"System" definition

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Myron wrote:
A "system" describes a collection of nouns. A "process" describes a
collection of verbs. A system may be physical  as, for example, an
automobile engine or it may be purely conceptual, as for example
Deming's system of profound knowledge. Associated with a system there
may be many processes.  Processes are the activities whereby systems get
things done.

Question to Myron, et al.: Isn't "system" a concept we use to construct
meaning in what we see? Isn't it a concept we impose on what we observe.
If so, how can this linguistic artifact, "system," be called physical.
The things we observe have physical correlates, but isn't the "system"
that we see, the relationships (i.e. "system" also contains
conjunctions) that we see, an abstraction that our minds impose? Myron,
in a talk you said that the "Big Dipper" exists only in our minds as a
construct we impose on that particular arrangement of stars. Doesn't the
same logic imply that all systems are conceptual, whether they have a
physical basis or not? Isn't an "automobile engine" as a system and as
part of a larger system, a concept? We call it "system" because we know
it depends on other things not contained in it, and other things depend
on it. We have learned to look at the interrelated physical parts and
call it "engine."

Another question: From a Newtonian view, we use verbs to describe the
processes of the engine. But from a subatomic viewpoint, aren't those
parts that we name with nouns, themselves in motion? So if you were
subatomically analyzing the properties of a "piston" would you call what
you see a part, a component, or a process?

Ed Baker