I've recently fallen into a Niklas Luhmann rabbit hole.

Here is Hans-Georg Moeller on Luhmann's Social Systems theory

“It is, empirically speaking (from an observer’s perspective), communication that constitutes communication, and not human beings as individuals. Of course, human beings are necessary for communication to take place—but it is not they who are “operating” within communication. They are, rather, the external condition sine qua non of communication, but not an internal element of communication and society.”