Luhmann maintains that all communication is paradoxical because a communication system is self-generated; it’s a causa sui. As far as the system is concerned, it has no beginning and no end; it has always existed and will always exist. It cannot conceive of its own ending because each operation presupposes a subsequent operation. Nor can it conceive of its own beginning because every operation presupposes a previous operation. This is what self-referential means.
Thus a psychic system cannot imagine its own death. For an autopoietic system, there must always be something coming next. The beginning and end of an autopoietic system, or more generally a life, may be observed from outside the system but never from the inside. Our parents and other older family members remember a world in which we didn’t exist, and our children, we hope, will know a world after our death. We ourselves cannot conceive of these things, however.
The main point is, the idea or awareness that an autopoietic system did not always exist and will not always exist must be ignored or kept in a blind spot by the system in order to avoid an autopoietic impasse or collapse
To be clear, the claim that a system, such as a psychic system or consciousness, is a causa sui does not mean that people or other living beings create their own bodies. We are talking about consciousness. An autopoietic system has a memory and expectations, and these are self-generated. Consciousness selects memories; they aren’t stamped on a wax-like mind from the outside (btw, this is where the word impression comes from). Nor are our expectations imposed on us or given to us from someone else. This is structural self-determination.
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