Bill and Phil,
I agree with your arguments in general. Terminology is to be
negotiated. But the disciplines are not closed gardens. It is
impossible not to be misunderstood by people applying other points of
view than are intended. Yet there is also an ethics of terminology
(Peirce), i.e. an obligation of authers to use terms that are as
close as possible to what is meant and that do not further
misunderstanding.
This said, me thinks my side argument for Steve against use of system
terminology has gained now much too much weight. I am a system
thinker in a general sense. But what I propose is ideas about how
systems operate that differ substantially from what is common in
system theories. My point is substantial, only subsidiarily strategic.
In (quasi-)cybernetic system conception systems are composed of units
of two substructures with certain qualities preferably expressed in
the form of operating transfer functions; and the two units are
related by a channel transmitting a signal. This is a mechanistic
conception, I repeat. It needs an extra-system predetermined target
or set value (Sollwert) for the system to function. This conception
is incapable of being an operating basis for evolutive systems and
therefore is not suitable for understanding the evolutions.
In SemEco the basic process is an encounter of two structures which
generate a third. Everything existing, i.e. really or potentially
becoming is claimed to come about in a process of this kind. I call
it semiosis when it concerns genuine evolutions, i.e., integrating
the history of becoming structures.
This is a 'system', if you want. But what does it help to use that
term? You may compose systems by combining semioses into trees or
nets, and they may include recursion and other complications. Here
the term is already much more meaningful. In particular, I look at
ecosystems. But there is still an essential difference to systems as
we ordinarily know them. Evolutive streams are systems that add to
themselves and change some of their subsystems, they are in becoming.
Systems in cybernetic system theories, however, must be closed
systems, except for the target value and the disturbances coming from
outside. Systems in self-organizing thinking must be closed systems
except for disturbances coming from outside, otherwise they cannot
self-organize. In addition system theories are made as generic
schemes which are supposed to be applied to concrete cases. Semioses
are concrete cases. Their combinations into evolutive streams
describe concrete things and events and follow their course of
change. This is not what system theories do; they want to a design a
general scheme in advance to which the real events are fitted. Even
when dynamic in their thinking as concerns the within-system, they
follow the pattern of the sciences find out about how things are,
loyal to that pervasive shadow of Platonism.
I enyoy your question about particular facets yet also hope to keep a
trail of conveying SemEco in its basic features.
Best, Alfred
--Alfred Lang, Psychology, Univ. Bern, Switzerland http://www.langpapers.net --- alfred.lang@psy.unibe.ch
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