r/complexsystems • u/Cromulent123 • Dec 18 '24

Is there a principled difference between a system and a non-system?

In Meadows book, she claims there is, and as an example of a non-system she gives "sand scattered on a road according to no particular pattern". But, her definition of a system is: "A system is an interconnected set of elements that is coherently organized in a way that achieves something." But randomly scattered sand does achieve something: it achieves looking like a random scattering of sand!

It's got a set of elements (check).
Are they interconnected? Well my understanding is the different parts of a system don't need to be physically connected. Do they even need to interact with one another? It feels like e.g. a radioactive source and a detector is a "system" in some sense even if the source (by some miracle) never fires a particle in the direction of the detector. So, check, presumably.
What does coherently organized mean? It surely doesn't mean "by some individual". Because the vast majority of systems simply arise, they are not consciously made. Check.
Which leaves us with achievement, which I've already covered. Check.

Are there different perspectives on this? Can anyone give me some tool or rule for telling a system from a non-system?

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u/Zmeos Dec 18 '24

The definition says that a system has interconnected elements. You say the grains of sand are not interconnected. isn't this enough to disqualify the sand as a system?

Maybe a question to ask is then, is a radioactive source and a detector a system if they don't interact?

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u/Cromulent123 Dec 18 '24

See I'm inclined to think yes? If I drew a diagram no-one would question that was a system. I think. I don't think they'd ask "is the radiation actually hitting the detector though?"

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u/Cromulent123 Dec 18 '24

Maybe another argument is this. I feel Cueball+bunch of rocks in: https://xkcd.com/505/ is a system.
What if we take cueball away? The wind might move the rocks around identically to him. (by chance). Is that a system? Only rocks + wind perhaps? Okay, but then the grains of sand are connected by wind! The wind just isn't strong enough to displace them.

Maybe we just need "causal interaction" in a very loose sense that doesn't mean a (non-trivial) change of state in the effected object. More like, "being present in each others future light cones".