Thread: difference between ‘outside’ and ‘meta’: Recently I’m noticing systems shopping conflated with being meta to systems. This is how I see the difference: ‘Systems shopping’ is my term for picking and choosing, mixing and matching, from different systems. 1/11
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Seeing how a system works and where it falls short means understanding the principles on which it is built, and the functions of the different parts, in context. This is often hard work, it takes time and effort. It requires involvement, connectedness and engagement. 6/11
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I can pick parts from a system & remain outside with no connection. I can systems shop, even with contempt for the systems I’m taking from, using the bits and pieces to make a tapestry of coolness. But I cannot simultaneously be meta to a system and wholly disconnected from it. 7
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Being meta to a system is an act of interrelatedness. There’s usually some respect involved – because if there is no appreciation of the way a system tries to work or worked in its original context, why bother being meta to it? Better start somewhere else. 8/11
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Being meta to a system involves creativity, but it doesn’t necessarily involve any of the pieces of the original system. This is an important distinction between systems shopping and meta-systematicity. Systems shopping, by definition, gathers parts and pieces. 9/11
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Systems shopping is an act of collection and comparison, often collective and collaborative. The pieces acquired are definitional, sometimes deterministic. Meta-systematicity may, or may not, retain parts of the original system. It does not rely on them. 10/11
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The meta-systemic focus is application in context. Congruent application often requires starting from first principles, understanding partial contributions and functionality, re-working from scratch in a new context. It is paradigmatically different from systems shopping. 11/11
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