Systems within systems

Systems within systems

Tom Kemp 1214067383|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Every system has a goal. We know this and we help an organization find the correct measurements to move it ever closer to its goal. However, each system is composed of subsystems. Sometimes these are obvious and self-imposed, such as departments of a firm or classes in a school. Sometimes they are less obvious such as systems of political allegiance within the firm or ethnic groups within the school. Conversely, each system is always just a subsystem of some supersystem: the firm is part of a supply chain and the school is part of a community. We happily use the phrase "the system as a whole" but, in reality, there is no such thing.

How do the goals of each of these systems, subsystems and supersystems interact? Classically, we know that measurements applied to the departments of a firm often move the firm itself away from its goal. And that's because each department's goal does not recognise the goal of the supersystem. To what extent does this happen? To what extent is it the case that a subsystem's goal is always in conflict with it's supersystem's goal? Considering a system as a network of dependencies, graph theory tells us that there are a great many possible subsystems (subgraphs) of the main system. To what extent, in reality, do each of those subgraphs represent a "real" subsystem with its own goal? At what point do we stop moving upwards, looking at higher and higher level supersystems and say: "these are separate systems for which it is not worth looking for a common goal"?

Each system is made of individuals working. Each of these people is a valid system with its own goal. If we come up with a framework for examining goal-interaction between systems and their components then it should be able to model the way people interact with each other either in the effort to reach a common goal or in the effort to attain their goal at the expense of others' goals or of the goal of the society or organization they belong to.

Re: Systems within systems

Productivity Guy 1214341444|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Hi Tom - 'thought I'd have a play with you on this one…

I think that there is a distinction between the actual system (what is happening) and the cognitive system (what we reckon is happening). From this point of view, I'm not sure that any actual system has a goal - actual systems may well evolve (for want of a better term) in a certain direction, but even that is up for debate, given the title of your posting.

If you agree with me here, you may also agree that your assertion that "every system has a goal" may well apply to a cognitive system rather than an actual system.

I'm not discounting that the sort of sytems we're talking about are complex adaptive system , but think that although the actual system influences and is influenced by the intelligent response of (for the most part) people, there are, once again two (sub) systems at play: the actual subsystem and the cognitive subsystem. The cognitive subsystem would have at least one goal (one or more of various types, perhaps), but I'm not sure that actual subsystem has a goal, merely because the cognitive subsystem has one.

Do you think that it's worth exploring this - or defining more specifically what we're referring to by "system" and "goal"?

Re: Systems within systems

Dorina Grossu 1214427660|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

This is an interesting view from a theoretical perspective.
Daily individual interactions dislocate an inconsistent energy therefore, system would have different energy outcomes depending on input. System's goal can be converted into energy levels but if we need to apply formulas, it will become complex and unrealistic. It can be done as a theoretical model (not sure if it does not exist already) by considering personality types and different energy levels.

Goals as achievements can be considered 100% that we know it is not attainable but from there we can deduct probably the chances of success.

Equation at balance: ∆Energy of the system+ ∆Energy of surroundings=0

Re: Systems within systems

PatWilson 1214755301|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

This is a great new site! Thanks (It looks like Tom Kemp) setting this up and somehow getting me invited!

Another interesting subject that I can't help to chime in on.

A lot fo terms used in the preceding posts that it is important to level set everyone on (on how I interpret them).

example terms I read:
System
Subsystem
"Actual" system
"Cognitive" system

True, evey system is also a subsystem of a greater system. But I think the part of a subsystem that is real is only the parts that are actions and effects. We call entities that imply cognitive influences of a system, or sometimes the "nonphysical" systems, or sometimes "intangible" systems. Examples of entities that are intangible are goals, needs, policies (a few more but you get the point). There are only two distinct entities which are physical or tangible and they are of course actions and effects. Effects could be called a state or a condition. Some of the teachings coming from Goldratt say that the only real entities of the system are the physical entities, and therefore the only thing that can change "reality"are actions. Interesting.

Now, getting back to the terminology. I often hear references to physical systems or intangible systems as if they're two seperatge sybsystems in and of themselves. I would venture to say that this is not true at all. While there exist purely physical subsystems (meaning systems with no cognitive/rational influences - e.g. water erosion of a mountain, the orbits of the planets arount the sun - they have cause and effects but occur regardless and independent of reason stemming from thought) But I declare every system invlolving humans don't have seperate subsystems of rational entities but rather an intangible dimension of the subsystem. In other words, our goals cannot be achieved without an action occuring to change a physical state (to cause an effect), no intelligent action can take place without an underlying rationale.

So in conclusion I would say that a rational system leading to cause and effects, even a subsystem, could not be described fully without describing the both the physical and nonphysical entities of the system since the effect could not exist without both. That is therefore why I believe it is more true when describing a "cognitive" or rational system, when referring to the physical entities or the intangible entities, to call them either the tangible or intangible dimension of the subsystem rather than as seperate subsystems. And lastly, there can be no meaning to a system without an asscociated rational, which would mean totally physical systems lacking any cognitive influence have no meaning. And likewise the flipside of that is that the intangible dimension of the system that has intangible elements is what gives those systems meaning.

Thanks again everyone for a very intersting forum!

Pat

Re: Systems within systems

Tom Kemp 1214777844|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

We've had a few replies to this one and I don't claim to understand them all fully. This wiki is an interesting one because (hopefully) it attracts people from many different disciplines all of which have their own specialist language and, in particular, may use the same term as another discipline to mean something different by it. I think (like Pat) the only way to overcome the possible confusions which this will lead to is for everyone to define what they mean by a specialist term. Some of the terms used already are 'system', 'subsystem', 'supersystem', 'cognitive', 'energy', 'adaptive', 'action', 'effect'. And by 'define' I mean really define using simple terms which we can all agree on. I can define 'kinetic energy' as half the mass of an object multiplied by the square of its velocity, assuming that 'mass' and 'velocity' are simpler, more universally understood concepts. If we don't do this then we'll go round in circles and come to simplistic conclusions. It would also be really useful to give real examples of what we are talking about to help everyone reach a mutual understanding of the problems and possible solutions being discussed.

In that spirit, I suppose it's up to me to define 'system'. I use Goldratt's definition of 'a set of dependencies between entities (such as tasks or logical propositions)'. My background is in computer science so I model a system in this sense as a 'graph'. Graph theory (see the wikipedia entry) is a useful mathematical tool for describing such systems. It doesn't care what the entities are; it's the dependencies between them which count. A 'subsystem' is therefore just a subset of those dependencies. Because graph theory doesn't worry about what the entities or dependencies mean then it's not much good for discussing the details of real systems. For example, graph theory allows us to look at any arbitrary subset of dependencies in a system but in real life I'm guessing such a subsystem doesn't always make much sense. For example, I can look at an organization composed of departments. These are "natural" subsystems of the whole system. But I could also look at a small part of a department's work which is a valid subsystem of a subsystem. However, can this small part have its own goal? It probably doesn't if we haven't bothered to give explicit measures to that part. However, we do measure each department and that department will have a goal (such as 'be the best department in the organization') or is it because we measure the department it has a goal? It certainly looks like measurements and goals are intimately related.

I am woefully ill-educated with respect to psychology so I apologize for my poorly-thought-out remarks during the first post about the goals of individuals. I know I personally have a goal and I'm sure many others do. I'm just interested, as a novice, about how those personal goals co-exist within a system of people where the system itself is said to have a goal.

I mentioned the notion of 'choice' in another post and how I think it is every system's ultimate goal. Does that notion help here? I haven't defined what I mean by 'choice' and I don't think I can yet but maybe it would make sense to follow through a system and watch how 'choice' is handled throughout the system. If a person is trying to maximise his or her choice then when two people work together on something do they have to compromise their personal choice (I know how TOC hates a compromise!) in order to achieve that shared goal. In a very large system such as an industrial organization trying to make more money now and in the future (or more 'choice' now and in the future) how does that affect the levels of individual choice. Sorry, I'm meandering but there's something floating around my head about goals, choice, entropy and conservation which I'm going to need some time to work through…