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SYST. RES. BEHAV. SCI. VOL. 14, 359–371 (1997)
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Research Paper
The Control of Intransparency1 Niklas Luhmann* Faculty of Sociology, University of Bielefeld, Germany
General systems theory shows that the combination of self-referential operations and operational closure (or the re-entry of output as input) generates a surplus of possible operations and therefore intransparency of the system for its own operation. The system cannot produce a complete description of itself. It has to cope with its own unresolvable indeterminacy. To be able to operate under such conditions the system has to introduce time. It has to distinguish between its past and its future. It has to use a memory function that includes both remembering and forgetting. And it needs an oscillator function to represent its future. This means, for example, that the future has to be imagined as achieving or not achieving the goals of the system. Even the distinction of past and future is submitted to oscillation in the sense that the future can be similar to the past or not. In this sense the unresolvable indeterminacy or the intransparency of the system for itself can find a temporal solution. But this means that the past cannot be changed (although selectively remembered) and the future cannot be known (although structured by distinctions open for oscillation). © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Syst. Res., Vol. 15, 359–371 (1997) No. of Figures: 0 No. of Tables: 0 No. of References: 0 self-reference; operational closure; time; memory; oscillation
I In classical epistemologies the observer brings in knowledge himself. He might find himself against a highly complex, partly intransparent universe. There might be religious grounds that put limits to his curiosity. This was still the way of reasoning in the seventeenth century. At the same time, techniques of mathematical idealizing came about, which guaranteed for themselves the solvability of their tasks, but in 1
The paper is translated from German into English by M. P. van der Marel and A. Zylstra ¨ * Correspondence to: Niklas Luhmann, Faculty of Sociology, University of Bielefeld, P.O. Box 100 131, 33501 Bielefeld, Germany
CCC 1092–7026/97/060359–13 $17.50 © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
any case ignored the problem that the real world differed from the world of mathematics or idealtypical constructions. Real people, for example, don’t act according to the principles which theories of rational choice assume for them, and the actual economical development does not necessarily follow the equation systems of neoclassical theory. Nevertheless this provocation, this self-irritation of the observer through the deviating behaviour of reality, could be brought back into theory and can be seen as a stimulus towards a continuous improvement of the theories and instruments. The invention of the electronic calculating machine again led to an enormous improvement in this technique of
RESEARCH PAPER knowledge. Above all, it has enabled the simulation of temporal processes; and, in the theory of dynamic systems, it has led to the result that the investigator can even surprise himself by his own models. In simulation, the systems already behave in a way which the maker of these models cannot always foresee. The unpredictability is taken into account, as it were. Consequently, it should no longer surprise us that real systems also behave unpredictably. Model calculation and reality now converge, it seems, in the prediction of unpredictability. One may guess that at the end of the twentieth century this symphony of intransparency reflects a widespread mood. One may think of the difficulties of a development policy in the direction of modernizing, as it was conceived after the Second World War. One may think of the influences of worldwide financial speculation based on prognosis of p