| Chapter 1: | Distinctions: Observation, Meaning, and the Reduction of Complexity |
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directly citing Husserl, carefully connects his own pivotal concept of meaning to the notion of an observer's intentionality:
As defined by Luhmann, meaning is the difference, constructed by an observer, between the actual and the potential. The recursive process of infusing an “actual” observation with meaning by associating it with past observations involves the operation of a “memory function” (Luhmann 1997b). According to Heinz von Foerster (1987), cognition gains “depth” or complexity as sequentially indicated distinctions are recursively connected and placed into meaningful relationships. If an observer could not remember (and forget) the meaning of distinctions drawn in the past, its own self-reference and internal complexity would overwhelm itself and could not evolve or be enhanced by culture. Without its past, traceable all the way back to its first distinction, self-reference has no present and no future. An observer consults memory to intentionally relate or connect two or more different observations to each other, self-referentially using meaning to produce unity through generalization and comparison (Luhmann 1995a:95, 1997a:588). Meaning “renders complexity” through a difference-oriented processing of information, characterized by a constant shifting of actuality (Luhmann 1995a:61–63).
To name the imagined unity that is produced when distinct observations are connected with meaning, we use the term “system.” Psychic and social systems are treated as observers who draw distinctions and make indications using self-referential forms of meaning. In this sense, psychic and social systems may be considered separate but parallel processors of meaning, both of which are essential in the production of society. Subsequent chapters will further differentiate and relate both