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SenseDouble ContingencyDecision and TimeDecision-Making CompulsionCommunicationContingencyNiklas LuhmannSystem TheoryTime MatrixGuiding Process AcceptanceGuiding Process Regulation of NeedsGuiding Process ConsciousnessGuiding process Decision MakerGuiding Process Decision OrientationGuiding Process Handling the PresentGuiding Process Interaction PatternsGuiding Process PersonnelGuiding Process Quality FocusGuiding Process ResonanceGuiding Process Self-ExpressionGuiding Process Personal ResponsibilityGuiding Process Self-PerceptionGuiding Process Social ComplexityGuiding Process Team PreservationGuiding Process Team ParametersGuiding Process Team ReflectionGuiding Process Handling the PastGuiding Process NetworkingGuiding Process ComprehensionGuiding Process Goal processingGuiding Process Goal SettingGuiding Process Handling the Future

Sense

Sense is such a common word that, at first, one does not realise how much depends upon what meaning one gives to the word ‘sense’. For systems theory, however, this concept is of crucial importance. Why? Sense, for this theory, is not something that is on hand or given and therefore must be discovered. Sense is understood as that, which is created by all systems without interruption. Sense is created by the fact that choices are made. In this moment you are choosing (yes, you!), that you are going to read this text about sense. You could also stop reading and answer the ringing telephone instead (and afterwards go to eat something etc.). From this example, one can recognise that sense is created when someone like you, i.e. a system, chooses, and must choose from possibilities. It is not just that you can choose, you have to. You must do so, and can only choose one specific thing from a multitude of possibilities. This then becomes your actual reality, the moment you continued reading these lines, and everything else remains either a possibility (eating) or becomes an impossibility (the telephone has stopped ringing and you can, therefore, no longer answer it). The entirety of all possibilities is the world. By selection from these possibilities a sensible environment is created for a system. Whether this choice is good or bad sense, conducive or obstructive, pleasant or unpleasant, is open. Systems cannot choose whether to choose. They are forced into freedom.