Which among these three human artifacts is best described as a system: a hunting net, a shoe, or a gasoline powered motor? I think many of us are inclined to answer the third as being the most system-like. Why?

When one is asked to give prototypical examples of some concept, it is natural enough that we choose those examples with which we are familiar. When we think about a concept we often do so with these prototypical examples in mind. This entails a kind of ethnocentric coloring to our think… Continue

Cultural Anthropolgy studies the central social character of culture and civilizations - both past and present. Yet in the area of human connectiveness which is essential to the development of human society the present contemporary aspect of International InterCultural Communication [ I.I.C. ] in the present advances in social sciences are now causing younger - who are aware of this I.I.C. Process - professional Anthropologist to redeveloped their historic thinking of historic cult… Continue

Some anthropologists are uncomfortable with describing human-environment interactions in the language of systems. The concern seems to be that human-environment interactions don't work, in some fundamental way, like computers, engines, or other proto-typically designed things. These interactions are held to be too complex, too non-linear, too open for the systems metaphor to be appropriate, or at least useful. For my part, I think that the concept of a system is entailed by any non-trivia… Continue