The communication of meaning in social systems

TL;DR

This paper explores how social systems communicate meaning through anticipatory models, distinguishing between weak and strong anticipation, and introduces the concept of horizons of meaning generated by hyper-incursion.

Contribution

It advances understanding of social communication by modeling anticipatory systems and their role in creating horizons of meaning within social dynamics.

Findings

Weak and strong anticipatory systems can be modeled as incursion and hyper-incursion.

Hyper-incursion generates horizons of meaning that influence social decision-making.

The structural coupling between social and psychological domains is characterized by anticipatory mechanisms.

Abstract

The sociological domain is different from the psychological one insofar as meaning can be communicated at the supra-individual level (Schutz, 1932; Luhmann, 1984). The computation of anticipatory systems enables us to distinguish between these domains in terms of weakly and strongly anticipatory systems with a structural coupling between them (Maturana, 1978). Anticipatory systems have been defined as systems which entertain models of themselves (Rosen, 1985). The model provides meaning to the modeled system from the perspective of hindsight, that is, by advancing along the time axis towards possible future states. Strongly anticipatory systems construct their own future states (Dubois, 1998a and b). The dynamics of weak and strong anticipations can be simulated as incursion and hyper-incursion, respectively. Hyper-incursion generates "horizons of meaning" (Husserl, 1929) among which choices have to be made by incursive agency.