The real thing Scott argues against is that purpose is the “exactly 66%” outcome metric. Which I’ll get back to

From Scott’s followup post: we can deduce what the system wants from its policies and actions. I’m not sure whether Scott wholly believes this or is rhetorically adopting a line of thinking, but this is basically POSIWID

Instead, Scott later writes the “purpose of a cancer hospital is to cure as many patients as possible” “(given other constraints)”. The hospital “tries” and “wants” things. How do you know what the hospital “wants”?

If you think the purpose is to cure *every* patient, maybe you are thinking of an ideal or a teleological sense of “purpose” that hospitals can’t achieve in our lifetime. But Scott's argument is not along these lines.

If you say a “hospital tries to cure every patient”: well, does it? Real hospitals clearly don’t!

(I’m not being picky about terminology. Beer himself carefully used terms such as objective, intention, meta-intention, entelechy, so if your objection is “purpose sounds wrong” you’re probably being silly. But that’s not the point. Scott agrees that a system “tries” to do something.)

The kinds of systems Stafford Beer describes, unthinkably complex social systems, do things like set goals, enforce policies, and reorganize themselves in service of a purpose (or aim or primary objective). They are more than the sum of their parts and their aim is not necessarily that of any part.

One might say there is “inferential distance” between the idea and Scott.

That’s why the post is not only wrong but silly. Unlike some of the people who quibble with the word “purpose” on metaphysical grounds, Scott presents no real disagreement with nor understanding of POSIWID at all

OK: when you say they “try to solve crime,” that is a claim about what they do. So is “tolerate crime”. “The hospital tries to cure every patient” is a claim about what the hospital does. (Aside: “Nobody uses the phrase where it would be pointless to say,” lol)

What! You put the wikipedia link on top! Sometimes “steelmanning” requires reading additional things

Yes, these strawman statements are false because they describe neither the purpose nor “what it does”

I happen to be reading this

Seeing a few too many takes about “purpose” from people who should figure out “system” and “does” first

There are several name puns but is it right that they named the main character “You Man”? A little on the nose…

Someone should declare “I am the Parasite”