View article

An anticipatory system inverts the historical relation between a system and its precursor. Hence:[x (t)]←[[xt+ 1)]. I shall call this incursion as different from recursion with time. Stongly anticipatory systems construct themselves from and in terms of expectations. I shall call this hyper-incursion. As Luhmann (1990: 45) formulated:“Social structures do not take the form of expectations about behavior (let alone consist of concrete ways of behaving), but rather take the form of expectations about expectations.”. For example, the rule of law is expected and reproduced in societies which are based on this principle: it is an order of expectations rooted in history. An extra-historical system of expectations may leave historical footprints behind.