Life, Complexity, Communication: Integrating Social Systems Theory and Consciousness

Abstract

When we, as humans, engage with the conceptual division between consciousness and society, complexity becomes noticeable and increases exponentially. Here, we apply the concepts of social systems theory to discuss ways of dealing with it. The definition of complexity used here is therefore the one coming from the perspective of Luhmann’s social systems theory. In this context, complexity means “commitment to the selection.” Thus, complexity is a subject-related phenomenon that can be found wherever an observer perceives a reality, where there are so many elements that not every element can be in relation to every other element, i.e. these relations must be selective. Such a reality must also exhibit a non-linear, unpredictable dynamic. Consequently, when we perceive complexity, we are looking into an undiscovered land, i.e., into the future, whence no one has ever been able to return or reveal which decision in the present would have been the right one. When we consciously perceive a complex event occurring in societal reality, we are asked to act, to select, under uncertainty. If this selection takes place within society, then it does so exclusively through communication. Consequently, the intrinsic question we discuss here is which possibilities do our existence—life, in the existential rather than biological sense—and communication offer for consciously shaping society? While we follow our path to possible answers to this question, we will find ourselves wandering the border between social and psychic systems.