This approach (“the purpose of a system is the positive feedback loop that sustains itself”) is a fascinating angle and feels like it has a lot of truth to it.
The weakness is that it’s easy to tell just so stories about why some negative thing some organization does is necessary to sustain it and thus actually it’s purpose. Plus this feels disjoint from the conventional human meaning of the word “purpose” which implies that it is something humans and doing intentionally.
One strength of “The purpose of a system is what it rewards” is that what a system rewards is often something that’s concretely available (provided you can get access to performance evaluation criteria) and something humans can be held accountable for and pressured into changing.
Or to put it another way, I think Simler’s definition is true and fascinating, but mine is probably more useful.
This approach (“the purpose of a system is the positive feedback loop that sustains itself”) is a fascinating angle and feels like it has a lot of truth to it.
The weakness is that it’s easy to tell just so stories about why some negative thing some organization does is necessary to sustain it and thus actually it’s purpose. Plus this feels disjoint from the conventional human meaning of the word “purpose” which implies that it is something humans and doing intentionally.
One strength of “The purpose of a system is what it rewards” is that what a system rewards is often something that’s concretely available (provided you can get access to performance evaluation criteria) and something humans can be held accountable for and pressured into changing.
Or to put it another way, I think Simler’s definition is true and fascinating, but mine is probably more useful.