Related papers: 'Interaction' versus 'action' in Luhmann's sociolo…
I elaborate on the tension between Luhmann's social systems theory and Habermas' theory of communicative action, and argue that this tension can be resolved by focusing on language as the interhuman medium of the communication which enables…
The communication of meaning as different from (Shannon-type) information is central to Luhmann's social systems theory and Giddens' structuration theory of action. These theories share an emphasis on reflexivity, but focus on meaning along…
From the perspective of cultural studies and critical theory, Luhmann's communication-theoretical approach in sociology can still be read as a meta-biology: while biologists take the development of life as a given, Luhmann tends to treat…
Psychological and social systems provide us with a natural domain for the study of anticipations because these systems are based on and operate in terms of intentionality. Psychological systems can be expected to contain a model of…
The development of discursive knowledge presumes the communication of meaning as analytically different from the communication of information. Knowledge can then be considered as a meaning which makes a difference. Whereas the communication…
Following a suggestion of Warren Weaver, we extend the Shannon model of communication piecemeal into a complex systems model in which communication is differentiated both vertically and horizontally. This model enables us to bridge the…
The relationship between the "knowledge base" and the "globalization" of communication systems is discussed from the perspective of communication theory. I argue that inter-human communication takes place at two levels. At the first level…
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…
The study of inter-human communication requires a more complex framework than Shannon's (1948) mathematical theory of communication because "information" is defined in the latter case as meaningless uncertainty. Assuming that meaning cannot…
In this paper we propose a dynamical interpretation of the sociological distinction between large and small groups of interacting individuals. In the former case individual behaviors are largely dominated by the group effect, while in the…
Reductionism has dominated science and philosophy for centuries. Complexity has recently shown that interactions---which reductionism neglects---are relevant for understanding phenomena. When interactions are considered, reductionism…
In social systems, meaning can be communicated in addition to underlying processes of the information exchange. Meaning processing incurs on information processing with hindsight, while information processing recursively follows the time…
Multi-agent models are a suitable starting point to model complex social interactions. However, as the complexity of the systems increase, we argue that novel modeling approaches are needed that can deal with inter-dependencies at different…
Actors are embedded in networks of communication: the relations of the actors can be represented as the rows of a matrix, while the column vectors represent their communications. The two systems are structurally coupled in the co-variation:…
In biological systems, the capacity of anticipation--that is, entertaining a model of the system within the system--can be considered as naturally given. Human languages enable psychological systems to construct and exchange mental models…
Social order cannot be considered as a stable phenomenon because it contains an order of reproduced expectations. When the expectations operate upon one another, they generate a non-linear dynamics that processes meaning. Specific meaning…
Socio-cognitive action reproduces and changes both social and cognitive structures. The analytical distinction between these dimensions of structure provides us with richer models of scientific development. In this study, I assume that (i)…
Human communication is commonly represented as a temporal social network, and evaluated in terms of its uniqueness. We propose a set of new entropy-based measures for human communication dynamics represented within the temporal social…
Information flow provides a natural measure for the causal interaction between dynamical events. This study extends our previous rigorous formalism of componentwise information flow to the bulk information flow between two complex…
The size of cities is known to play a fundamental role in social and economic life. Yet, its relation to the structure of the underlying network of human interactions has not been investigated empirically in detail. In this paper, we map…