The question of the “reality” of systems can quickly devolve into a philosophical battle about the nature of reality itself.  Much of the answer for systems research depends upon how you define the system – as to whether it refers to the things that you are trying to learn about, or the process that you are using to investigate.

How do you choose what you want to study – or learn more about, or better understand, or solve?  In systems work, this entails the drawing of a boundary.  The boundary separates what is to be examined from what is to be excluded.  It defines the question or the problem.  While this may seem patently simple, it is both the most fundamental step in a learning process, and the most complicated.

I have been struggling for years now with issues about systems.  First, how do you introduce the basic principles of systems to students, or other people who are interested but have no previous background?  There have been many different books and articles written at different levels, for different audiences, but (for me) all of them still leave questions or create additional confusion about what is really different about understanding things in terms of systems.