Think of a system. What picture comes to mind? A computer, or a roomful of them? A decision tree, with questions and arrows branching to different answers, all of which converge on “Then don’t worry”? What about a lake, the topography that allows it to stand, the rainfall, the vegetation, the things that live in an around it and eat one another? A system to Webster is as simple as a bunch of interconnected parts that form a whole. All of those examples qualify, and many more. What I want to explore is whether we can run into trouble by comparing certain types of systems that aren’t really comparable. A map is a metaphor, and all metaphors break down eventually, but eventually is a lot better than right away for the same reason that I don’t want to pull a new map out of the glove compartment every block. I’d rather a map with mileage.
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