From Autopoiesis to Sympoiesis: changing the environments of social systems as a solution to the ecological crisis of the anthropocene

With Luhmann’s system theory we can describe how the modern world society evolved in the Holocene epoch of earth history, as something based on the evolution of communication technologies (first of all writing), resource management technics (for example agriculture and mining instruments) and anthropocentric semantics (a center-periphery scenic world understanding), which excluded most non-human beings from becoming “participatory basis” (psychic acting and experiencing environment(s)) of the communication processes of the world society. It makes clear that humanity have developed (as) a social system only some human beings can really perturbate and disturb; not because for instance plants or animals (and to some degree especially nomadic people) are too stupid, but rather because the communication technologies and semantics have been developed to fit the peculiarities of some specific human affordances structurally coupled to sedentary life forms and cities (based on co-developed resource management technics). It can be
argued that this historically specific “closure” is the main root of the ecological crisis of today’s Anthropocene (the paper elaborates on this drawing on Bateson and other systems theorical contributions as well). Yet, theoretically, it is possible with system theory to also conceptualise emergent social systems based on communication across species boundaries. Such social systems generate different environments, capacities and horizons of possibilities than a world society based on communication only structurally coupled to human addressees. It is further argued that such interspecies social systems (and environments) are not a new thing; they have persisted along the whole trail of the out-differentiation of the world society; but their potentialities have been marginalised and instrumentalised. The paper asks, with systems theory, what will happen, if such interspecies social systems/environments are to become more “manifest”, manyfold, and
“empowered” with new interspecies communication technologies and life-friendly semantics – would that have the potential to contribute to a solution to the ecological crisis that prevailing world society cannot achieve? Also, it is asked, with Donna Haraway, whether the operational “logic” of such social systems (and their environments) is not autopoietic, but sympoietic, which calls for systems theoretical conceptual innovation. Or put differently: does the theory of autopoiesis reflect the empirical reality of a world society of closure, while the proposal of sympoiesis reflect better what is needed, but until now have been marginalised, also conceptually and theoretically?
Keywords: Society, The Holocene, The Anthropocene, Ecological Crisis, Environments; Systems theory, Semantics, Communication, Technology, Interspecies Social Systems, Autopoiesis, Sympoiesis, Life-friendliness