Dear colleagues,
I uploaded a thoroughly revised version of "Anticipatory Systems and the
Processing of Meaning: A Simulation Study Using Luhmann’s Theory of Social
Systems" at http://www.leydesdorff.net/anticipation . The simulations can
be run directly under Internet Explorer.
Abstract:
Meaning is provided to observations with hindsight and in an anticipatory
mode, while information processing follows the time axis. Meaning and
expectations can be communicated at the level of social systems in addition
to-—and on top of-—underlying processes of the information exchange.
Simulations of anticipatory systems enable us to generate an observer as a
reflection within an information process. Cellular automata can be used for
the visualization of the observations by different observers. The exchange
of observations among observers can be shown to generate (a) uncertainty
about the delineations in the observed
system at each moment in time and (b) uncertainty about the dynamics of the
interaction over time. The conditions for meta-stabilization or
globalization by synchronization of the anticipation at a next-order level
are specified.
With kind regards,
Loet
*************************************************************
Loet Leydesdorff
Science & Technology Dynamics, University of Amsterdam
Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR)
Kloveniersburgwal 48, 1012 CX Amsterdam
Tel.: +31-20-525 6598; fax: +31-20-525 3681
http://www.leydesdorff.net/ ; [log in to unmask]
http://www.upublish.com/books/leydesdorff.htm
|