The term “Process” describes a temporally irreversible Sequence of events [⇒ Event (Ereignis)].
Processes have at their disposal a double Selection of operative possibilities: the first selection begins by limiting the domain of the events that can follow each individual event in the course of the process. The second selection takes place in the concrete situation in which the process is realized, and this determines which event can be actualized in each case.
We should not conceive of “process” as a simple succession of one event after another. Instead, it is the organization of these events into sequences, so that selections that have already been realized and selections that are expected together provide the conditions for a selection realized in a particular moment.
The Form of the process establishes the limit of possibilities, which allows the determination of connections that are found by each event in each situation. In other words, this limitation forms a reference horizon for communication possibilities (in Social Systems) or thought possibilities (in psychic systems [⇒ Psychic Systems (Psychische Systeme)]).
Processes can be observed as producing irreversibility only against the background of enduring structures [⇒ Structure (Struktur)].
The sequence of events elapses on the basis of structures, since it transforms the future into the past. [G.C.]
Temporalstrukturen des Handlungssystems (1980); Social Systems (1995: 44-45, 353-356).