The three are seated in a narrow drawing room. Papers lie in modest disarray. Mr Blottisham, having clearly prepared, leans forward with the air of a man about to clarify matters definitively.
Blottisham:
Well then, I think I have it.
Quillibrace:
I had feared as much.
Blottisham (pressing on):
The system—any system, really—is the underlying structure that produces the instances. Biological, social, semiotic—each is a kind of mechanism generating its respective outputs.
Quillibrace:
No.
Blottisham (smiling patiently):
Quite. You say “no,” but only because you are resisting the obvious. If there are recurring patterns, there must be something that produces them. That something is the system.
Elowen:
You’re moving very quickly from recurrence to production.
Blottisham:
Not quickly—necessarily. Patterns do not produce themselves. There must be a structure behind them.
Quillibrace:
There is not.
Blottisham (leaning back):
Then we are to believe in pattern without structure?
Quillibrace:
You are to stop placing structure behind what you have already been given in front.
Blottisham:
Ah—but what we are given are instances. Fleeting, contingent, unrepeatable. Surely the system must be what stabilises them.
Elowen:
Or what you are calling “the system” is how you are stabilising them.
Blottisham (frowning):
That sounds suspiciously like subjectivism.
Quillibrace:
Only if one is determined to misunderstand it.
A brief pause. Blottisham gathers himself.
Blottisham:
Let me try again. We observe many similar events. From these, we abstract a general pattern. That pattern is the system.
Quillibrace:
Closer. Still wrong.
Blottisham:
In what way?
Quillibrace:
You have replaced mechanism with abstraction, but you have retained the same error.
Blottisham:
Which is?
Quillibrace:
You are still treating the system as something that exists in addition to the events.
Blottisham:
Well, it must exist somewhere.
Quillibrace:
No.
Blottisham looks briefly wounded, then rallies.
Blottisham:
Then where, pray, is the system?
Elowen:
Perhaps “where” is doing too much work.
Blottisham:
Everything is somewhere, Miss Stray.
Quillibrace:
That assumption is doing even more.
Blottisham ignores this.
Blottisham:
Let us be practical. If the system is not behind the events, and not an abstraction from them, then what is it?
Quillibrace:
It is an inference.
Blottisham:
Ah! Then we are back to abstraction.
Quillibrace:
No.
Blottisham (with a trace of triumph):
But you have just said—
Quillibrace:
I have said something you are about to misinterpret.
Elowen smiles faintly.
Elowen:
You are treating inference as if it produced an object.
Blottisham:
And what else would it produce?
Elowen:
A constraint.
Blottisham pauses.
Blottisham:
I’m afraid that is rather vague.
Quillibrace:
Only because you are trying to make it concrete.
Blottisham:
Naturally. That is how one understands things.
Quillibrace:
It is how one misplaces them.
A longer pause. Blottisham taps the table.
Blottisham:
Let me see if I can salvage this. We have instances. We observe that not all instances are equally likely. Some configurations recur. From this, we infer constraints on what can happen.
Quillibrace:
Yes.
Blottisham (brightening):
And those constraints define the system.
Quillibrace:
No.
Blottisham exhales sharply.
Blottisham:
This is becoming tiresome.
Elowen:
You were very close.
Blottisham:
I was exactly right.
Quillibrace:
You were almost careful.
Elowen leans slightly forward.
Elowen:
The constraints do not define a system as a thing. They stabilise a space of possibilities. What you are calling “the system” is how that space is consistently inferred across many instances.
Blottisham:
That sounds indistinguishable from what I said.
Quillibrace:
It is entirely different.
Blottisham:
In what way?
Quillibrace:
You wish the system to be something that is.
It is something that continues to be successfully inferred.
Blottisham considers this.
Blottisham:
So the system does not exist?
Quillibrace:
Not as you would like it to.
Blottisham:
But it must be real.
Elowen:
It is real in its stability, not in its substance.
Blottisham:
That is a very unsatisfactory kind of reality.
Quillibrace:
It is the only kind available here.
Blottisham sits back, dissatisfied but intrigued.
Blottisham:
Let me attempt a final formulation. The system is not a mechanism, nor a hidden structure, nor an object. It is the stabilised inference of constraints over recurring instances.
Quillibrace:
Acceptable.
Blottisham (with relief):
At last.
Quillibrace:
For the moment.
Elowen glances between them.
Elowen:
Until you decide that it must therefore produce the instances.
Blottisham opens his mouth, pauses, and then closes it again.
Blottisham:
I shall reserve that thought.
Quillibrace:
You will not succeed.
A quiet settles.
Blottisham looks faintly triumphant, as if he has nearly secured the matter.
Quillibrace looks as though nothing at all has been secured.
Elowen, as ever, is watching the structure rather than the conclusion.
End of Dialogue I
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