Our model of social action is a network and a communication model which means that it comprises action and observation, as well as action and experience, in its notion of how the values of the variables determine each other interdependently by drawing on the values, or prejudiced choices, of one variable in determining the otherwise indeterminate values of the other variables.

Another possible way to describe this makes use of Niklas Luhmann's notion of communication as a notion of a threefold synthesis of (a) utterance, (b) information, and (c) understanding, the latter, understanding, synthesizing all three of them by drawing the distinction, and thus making the connection, between utterance and information. Understanding, to be sure, is an operation inside communication; it is not a mental act relying on human consciousness to be acted out but an event, possibly the most sharp-valued event there is in social action (Gordon Pask), to be produced, to be linked to, and to be tested by communication itself, that is by tying of behavior, decoded and encoded as action, into the domain of the social. This does not preclude human consciousness going along with it, even if being surprised, confirmed, or put at unease by it, but communicational understanding is done on its own, it does not wait for human consciousness to understand as well, since there is actually no way to know whether it did or not, given the operational closure of both consciousness and communication.

We propose to introduce this notion of communication into our model of social action by calling action the utterance, information the connection between action and talk, and understanding all six variables connected to each other by distinctions between them. Utterance, then, basically means that someone taken as an actor is behaving in a way such that attribution of social meaning is not impossible. That attribution may be intended by the actor or not. If it is intended the actor may still be surprised by just what kind of behavior is attributed to him, social action having all its way to go for words, gestures, silence, and "twitches and shifts" (Mary Douglas) in bodily action, when selecting its focus of attention, let alone the possibility to not look at the actor and his or her action at all in describing what is happening but at the situation the actor is situated to be in by the observer. The rule is that even intentions get attributed to the actor only by the communication of social action, forcing, or inviting, the actor to comply with it, or to deviate, thereby, via his or her behavior, possibly invoking social events which again are subject to social attribution. That is why socially, and mentally, most actors may prefer to sustain some content and target ambiguity, the communication of social action allowing for these preferences since only attributional ambiguity is sure to capture divergence of perspective.

What social action is about, in terms of fact and reference, is subject to the talk going on, a talk, however, which is framed by both the action it frames, and by group, grid, and society. That means that there is plenty of space for the selection of information even if nothing in that selection, due to recursive operation, is ever arbitrary. It can be presented as arbitrary, of course, but this is just a special reference to the content figured out of the values the variables are set to. Thus, information, as in Shannon's mathematical theory of communication, is defined as a selection of a message, here the token of an utterance, out of a set of possible messages, here constituted by the indeterminate space of the form of social action determining the variables to assume certain values when going for communication.

In order to distinguish between action and talk, all other variables are to be taken into account. Only then understanding, and thus both the completion and the continuation of the communication of action, is possible. Note that understanding here means cybernetic control, not hermeneutic understanding, which is impossible given the requisite variety lacking for dealing with the complexity of the matter involved.

We speak of the selection of the values of the respective variables. Note, however, that the selection we are talking about is not equivalent to some deliberate choice. Selections happen. They occur according to the variables interdependently determining each other, surprising more often than not the actor with their respective values. That is why sociological theory prefers to distinguish between action, on one hand, and experience, on the other, to account for social action being obliged to deal with action which is expected to vary with respect to the experience of a situation from the divergent perspectives of the actor and the observer.

In concluding it is perhaps important to note that the further we get in unfolding and reading, from left to right, the arrangement of the distinctions constituting the form of social action the less determined are the values of the variables to the right and the more determined are the variables to the left. This contradicts common sense which believes that action and talk are almost up for any selection one likes, while group and grid, let alone society, are almost fixed, change only slowly and with historical pace, and are certainly not up to individual selection. In a way that is right. Any one variable to the right of the variable of action adds on the determination of it, as is noted by the adding of horizontal lines above the variable. But that exactly means that we have to read the arrangement the other way around. The variables to the right get weaker and weaker in determination, yet add on the determination of the variables to the left.