antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 12:11 pm on September 15, 2019

Do systems exist?

antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 12:14 pm on September 15, 2019

For example:
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/liam-mahon-b893b6127_a-system-does-not-condition-behaviour-people-activity-6576835215099072512-0m6d/

1/2 A system does not condition behaviour. People are the system. A system is not some sort of machine which governs how people behave. Take a look at Checkland and the concept of purposeful human activity systems. All organisations are purposeful human activity systems as..

— Mahoo (@SystemsNinja) September 9, 2019
- antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 3:49 pm on September 17, 2019
  
  I found this very interesting and relevant, unsurprisingly perhaps because David Chapman is my ontological-epistemological hero: https://twitter.com/meaningness/status/1174055633013788672?s=21
  
  There were discussions about this on twitter: https://twitter.com/antlerboy/status/1173312528782417920?s=21
  
  And Facebook:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2391509563/permalink/10157309180069564?sfns=mo
  
  In the latter of which, Judith Rose reminded me of her father (Gregory Bateson)’s definition: “A system is a collection of percepts that seem, to us, to go together in some way.”
  
  Which, henceforth, I’m going to adopt as my official definition.
ComplexWales 12:58 am on September 23, 2019

That would mean – in a tree falling in the forest kind of way – that if there’s nobody there to perceive it as such, then it’s not a system, whether or not it actually exists. So I’d add “…as to afford it a proper noun.”
- antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 12:44 pm on November 25, 2019
  
  Thank you for the serendipity! Was just looking for the Bateson definition to add to the Twitter discussion 😀
- antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 3:00 pm on November 25, 2019
  
  I’m quite bullish on this – I think there’s no meaning outside of there being a meaning-maker.
  Your theoretical tree falls in the theoretical forest because you call it into being, but otherwise… no.

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Do systems exist?