Making the cut: The interplay of narrative and system, or what systems theory can't see
NK Hayles - Cultural Critique, 1995 - JSTOR
Cultural Critique, 1995•JSTOR
T he originary moment for the creation of a system, according to Niklas Luhmann, comes
when an observer makes a cut (" Cognitive Program"). Before the cut-before any cut-is
made, only an undifferentiated complexity exists, impossible to comprehend in its noisy
multifariousness. Imagine a child at the moment of birth, assaulted by a cacophony of noise,
light, smells, and pressures, with few if any distinctions to guide her through this riot of
information. The cut helps to tame the noise of the world by introducing a distinction, which …
when an observer makes a cut (" Cognitive Program"). Before the cut-before any cut-is
made, only an undifferentiated complexity exists, impossible to comprehend in its noisy
multifariousness. Imagine a child at the moment of birth, assaulted by a cacophony of noise,
light, smells, and pressures, with few if any distinctions to guide her through this riot of
information. The cut helps to tame the noise of the world by introducing a distinction, which …
T he originary moment for the creation of a system, according to Niklas Luhmann, comes when an observer makes a cut (" Cognitive Program"). Before the cut-before any cut-is made, only an undifferentiated complexity exists, impossible to comprehend in its noisy multifariousness. Imagine a child at the moment of birth, assaulted by a cacophony of noise, light, smells, and pressures, with few if any distinctions to guide her through this riot of information. The cut helps to tame the noise of the world by introducing a distinction, which can be understood in its elemental sense as a form, a boundary between inside and outside (Brown). What is inside is further divided and organized as other distinctions flow from this first distinction, exfoliating and expanding, distinction on distinction, until a full-fledged system is in place. What is outside is left behind, an undifferentiated unity. Other cuts can be made upon it, of course, generating other systems. But no matter how many cuts are made there will always be an excess, an area of undifferentiation that can be understood only as the other side of the cut, the outside of the form.
? 1995 by Cultural Critique. Spring 1995. 0882-4371/95/$5.00.
JSTOR