Abstract (Short paper)

Keywords: repetition, social systems, psychological systems, neurological systems, conservation, behavioral code, repetition compulsion, path dependency, change, subversion.

The ubiquitary, psychological and social phenomenon of repetition represents an integral factor to analyze human behavior and social processes comprehensively. A strong desire to repeat and conserve appears to be part of the human and social nature, which is based on various factors. In the following paper the reasons for these conservational processes and their functions and dysfunctions are outlined. Further, the paper discusses why we occasionally have to destroy what we desire to preserve, as we will otherwise endanger what we aim to secure in the first place. Because change is inevitable and this inevitability requires subversion.

• Sophie-Carolin Wagner, born 1984, studied Economics and Social Sciences at the Vienna University of Economics and Business (Austria) from 2004 until 2010, where she graduated at the Institute of Change Management and Management Development under the supervision of Prof. Helmut Kasper. Starting in 2005, she studied Digital Art at the University of Applied Arts Vienna under the direction of Prof. Peter Weibel and Prof. Tom Fürstner, from which she graduated 2011. Subsequently, she started her PhD studies under the supervision of Prof. Peter Weibel and Prof. Elena Esposito and graduated with highest distinction in 2014. Sophie-Carolin Wagner investigates the epistemological consequences for communicational processes in functionally differentiated systems, i.e. the effects on the asserted division between a system and its environment, and the contingent nature of decision-making due to increasing levels of complexity and concomitant limits of probability.

Full text (PDF) p.  819-821