POSIWID stands for Purpose Of System Is What It Does
Although the phrase is associated with Stafford Beer, credit for the acronym is claimed by the engineer Bill Livingston.
I heard Stafford give a speech in Orlando in 1986 where he used 'The purpose of a system is what it does'. Using the concept so much I found the phrase ungainly I came up with POSIWID as a code word. In 1993 when I went to see Stafford in Toronto, I presented him with a pen I had engraved with POSIWID. He sort of chuckled and that was the end of it.Bill Livingstone
POSIWID is always used as an absolute. That is, no assignations about purpose are invented. What it does is, by definition, its purpose. I have never encountered a disconfirming example, nor have any of the thousands that have adopted the concept. Of course, it all started with Ashby.
Following my post yesterday on Some Key Features of POSIWID, I received some suggested variations on the acronym.
The simplicity of the phrase belies its depth acknowledging that a system can't have a purpose, as that would allude to object intention. So more like: function of a system is what it does, or...
— ComplexWales π΄σ §σ ’σ ·σ ¬σ ³σ Ώπ (@ComplexWales) April 24, 2022
Purpose Of A System Is The Effect Detected #POSITED
...by whoever looks for it π€
Beer should have answered his own question and added three more letters to this already long acronym: #FTS (For The System).
— The Kihbernetics Institute (@Kihbernetics) April 24, 2022
An observer can ask:
1⃣ - What is this system doing for me?
2⃣ - What can I do for this system?
3⃣ - What is this system doing for that system?
William Livingston, Have Fun At Work (FES 1988). Review by James R Fisher (September 2006)
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