Collections Versus Systems

Let’s illustrate this point with the following exercise. Take a look at the list of items below and determine for yourself which ones are systems and which ones are just collections of parts. Ready, set, go!

• Bowl of fruit

• Football team

• Toaster

• Kitchen

• Database of customer names

• Tools in a toolbox

• A marriage

So, which ones are systems and which are merely collections? This question isn’t as easy to answer as it might seem at first. Your responses depend on what assumptions you are making about the item in question. Let’s walk through each example (starting with the simpler ones first) and make our assumptions as explicit as we can.

Kitchen, database of customer names, and tools in a toolbox. These are all collections, because none of them meets our original criteria of interrelatedness and interdependence. Even though the kitchen itself is full of systems (refrigerator, microwave, dishwasher), it is still just a place that has a collection of systems and other elements in it. None of those things interrelate or interact in an interdependent way. (Note, though, that once humans enter a kitchen, they, together with the other elements, form a system. It’s a curious fact, but whenever you add people to a collection, you almost always transform a collection into a system!)

Football team and toaster. Both are systems. Notice that in addition to our criteria of interrelatedness and interdependence, a team and a toaster are each put together for a specific purpose. Indeed, purpose acts as the predominant organizing force in any system. If you want to understand why a system is organized in a particular way, find out the system’s purpose.

Bowl of fruit. Most people would classify this as an obvious collection, because the pieces of fruit are not interrelated in any way and do not interact with each other. In truth, however, they are interacting—at a microscopic level. For instance, if you put certain fruits together, they are apt to decay faster because they interact at a molecular level. Someone for whom these interactions are important (a fruitologist?) might even consider this bowl of fruit to be a very interesting system—one whose purpose is to maximize the biodegrading process.

Marriage. For any of you who saw this one as a collection, please seek marriage counseling immediately! All kidding aside, the question of whether one has a healthy marriage has a lot to do with whether the relationship more resembles a collection or a system. Marriage is essentially a voluntarily chosen state of interdependence with another person (not codependence, which is something altogether different). This state actually characterizes any longterm relationship, including friendships. Is there anybody among us who has not been reminded by someone that our actions have an impact on him or her? Sometimes, that is how we first encounter systems, and how we learn (often painfully) that we are part of a larger system than we may have realized.