【作者】卢曼,N.

【内容提要】

 Mainstream systems theory conceives of systems as "open systems"feeding upon exchanges with their environment. These exchanges can be structured and limited to the needs of the system by restricting it to "inputs" and "outputs." This concept of open systems has been the answer, first from biologists and then from sociologists, to the laws of thermodynamics and to the probability of decay in the sense of vanishing differences. The problem was how to avoid this probability-that is, how to reverse this tendency towards entropy- and above all, how to explain a world which is obviously able to build up order and to maintain negentropy. Since thermodynamic law presupposes closed systems, open systems seemed to be the solution……

【关键词】operational closure；structural coupling;legal system; autopoietic;differentiation