ABSTRACT
For an autopoietic system to come into being, it should make a distinction which will become the basis for an indication. The distinction cleaves space and is made because there is a motive to secure a content of higher value. A name is given to indicate the content of value and the name is identified with the value (Spencer Brown 1973, 1). The cleft space becomes subject to self- and other-referencing (or hetero-referencing). This is how the system distinguishes phenomena coming into its view in terms of ‘what’: What is its own and what is alien? Yet this does not show us how the system determines its structure internally, in what manner its operations are connected to one another and how the ‘system/environment’ difference is produced and reproduced. In other words, in the case of translation, after the space was severed by translation according to its general distinction (‘translation/non-translation’), its ‘inside’ should be handled according to translation’s specific distinction (Luhmann 2000c, 53). The specific distinction is the code used for processing operations within the marked state. It is important to discuss the concept code as used in SST because there is no sufficient clarity in TS literature as to why binary codes are used. For example, Andrew Chesterman speaks of using them as of a matter of personal preference: “Like many systemic thinkers, Luhmann seems to like binary codes” (Duarte, Rosa, and Seruya 2006, 14).
