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Abstract
Introduction
On autopoiesis
Niklas Luhmann was aware of that problem. And he defined the social
systems as unities consisting (and reconstituted) by communications rather than
humans. For Luhmann, an aggregation of humans is not a social system: only a
network of interdependent communicative actions, that are connected to each other
with meaning and regulated (the network) by rules set and transformed continuously
by the network itself, is a social system. The social system then, produces
communicative actions, catalyzes them, connects them together with its own means
(i.e. producing meaning by communication), and pushes communication onward, thus
reproducing itself. This is not to say that a social system could exist without humans
(i.e. psychic systems), for the same reasons a nervous system could not exist without
nervous cells. But it is the continuously reconstructed regulative system that
guarantees communication, without which communication (as meaning production)
would be improbable.
Let's try to elaborate on this. The psychic system, is one among three self-
referential autopoietic systems according to Luhmann (1986: 172), with the other two
been living systems (that is: alive systems) and social systems. Self-referential
systems are categorized according to their selection criterion: living systems select
their next state with survival as their main goal, while psychic and social systems
select on the basis of meaning reconstruction; they are "[…] sovereign with respect to
the constitution of identities and differences" (ibid: 174). To be sure, psychic systems
operate through consciousness while social systems operate through communication.
Obviously at this point, one could logically assume that psychic systems operate
through communication too; but according to Luhmann (1995), Maturana (2005) and
von Foerster (1984; 2003) this would be a quite crude assumption. The psychic
system is in fact a constellation of purely internal functions and processes, based upon
the nervous system (Maturana H. R., Varela F. J., 1992) of the human: if some of
those are not communicated in any way, then they are irrelevant for communication
and therefore for any social system. This is to say that, humans can communicate only
through communicative actions. The nervous systems of the living are operationally
closed and there cannot be direct interaction between two distinct nervous systems:
the only possibility for interaction is communication, and the only manifestation of
communication is communication itself. Admittedly now, the theoretical distinction
between psychic and social systems does not seem so strange.
Furthermore, communication is a select-or-stop process; any communicative
action paves the way for the next one. To be sure, communication at every moment
realizes a horizon of contingent selections, that is which the next communicative
action will be, and if communication will continue or stop. Even to stop the
communication is a communicative selection, although a final one.
So, communicative actions recreate continuously communication, and - as
events - are fading away as soon as they are manifested: a certain communicative
event cannot repeat itself circularly and still remain a component of communication.
To understand why this is, we have to take under consideration Gregory Bateson's
famous definition of information: "Of this infinitude [of differences], we select a very
limited number, which become information. In fact, what we mean by information -
the elementary unit of information - is a difference which makes a difference, and it is
able to make a difference because the neural pathways along which it travels and it is
continually transformed are themselves provided with energy. The pathways are ready
to be triggered. We may even say that the question is already implicit in them."
(Bateson G., 2000: 459). This definition, which influenced profoundly the
contemporary systems thinking, lies into the core of Luhmann's theory. For now, we
will only note that a difference is emerging only if a signal (or an event, a phrase, a
gesture etc.) is not repeated continuously: if it results to a repetitive pattern then it is
not informative anymore, and therefore it does not contribute to communication - it
becomes irrelevant. Consequently, any communicative action should fade away2, or
else communication becomes impossible. Additionally, communication happens if
(and only if) there's a degree of unpredictability inherent in its process: if I know
exactly what you are going to say then there's no meaning in communicating; it is
precisely the reduction of improbability that triggers communication and continuously
leads it from simpler to more complex forms, that is evolution. And that evolution is
inherently social, since the management of complex communicative actions results to
more complex meaning-producing structures i.e. social structures. This is to say that,
communication destructs communicational structures and replaces them with new of
the same type, although more complex.
2
That is, the component of the system should be destructed and replaced by a fresh one,
exactly as the original definition of autopoiesis conjectures.
From humans to persons
3
Interestingly enough, Claude Shannon in his famous technical paper "A Mathematical
Theory of Communication" (1948), which is the theoretical basis of the recent technological
communication networks, arrives to the same exact conclusion, through his formula for the entropy of
transmission of information in discrete channels; but the mathematical proof of the importance of the
difference, is beyond the scope of this paper.
to rearrange its environment, so to assure an optimal lifeworld around it (Popper K.,
2003), that is to construct an environment that favours its own autopoiesis. This is a
hopeless strive though: its environment is consisted by other self-referential systems
that are reacting exactly the same way in order to preserve their own autopoiesis. So
the cycle is triggered anew.
Hopefully at this point, it should come as no surprise to note that self-
referential systems are problem-solvers: and that's exactly what they are. Due to their
own self-thematization they push other psychic or social systems to do the same: and
people become individuals and social systems emerge on the basis of common
constructions be those languages, values, goals, interests etc. It is deduced then that
society advances through internal differentiation that's attributed to the individuality
of humans as persons and social systems as discrete structures. It is also obvious that
any finality (if for the sake of discussion we assume that there could be such a thing)
introduces a profound danger for the autopoietic operation of any kind of self-
referential system for it would reduce the contingency of the environment and
therefore would deprive the system from its raison d' êtres: the system would not be
able anymore to distinguish itself from the other, so it would have either to invent an
other or collapse. Otherness then and its importance, is the key aspect to grasp Niklas
Luhmann's theory. As he notes "We could take the route of Ferdinand de Saussure
and Jacques Derrida or George-Spencer Brown, and follow the injunction to always
start with difference and not identity, with distinction and not unity" (Luhmann N.,
1992a: 1421), and also, "In fact, the theory of autopoietic systems could bear the title
Taking Individuals Seriously, certainly more seriously than our humanistic tradition"4
(ibid: 1422).
Conclusions
Finally, now that we made clear the main aspects of Luhmann's theory let's try
to review the criticism we presented initially:
"Je suis né plusieurs, et je suis mort, un seul. L'enfant qui vient est une foule
innombrable, que la vie réduit assez tôt à un seul individu, celui qui se manifeste et
meurt" (Born as several, I die as one. The child who comes is an innumerable crowd,
which the life rather early reduces to only one individual, that which appears and dies)
(Paul Valéry as cited in Luhmann N., 1990: 116).
Bibliography