Yes.
The problem is that you're looking in the wrong place. Usually we identify
an existing entity and then inquire about it's properties: is this burner
hot? is this rat alive? is this thing a chair? But the question "is X a
system?" can ALWAYS be answered "yes", because (the other shiboleth rears
its ugly head) EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED TO EVERYTHING ELSE. There is always
SOME kind of relation between any two entities. Ultimately, just by being
CONSIDERED together in the same frame is a common property.
So, do democracy and a patch of methane in Neptune's atmosphere form a
system? YES.
Now, this is admittedly a bit silly, but what we're doing is identifying
the limitting problems of general systems theory: to the extent that it is
truly general, it is vacuous. Gaines recognizes this by saying that the
attribute of BEING a system is identical with its being IDENTIFIED as a
system, and further that this property is UNIQUE to systems.
Usually, we implitictly limit ourselves to specific, interesting, useful,
or otherwise less than arbitrarily defined kinds of systems, systems of the
kind you're discussing. But that "higher" philosophical level is always
lurking. Failure to really incorporate it into your world view will result
in all kinds of philosophical errors, mostly epistemic and referential
fallacies of confusing the map for the territory.
O---------------------------------------------------------------------------->
| Cliff Joslyn, NRC Research Associate, Cybernetician at Large
| Mail Code 522.3, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771 USA
| joslyn@kong.gsfc.nasa.gov http://groucho.gsfc.nasa.gov/joslyn 301-286-2598
V All the world is biscuit-shaped. . .