An ecological model of social action is a *communication* model of social action, and communication means network synthesis out of dissemination. Any one social action is in-forming itself via the selection of its meaning among an indeterminate, yet contextualized, set of possibilities. That is, we switch not only to an ecological model for the explanation of social action, but also from a mathematical theory of communication to a sociological one. We replace Shannon's assumption of technically determinate sets of possibilities for messages to be selected with the assumption of a socially indeterminate set of possibilities, thus describing any one social action as having to opt both for a context it relies on and for a message it wants to produce.

This gives indeterminacy a central place in the social action selecting itself as well as in the communication model explaining it. Sociology captures indeterminacy via the *problem of double contingency* to be solved by actors if any action is to come about at all. Double contingency means that one actor (*ego*), looking at his or her contingent possibilities to act, waits for the other actor (*alter ego*) to select among his or her contingent possibilities, who, however, waits as well. As long as both are waiting, nothing happens save for the most uncomfortable, because paradoxical, situation of the communication of non-communication developing.

Another way to frame social action's indeterminacy is René Girard's idea of a *désir mimétique*, of a *mimetic desire*, informing any social action. Here, social action consists in both imitating, and competing with, the action of some other, thus leading not only to relation but also to conflict, which is bound to be canalized with respect to some third figure, a God, say, or money, or the horror of the atomic bomb, in order not to lead to violence among the people competitively imitating each other. Gabriel Tarde framed this problem in terms of conflicts having to be ritualized, for instance, via prices on markets, or wages in firms, in order to tell anybody how to possess the other while being possessed by him or her.

Again, as in the concept of double contingency, the double closure of communication is evident while social action is free, save for the loss of two degrees of freedom, to select its course. How to imitate the other, and to deviate from him or her in order to compete, is up to the actor, yet imitation must be. How to solve the problem of double contingency is up to the actors observing each other – and Talcott Parsons believes some cultural norms would come at their rescue, but Luhmann deconstructs this idea – yet solution, amid the reproduction of the problem for any next moment, must be.

A third way to frame this idea consists in spelling social acting out in terms of *second-order observation* (Heinz von Foerster). Here, any one action is on one hand selecting its course due to distinctions being drawn, while on the other being watched by second-order observers who call contingent, i.e. ambivalent, arbitrary, and discretionary, what the first-order observer (the actor) thinks just evident or necessary. At the same time the second-order observer turns the actor into a second-order observer of his or her own who has to observe how he or she is observed by others in order to be able to deal with the chances and restrictions of the continuation of action, or of a change of direction, coming with that observation. Here, the contingency and thus indeterminacy stems from the second-order observer watching not only the distinction drawn by the actor but also the form, in the sense of Spencer-Brown's calculus of indications, of that distinction, thereby discovering, and making to bear on the situation, both the contingent selection of it and the unmarked state coming with it.

In modern society, this structure and dynamics of second-order observation gets the upper hand, as the novel, an enlightened reason, the critique of ideology, a common sense used to apply first psychology, and then psychoanalysis, while guessing the hidden interests and motives of the behavior of others, introduce ever new ways to watch, distrust, and pressure the other. Modern society adapts to this structure and dynamics by switching from the social order of authority, which gets deconstructed by second-order observation, to the social order of the publics, which, on markets as in democratic politics, in passionate love as in the arts beginning to seek the new instead of the beautiful, by computing second-order observations help to define how to go about the appropriate selection of social action.

All three ideas tell something about the self-organization and double closure of social action inside a communication and network dynamics of its selective dealing with indeterminacy. We propose to translate this basic insight concerning the structure and order of social action into a model which gives it the concreteness necessary to possibly test it in empirical realities, on one hand, and the clearness and vividness to actually make it theoretically evident, on the other. We stick with the idea of the culture form of form becoming the dominant one in next society and, therefore, give our model the shape of a model of the form of social action, profiting, as it were, from the heterarchical and ecological network structure among the constants and the variables of such a model.

We call *form*, following George Spencer-Brown, any distinction regarded with respect to both its operation of distinction and the two sides of the distinction separated by it calling upon a space the distinction is embedded within. It is difficult to count at such an early stage of concept development, but any one form of a distinction provides for at least four values: (1) the marked state indicated by the distinction as its inside, (2) the unmarked state on the outside of the distinction indicated by a second-order observer, (3) the distinction itself, considered as the operation of an observer himself or herself who at first sight is invisible as the one who is actually doing the distinction, and (4) the space, or domain, the distinction is drawing upon, calling upon, embedded within, and exploring. These four values of the two-sided distinction make up for a constructionist epistemology which sets the stage both for the phenomenon to appear and for the observer to reflect on himself or herself as having to draw his or her distinctions while observing the distinctions bringing forth the phenomenon. It has room for a deconstructionist epistemology which watches the paradox of *supplément* coming from a connection brought forward by a separation, and from a reference hiding, and thereby revealing, for a second-order observer watching, the self-reference of the observer doing the distinction.

In sociological theory the Spencer-Brownian form is useful to model communication and network relations because it focuses on the co-dependency of the different sides of the distinction, and of the distinction and its space, without assuming any kind of causality making sure that all elements of the form correlate. Since it is the second-order observer who watches the form of the distinction, the first-order observer being at first completely absorbed, if not consummated, by it, the notion of form is protected from any assumptions as to the marked state of the distinction being the effect of the distinction, or as to the space of the distinction being the effect of its form. Instead, we deal with the neighborhood of variables and their values which self-selectively relate to each other in constituting the network synthesis of the form. Nothing could be more fragile, and more robust if the self-selections work. That is why we speak of a communication model, and not of a causal model. Because self-selection has no place in causality, despite Kant trying to call exactly the self-selection of a cause the foundation place of the free will.

Last not least, the form model enables us to concatenate distinctions, thus indeed networking them among each other inside the space they thereby bring forth. We will speak of constants, being the distinctions themselves, and of variables, being the marked and unmarked states called by the constant distinctions, and assuming different values according to the overall state of the form, standing to each other in relations of memory and subversion.

System One is a piece of software that takes the computer very seriously. Sixty years after its invention the computer is coming of age. It starts to actively take part in communication. It is no longer trying to simulate human consciousness but acknowledges another challenge which is to deal with the form of the social.

We offer sociological insight and sociological research to monitor what is going on. We rely on Niklas Luhmann's distinction between the three cultural forms of the literal society of Greek and Roman antiquity, the printing press society of modern Europe, and the computer society of our global era (see Niklas Luhmann, Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft. Ffm. 1997, pp. 405-12; see also Dirk Baecker, Wozu Soziologie? Berlin 2004, pp. 125-149). Each cultural form is called "cultural" because it first of all has to deal with the surplus meaning offered by new mass media of distribution.

The introduction of writing means that society has to invent ways to deal with the problem that meaning is not just appearing and disappearing as in oral communication but is here to stay, to be memorized, to be relied upon when confronted with new meaning and thus to destabilize - to "displace" - a society fluid in present changes of meaning. Writing, for Platon, seemed to freeze society and thus to prevent it of its lifeliness and all forms of human responsibility coming with it.

The introduction of printing means that society gains possibilities to compare and critize manuscripts now being standardized and mass distributed well beyond the walls of cloisters and libraries thus putting all forms of classical authority in jeopardy. Add paper money, bonds, school certificates, leaflets, and newspapers and you immediately start to imagine how modern society went off for a form of social dynamics not in accordance with tradional ways of local knowledge and authority.

The computer is adding its introduction into processes of communication in ways which make it impossible for human users to know exactly what is going on, who is saying what, what sources are reliable and what sources aren't, or who is meant by certain acts of communication. The computer is adding its capacities of computing both to the content and the style of the meaning communicated thus deconstructing the ways to know our ways we were used to. ... read full article.