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FEEDBACK PRINCIPLES FOR STUDIES OF SOCIAL ACTIVITIES

Guohua, Bai (Ph.D.)Dept. of Software Engineering and Computer Science

Blekinge Institute of TechnologyS-372 25 Ronneby, Sweden

ABSTRACT

Effort to integrate sociology and cybernetics possesses as long a history as social science andsystems science. Early in1950s, Churchman proposed the essential integration of thecybernetics and sociology, and warned of the risk of the two becoming separated:

The psychologist and social scientist are aware of the complexities of phenomena in their own

field and may look upon the metaphors and analogies of the cyberneticians with skepticism.

The danger is that eventually some cybernetician goes astray and makes proposals which to

the psychologist and social scientist are completely outrageous. The end point of the process

may come when each field returns to its own work and ignores the potential contribution of

other disciplines. The real danger is the complete loss of integration which at the present timeseems essential in the study of purposive behaviour. (p33)

This paper integrates the socio-psychological Activity Theory and feedback principle basedon Luhmanns conceptual work into one sociocybernetic model. The model can be applied asan interpretive tool for understanding various social problems, and also as a logical andsystematic guide for social policy and decision-making.

In the first part of the paper, Luhmanns social autopoietic theory in terms of self-reference,autopoisis, communication, and differentiated function systems is introduced as basicterminology and ontology in the context of the model construction. The concept self-reference

is discussed in the context of cybernetic intrinsic feedback, extrinsic feedback and purposefulstudy based on Churchmans category of intensive function, extensive function, andpurposeful behaviour. The concept of autopoisis is critically discussed from the perspective ofopen social system, and the concept of communication, and differentiated social functions arediscussed in relation to the socio-psychological theory Activity Theory. Activity Theory isintroduced then to identify some concrete socio-psychological components for the socialstudy and model construction. The concepts of activity, contradiction, development, andsocial mediated interaction are discussed. Especially it is proposed that the fundamentalcategory of activity should be applied as the autopoetic unit (compare to concept ofcommunication as autopoetic unit proposed by Luhmann) and basic analysis unit for varioussocial studies. Based on the theoretical conceptual work of Luhmann and the basiccomponents identified by the activity theory, a sociocybernetic model is constructedaccording to feedback principle. In the last, the constructed model is applied in explaining andinterpreting some social problems, such as IT bubble and economic turbulance, war in Iraq asglobalisation of social inquiring, and the crucial social role of mass media.

Keywords: Sociocybernetics; Feedback; Social activity systems, Communication; Autopoiesis.

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THE AUTOPOIETIC SOCIAL THEORY

Luhmanns autopoietic social theory has recently generated an increasing amount of attention.There are several important concepts from which Luhmann builds up his autopoietic socialtheory. They are self-reference, autopoiesis, communication, and functional differentiation or

differentiated function systems. Those concepts are discussed in the followings.

Self-reference and feedback:

Luhmann believes that self-reference is a fundamental phenomenon of social systems. He firstproposes a fundamental distinction: system and environment. One could not at all talk about aself and could not designate a self if nothing else than this existed(Luhmann, 1995a, P5).Self-referential systems can determine themselves only in reference to what they are not. Thesystem would never be able to build its own complexity and its own knowledge if itrepeatedly mistook itself for its environment (Luhmann,1995a).

Based on the distinction of system and environment, Luhmann uses the term self-referencenot confined only to reference to ones self which he calls auto-reference, but also to includereference which references entities other than the system itself (such as the environment),named hetero-reference. Thus, the sophisticated self-reference of the autopoietic systemincludes two components: pure internal self-reference (auto-reference), and self-referencethrough the environment back to the system (hetero-reference) (Bailey, 1997). The notion ofself-reference is at the heart of Luhmanns contemporary theory. According to Luhmann(1995b, p437), social systems are undoubtedly self-referential systems.

In cybernetic terminology, self-reference indicates two kinds of feedbacks (Skyttner, 2000),

namely, intrinsic feedback (auto-reference), and extrinsic feedback (hetero-reference).Feedback is an important embodiment of purposeful behaviour in cybernetic systems.Feedback works only when there is a goal for the system and deviations of the actual outputfrom the goal are identified or measured. The measured deviation is the base for correct input.The idea of purposeful behaviour defined in first order cybernetics is that an object behaves

purposefully if it continues to pursue the same goal by changing its behaviour as itsenvironment changes. It is thus required that the purposeful systems receive information fromthe environment and respond to changes in the environment through feedback. Although werecognise that this feedback process is involved in much purposeful behaviour, this restriction,i.e., available feedback from the reaction of the environment should not however be a

necessary requirement for studying all purposeful behaviour because such transmission ofinformation in many psychological and social examples of purposeful behaviour is either not

present or is not of concern to the observers. For example, a person who pursues a promotionor position (a purposeful behaviour) could take many different actions even though theenvironment remains the same or even he or she could not know if the environment hadchanged. Based on this argument, Churchman (1950) developed a category of purposeful

behaviour, comprising extensive function, intensive function, and purpose.

1) A system has an extensive function if it consists of objects that accomplish certainobjectives by displaying relatively invariant behaviour in a wide range of

environments; e.g. an ordinary clock has an extensive function since it serves apurpose by displaying relatively invariant behaviour in all environments.

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2) A system has intensive function if it consists of objects that accomplish their goals bychanging their behaviour if the environment changes, but generally exhibit only onetype of behaviour in any given environment, e.g., light switches, servo-mechanismssuch as automatic temperature control devices, self-aiming guns and missiles. Theintensive function is what the first order cyberneticians are interested in.

3) A system haspurpose if it accomplishes its objectives by exhibiting different types ofbehaviour, even though the environment remains constant. Typical examples areartificial intelligence, animal behaviour and human activity systems. This is what thesecond order cyberneticians primarily concern about.

The purposive behaviour of a system is an important aspect in cybernetic feedback principle,but very much about the intensive function in Churchmans category. While the concept ofself-reference opens new possibilities to study all kinds of purposive behaviours, but notclearly how. Purposeful behaviour of human systems is of course a crucial aspect for

sociology, and feedback is one way to approach the problem, but not the only way.

Autopoietic systems

Autopoiesis is a concept developed in the 1970s by Maturana and Varela (Maturana andVarela, 1972) in describing cells systems. An autopoietic system, for example a cell, not onlycreates its own unity as a system and its own structures, but also its own element. It does notconsist of pre-existing elements, but reproduces itself by producing new elements in itsrecursive network of elements. Although no biological system can maintain itself withoutresources from the environment, only mater and energy, not elements and not unity can be

imported from the environment. A biological system is organisationally closed butcommunicatively open, as Luhmann says there is no input and no output of unity. Luhmanngeneralises the concept to cover not only organic systems, but also social systems. Accordingto Luhmann (1986,1995b), social systems are autopoietic systems in which communication isthe production unit.

The basic definition of autopoiesis is that a system self-reproduces. That is, it produces thecomponents that produce it (Mingers, 1995). In Luhmanns own words autopoiesis: refers tosystems that reproduce all the elementary components out of which they arise by means of anetwork of these elements themselves and in this way distinguish themselves from an

environment - whether this takes the forms of life, consciousness or (in the case of socialsystems) communication. Autopoiesis is the model of reproduction of these systems(Luhmann, 1989, p.143).

An autopoietic system, while organisationally closed, nevertheless references an environment,background, or context. This means autopoietic systems are self-reference systems whichcomprises hetero-referentiality (reference to an environment), with reference through thisenvironment back to the system. The idea is applicable to society only regarding the socialsystem as humanity as whole. This means that social subsystems as units of the whole society,such as legal subsystem, economic subsystem, and mass media subsystem are not autopoietic.More discussion about the applicability of autopoitise in social system will be followed in the

part of examples.

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Communication

Luhmann boldly characterises society as autopoietic, but in terms of communication as thebasic unit. As he states that social systems use communication as their particular mode orautopoietic reproduction. Their elements are communication which are recursively produced

and reproduced by a network of communications and which cannot exist outside of such anetwork (Luhmann 1986, p.174). Even more radically, he states that for a theory ofautopoietic systems, only communication is a serious candidate for the position of elementaryunit of the basic self-referential process of social systems. Only communication is necessarilyand inherently social. (Luhmann 1986, p.177) We may question whether communication isthe only elementary unit of social autopoietic systems. However, the crucial role ofcommunication is no doubt the most significant one. In fact, any system, if it is called asystem, must include the communication channels in order to knit the units or parts togetherinto one coherent whole and to ensure that the units are working together appropriately andcontributing to the objectives of the whole.

As said communication may not be the only unit that is autopoietic, this paper introducesanother important candidate as social antipoetic unit in the next, i.e. human activity. This will

be discussed in the section of Activity Theory.

Differentiated function systems

Modern societies are divided into functional subsystems such as economical system, politicalsystem, education system, to which Luhmann calls differentiated function systems. A functionsystem is said to be functional in that it achieves its identity through the fulfilment of afunction of the entire system. It is another basic concepts in Luhmanns autopoietic theory.

It has been argued that one of the marked features of the modern world has been the extent ofits differentiation or division of labour and therefore to lead to increased collective

productivity. Obviously, the more differentiation there is, the more specialised the roles thatare played by actors, and therefore the more important became intercellular and inter-divisional communication and control (Corning,1994).

According to Luhmann, each subsystem is closed and creates its own domain allowing onlycertain operations. As a consequence of this organizational closeness, it is impossible (withoutthe help of God) to observe - or to handle - society as a whole, as no vantage point exists fromwhich to do so. As a further consequence it is not possible to talk about what is rational for

society as a whole, or what will benefit society as a whole (Thyssen, 1995). In fact, to find thevantage point, or the Gods point, has been long time a dilemma for sociologists and systemthinkers. In many cases, the problem of searching such a goal becomes a religious approachabout finding the wish of the God. As Churchman formulated:

The nature of the human system depends most of all on whether a perfect being exists. If it

does, then our main attention as systems researchers should be how our planning relates to its

existence. If it does not, then we not only have a lot of explaining to do in terms of our values,

but we also have to find a whole set of godless values to guide us.

(Churchman, 1988, P39)

If we exclude the religious solution, at least at present time, sociologists are responsible toinquire, approach, and debate the problem of goal for our human beings. The difficulty of

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finding a goal to the social system has serious consequences. When the goal is missing in asystem, feedback cannot work properly; system boundary becomes difficult to draw; anddecision cannot be made rationally. This however, as long the search for God, the goal ofhumanity, is an ultimate mission for sociology.

Functional subsystems co-operate not based on consensus, but on their mutual benefits andcomplementary principle (Bai, 1997). The functional benefits of the subsystems are so vitalthat no society can afford to make social system dependent on consensus (Thyssen, 1995). Allsubsystems together form a shared vision through communication and interaction, andstabilise around certain domains which all can be beneficially operated.

THE ACTIVITY THEORY

For much current sociology, in certain sense only individuals exist: the individual humanbeing is the ontologically given starting point from which everything else can be deducted.Consequently, socialisation, norms, values and culture are popular means for explaining why

individuals unite into something called society (Qvortrup, 1996). Activity theory, however,takes the Activity - interactions between people and their social cultures, norms, values as amolar unit of a social system. Activity as the molar unit of society is developed underconditions of co-operation and social interaction among people (Leontv 1981,p.55).

Performing activities is much like to take breath or foods for living we cannot live healthilywithout doing activities. Activity is the nonadditive, molar unit of live (Leontv 1981,p.46).

Activity Theory is a philosophical and cross-disciplinary framework for studying variousforms of human behaviours and social practices. It uses the category activity as a system ofits own structure or the minimal unit (Leontv 1981, p46) to approach the relationship of thesubjective mind with its social context. Some important concepts and models of the ActivityTheory, most of which originated from the work of (Davydov, 1982), (Vygotsky, 1978),

(Leontv, 1981), and (Engestrm, 1987), are summarised in the following.

The necessity of activity (why activity)An activity is a basic process that a human being or a collective carries on or participates in

by virtue of being alive, and it is also the most basic unit for any human or collectiveperforming a specific function or duty. Like foods and water to human physical existence,activity is like foods and water to human mind. No one can survive without participating invarious social activities, such as materials production and distribution activities, political anddemocratic activities, scientific and educational activities, religious activities, sports andvarious entertainment activities. Activity is the nonadditive, molar unit of life (Leontv,1981, p 46).

But how is activity possible? According to Searle (1995), there are two biologicalprimitives of human beings: background capacity and collective intentionality whichenable various social activities. The background capacity indicates the capacity of eachindividual being able to follow social or institutional rules, norms, laws, etc. As re-formulatedby Qvortrup (1996): . rule-governed structures of human institutions are followed bypeople not because they have explicitly learned and memorised the rules, but because theyhave developed a set of capacities and abilities that render them at home in the society. Thesecapacities and abilities are labelled background abilities (p33).The collectiveintentionality explains why individuals with their singular intentionality wish to participate insocial activities. Searles (1995) answer is: in addition to singular intentionality there is alsocollective intentionality (p 23). This collective intentionality is not the sum of singularintentionality, but a new emergent property of collectives. Activities are formed by persons

sharing a We Intention with their background capacity.

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Activity is an internalizing and externalizing process between subject and object mediated by

artifactsA subject in an activity is a conscious actor or a group of conscious actors. An object is

some part of the real world that the subject acts upon. If I act, there is something in front ofme, an object (Schwarz 1997, p 24). Leontv considers the activity as the middle link in a

three-part scheme between subject and object (Leontv 1981, p46). The object manifests itselfonly if there is an interaction with a subject. There is non-separability between object andsubject. Activity theory takes social, historical, and cultural properties to be as objective asphysical and biological properties, and maintains that consciousness is located in everydayobjective practice: you are what you do. And what you do is firmly and inextricablyembedded in the social matrix of which every person is an organic part (Nardi, 1996). Anobject (objective) is always held by a subject, a person or a group of persons who is or areengaged in an activity, provides motives for the activity, and gives the activity specificdirection. Behind the object, there always stands a need or a desire, to which the activityalways answers (Leontv 1981, p46).

But a subject can act on an object only through artefacts as a mediator (in figure 1, dot linebetween subject and object). The introduction of artefacts as a mediator in mediating the very

classical mind-body paradox or contradiction is a major contribution of Activity Theory.Mediator objects connect humans not only with objects, but also with other people (Leontv,1981). In particular, mediator objects are understood as objective transmitters for theinternalisation process and externalisation process. The internalisation process is the processin an activity transforming the object in focus into its subjective form or image (mentalmodels, theories, skills, consciousness, etc.) that is generalised, verbalised, abbreviated, andmost importantly, becomes susceptible to further development that exceeds the possibility ofexternal activity (Leontv, 1981). The externalisation process is the process that internalprocess manifests itself in external actions performed by persons, and is converted intoobjective results and products (Davydov, 1982; Vygotsky, 1978; Leontv, 1981).

.

Subject Object

Artefacts.

Externalising process

Internalising process

Figure 1. Activity mediated by artefacts

The three levels of activity modelAn activity is structured and analysed at various levels. Leontv (1981) provided a three-

level scheme of activity (figure 2). According to this schema, a collective activity is driven bya communal motive. This motive is formed when the collective need meets an object thathas potential to fulfil the need. Different activities can be distinguished on the basis of theirdifferent motives and then an activity is realised or accomplished by actions or clusters ofactions that are generated or related to some concrete goals. Participating in an activitycomprises conscious actions that have immediate, defined goals. These actions must in turn betechnically implemented through operations that are well-defined, habitual routines in

accordance with conditions during the operation

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The action and operation are dynamically defined: when an action has been practised longenough, the action will be collapsed into an operation and new kind of action will be createdwith its corresponded new operations. On the other hand, when conditions change, anoperation can again unfold and return to the level of conscious action (Kuutti, 1996).

The distinction between individual goal-directed action and collective object-oriented

activity is of central importance. One and the same goal directed action might accomplishvarious different activities and transfer from one activity to another. On the other hand, theobject and motive of a collective activity may typically be sought after by means of multiplealternative goals and actions (Engestrm et. al., 1999). This complex many-to-manyrelationship in an activity needs some concrete field observation and data analysis (very oftenother ethnography method is considered as adjacent to activity theory in this context) in orderto derive understandable work model and data structure.

Activity Motive

Goal

Condition

Action

Operation

Figure 2. Three levels of an activity

Social interaction and contradictionEngestrm (1987) visualised the components involved in activities as six dimensions, i.e.,

subject; object; instrument (artefacts); community; rules, norms; and labour divisions into atriangle model (figure 3). The model is constructed based on the principle of contradictions

and mediating.

Subject Object

Norms, Rules Community Division of Labour

Outcome

Instrument

Production

Consumption

DistributionExchange

Figure 3. The social activity

Contradiction is an important concept in Activity Theory that interprets the developmentprocess. Contradictions manifest themselves as problems, ruptures, breakdowns, and clashes.Activity Theory sees contradictions as sources of development (Bai & Lindberg, 1998, TurnerP. & S. Turner 2001). Activities are virtually always in the process of working throughcontradictions (Kuutti, 1996). In figure 3, together with the classical contradiction of 'Subject-object' mediated by instrument (artefact), two new contradictions are identified after theintroduction of community, the contradiction 'subject-community', and the contradiction'object-community'. In a similar manner as the instrument/artefact is introduced as the

mediator of the contradiction 'Subject-object', Engestrm introduces 'norms, rules' as themediator of the contradiction subject-community', and introduces 'division of labour'as the

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mediator of the contradiction 'object-community. Based on Marxs terminology of socialproduction, exchange, distribution, and consumption,he further maps those four humanfundamental activities as four sub-triangles. In the next, those fundamental activities will beapplied as components to the sociocybernetic model of feedback economic-subsystem.

According to figure 3, the development of economic production, exchange, distribution,

andconsumption activities are accordingly driven by four kinds of contradictions. Firstly,production activity is driven by the contradiction 'subject-object; namely, by usinginstrument (tool in the terminology of Vygotsky, or artefacts in figure 1 by Leontv) thesubject works and produces the objects that correspond to the given need or an outcome.Secondly, the exchangeactivity is driven by the contradiction subject-community', namely,the subject exchanges his/her labour value (exchange value) within the community to obtainhis/her needs (use value) according to the communitys rules and social law(secondmediator). Thirdly, the distribution activityis driven by the contradiction object-community;namely, the outcome of the object is distributed for social re-production among members(organisations, companies) of the community according to the principles of the division oflabour(third mediator). Finally, the total social economic activity system (the whole triangle)is driven by a new kind of contradiction: 'production-consumption', namely, by the paradox

that we produce output and, simultaneously, we consume the output in order to re-produce it.The contradiction of 'production-consumption' provides an inner and never-ending energythat drives an accumulating cycle of consumption and production. Were it not for theparadox that consumption necessitates production, and vice versa, activity would not exist(Holt 1993, p99).

Besides the contradictions between the constituent components of an activity in the abovewhich Engestrm called the secondary contradiction, he has also identified other three levels(types) of contradictions: the primary contradiction is within each constituent components ofan activity; the tertiary contradiction is between an activity and its culturally more advancedform of the activity (new activity vs. old activity); and the quaternary contradiction is betweenthe central activity and its neighbouring activities (Engestrm, 1987, p89). In the above, onlythe secondary contradiction is discussed. In the following, a sociocybernetic model will be

introduced based on Luhmanns conceptual work and the components identified by theActivity Theory by feedback principle.

A SOCIOCYBERNETIC MODEL

Regarding to Luhmanns social autopoiesis, the first question is what exactly the society isbeing reproduced if the society is an autopoietic or self-reproducing system. Or stated anotherway: what is the most basic unit for conducting social problem analysis? There have beenmany possibilities. The unit could be, e.g., the individual (Mingers, 1995, Miller, 1978), theunit of action (Hutchins, 1994; Suchman, 1987; Lave 1988), and communication (Luhmann,

1986). In this paper, however, activity is the recommended unit of social reproduction orsocial autopoiesis. Human activity systems, such as social economic activities of production,consumption, exchange, distribution, and social political activities of human inquiring ofgoals and learning, legal control, military action, and democratic movement are sociallyautopoietic. Communication such as mass media, reports, and statistics is the link that makesthe reproduction of social activities as the whole of sociocybernetic system as shown in figure4.

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Figure 4. Double Loops of Sociocybernetic System

The model in figure 4 is based on an integration of the feedback/feed forward principle,activity theory, and Luhmanns autopoietic theory. The activity theory provides us withconcrete components of a social system. Luhmanns autopoietic theory provides us with the

basic ontology and concepts for understanding properties of social systems in terms of self-reference, autopoiesis, communication, and differentiated function systems. Finally,feedback/feed ford provides the link principle to build up the architecture of thesociocybernetic system.

In figure 4, the sociocybernetic system as whole is viewed as two loops, i.e., the inner-loop ofsocial economy activities and outer-loop of social political activities. The inner-loop refers tothe social economic activities of social re-production, consumption, distribution and exchange

based on the activity theory. The outer-loop refers to the social political activities such ashuman inquiring of goals and learning, legal control, military action, and democraticmovement.

The inner loop - positive feedback of social economic systems

As described in the activity theory, social re-production and consumption are the most basichuman activities. The two compose a fundamental contradiction which drives a societyforward - a paradox that we produce products and, simultaneously, we consume products inorder to re-produce new products. Consumption necessitates production, and vice versa. Thisindicates that the production and consumption form a positive feedback loop in the sense thatthe more consumed the more we have to produce or the vice versa. The exchange activity,

before the consumption in figure 4, is a marketing process, and it is a media through which aproduct can becomes an object of individual consumption. The marketing process is a valueexchange process that individuals (groups) purchase their needs (use value) by the market

value (exchange value).

Goals settings

Military, political ordemocratic activities

Production

Consumption

DistributionSocial law,

rules, norm,

culture, etc,

Exchange

Social sensor (feedback)

Statistics bureauMass media

Investigator

Market needs for consumption

Materials needs for re-production

Outer loop (socio-political system)

Inner loop (socio-economic system)

Open for enquiring and learning

Market/Plannedeconomy control

-

Goals settings

Military, political ordemocratic activities

Production

Consumption

DistributionSocial law,

rules, norm,

culture, etc,

Exchange

Social sensor (feedback)

Statistics bureauMass media

Investigator

Market needs for consumption

Materials needs for re-production

Outer loop (socio-political system)

Inner loop (socio-economic system)

Open for enquiring and learning

Market/Plannedeconomy control

-

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Now lets look at the loop of production-distribution in the inner loop. Some products that areproduced in the production process will not be consumed directly by members of a society towhich we may call them half-products. Those half-products will send back to re-production.Those half-products must be distributed through distribution activity to each differentiatedsub-unit or labour division. The more products produced the more half-products have to bedistributed. So production and distribution compose another positive feedback loop in theinner-loop of the sociocybernetic system model in figure 4.

Generally speaking, the inner-loop of social economic system is an unstable system based onpositive feedback. We all experience the wild economic-turbulence and bankruptcy, such asIT branch in the recent history. Therefore the inner-loop cannot be free of control, no matterfree marketing system or planned economic system, regulation and control outside the loopmust be applied, such as rate adjustment through banks or even political interference bycentral government, e.g., political interference happened recently in Argentina. This issueabout political regulation to economic system will be discussed in the next part of outer-loop

bellow.

Though the sub-systems of production, consumption, exchange, and distribution in the innerloop are social subsystems, they are not, however, autopoietic and closed. Each subsystem isnot self-reference in the strict sense. Instead, they are mutually referential.

The outer loop - negative feedback and feed forward of social political systems

Though the social economic system is wild and unstable, it is however harnessed quite wellthrough some control mechanism in the outer-loop of socio-political system which applies

negative feedback and feed forward mostly.

The feedback function of social sensor: statistic bureau, reporter, investigator, etc. areextremely important for a right political decision of macro regulation for society from anydeviation of humanity and institutional laws. This feedback must be objective and without any

bias. Therefore it is important that this feedback should be free from economic interest,political interference, and the reporters must have moral obligation. Those criteria are hardlyfulfilled today if we just listen to contradictory reports from television about war in Iraq.Fortunately there are more than one channels that we can always listen to and to sense out thereal situation out there.

The feed forward is the never-ending human inquiring and learning activities that enable tochallenge the contemporary values and social goals, meanwhile to construct new values andsocial goals for new development of human progress. The continuous constructing of socialgoals is often manifested as political, democratic even military actions. Therefore the world isnot absolutely stable. When such unstable situation occurs, the inner loop of the first-ordersociocybernetic system will not be stable, namely the social production, consumption,exchange and distribution activities will be interrupted, destroyed, and reformed.

The Iraq war is an example how this social reconstruction takes place. A very challengequestion to start the war is its legitimacy according to international security charter. Should

the UN Security Council legislate that a country has its own right to start a war when thecountry feels threats from other countries? What would be the consequences of humanity as

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whole if such an item were legislated? When supreme military power is prior to internationallaws, should we reconstruct the international laws according to powers wish? From thesociocybernetic perspective, the war is much more than a war, but the challenge of feedforward of reconstructing international order, settings, values, laws and humanity in the earth.

From the above example, it should be clear that the outer loop of socio-political system isself-referential and autopoietic. It is self-referential since the laws, norms, rules are created byhuman beings (no matter by how and whom) and in turn used to regulate humanitythemselves. It is autopoietic in the sense that all activities inside the system as whole arereproduced by the network of the activities themselves.

CONCLUSION

Social systems as whole are autopoietic, but it does not automatically imply its subsystems arealso autopoietic. For example, the law is a subsystem or unit of a society. But the subsystem

of law may not be an autopoietic, self-referencing system that produces every kind of unit thatit requires. If the legal system is closed from other subsystems or units such as media,economy, politics, etc., then it alone will have no reference to produce and reproduce(autopoietically) all legal norms. The conclusion is the same to ecology subsystem (Miller,1994; Mingers, 1995). In term of Luhmann, they are differentiated function systems of asociety as whole. They are related as mutually referenced activities, but not self-referencedregarded separately.

The double-loop of sociocybernetics in figure 4 is the result of integration from threetheoretical works, cybernetics (first and second order), Activity Theory, and Luhmanns social

autopoietic theory. It provides an epistemological explanation of social activities and theirembedded relationship. The model can be also applied for very concrete systems studies, suchas information system studies (Bai, 1999).

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