POSIWID

POSIWID (The Purpose Of a System Is What It Does)

Stafford Beer coined the term POSIWID and used it many times in public addresses. Perhaps most forcefully in his address to the University of Valladolid, Spain in Oct 2001, he said "According to the cybernetician the purpose of a system is what it does. This is a basic dictum. It stands for bald fact, which makes a better starting point in seeking understanding than the familiar attributions of good intention, prejudices about expectations, moral judgment or sheer ignorance of circumstances."

The term is now widely used by systems theorists. It is generally invoked to counter the notion that the purpose of a system can be read from the intentions of those who design, operate or promote it. From a cybernetic perspective complex systems are not controllable by simple notions of management, and interventions in a system can best be understood by looking at how they affect observed system behavior. When "side effects" or "unintended consequences" reveal that system behavior is poorly understood then taking the POSIWID perspective allows the more political understandings of system behavior to be balanced by a more straightforwardly descriptive view. For example if the effect of world trade is to make developed nations rich at the expense of less developed nations then that is its purpose, and for a cybernetician it is down to the sponsors of world trade to show grounds for the purpose being conceived otherwise.

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