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Conflicts in systems and places
Systems are chains and networks of causal effects, often reinforced by feedback loops. The connections in feedback systems are not the same as those made by norms in places. Systems can be said to conflict, for instance in a room where one system is trying to cool the room and another to admit sunlight that is heating the room. This is unlike a conflict of norms. The temperature of the room may oscillate or it may be stable, but this will happen without any interpretation about the priority of one norm to another. When multiple norms are operative within a place, they can conflict in ways that demand judgment and decision. The right of public access to information may conflict with the right of privacy; a court may have to rule on what degree of intrusiveness is to be allowed. Systems as such have no norms, only relatively stable arrangements. But systems can be taken up into social grammars and norms.