Change and Information in (social) systems

In this posting, I will try to connect some actual sociological questions
to some fis-topics of more general interest.
In my opinion, information science shoud be able to contribute to an
explication model of social information- and power- management in rapidly
changing post-industrial society out of equilibirum, a model which allows
to comprehend the evolution of dynamic collectivities.
As we know, this problem is not only a sociological one: the evolution of
dynamic order in self-organized systems and networks moved, also in physics
and biology, towards the center of interest.
Radical innovations came from the termodynamics of non-equilibrium, the
model of hypercycle and synergetics in molecular biology/chemistry and not
at least from sociological system theory itself, where considerable efforts
to operationalise some of the new developments in sociology are due to
Luhmann. He proposed to consider the social system as a selforganising
network of communications. (The notion of an autopoietic system was first
developed for describing the organization and reproduction of living
systems in biology: Maturana & Varela).
(Social) systems are self-organized. Their product is themselves. Their
information codes instruct and functionalise emerging
communicaton-structures. Self-organisation is not only an expression of a
human subject, but of all kinds of dynamic systems a observing and
measuring entities and instruments.
Social change by information processes means the emergence and evolution of
social networks, as a product of an onging change of our communication
systems. That networks recursively organize themselves in terms of
emerging identites which cannot be stabilised and controled in traditional
ways; they remain unstable for evolutionary reasons.
This implies, that selforganizing systems are not controleable and
steerable in the usual sense by commands, orders, repression, sanctions,
role-stabilization, pattern-maintainance etc.
Therefore, information is the main "cause" or source for the further
development of social systems.
The emergence of change based on information processes depends on, for
example, an increasing number of interacting entities, an increasing
density in their communication, and relatively stable linguistic
constraints.
Of special interest are changes that lead to higher levels of competence of
organisations, groups, collectivities, or, in general, of Society as a
social, economic, cultural and psychological unitiy.

In summa, some hypoteses on the role of information (and its variety) in
system change may be derived:
-Social systems which intend an optimation of their creative functions by
integration of information variety, take advantage in their devellopment in
comparison to those who neglect this aspect. This optimation is a result of
feedback between an uncounted number of competitive social values and
lifetypes. A break in the symmetry of the political system
(dominant/dominated) ocurrs. New political groups and behaviours emerge and
are activated.
- In the next step, emerging representation of new lifestyles and politic
management are integrated in a new power division: this network of
competing and cooperating systems leads to a more productive valoration of
information, aided by computers and communication technologies.
- Democracy, liberality and non-repressive social space are important for
the formation of a new variety of thinking and behaviour. This variety is
more and more represented by non-ideological political leadership, who
center on transparency and new division of labor in information society.
-A new kind of social steering emerges. Self-organisation completes
hierarquic structures by horizontal ones. This transformation leads to a
essential weakening of centralized control functions, aided by
informatisation of information flows and by a new human consciousness able
to be valorised poductively by an information society in process of
maturation.

Gottfried Stockinger

Vienna, Austria
Tel *43-1- 983 39 79
or
Belem, Brazil
Tel:*55 -91- 225 2140
Received on Fri Oct 2 17:00:04 1998