Tuesday, September 15, 2009
What is a system?
According to Merriam Webster’s dictionary, a system is a regularly interacting or interdependent group of items forming a unified whole, such as a number system. More specifically to this class, it is defined as a group of devices or artificial objects or an organization forming a network especially for distributing something or serving a common purpose. This could be considered a telephone system, a heating system, or a computer system—practically any type of connection. If you look around us in our everyday lives, we are surrounded by systems. If you truly think about it, we are dependent on systems—not only the systems that we use to keep ourselves alive (our digestive system, ect), but imagine a world without our communication system? Without a telephone system, a computer system, a wireless system (in regards to wireless technologies, such as cell phones). Without the technological systems surrounding us, our society would function completely differently. We wouldn’t even have this blog!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
You are quite right, Lauren. And systems is kind of a theory of everything, a general ecology of the universe you might say.
ReplyDeleteYou state that society would function completely different if we didn't have the technological systems surrounding us. I think that we wouldn't be able to efficiently and productively run our society if we didn't have such systems. These systems are vital for our daily activities.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you, Lauren. Life before technology tends to phase many of us these days especially when we think about life before the computer. Society drastically relies on the systems that have been created, especially electronic ones!
ReplyDeleteIt's weird to think what college kids did in the 60's and 70's with no computers, cell phones or TV sets in their rooms.
ReplyDeleteWhat if tomorrow, all systems were down and there was no Facebook, cell phone, or internet service. Would our generation come to a screeching halt?
It seems as if everything in our modern day relies upon technology. Without the new instant forms of communication, I know my life would be totally different. I rely upon the internet and my cell phone for everything. Attending Fordham would be drastically different without Fordham email, Blackboard, MyFordham, etc. Our generation relies upon technology; we truly would be lost without it.
ReplyDeleteWe are so lucky to be living in the era we are in. We can access a world of information from the comfort of a computer chair. I think we sometimes take for granted how accesable information and entertainment has become for us.
ReplyDeleteIts all too easy to point to some collection of entities, call it a 'system' and think no more about it! The problem with 'system' is that what is within or outside a system depends entirely (yes entirely!) on the observers' viewpoints. What is a system to one observer may be merely the component of another system or just a 'heap'. For example - is a 'communication system' just the media that carry messages or should we include the people transmitting and receiving the messages, the code in which the messages are sent (all messages have to be coded for transmission) and. of course, should the cultures involved and the uses to which the 'system' is to be put. So a seemingly easy way to define this word turns out to be very complex indeed.
ReplyDeleteOur dependence on technology is true throughout history, to the extent that some define the human species by the fact that we use tools and fire, basics types of technology (often overlooked but just as important are containers).
ReplyDeleteOn systems, subjectively it depends on what level we look at them, but objectively, there are systems within systems within systems.
Yes, Lance, but there are many species that not only use found objects as tools but actually make them fit for particular purposes.
ReplyDeleteRe 'objectively' - would you not agree that we can know only 'subjectively'? If 'objectively' there are 'real' systems, out there as it were, then there must be only one 'true' description of each and all other descriptions are false. How shall we recognise this one and only true description and distinguish it from all the others?