Abstract
This paper has a dual purpose. On the one hand, it suggests ways of making autopoietic theory more precise and more operational for concrete communication analysis. I discuss concepts such as distinction, system, boundary, environment, perturbation, and compensation. The explication of the concepts is based on catastrophe theory, and in order to make them operational I emphasise their affinity to traditional semiotics and communication theory. On the other hand I propose changes to the semiotic tradition in order to incorporate insights from autopoietic theory, namely that the human condition is characterised by the phenomenon of self-reference and therefore also by the unavoidability of paradoxes. Firstly, this means that truth cannot be a basic semiotic concept; instead the notion of stability is suggested. Secondly, in order to act in a paradoxical context, we need to unfold the paradox in time, which again calls for a dynamic theory of meaning.