The fundamental error of system engineering

When discussing the terms used in systems engineering, I found an interesting collision that can become a bomb at the heart of all this science, if not corrected.

I share this collision, because it has a methodological value for those who are engaged in modeling subject areas.

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In mathematics there is a definition of a set. The set is a lot, conceivable as a whole. The whole is understood as the set that we consider as one object of accounting. This accounting object has a different meaning than an individual object. We can perceive objects individually - one way of organizing our perception, and we can perceive groups of objects - another way. The first method allows us to carry out operations on groups: add them, subtract, find common parts.
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An attribute of a set is, for example, the number of its elements.

Synthesis process

In philosophy, there is the concept of synthesis. This designation changes the perspective of our perception. We can perceive a multitude of objects, and then, on the basis of this multitude, make a synthesis of these objects and generate an object of larger scale. In other words, make a composition.

Difference set from the synthesis process

Let's ask the mathematician to give an example of a set and its synthesis. The mathematician may offer to consider the set of points on the segment. He will think this set as a whole not in the sense that the points on the segment form a segment, but in the sense that the group of points is one. With this group, he can do a join operation with another group of points lying on a circle and get one big group of points. It can also carry out a synthesis of points lying on one segment, and get a segment. The thinking of a group of points as a whole is not a synthesis of this group into an object.

The length attribute is, for example, its length.

System definition

Now let's turn to the definition of the system:
A system is a set of elements that are in relationships and relationships with each other, which forms a certain integrity, unity.

An attribute of a system is, for example, the number of its elements.

Collision Description

There is an ambiguity in the definition of the system, which the authors of system engineering did not recognize. The words "forms a certain integrity" must be understood - conceivable as one, and not a synthesis operation. That is, a system is a group of objects, not objects of a group, and we can perform the same operations on systems that we perform on sets: addition, subtraction, intersection.

Above the system, you can perform a synthesis operation and get an object. But the object obtained as a result of the synthesis is not a system, because it is no longer a set of objects.
An attribute of a synthesized object can be, for example, the color of an object.
It is clear that the system can not have color.

But it seems that in systems engineering they do not distinguish between the concepts of an object and a system. All thanks to the fact that they do not share the way of perception of a set of objects as a whole and the process of synthesis of an object based on its construction.

If system engineers would make the right conclusions, they would recognize that what they call a system has a synonym for - design. And that system, that construction is the same thing.

Fuel to the fire pours our tongue. There is no way to separate two points of view: a look at the structure and a look at an object have the same name. I wrote about this earlier in the article Concept of system and design. Their place in the design of information systems

But what I did not expect when I wrote this article is that in system engineering they do not distinguish between a system and an object obtained on the basis of its synthesis.

As a result, I see that a whole layer of important knowledge has leaked from system engineering. About the possibilities that were lost in the end, I described in the article Structural Modeling. Requirements for the modeler