159
Foundations in Systems Integration
tem principles which are apparent across some disciplines and not continue
their quest for puzzling information that might challenge and possibly modify an accumulating body of systems knowledge. Pointing out potential new
areas of research, reviewing existing “established” knowledge, and posing
elementary questions should be wildly endorsed and properly reviewed
(Troncale 2006) rather than bewildering the experts or forcing an embarrassing rationalization that their field of expertise did not surface the fundamental nature and contexts of integration. Systems theorists assume that systems
are systems, but it will become clear that systems can have great diversity
and that one must be careful in extrapolating from one system to another, as
there are various types of systems.
Is placing sand inside a plastic bottle integration? Does that activity imply
that the whole is the sand in the plastic bottle? Is the sand–bottle object a
system? Then turn the plastic bottle upside down. Is that activity disintegration? Is the upside-down sand–bottle object a system? A system upside
down? Does the sand–bottle object signify a whole? Does the whole have at
least three partitions: the plastic bottle, the sand, and the air? In other words,
does the relation between objects satisfy some hypothetical minimal test for
the process of integration?
Remove a card from a “full deck” of cards. Is the deck of cards still a deck
of cards? Or has the whole (stipulated as the deck of cards) changed so that
it is no longer a deck? Does the activity of adding the “missing” card back
into the deck constitute integration? When playing a game “with a deck of
cards” does the deck of cards still exist in some distributed fashion across
several players? Depending on the rules of the game, the deck may again be
reconstituted into a full deck. Recognizing the integral whole of the full
deck, if these players were asked about the nature of a deck of cards, they
might answer they were playing with a deck of cards (or a subset that when
combined with the remaining cards would constitute a full deck). Does this
card example suggest some type of relation between a deck of cards (as an
integral whole of individual cards) and the distribution of the cards according to some rules such that at any moment in the game there exists a relation
between the remaining cards of the deck and the distributed cards? In other
words, while the dealer acts in such a manner to provide cards under the
condition that the cards are to be returned, the cards are still considered to
act as a deck. Whether the cards are together or distributed, they remain a
“deck” but can be considered to be different levels of abstraction of “deck.”
While the events of the game change the level of abstraction of the deck (i.e.,
missing cards are counted as part of the deck), the cards reconstituted as the
deck are indeed defined as the deck. However, the two concepts of “deck”
are not the same—one interacting due to their placement in the deck, the
other interacting card-to-card, but not all cards with all cards. The physical
interactions distinguish the two concepts of deck. The functions of the cards
are due to the local touching of a subset of cards, that is, the cards that are
Foundations in Systems Integration
tem principles which are apparent across some disciplines and not continue
their quest for puzzling information that might challenge and possibly modify an accumulating body of systems knowledge. Pointing out potential new
areas of research, reviewing existing “established” knowledge, and posing
elementary questions should be wildly endorsed and properly reviewed
(Troncale 2006) rather than bewildering the experts or forcing an embarrassing rationalization that their field of expertise did not surface the fundamental nature and contexts of integration. Systems theorists assume that systems
are systems, but it will become clear that systems can have great diversity
and that one must be careful in extrapolating from one system to another, as
there are various types of systems.
Is placing sand inside a plastic bottle integration? Does that activity imply
that the whole is the sand in the plastic bottle? Is the sand–bottle object a
system? Then turn the plastic bottle upside down. Is that activity disintegration? Is the upside-down sand–bottle object a system? A system upside
down? Does the sand–bottle object signify a whole? Does the whole have at
least three partitions: the plastic bottle, the sand, and the air? In other words,
does the relation between objects satisfy some hypothetical minimal test for
the process of integration?
Remove a card from a “full deck” of cards. Is the deck of cards still a deck
of cards? Or has the whole (stipulated as the deck of cards) changed so that
it is no longer a deck? Does the activity of adding the “missing” card back
into the deck constitute integration? When playing a game “with a deck of
cards” does the deck of cards still exist in some distributed fashion across
several players? Depending on the rules of the game, the deck may again be
reconstituted into a full deck. Recognizing the integral whole of the full
deck, if these players were asked about the nature of a deck of cards, they
might answer they were playing with a deck of cards (or a subset that when
combined with the remaining cards would constitute a full deck). Does this
card example suggest some type of relation between a deck of cards (as an
integral whole of individual cards) and the distribution of the cards according to some rules such that at any moment in the game there exists a relation
between the remaining cards of the deck and the distributed cards? In other
words, while the dealer acts in such a manner to provide cards under the
condition that the cards are to be returned, the cards are still considered to
act as a deck. Whether the cards are together or distributed, they remain a
“deck” but can be considered to be different levels of abstraction of “deck.”
While the events of the game change the level of abstraction of the deck (i.e.,
missing cards are counted as part of the deck), the cards reconstituted as the
deck are indeed defined as the deck. However, the two concepts of “deck”
are not the same—one interacting due to their placement in the deck, the
other interacting card-to-card, but not all cards with all cards. The physical
interactions distinguish the two concepts of deck. The functions of the cards
are due to the local touching of a subset of cards, that is, the cards that are