Self-Reference of Social Systems

Abstract

"Self-Organizing" has become a key-concept in social science as in natural science.Transfering that concept from natural science to social, we must introduce the concept of "self-reference".Because in the self-organizing processes in social systems, individual factors interact with consiousness.The models of self-reference of social system have been discussed very few in social sciences.One of the rear exception is strategic decision making theory in the field of management.But these theories of strategic decison have the model that projects the past to future linearly.So we have no merit of introducing the self-organizing model as a device of break-through of linear model.If we seek the non-linear model of self-reference, the system of I-Ching(易経)can be used as a decision support device.I-Ching is not system of fortune-telling.It has been designed to denote the phase of change of some systems or phenomena to decision maker.Through the procedure defined by I-Ching, decision maker gets one phase of change out of possible 64 variation.Then he consults I-Ching that explains the meanings and nature of change in equivocal and symbolic expression.This means, for the decision maker, to dissolve the premise of the decision and interpretation of the world, and then to reconstruct them from informations in his or her hand along the direction which I-Ching indicates.