Thanks for sharing this, Victor.

I agree with you that systems are poorly defined, and thus in some ways akin to the problem of psychology. The main issue we would want to be clear about in drawing the analogy is to ask: What kind of concept is "systems"?

Richard Rorty (I think, not sure of citation here, so forgive me if not exact) said that "there is no unified theory of lawn tools." The point he was making is that there are many concepts that should not be defined as crisp, natural domains in nature. Put in the ToK language, there are only some domains or concepts that can be defined via true joint points in nature.

Lawn tools clearly are not defined via joint points.

Should "systems" be clearly defined? I will leave that to systems theorists.

But, the cool thing about psychology is that most people would say that it would be an amorphous, undefinable concept that you have to just grapple with from a pragmatic perspective. However, the ToK shows why the domain of Mind/mindedness/mental behavior is CRISPLY definable.

Best.
G

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Subject: The problem of Systems.

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I was thinking about the problem of psychology and realised that we also have a problem with Systems Theory. As a science even newer than psychology, the systems sciences have exactly the same problem. There is no agreement at all about what a system is. Many definitions are about parts and wholes, but there is no such thing as a part and a whole, they are so entangled and unentanglable to make such definitions unworkable as sson as we take it out of the folk systems world. There is a paper written about the problem that lists around 200 definitions. There is also the exact same problem with sub disciplines thinking they are the whole discipline. Eventhough we all come together at conferences and generally get on pretty well, there is no uniting concept. The systems dynamics people and the critical systems don't really sit next to each other. Even just the basic systems, cybernetics and complexity distinctions are problematic.

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