System
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
"In relation to their philosophical systems, most philosophers are like a man who builds an enormous castle and lives in a shack close by." -- Soren Kierkegaard "I mistrust all systematizers and avoid them. The will to a system is a lack of integrity" (Twilight of the Idols 1.26) --Nietzsche "Ich misstraue allen Systematikern und gehe ihnen aus dem Weg." |
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A system is a set of interacting or interdependent components forming an integrated whole or a set of elements (often called 'components' ) and relationships which are different from relationships of the set or its elements to other elements or sets.
Fields that study the general properties of systems include Systems science, systems theory, cybernetics, dynamical systems, thermodynamics, and complex systems. They investigate the abstract properties of systems' matter and organization, looking for concepts and principles that are independent of domain, substance, type, or temporal scale.
Some systems share common characteristics, including:
- A system has structure, it contains parts (or components) that are directly or indirectly related to each other;
- A system has behavior, it contains processes that transform inputs into outputs (material, energy or data);
- A system has interconnectivity: the parts and processes are connected by structural and/or behavioral relationships.
- A system's structure and behavior may be decomposed via subsystems and sub-processes to elementary parts and process steps.
The term system may also refer to a set of rules that governs structure and/or behavior. Alternatively, and usually in the context of complex social systems, the term institution is used to describe the set of rules that govern structure and/or behavior.
See also
- Examples of systems
- physical system
- conceptual system
- Complex system
- Formal system
- Information system
- Meta-system
- Solar System
- Systems in human anatomy
- Market
- Theories about systems
- Chaos theory
- Cybernetics
- Systems ecology
- Systems engineering
- Systems psychology
- Systems theory
- Thermodynamic systems
- Control theory
- Related topics
- Glossary of systems theory
- Complexity theory and organizations
- Black box
- System of systems (engineering)
- Systems art