deadsystems

Dead Systems:

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Bela

Re: "let them develop their own version "

"E ... another take on being premature is to have just enough contact with selected (capable)  people to give them a glimpse of the world as you see it, and watch to see if they pick up on it and then let them develop their own version ... then leave them alone to run with it .... a lot of useful
work in FIS has taken place along these lines ... B"

I am thinking of developing an area of expertise in Dead Systems or, at least, my own version of it. My first idea, borrowed from Paul de Man, is that Dead Systems Have Definition. Living Systems get a lot of press on the InterNet but dead systems are not studied. They are, it appears, condemned universally. I would like to take a long look at Dead and Closed Systems.

I offer, as a start, Post-Modernism. That useful and defined organization is a dead system yet quite useful.

 (I've noticed, to my surprise, that Dead Systems have input and output for example but it does not make them Living Systems thus throwing the definition of Living Systems into question as well. For example, any Living System may not be able to have defintion and still be living.

 In discussion groups, ie: Constructivist, I have suggested Maturana's submarine as an excellent example. Could we, also, include Bateson's blind man and cane?

 Hmmmmmmmmmmm. Interesting direction.)

The overall goal, in doing this kind of intellectual exercise, would be to formulate your new definition of systems thinking as you requested in your Presidential address to ISSS, a seminal piece of work I might add.

ciao

Eric

"Only Dead Systems Don't Change" www.usenix.org

Introducing Toasters, Cats, and Snowflakes

www.omidyar.net

For more material on "Dead Systems" see:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=%22systems+thinking%22+%22dead+systems%22&btnG=Search

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