systems as heuristics

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...a system is a way of looking at the world (Weinberg 1975: 52).

Yet can this be?  Is there a world out there to be looked at?  Or does the world emerge through the very process of looking?  The epistemological implications of autopoiesis suggest the latter (assuming that 'look' can be broadly interpreted).  Yet I think most systems thinkers would not go this far - many not even as far as Jordan:

'System' denotes an interaction between the objective world and how it is looked at or thought about; it denotes a mode of perceptuo-cognito organization (Jordan 1969:^ref 24-5).

I, however, have continually been attracted to these types of expressions - although this affinity is longer lasting than my understanding of the deeper  onto-epistemological implications....  I believe my general affinity for the notion of 'systems' arises from its match with my sense of the world.  Perhaps the affinity to the heuristic nature of systems arises from what I term my philosophical bend, the desire to dig down, to unearth. 

To my mind, then, systems do not exist except as conceptual schema. Although I take these to be applied with varying degrees of attention.  I find considerable challenge in maintaining present to the idea of system-as-heuristic. 

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...a system is a way of looking at the world (Weinberg 1975: 52).

I prefer to re-focus Weinberg's definition, turning the emphasis away from vision towards thinking.  Even without such a shift, however, Weinberg's key emphasis is on the heuristic nature of systems.  I  follow this, but emphasize systems as a way of conceptualizing the world.  Perception may be a critical precursor to conception (although the opposite may also be true), however, referring to anything as a “system” implies conception.  In the words of Jordan:

Systems provide tools for interpreting reality in particular ways; they enable us to organize our perceptions of the world in a particular manner, namely, as wholes. The primary characteristic of the systems-heuristic is that perceptions and sensations are organized by drawing relationships among things to conceive them as entities; as sets of things that somehow belong together.

 

While I take this notion of systems-as-heuristic as crucial, I also find that it presents challenge - a challenge the reader may observe throughout this presentation, since I easily slip into descriptions of systems-as-existing. Taking systems to be heuristics counters the argument that concepts and theories applicable to 'natural' [i.e. biophysical] systems should not be applied to human/social systems. As tools that aid in organizing perceptions of reality into conceptions of reality, however, I believe they are equally questionable in their application to natural systems. I do not believe that we can escape the use of heuristics, the key question is how much we let them force our understanding of that-which-exists.

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...a system is a way of looking at the world (Weinberg 1975: 52).

How, then, does one exemplify a system?  By describing examples of the way of looking, the heuristic?  Or by describing examples of the world seen through the heuristic?  For the latter, see examples. 

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...a system is  a way of looking at the world (Weinberg 1975: 52).

This means, then, that manifesting the 'results', must take a recursive twist, back to the beginning of the 'systems' discussion...