system : like the game Jenga, where players try to avoid removing the essential part of a stack of static wooden blocks. That's a simple gravitation system.
The solar system though is a complex and dynamic system of bodies moving in space, within a larger system of galaxies. It's not likely to fall apart if one planet was destroyed by an extra-solar asteroid. Who has ever made such an "absurd postulate"? Various theories have attempted to explain the asteroid belt as the debris from a collision that "removed one planet from the system". But nobody postulated that the Sol-dominated system itself would fall apart and fly off into space. There is a mysterious organizing force that holds the system together.
One problem with the solar system example is "where do you draw the line" : the boundary between planetary system and inter-stellar space? The other issue is "what makes a bunch of blobs arrayed around a medium yellow star into a system worthy of a name"? Why not include all the rest of the Milky Way galaxy in your system? What is the "function" of our local system that makes it unique for Earth-bound observers? Could it be that the "purpose" of a planet in the habitable zone is to provide a habitat for humans? If not Earth, perhaps an extra-solar planetoid could serve the purpose. In modern evolutionary theory, the solar system as-a-whole functions as a life-friendly gravitational system, allowing biological stuff to emerge.
Systems are like logical Sets*2 : there are sets within sets within sets : a nested set hierarchy. But the set is simply a definition . . . created by a human mind. So you can include as many elements (parts) as you like. If you remove one keystone element, that set may vanish and become a member of a larger set.
So, you are correct that there is no such thing as a System. It's just an idea, not an object : a definition, not a ding an sich ; an organization, not a mess.. :smile:
*1. Philosophical Systems :
To determine what is part of a system, you must first define its purpose and boundaries, and then identify the interacting elements, interconnections, and the system's environment that together produce a unified whole. The process involves a self-determined definition of the system's scope, focusing on the parts essential for fulfilling its function rather than the entire universe of possibilities.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=how+to+determine+what+is+a+part+of+a+system
*2. Logical Sets :
In logic and mathematics, a set is a well-defined collection of distinct objects (called elements or members) that are thought of as a whole. Set logic refers to the use of logical operations within set theory, where basic logical connectives like "and" correspond to set operations such as intersection, while the study of sets itself is a foundational branch of mathematics for precise definitions.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=set+logic+definition
IS THIS AN ORGANIZED SYSTEM OR A DISORGANIZED CHAOS?
What is the purpose of stacked rocks?
I have had several video calls from members on this site with the intent to record and publish on youtube to perhaps help boost interest in the forum--which I hope they enjoyed as much as I do. Only one was happy to be recorded though, and they were in academia. Sadly I accidently lost/erased the video, but it needed editing anyway due to the natural rambling (which I did not have time for).
I prefer a more face-to-face dialogue as it usually cuts through the BS and is usually more time efficient, as well as genuine: can get just as messy as threads here though but certainly more amicable.
This will depend on a possible purpose, not so? In my younger days I did some mountaineering, we used stacked rocks (like your picture) to mark a road, thus it was part of a navigation system. Your picture though, looks like a piece of art (A deliberate transformation of the feelings and emotions of the artist [the life form making the art], into a physical form. p96)
So, you agree that the seemingly haphazard stack of irregularly shaped rocks is a "system", in the sense that it was produced, not by Nature, nor by mountain goats, but by a sentient agent with a future purpose in mind : navigation aid or abstract art???
Hence, a "System" can be defined as the deliberately organized result of imagination or intention? That would imply some ultimate intent, not an accident, that arranged a collection of rocky & gassy planets into a life-bearing arrangement of factors necessary for animation to emerge. Yes? :smile:
PS___ Astrobiologists have produced theories of necessities for extra-solar life to emerge. But, for most, divine or design Intention is not one of the essential requirements for a Living habitat or System to coalesce from random patterns of stars & planets .
From How I Understand Things. The Logic of Existence
From How I Understand Things. The Logic of Existence
Now we're getting somewhere : a definition of "System" that may be relevant to the covert purpose of this thread. Example : A System is a collection of things designed for a specific purpose or function*1. Question : designed (created?) by Accident or Intention? Or, in the case of universals*2, not designed, nor contingent, but eternal & self-existent, like Plato's Form. But is the Purpose/Function top-down intentional, or bottom-up inferred, or both? :chin:
Note --- I've learned a new mathematical or logical symbol ":=" for the purposes of this work, the word to the left is stipulated to mean the description on the right.
Quoting Pieter R van Wyk
Traditionally, "The Universal System" has been labeled God, or some variation like Brahman (ultimate, unchanging, and infinite reality) . But is that unique set-of-all-things Real (tangible) or Ideal (conceptual) ; Quanta or Qualia ; Immanent or Transcendent? Spinoza and Smuts*3 identified the "one and only one" System with the immanent Universe or Nature. But the Big Bang theory has raised the question of some prior or higher Set or System. Alas, Multiverse & Many Worlds systems seem to water-down the notion of uniqueness. :smile:
*1. A "whole system" refers to an entire, self-contained entity consisting of numerous interconnected components and their relationships, working together to achieve a specific purpose or function. It emphasizes the totality of the system, including its structure, behavior, interactions, and the environment in which it operates. The concept is central to systems thinking and highlights that changes to one part of the system can have cascading effects on all other parts.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=definition+of+whole+system
*2. In philosophy, universals are repeatable characteristics or qualities that can be shared by many different particular things, such as the "greenness" of two green apples or the "humanity" shared by all people. The philosophical problem of universals questions whether these abstract universals actually exist in reality, and if so, how they exist and relate to the particular objects that embody them. Key positions include realism (universals exist independently), nominalism (universals are just names or concepts), and conceptualism (universals are concepts in the mind).
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=philosophy+universals
*3. Holism is the philosophical idea, coined by Jan Smuts in his 1926 book Holism and Evolution, that the universe has a fundamental tendency to form wholes that are more than the sum of their parts through a process of creative evolution. This concept describes an inherent, unifying, and organizing activity in nature that drives the emergence of increasingly complex structures, from molecules to minds, in a progressive series of "wholes".
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=smuts+holism+def
From the fundamental definition of a system, it is possible to identify seven fundamental classes of systems:
These classes emerged subsequently and consequently with cumulative capabilities. Thus, systems exist only in the real world - that is, all systems are physical systems, but there exist systems with the capability of abstraction.
Moreover, this classification provides a theory of evolution sans any tautologies.
From How I Understand Things. The Logic of Existence
OK. Now we have narrowed-down the kind of Systems this thread is about. As far as we know, only physical biological beings*1 are capable of abstracting Ideas from concrete Reality. And only one of those physical sub-Systems has the capability to communicate their intangible ideas in the form of meaningful symbols : e.g. auditory or visual Words. The jury is still out on parrots & dolphins, which apparently can produce two-way communication to some degree. Even dogs can understand a few words of spoken language, but can't reciprocate except via body language, including barking and button-pushing .
Given that the ability to abstract ideas has evolved on at least one planet, what does that fact imply about Evolution in general? Were living & thinking & abstracting entities inevitable, perhaps because that was the Purpose of the evolutionary System from its Big Bang beginning? Was the System programmed or designed to produce Thinking Beings?
Are you implying that Darwin's Theory of Evolution is based on Tautologies or Axioms? For example "survival of the fittest" is a generalized definition from limited observations. And it only specifies reproductive success, not technological prowess, such as that of the world's most successful species of idea abstractors : homo sapiens. Do you have a non-tautological Theory of Evolution, that might explain how & why immaterial Abstract Ideas could emerge from a physical thermodynamic system? Is homo technologicus the acme of abstract evolution, or just an incomplete intermediate solution to the ultimate purpose of the cosmic developmental System? :smile:
*1. Abstract Thinkers :
Animals such as primates (including chimpanzees and baboons), dolphins, pigs, dogs, crows, and even ducklings and chicks have shown evidence of abstract thought.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=animals+capable+of+abstract+thinking
I am not sure what you are trying to say here:
Quoting Gnomon
Only what you are stating - that the ability to abstract ideas has evolved on at least one planet. Nothing else.
Quoting Gnomon
Perhaps
Quoting Gnomon
Perhaps programmed or perhaps designed
Quoting Gnomon
I am not implying anything about Darwin's Theory of Evolution. To my knowledge it is based on two principles (neither tautologies nor axioms):
To my knowledge it is still the accepted wisdom from philosophy that evolutionary theory is, in fact, not an empirical theory with falsifiable hypothesis but rather an elaborate set of tautologies. Refer, for example, to: Hunt, T (December 2014), [i]Reconsidering the logical structure of the theory of natural selection.[/I] Communicative & Integrative Biology 7(6), e972848; Published with licence by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
It is my perception that we are starting to diverge from the thread of this discussion. I have the answer to my question. Just as the systems- thinkers, scientists and engineers, philosophers do not have a definition, nor is it backed by a theory, of a general system. I have provided my definition of a general system and mentioned the classes of systems that I have deduced from this definition. This provides a very small part of a big picture:
"This complete work could be described as:
It just might be interesting to view the full canvas.
A. By "kind of system" I mean an organization*1 with a particular logical-or-physical, structure-or-function-or-purpose, that can be distinguished from an ordered pattern with a different structure or purpose.
B. All I know about your "defined classes of systems" is that it sounds like a definition of God, or G*D as I like to spell it.
C. By "sub-system" I mean an organization or structure that is a part, or sub-set, of a larger or more comprehensive system of a similar type or kind : e.g. solar system is a sub-system of cosmos.
By "narrowed-down" I meant, that you have finally given me enough information to begin to understand what you mean by "system". But I'm still not sure how you interpret & apply that notion to a philosophical worldview. I won't take the time to "view the full canvas" until I'm convinced it will be worth the time invested. Meanwhile, we tip-toe around the margins of Systems as a universal concept.
For my own philosophical purposes, my current understanding of world Systems is amenable to Jan Smuts' concept of Holism*2. It's simple, but universal. He applied it specifically to biological Evolution. But it has since been used to explain a variety of scientific & philosophical questions : complexity, causation, organization, information, computation, communication, organism, ideology, theology, etc. :smile:
*1. Organization :
In a scientific context, organization refers to the structured and hierarchical arrangement of components within systems, particularly living organisms, where parts are organized into increasingly complex levels (e.g., atoms to molecules to cells) to perform specific functions essential for life. This arrangement is a fundamental characteristic of life and is studied in various scientific fields, including biology, where it describes the hierarchy of life from molecules to ecosystems, and organizational science, which examines the structures, processes, and behaviors of groups and entities
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=science+organization+definition
*2. Holism is the interdisciplinary idea that systems possess properties as wholes apart from the properties of their component parts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holism
As I mentioned above, taken together, these characteristics of systems seem to add-up to a Creator God as the System-of-all-systems. Hence our space-time world is a sub-system of the Set-of-all-sets. In the abstract, this list could apply to A> the God of Abraham, Isaac & Jacob, or B> Hindu Brahman, or C> Spinoza's deus sive natura. Was that your intention? :smile:
1, Fundamental, non-temporal, non-contingent, self-existent
2. Election : ability to choose from alternatives
3. Eternal existence
4. Divine revelation, manifestation
5. Logos, rational Form
6. Creative & Causal
7. Generalizing universals from specifics : Ideas from Reals and vice-versa?
#. And the System rested on the seventh class . . . . .
So be it, then.
But I do stipulate the following: "It is my claim that our (my) theory is reductionism and holism, not reductionism or holism. p200 How I Understand Things. The Logic of Existence
Quoting Gnomon
No, it does not. There is no such thing as a system-of-systems. This is a self-referencing abomination that cannot exist.
Quoting Gnomon
No, a system is not a set. It cannot be a set.
Quoting Gnomon
No.
Quite so, but consider, one of us is standing with his nose to the ground and expect the other one to explain his whole world (Universe?) to the one with his nose to the ground.
Somewhere at the beginning of this thread, I wrote the following:
Quoting Astorre
You're asking for a lively discussion, not just references. And here's my first assertion:
The word "system" was invented by humans to describe phenomena.
This word successfully describes some phenomena and less so others: for example, "system" is suitable for describing the mechanism of a watch, but it's inappropriate for describing a phenomenon such as the system of the world order. In short, in my opinion, nothing is a system in itself, but we are comfortable calling a system some part of what we work on/study/research/create. A system is a concept we use to reflect the structures of the world. And since the word "system" is a concept, we (humanity as a whole) can agree on what we understand by this word, and that will be an accurate definition of the concept.
However, yesterday, walking down the street, I thought: Is there anything in the world around us that couldn't be called a system? A stone is a system of molecules, an anthill is a survival system, and the solar system is a system of orbits. Therefore, a system is everything: from any existing entity to the value system in our heads.
From the above theses, it follows that there cannot be any "matter" or "substance" of a system. A system is not a thing, but a way of talking about things.
So, can we name, define, and set boundaries for this concept? I think it's possible, but we should define it not by searching for the matter of a system, but by identifying the characteristics inherent in systems. In other words, the main idea is to define the characteristics of a system.
So, here are what I would call the characteristics of a system:
1. It consists of elements
2. The elements interact with each other
3. By "working" together, the elements develop new properties than each element individually
4. Boundaries (which the knower will name, since otherwise the system is everything)
5. The elements are structured (organized and ordered)
6. Stability over time (the pattern persists for a sufficiently long time, at least more than a single moment).
Quite so, and thank you for your contribution. Your "assertion" is similar to the general accepted colloquial understanding of a system. But then, there are those that postulate that the notion of a system might reveal more:
In 1994, Aerts et al made 23 proposal for study to help in the development of a world-view. One of them is systems. They state, however: "The status of systems theory itself deserves attention (a useful vocabulary or set of principles and theorems that have exploratory value).
Aerts et al, (1994). World Views: From fragmentation to integration. VUB Press: Brussels.
Then, in 2000, Nicholas Rescher addressed the possibility of a theory-of-everything, and show, logically, that such a theory is not possible. Rescher, however, speculated that an understanding of systems might provide the key to such a theory.
Rescher, N. (2000). The Price of an Ultimate Theory. Philosophia Naturalis, vol. 37, pp 1 - 20
The possibility exist that @Gnomon's notion of a system as a holism might be the key to such a theory - but I doubt that. You see: "To bear Systems Theory in mind one should envision some sort of logical and mathematical basis as a formal unambiguous language."
Backlund, A. (2000) The Definition of System. Kybernetes, Vol. 29 No. 4, pp 444 - 451
I have found, and published, this key. It provides not only a valid world-view, actually a universe-view, but also a valid theory-of-everything. Now I am trying to find a fatal flaw in my reasoning - you see to claim a solution to the impossible is frowned upon from the ivory towers. Engineers do it all the time ... the impossible.
I used to be more of a positivist than I am now and believed that a universal tool could be provided. Systematic studies in philosophy, particularly ontology, forced me to reconsider my views in the spirit of postpositivism. The same fate befell Heidegger (as far as I know). He began by wanting to provide a universal tool, but ended by admitting that his works were metaphysics.
One could say that Heidegger moved from methodological optimism to profound doubt in the very project of universality and rational explanation. This, in a sense, echoes the transition from positivism to postpositivism in science and philosophy: the rejection of the idea of ??ultimate truth, the recognition of the contextuality of knowledge, the role of language, tradition, and historicity.
But if you manage to discover the foundation of all this, please share it.
I say again:
"If I show you a few pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, they are the only things that you will see - a few pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. I had to build the puzzle to the extend that the picture starts to appear for you to understand the picture that I see." p232 [i]How I Understand Things. The Logic of Existence.[/I]
Yes, this picture is described in more than 200 pages.
Gnomon is not a professional Logician, or Mathematician, or Systems theorist. Just an amateur philosophical scrivener. So the general (non-technical) concept of Holism is sufficient for my needs, to make sense of complex physical & philosophical systems.
I am however, somewhat familiar with the Santa Fe Institute for research in complex systems. And their researchers are experts in various scientific fields, but are also encouraged to think outside the traditional boxes. Maybe you can find someone there to exchange technical cutting-edge esoteric ideas with. By the way, a general term for their approach to science is Holism, as opposed to Reductionism. :smile:
Santa Fe Institute (Cowan Campus)
1399 Hyde Park Road
Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501
United States of America
Phone: 505-984-8800
Contact : email@santafe.edu
What is Complex Systems Science? :
Complexity arises in any system in which many agents interact and adapt to one another and their environments. Examples of these complex systems include the nervous system, the Internet, ecosystems, economies, cities, and civilizations. As individual agents interact and adapt within these systems, evolutionary processes and often surprising "emergent" behaviors arise at the macro level. Complexity science attempts to find common mechanisms that lead to complexity in nominally distinct physical, biological, social, and technological systems.
https://www.santafe.edu/about/overview
The Santa Fe Institute was founded in 1984 by a group of scientists frustrated with the narrow disciplinary confines of academia. They wanted to tackle big questions that spanned different fields, and they felt the only way these questions could be posed and solved was through the intermingling of scientists of all kinds: physicists, biologists, economists, anthropologists, and many others.
https://www.santafe.edu/
Neither am I -Quoting Gnomon - just a retired engineer that likes to understand things. If the philosophical notion of holism works well for you ... good. It did not provide answers to my questions, at least not answers that made sense to me (has utility) and are consistent.
I know the work of the Santa Fe Institute - done a few of their online courses. Was very interesting, but did not provide answers to my questions either.
And ...
From my perspective, there is a new religion popping up, based on Holism and human consciousness. A religion that would be about as good as any religion we have (or had).
Since I'm an introvert and a loner, I have no interest in a structured religion, old or new*1. And not much need for the "peace & security" of belonging to a unified group of people : sect or social system. I guess you could say that Philosophy is my solo religion ; but it offers no final answers, and little existential comfort. In lieu of a biblical or tribal religion I have developed my own personal worldview*2, based partly on Holism, Information theory, and Quantum physics. No rules or rituals, wines or ganja, candles or incense, priests or preachers . . . . just a better understanding of why the world is the way it is. :halo:
*1. A new religion incorporating holism
emphasizes the interconnectedness of all things, viewing the human being as a unified "mind, body, and spirit" rather than separate parts. This worldview aligns with the New Age movement's belief in the universe as a single, interconnected whole, rejecting scientific reductionism and traditional dualisms. Instead, it promotes individual and collective spiritual transformation to achieve a greater sense of peace and unity
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=new+religion+holism
*2. Enformationism :
A philosophical worldview or belief system grounded on the 20th century discovery that Information, rather than Matter, is the fundamental substance of everything in the universe. It is intended to be the 21st century successor to ancient Spiritualism & Materialism. An Update from Bronze Age to Information Age. It's a Theory-of-Everything that covers, not just matter & energy, but also Life & Mind & Love.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html
I don't know. Why do you ask? What do you think has been reified*1 in this thread?
If you are thinking of Holism or Enformationism, they are philosophical theories & worldviews*2, not physical objects. Even Realism is not real, but Ideal. :smile:
*1. In philosophy, hypostatization is the act of treating an abstract concept, mental construct, or social phenomenon as if it were a concrete, material thing or a real, independent substance. This often manifests as a fallacy where an idea or word that normally refers to a process or quality is given an independent existence, which can lead to misunderstandings and flawed arguments.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=hypostatization+definition+philosophy
*2. The "-ism" suffix forms a noun that can refer to a distinctive doctrine, belief system, or theory (like socialism or feminism), an action, process, or condition (such as criticism or pauperism), a characteristic behavior or quality (e.g., heroism), or an oppressive, discriminatory attitude (e.g., sexism or racism). It is a productive suffix of Greek origin used across various fields, from philosophy and politics to religion and behavior.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=ism+suffix+meaning