The world of natural and artificial systems objectively exists and independently develops. The results of technological progress express the will and actions of their creators, as a rule, in the initial stages of implementation.
A person creates systems in a wide variety of applications, and the creation of some often changes the content of others. So, a new enterprise with an unconventional production cycle or atypical products for a particular territory changes its socio-economic appearance over time: there is both a direct systemic effect and an indirect one.
It is not always possible to calculate the result of human creativity, and to determine all the consequences of the introduction of artificial systems is quite difficult.
The dynamics of a single system: an example
The Internet is a public example of an artificial system that has long and continuously lives its own life. Many processes here are not amenable to human influence.
It is generally accepted that cloud technologies have recently become popular, but no one knows that they were implemented back in 1991, though it was not the author, the wrong level and the wrong scope. But fact: the Air Art technology existed and still exists within limited availability.
A simpler example - even before the advent of site management systems, it was customary to typeset sites in a style where the page is independent, and the links between the pages determine the unity (complete system) of the site. Each page flies from the server to the entire user's browser.
The emergence of site management systems (CMS) led to a new system effect: the developer began to make the site hundreds of times faster, and the functionality of a specific team of CMS developers became the natural basis for the pages of a particular site. But this is an imaginary result, not so much qualitative as quantitative.
It was Google that had a hand in a radically new state of affairs, creating its famous maps. But the effect here is not at all in them and certainly not in their popularity, it was simply the strongest incentive to switch to Internet resource development technologies on AJAX.
Since then, the technology of any resource on the Web: no full page load. The page is generated dynamically and is updated only in the place where it is really needed! What is the essence of the system effect? The fact that before the page was an indivisible whole, but became a dynamic system, accessible by syntactic and semantic components, as well as by the elements of each component.
Antisystem systems
In the 90s there was an interesting idea to combine the theory of inventive problems and a computer: to create an "Inventing Machine". The idea was not only original, but certainly practical. And the result did not live up to expectations.
It is possible that the system effect worked in the opposite direction: the logical programming language Prolog was chosen as the main tool. But it turned out that predicate logic is not a way to explain how thinking works (as stated in the description of the language). And as a language of artificial intelligence, the Prolog did not take place not only in relation to the “Inventing Machine”.
It is easy to understand the essence of the system effect (examples, experiments, theory, etc.): tear off the wing of an airplane and the ability to fly will disappear. Turn off the electricity at the bakery and there will be no bread. The fact that the building remains, and in it the equipment, grain, yeast, ingredients and people - is not at all the effect.
Meanwhile, history is replete with numerous examples when an airplane flew and landed not only without a wing, but also without a tail. Other craftsmen could land a plane in which the elevator jammed for upward movement. The pilot simply turned the passenger airliner, and just before the ground returned the car to its normal position and took off speed: the plane sat down, the lives of passengers were saved.
Objective reality and artificial systems
All natural systems are ideal and tenacious. In nature, a systemic effect can be observed everywhere. Examples of this are man himself, and forest, land, water, air. Many times, people have tried to control natural systems: put dams, transported animals, transferred vegetation from some natural conditions to others.
Often such experiments were successful, and a new design showed a real systemic effect. Other ideas did not work. Violation of objective laws brought the natural state of things into an obviously different state. Then what is the essence of the system effect? Bring your ideas to the correspondence of objective reality, and the desired result will never be long in coming.
The idea of an inventive machine could well have taken place at the time of its birth, all that was needed was to put it correctly on the right rails. After all, the beginning of TRIZ lies in the generalization of the mass of physical, chemical, technological and, in general, very many inventions. So why didn’t the computer put the production of inventions on stream and make a person happy?
Space and points in it
It is difficult to consider space outside of time, and the achieved level of knowledge still feels uncertain even in the long-discovered laws of electricity, magnetism, and gravity. Definitely, there are other laws that a person does not know at all.
It is safe to say what the essence of the system effect is. According to objective reality, every system consists of internal subsystems, but at the same time it enters the supersystem. Only when the system can be objectively called "space-time" - is it the highest and only system. Although according to science fiction, philosophers and physicists who preach the reality of different dimensions and parallel worlds, a person will have many more discoveries.
But if you do not rise above the available knowledge and focus on objective reality, then you can imagine space as a system of points, and each point as a system of points. Then the formulation of the question — give an example of a system effect — will have only three components:
- describe the point as it is;
- Describe the systems inside the point, how they interact;
- describe the mutual participation of the point and its subsystems with the surrounding space.
By and large, it is not necessary to describe or analyze another system at all. This can be interesting only in the form of experience or self-interest. But some systems are interesting and very important for public consciousness.
Intellectual tour
At a time when Prolog, Lisp , and the ideas of artificial intelligence ruled, assembly language - machine language - had legitimate authority. There were not so many options, since the number of architectures was small, but only one thing was important - Assembler could never be attributed to the language of artificial intelligence. It was even indecent to write something applied on it, and C / C ++, and sometimes Pascal with assembler inserts, was already positioned on system things.
Even if you do not understand anything from the field of artificial intelligence, it is difficult to deny the objectivity of the following points characteristic of natural intelligence:
- he is situational;
- reproducing;
- contextual;
- transformational.
Situational level
The first moment is a child who learns to play, speak, act. All his decisions depend on the environment. There is a ball, there will be a ball and everything connected with it until it gets bored. There is a mother, there will be a mother, and if there is a father, then the first word will be “father”. Some scholars give examples of tribes that have not yet left the jungle and hunt, or recall ancient tribes that hunted and fished, engaged in cave painting.
Here, speech or behavior is understood only depending on the situation (environment) in which the system is located (child, person). It is not at all necessary to recall the ancient rites of transmitting information by dancing, shouting, gesturing. Any person at any age falls into a situational level of development, finding himself in an unfamiliar and unforeseen situation.
Reproducing and contextual levels
The moment of reproduction is a generalization of situational knowledge, when there is already a concept that the circle is both a ball and a watermelon, and the machine will be a trolleybus, a bus, and any object on four wheels with a motor.
The moment of context is the application of all the accumulated knowledge, real decision-making both on the ball and on the watermelon and their transfer by analogy to other objects and situations.
What is the essence of the system effect: the absolute option
Everything is simple. So, on the assembler of the famous PDP-11 computer, an intelligent system was implemented. History is silent about its name, but the essence is that it was designed for simple mathematical calculations: only four arithmetic operations.
The system fulfilled the author’s minimum, being at a situational level with contextual elements, she remembered and recognized objects, said “mom” and “dad”, was guided in the situation, generally resembled a child at the crib-stroller stage of development.
System effect? By no means, the system was essentially useless, but the whole trick was that a completely stranger, wanting to show the uselessness and impracticality of the system, not knowing anything about it, taught it four arithmetic operations, as well as divide and multiply the number by zero.
System and transformational moment
You can always talk about a system effect. Indeed, an airplane, a ship, and a bakery are real systems, parts of which have their own personal systems. And only the totality of personal parts creates a new quality, new functionality.
Cases when a subsystem fails disrupt the operation of the system as a whole in a certain part. But it cannot be argued that the quality of the system is lost. Functionality is simply broken. The more damage done to the system, the less good it is.
Any natural system provides not only self-healing, but also adaptation to a changing environment. Willingness to perform unforeseen actions, to orient in an unfamiliar environment - this is the essence of the system effect.
If an artificial system is created with a focus on survival and adaptability, its quality and functionality will be in demand and effective.