"The purpose of a system is what it does."
#StaffordBeer, 1926-2002
We live in an economic system that routinely gives more resources to people who make weapons than to doctors and nurses. What does that tell you about the purpose of that system?
Discussion
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Discussion
@strypey
Systems don't have purposes for themselves, they just do things.
People have purposes for systems, and different people's purposes can and do conflict.
A purpose is "the *reason* for which something is done or created or for which something exists"
@EricLawton
> Systems don't have purposes for themselves
> Systems don't have purposes for themselves
Right.
> different people's purposes can and do conflict
It's precisely conflicting purposes that create systems. Without them you'd just have machines, not systems.
> A purpose is "the *reason* for which ... something exists"
Yes, and as Beer says, you can check the reason a system exists by seeing what it *does*. Since it's created by the conflicts of purpose, the intentions of people enmeshed in a system are mostly irrelevant.
@strypey
I agree that it is useful to check what a system does, as part of the analysis and it seems we both agree that systems don't have purposes for themselves.
I agree that it is useful to check what a system does, as part of the analysis and it seems we both agree that systems don't have purposes for themselves.
So I don't see the use in saying that they *do* have a purpose, namely *what they do*.
I am saying that purpose is a relation between systems and the parties with an interest or stake in the system and that is different from what it does.
For most ICE drivers, the purpose of the fossil fuel industry is to fuel and lubricate their vehicles.
For owners of parts of the industry, it is to generate profit.
For some politicians, it is to help them get elected.
All these are useful things to know.
I'm not sure anybody thinks that the *purpose* is to change the climate, even though that is very much what it does.
@strypey Hmm... maybe it concentrates power?
@nihongomaamaa
> maybe it concentrates power
> maybe it concentrates power
It does that too, but to what end? What do the people in whose hands it concentrates that power have in common with weapons manufacturers, but not with healers? Causing death, and more of it.
@strypey The only philosophical discussion to be held is whether the purpose of the system is to increase the wealth and power of the morbidly rich, or to exploit everybody else and destroy the environment.
Whichever it is, all the trendy things that the system produces (AI) are here to accelerate that dynamic.
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