Concise and well-laid out explication of basic presumptions of autopoiesis in the systems-theoretical perspective. It resonates with me for its consistent attention to function, its complementarity to structuration, and its usefulness for thinking about technology in a constructionist manner.

{This is a precis and potentially contains many of the same phrases or passages as the original essay. Any direct quotations of this text should first consult the original to ensure proper citation.}

“an organization is a system that produces itself qua organization” (p.54)

This statement looks circular, but isn’t really. By the end of the essay, the reasoning has been laid out.

Autopoiesis is definitional, not explanatory.  It constrains possible explanations.  These constraints are detailed in this essay.

Poiesis produces something – the creation of the system. That is, a system doesn’t merely exist. It continuously and steadily reproduces itself by means of its own products. Thus, the emphasis in poiesis is on reproduction, rather than production.

The base, most elemental, unit of the system is the event, which is temporal, not substantive. Yet an event has no essence.  It is simply something that, if we are focusing on a before/after distinction, we see as making a difference between “before” and “after”. To the extent that an event appears to have an essence, it is merely instructions for repetition of the selection (which is, technically, the next event).  Events always transition steadily from one to the next; they do not persist.  They leave all that follows to a subsequent event, hence producing a “surplus” of possibilities such that something suitable may be selected next. Because no two events can ever be exactly the same, there is also a steady reproduction of difference.

Therefore, precisely because every event must be constructed, this perspective presumes discontinuity in the moment-to-moment, and a steady decay of order and meaning. Any appearance of continuity (which is thingness, substance, or process) requires an explanation.

It is through autopoiesis that events are perceived as connected.  The autopoietic system is always dependent on prior production.  Recursive interlacing of operations creates connections and holds out prospects of connectivity. Recursions preserve both seemingly determinate selections connections as well as other possibilities. Connections do not form from intentions or purposes, as in action theory, because there is not concept of an actor.  There is no need, because possibilities are the residual of the event. It is every operation itself that “presupposes the recourse to and anticipation of other operations of the same system”.

Self-observation, the environment, self-organization. So, given that we have the basic element of production, we can ask how we get from there to “organization.” For this, Luhmann starts with claiming that the the autopoietic system must also be able to observe itself, i.e., to distinguish itself from its environment. Environmental boundaries are produced and reproduced. Only through this ability of self-observation can it distinguishes itself from the wholeness of the world. It is more reasonable that the AS itself does this demarcation rather than an outside entity.

But this self-observation is always located in history, self-referential, and meaning laden – and is itself a series of events.  The “self” is the term for what it is that observes itself observing, i.e. third order observation.

“In the process of self-observation, an organization does not observe itself as a stationary object whose qualities can be recognized. Instead, the organization uses its own identity only for the purposes of continuously attaching new determinations to it and subsequently giving them up again. For this reason, autopoietic systems can also create variations in their structures (this is called “self-organization”), insofar as such variations are compatible with the continuation of autopoiesis. All reflections on identity that propose stable self-descriptions by means of content-related properties must therefore proceed in a highly selective manner; in the process, they commit themselves to exacting normative demands and usually remain controversial.” (p56)

In self-organization, the system both produces and controls the uncertainty of itself with relation to its environment.  Here and elsewhere Luhmann is clear that there is no empirical way to specify the nature of a system’s environment.  Instead, this is created in the process of self-observation.  “Accordingly, autopoiesis is possible only as long as the system finds itself in a constant state of uncertainty about itself in relation to its environment, and as long as it can produce and control this uncertainty by means of self-organization.” p.56  Uncertainty is perceived, and then absorbed only as it is transformed to certainty as is relevant to the specific moment.  Uncertainty absorption is an adjustment to the changing states of perturbation of a system and its environment.

Now, an autopoietic system’s best response to uncertainty is to stick with what has gone before. So, there is often a lot of retrospective sense-making which makes both the organization and its relation to the environment see stable over time when in actually, it is being constructed moment by moment.  Structures (patterns of events), are produced/reproduced/varied/forgotten by operations for use in operations. [fn – agrees with Giddens in structuration, but goes further]. Autopoiesis can be a barrier to structural variations, making the system appear over a short time frame as rigid and inflexible. However, as the difference between the system and its environment grows over long periods of time, there is typically then an acceleration of changes

Operative closure. Autopoietic systems are operatively closed/autonomous. The system is not isolated from its environment, it’s just that it depends on its own operations for continued operation. Its operations must be sufficient. It can operate only in the context of its own operations. It depends on the structures being produced by these operations. [again, similar to Giddens]. Certainly an input/output perspective is, therefore, not sensible, but neither is a traditional “open systems” viewpoint, because the operative functions are not open to the environment.  The systems doesn’t operate inside of an environment, because the system constructs its own environment that it alone perceives.  Its structures regulate what it can perceive, and what it allows to take to create perturbation or undertake its own information processing. The system decides what is “other” and if the environment appears to conforms as environment, this is due to retrospective sense-making by the system. The construction of an environment also allows the system to externalize problems as not of its own making or its own participation in their making. To perceive that the world is made of niches, and that the system is one of those niches, without asking how the niches come to be. Nor can the environment prevent system entropy/decay, because this must be done in the moment to moment events.

Regarding the role of structures, these don’t ensure repetition of events, inasmuch as they regulate the transition from one element to the next. Therefore, to provide necessary orientation in this transition, there is a requirement for meaning (in the form of communication). Structures are functional, contingent, and possible under different conditions/in different forms. Structures by definition have meaning and are constituted and reconstituted within realm of other possibilities, or else they will decay and not move forward. Therefore although uncertainties need to be reduced and ambiguities clarified, these must also be regenerated in the process of meaning. i.e., uncertainty is both reduced and renewed.

Autopoiesis “depends on the fact that a system is capable of producing internal improbabilities and thereby deviating from the usual.” These deviations function as information, which “has the function of selectively restricting the possibilities for the continuation of its own operations combined with the additional function of being able to decide relatively quickly about connective possibilities.”(p.61)

In sum, a system is able to be “open” because its operative conditions are closed. in this way, it can “afford” its openness. [As Luhmann states in a later chapter, it is a “recursively closed organization of an open system”, not a closed system]

‘The preservation of existence is turned into the preservation of a difference.” (p.62)

Edited, originally published 2000, trans by Peter Gilgen
Luhmann, N. (2005). The concept of autopoiesis. In D. Seidl & K. H. Becker (Eds.), Niklas Luhmann and organization studies (pp. 54–63). Liber & Copenhagen Business School Press.