CHAPTER ONE An entry and first of all — What 15 a System? fe be extremely cautious say begs a host of questions, Here is a start: "A System nip of eterments Thai much seems 10 be essential. And ii iy nor elear that we can say much more. ‘The poins th PURPOSE. sanaious 10 add i i System has a ‘The trouble is WHO SAYS SO?= ‘Then there are a great many Systems that do not say anything at all about their Purposes. But all sorts of people are willing to assert what these purposes are, ‘So where does the idea that Systems in general have a purpose come from? (T COMES FROM YOU! is you observer who recogni the System es its purpose. YOU — the observer — who recognizes here is quite a lot of agreement about d *government’ — even if there is a urpose. \We do no! agree about the py ‘government’ as a idaries. 1 bet that we DON'T agree. boundaries of a System, and there usually is sn how can We be sure that we have actually da tiger, We reeogn = impossible. iat, bY agreement, or else 1 Arctic, and met a tiger. Would it But what does it tell us about the boundaries of the System that we label accustomed to looking at tigers in the 200. In that context we are fair boundaries of the Tiger System. Those 9 boundaries were imposed on the Tiger System by the curator of the 200, and. we accepted his say-s0 on the matter Can tigers climb trees? How do you know? Are you swe? In any ease, judgment about the Tiger System or a judy your view of the question a ns — and ‘System we call If none of perhaps you would Tiger... ‘The purpose of a tiger is: nature and purpose of the System observed are ENTAILED. The ‘ther side of this coin is even more disconcerting. Once you have declared that10 you know the nature and the purpose of the System, the facts that are relevant to your conceptualizations are the ONLY facis that you can recognize. systems, and still less see them differently? Does this mean that we can never communicate abi essay scientific statements about systems — since we No. What it means is that we have to agree on the CONVENTION about the nature, the boundaries, and the purposes of any System before we can agree to count as a fact some objective reality — provided that we have also ageeed the convent 10 what is to count as a rib. motor car is a System tor poisoning \€ motor car is System for covering, “s completely in asphalt Hold it: this was going to be realistic. Let us agree on the A to B convention, for the sake of the argument. At the very least, we ean expect agreement abo between the n before the logo is motor car was alway: as agreed that it was. 1 er that if could ne ‘car's defecis before something else failed, then neither could anyone else. It was not just a matter of having an unlucky production number: the whole provisioning system for spare paris must be faulty "1 I wrote (0 the managing direcior of the manufacturing company to point out that the System for spare-part provisioning dic! not work. He disagreed. He said that there was nothing the matter with the System. He was sorry, of at wad so much difficw he firm the exact words our system is efficient and that it only 1 ¥, due t0 manufacturing conditions or outside deficien leading the fact that he was not a mere businessman, What is the nature, and what is the purpose, af a spare parts provisioning System — and what are it ‘we may know the purpose of @ System by WHAT IT DOES, then what did ds Syste ‘do? From my point of view i was a System for not supplying spare pars, From the I view, it cust have had a different purpose: In any case, the nature Returning to is ot presented to us on a plat itis what we declare can be s systems whose any rate, not make of systems, not ever those who in some sense (ws wer these questions has not understood the |. Perhaps Anyone who now expecis me to all i because I use the System. and therefore: see what inter ical explications. of its doi responsil does — without the ad without any