📓 the-purpose-of-a-system-is-what-it-does.md by @ryan ☆

the purpose of a system is what it does

“The purpose of a system is what it does”, sometimes abbreviated “POSIWID”, is a phrase coined by [[Stafford Beer]]. For Beer, there was no point in believing what a system said it should do, since a system may say that it does one thing and not live up to that. Therefore when analyzing a system, we can say that its purpose is what it does.

This is an incredibly profound insight.