3 ms·

I don't think it's babble, they're reasonably good heuristics if you have little information or time. What part is confusing? The point of "POSIWID" is that yo

by Vecr 2y ago

I don't think it's babble, they're reasonably good heuristics if you have little information or time. What part is confusing? The point of "POSIWID" is that you can look at e.g. a government office that's never denied a request and make a first guess that its purpose is to rubber-stamp documents.

PittleyDunkin 2y ago
That just seems like an incoherent understanding of "purpose", which seems most reasonably based off "intent" and can only be measured by claims of intent. The heuristic you're referring to seems to be figuring out whether a system does what it's intended to, which seems to be an entirely different issue. Why overload an already useful word with seemingly contradictory semantics? Granted, it seems like a very useful concept, just an abominably-named one.
- Vecr 2y ago
  What's your position on intentionality[0]? I don't put stock into anything too fancy there. Being simple about things in general, you can define a physical or mathematical system that uses optimization of some sort to drive the world toward certain states over others. Questions regarding if the system's conscious or "cares about anything" don't really matter. Accepting that, you can say any system that drives towards states "intends" to do so. Unless a system is not functioning well, is weak, or is adversarial opposed, in general what it does should be more or less what it "intends". This isn't iron-hard, but as a first guess, that gets you "the purpose of a system is what it does". [0]: e.g. I don't know if your definition of "telos" requires anything in that direction. If you've got definitions you can link them from the SEP (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) or similar. Maybe too far into the weeds to be useful from a cybernetics perspective though. More theological.
  - PittleyDunkin 2y ago
    It's still useful to communicate with people who don't desire to or do not tend to think in systems. You can define things any such way you'd like, of course, especially if communication is not your desire.

by Vecr 2y ago

PittleyDunkin 2y ago

That just seems like an incoherent understanding of "purpose", which seems most reasonably based off "intent" and can only be measured by claims of intent. The heuristic you're referring to seems to be figuring out whether a system does what it's intended to, which seems to be an entirely different issue. Why overload an already useful word with seemingly contradictory semantics? Granted, it seems like a very useful concept, just an abominably-named one.

Vecr 2y ago
What's your position on intentionality[0]? I don't put stock into anything too fancy there. Being simple about things in general, you can define a physical or mathematical system that uses optimization of some sort to drive the world toward certain states over others. Questions regarding if the system's conscious or "cares about anything" don't really matter. Accepting that, you can say any system that drives towards states "intends" to do so. Unless a system is not functioning well, is weak, or is adversarial opposed, in general what it does should be more or less what it "intends". This isn't iron-hard, but as a first guess, that gets you "the purpose of a system is what it does". [0]: e.g. I don't know if your definition of "telos" requires anything in that direction. If you've got definitions you can link them from the SEP (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) or similar. Maybe too far into the weeds to be useful from a cybernetics perspective though. More theological.
- PittleyDunkin 2y ago
  It's still useful to communicate with people who don't desire to or do not tend to think in systems. You can define things any such way you'd like, of course, especially if communication is not your desire.