Choosing the proper boundaries between functions is perhaps the primary activity of the computer system designer. Design principles that provide guidance in this choice of function placement are among the most important tools of a system designer. This paper discusses one class of function placement argument that has been used for many years with neither explicit recognition nor much conviction. However, the emergence of the data communication network as a computer system component has sharpened this line of function placement argument by making more apparent the situations in which and reasons why it applies. This paper articulates the argument explicitly, so as to examine its nature and to see how general it really is. The argument appeals to application requirements, and provides a rationale for moving function upward in a layered system, closer to the application that uses the function. We begin by considering the communication network version of the argument.

Yes. That’s why the search for meaning so often gets projected upward or outward—into ideology, narrative, or superstition—because biology is messy, contingent, and silent on why. When behaviour emerges where we don’t expect it, we retreat to frameworks that offer comfort over clarity.