The control of intransparency

TLDR: The past cannot be changed and the future cannot be known (although structured by distinctions open for oscillation) because general systems theory shows that the combination of self-referential operations and operational closure generates a surplus of possible operations and therefore intransparency of the system for its own operation.

Abstract: General systems theory shows that the combination of self-referential operations and operational closure (or the re-entry of output as input) generates a surplus of possible operations and therefore intransparency of the system for its own operation. The system cannot produce a complete description of itself. It has to cope with its own unresolvable indeterminacy. To be able to operate under such conditions the system has to introduce time. It has to distinguish between its past and its future. It has to use a memory function that includes both remembering and forgetting. And it needs an oscillator function to represent its future. This means, for example, that the future has to be imagined as achieving or not achieving the goals of the system. Even the distinction of past and future is submitted to oscillation in the sense that the future can be similar to the past or not. In this sense the unresolvable indeterminacy or the intransparency of the system for itself can find a temporal solution. But this means that the past cannot be changed (although selectively remembered) and the future cannot be known (although structured by distinctions open for oscillation). © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.