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The communication of meaning in social systems
Author(s) -
Leydesdorff Loet,
Franse Sander
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
systems research and behavioral science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.371
H-Index - 45
eISSN - 1099-1743
pISSN - 1092-7026
DOI - 10.1002/sres.921
Subject(s) - hindsight bias , meaning (existential) , perspective (graphical) , agency (philosophy) , construct (python library) , domain (mathematical analysis) , social system , epistemology , psychology , computer science , sociology , social psychology , mathematics , artificial intelligence , philosophy , mathematical analysis , programming language
The sociological domain is different from the psychological one insofar as meaning can be communicated at the supra‐individual level. 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. Anticipatory systems have been defined as systems which entertain models of themselves. The model provides meaning to the modelled 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. The dynamics of weak and strong anticipations can be simulated as incursion and hyper‐incursion, respectively. Hyper‐incursion generates ‘horizons of meaning’ among which choices have to be made by incursive agency. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.