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Engineering Systems Integration
objects interact that they exhibit the function. In the relational integration
case, functions are relative to the objects that interact, rather than as a single
object with its individual performance. This view of the world is described
in a quantum mechanical sense as relational quantum mechanics (Rovelli
1996, 1997).
And lastly is a worldview that recognizes the objective nature of objects by
their measurements (typical of engineering) and the subjective nature of
people’s interactions with those objects (typical of sociology). The ethos for
this alternative perspective of integration is based in part on a philosophical
foundation that supposes that integration is describable as many, one, and
does not exist—a blending and restatement of the concepts expressed by
Stanislav Les ´niewski (Henry 1972).* The substance of this formal ontology of
integration is based on the genres “entity” and “activity” (Machamer 2004).
In Machamer’s book, “object” and “process” are differentiated (and carrying with them all the historically significant encumbrances that these two
words harbor) as a workable ontology. Objects have mechanisms that in
themselves are entities and activities, objects and processes. Objects have
properties (intrinsic to their being that object), traits (the combination of the
object’s properties and the object’s environment), and attributes (that which
is associated with the object, but neither intrinsic nor situational (e.g., environmental)). In keeping with the formalisms of Les ´niewskian mereology
(Surma et al. 1992) as reviewed by Wolen ´ski (2000–2001), objects exist as
objects; the constituents (parts) of objects are objects; and compositions,
agglomerations, and combinations of objects are objects. No object has any
property that is not a property of an object. Les ´niewski presented the idea of
a theory of relations for parts and whole (i.e., a mereology) (Simon 1987) as
objects. Translating and editing Les ´niewski’s lecture notes, editors Srzednicki
and Stachniak presented Les ´niewski’s development of the logical theory of
relations between objects showing that relations do not depend on recognizing objects as sets of points (Srzednicki and Stachniak 1988), but rather as
either distinct entities (objects) or domains that embody objects.
Characterizing Objects for Integration
For this book, for the relations for parts and whole (i.e., object-and-object),
we view mechanistically through the interactions of objects with EMMI
(i.e., EMMI-to-object). By a mechanistic interpretation, the whole of objects
that are integrated is the totality of the objects that comprise a system (an
object). The notion that objects may be in a specified conceptual region and
that the objects are in some way related presumes a relation that is more than
spatial. For if it were not for interaction of EMMI, one object would have no
influence on another object. The case for EMMI-on-object (i.e., interactions)
* Stanislav Les ´niewski considered the worldview of one, many, does not exist; in contrast to
Parmenides’ worldview of one, does not exist, cannot exist.