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Notes -
Ok to be pedantic and trash Scott's argument, "POSIWID" is especially shortened from "The purpose of a system is to do some or all of the things that it does, while taking all of the other things it does as acceptable consequences."
And the contrapositive: "The purpose of a system is never something that it doesn't do."
Scott is being deliberately obtuse purposefully ignoring the obvious meaning of the phrase.
"The purpose of a system is never something that it doesn't do."
If my car fails to start one morning, that does not mean that my car ceases to be a car (if we define a car as a vehicle whose purpose it is to transport persons). Saying "POSIWID, hence this is not a car, perhaps it is a tiny house or outhouse" is not a good way to handle a broken car. "This thing was designed with a function in mind, but it does no longer serve its original purpose, so what purpose does it serve now, and is it worthwhile to fix it or get rid of it" seems a much more promising approach.
If a life-saving operation has a mortality of 1%, and it ends up killing little Timmy, saying that clearly the purpose of the operation was to murder him, not to safe his life, as "[t]he purpose of a system is never something that it doesn't do" would seem disingenuous.
But if it does break down, then it's something a car does, not something a car doesn't do.
A car doesn't fly. The purpose of a car is never to fly. A car does break down, and so the "doesn't do" doesn't apply.
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Purpose of a system
A car is a system.
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