SEHR, volume 4, issue 2: Constructions of the Mind Updated July 2 , !

""#

Heinz von Foerster, the scientist, the man

prologue to the interview Francisco Varela the scientist As the dust settles with time, the role of Heinz von Foerster in contemporary science becomes sharper and more vivid. This Interview takes us with ease and humor into some of the background and the grounds for this statement. Heinz was the right man at the right time in the role he played during those now mythical meetings known as the acy cybernetics gatherings, as he amusingly relates in the interview. These meetings and their participants !most centrally "arren c#ulloch, $orbert "iener, %ohn von $eumann& must be seen as the cradle and birthplace of most of what we know today as computer science and AI, comple' systems theories, artificial life, and cognitive science. (et this amazing story has been told only haltingly. In the case of cognitive science, for instance, the well)known account by Howard *ardner makes it seem as if the computationalist option established in the +,-.s was born like a deus e$ machina. "orse still is itchell "aldrop/s account, in which comple'ity is claimed to be born bright and ready to walk from the magical fields of 0anta Fe. "ell, the reader be warned1 such lack of historical perspective and philosophical depth is paid with a heavy price in science, and the above)mentioned disciplines should take stock. 0teve Heims/s recent book about the cybernetics group attempts to redress the balance somewhat from the perspective of the social critic. 2uckily, the recent book by %ean) 3ierre 4upuy finally raises the standard by providing us for the first time with an in)depth reading of the acy transcripts in light of the modern controversies in cognitive issues, social studies, and comple' systems.+ 5eing the editor of and an active participant in that uni6ue founding event would be enough to make Heinz a memorable figure. 5ut lest we reduce his role to a historical point, the reader should be aware that over the many years when he directed the 5iological #omputer 2aboratory at the 7niversity of Illinois at 7rbana)#hampaign !+,-.)+,89& Heinz was directly or indirectly a creative contributor to some key ideas that have stayed for good. 3erhaps the most famous one is that the role of noise in a comple' system might well lead to further organization, in a parado'ical effect Heinz dubbed the order%from% noise principle. ore recently, students of self)organization have repeatedly developed this idea in what is now known as :stochastic resonance.: Another important advance was to notice the key role that fi'ed points or :eigen)behaviors: play in the e'planation of cognitive phenomena and comple' behavior. ore broadly, Heinz von Foerster is the real architect of what can be called second%order cy&ernetics, which deals with the pervasive role of self)reference in all these domains, including the inevitable second)order observation of the observer. The reader who wishes to trace these ideas in more detail than I can provide here should read ;bserving 0ystems, a collection of his papers published a few years ago.< An edition of the complete papers of Heinz von Foerster still awaits. As Franchi brings up in the Interview, shortly after +,89, when Heinz left the 5iological #omputer 2aboratory at 7niversity of Illinois, the wind of funding blew heavily in the direction of a very dogmatic form of cognitive science and classical AI, or what 4aniel 4ennett has called :High)#hurch computationalism.: Almost all forms of studies of comple' systems were put aside as transdisciplinary noise. ;nly the +,=.s brought a new wind of discovery for American researchers, in the form of the connectionist schools and what is now called comple' systems research, as well as non)computational

strategies in cognitive science, including a style of robotics already practiced at 5#2 a decade before. That young scientists ignore some ma>or ?uropean roots of the history of the concepts on which they stand is sad, but understandable, given the intellectual scope that tends to dominate American science. 5ut that a ma>or 70 institution such as the 5#2, which was active until +,89, has been royally ignored in every account of modern day popular and academic te'ts is taking this parochialism to an e'treme. I am thus not surprised that when Franchi arrived at Illinois in +,=9 nobody had any idea of what 5#2 was@ that has been my consistent e'perience since then. 2uckily, history has its own way of settling scores with trendy writing, and the role of Heinz von Forster/s 5#2 as an absolutely remarkable and pioneering scientific center will be given its place, alongside the central place slowly being claimed by the preceding wave of the early cybernetics group and the acy eetings. the man I cannot write about Heinz without saying that I owe him a lot not only intellectually but also personally. As the interview recounts, in +,-< he met Humberto aturana, a #hilean neurophysiologist who was to be my undergraduate mentor in +,-9)-=. Thanks to that !for me& lucky encounter, I found laying on table counters articles by Heinz with such titles as :A #ircuitry of #lues for 3latonic Ideation: when I arrived at Humberto/s lab in 0antiago. It was to have similar effects on me as that recounted by Heinz in encountering 0cheminsky on artificial life1 it sent my imagination flying into a hyperspace of ideas and style of work from which I have never recovered. 5esides, Heinz/s style is one of posing 6uestions and main principles in a concise form, which made his writings intellectual 'ettels I had in my pockets by the time I arrived as a graduate student at Harvard in +,-=. 5y then, the wind had begun to blow in the opposite direction1 I found virtually nobody to talk to about these issues. c#ulloch had already retired from IT, and the AI 2ab was under the dominance of arvin insky, who e'celled at e'orcising what we saw as :unproductive stuff: !from today/s perspective, that is 6uite ironic&. Heinz kindly invited me to come to Illinois a few times during the time I was in #ambridge, and each time I was touched by the humor and openness of this Aiennese. After returning to #hile in +,8., we developed with aturana the notion of autopoiesis, and the first paper published on it owes a tremendous amount to Heinz/s comments and corrections during a long stay in #hile during %une)August +,8B, when the rumblings of civil war were only too evident.B Heinz was perhaps the first who recognized immediately the interest of this idea at a time when almost everyone else wanted us to drop such idle speculations. A similar e'perience was to be repeated in +,8C when Heinz was again instrumental in making my calculus of self)reference 6uickly accepted and disseminated, when I was stranded in #osta Dica after escaping 3inochet/s #hile.C 0ince then and until today Heinz has been an untiring ear and friendly advisor. His ethical and human 6ualities are impeccable, and they have been a source of much needed inspiration. Thus, this is the right place for me to restate all my enormous debt towards him. "ithout his influence and his presence for the last B. years, my life would have lacked a deep, >oyous, and nourishing dimension. I call him Heinz the *reat. Notes + 0ee, respectively, Howard *ardner, (he Mind)s *e+ Science: , History of the Co-nitive Revolution , !$ew (ork1 5asic, +,=9&@ itchell "aldrop, Comple$ity: (he Emer-in- Science at the Ed-e of Chaos and .rder !$ew (ork1 0imon, +,,<&@ 0teve Heims, (he Cy&ernetics /roup, !#ambridge1 IT 3ress, +,,+&@ %ean)3ierre 4upuy, ,u$ ori-ines des sciences co-nitives !3aris1 2a 4Ecouverte, +,,C&. < Heinz von Foerster, .&servin- Systems: Selected 0apers of Hein' von 1oerster !0easide, #A1 Intersystems 3ublications, +,=+&. B Francisco Aarela, Humberto aturana and Dicardo 7ribe, :Autopoiesis1 The ;rganization of 2iving 0ystems, Its #haracterization and a odel,: 2iosystems, 9 !+,8C& +=8)+,-.

C Francisco Aarela, :A #alculus for 0elf)reference,: 3nternational Journal of /eneral Systems , < !+,89& 9)<C.
SEHR, volume 4, issue 2: Constructions of the Mind Updated 24 June !""#

interview

Heinz von Foerster

Stefano Franchi, Gven Gzeldere, and Eric Minch stanford humanities review1 The primary goal of this special issue of 0HD is to promote a multidisciplinary dialogue on Artificial Intelligence and the humanities. "e think you are most 6ualified to facilitate such a dialogue since you have trotted along many disciplinary paths in your career, ranging from mathematics and physics to biophysics and hematology, to pioneering work on cybernetics, to philosophy, and even family therapy. ;ne could even say that :transdisciplinarity: has been your e'pertise. . . . heinz von foerster1 I don/t know where my e'pertise is@ my e'pertise is no disciplines. I would recommend to drop disciplinarity wherever one can. 4isciplines are an outgrowth of academia. In academia you appoint somebody and then in order to give him a name he must be a historian, a physicist, a chemist, a biologist, a biophysicist@ he has to have a name. Here is a human being1 %oe 0mith )) he suddenly has a label around the neck1 biophysicist. $ow he has to live up to that label and push away everything that is not biophysics@ otherwise people will doubt that he is a biophysicist. If he/s talking to somebody about astronomy, they will say :I don/t know, you are not talking about your area of competence, you/re talking about astronomy, and there is the department of astronomy, those are the people over there,: and things of that sort. 4isciplines are an aftereffect of the institutional situation. y personal history has been different. If somebody asks me :Heinz, how is it that although you studied physics, mathematics, and all that, you are always with artists and musicians, etc.F: I think it is because I grew up in Aienna, at a fascinating time of Aiennese history. I was born in +,++, looking back over almost the whole twentieth century, with >ust eleven percent missing at the beginning and a si' percent missing at the end. 0o I had the pleasure of traveling through the twentieth century from its early stages. At that time )) in the late nineteenth century )) Aienna was an e'traordinary place. It had a remarkable medical faculty, fascinating philosophers, it had great art !a new artistic revolution was taking place in Aienna under the name :%ugendstil: !or Art $ouveau, as it was then known in all of ?urope&@ fascinating painters, an e'plosion of artistic activity, music, ahler, dance, etc. In all fields there was a breakaway from the classic and from the standards of the nineteenth century perspective. I had the luck to be born into a family which was participating in all that activity. As a little boy I was already associated with them1 I was sitting under the piano and listening while the grownups were talking with each other. It was always fascinating to listen to what they were saying. y mother/s and my father/s house was a very open house, but the really open house was the house of my maternal grandmother. 0he happened to be one of the early and leading feminists who published the first women/s >ournal in all ?urope )) 5ocuments of 6omen. 3oliticians, writers, >ournalists, theater people, etc. were in my grandmother/s house. "e, as kids, were of course always looking and listening@ we were immersed in a world that had no specifics, no disciplines. I mean, everybody was connected and arguing about what art, politics, philosophy, should be. *rowing up in such a world brings you into a state of affairs where you have difficulties looking at single disciplines. I see practically every sentence we are speaking as already like a millipede connected with five hundred )) oh but a millipede, so a thousand )) other notions. And to talk about a single notion has a built)in sterility which does not allow you to make the semantic connections to all those other concepts.

shr1 "hat kind of education did you receive in school, after you were too old to remain under the piano listening to grownupsF hvf1 2ater, there were two phases in my education. 0omehow by nature, mathematics was no problem, physics was no problem. I was a very good student in mathematics, but I was not acknowledged. In the Austrian school system of that time, you went into the classical *ymnasium, which taught you 2atin and *reek and history. athematics and physics were peripheral. I was a very lousy student in *reek and in 2atin. I was always threatened with flunking this and flunking that. y poor parents suffered with this boy who would not learn anything. 5ut in mathematics and physics I was very good. However you could not get good grade in mathematics and physics if you had very bad grades in 2atin. 0o, I was over the fringe, so to speak. $evertheless, I became very interested in philosophical issues, and mathematical issues as well. And when I was through with high school I went to the Institute of Technology in Aienna to study technical physics. This was a new field, and I en>oyed it very much. Aery early in my curriculum, perhaps during the first semester, one of my student colleagues came to me and said1 :Heinz, I was >ust coming from the 7niversity and there are a series of lectures that are so fascinating that you should come along. (ou absolutely have to come along with me.: 0o I said :*ood, let/s go and see,: and the ne't lecture to which I went was by a professor by the name of 0cheminsky, and the theme was :Is it possible to generate life artificiallyF: He was lecturing about whether it was possible to make A2, artificial life. Demember, this was in +,B+. ;f course, I thought it was fascinating to ask such a 6uestion, and I went to attend the lecture. The room was absolutely full, with lots of young people there, )) and all the big professors in the first row1 physics, theology, mathematics, biology etc. etc. Then the chairman of the session, announced1 :3rofessor 0cheminsky will talk about /Is it possible to produce life artificiallyF/: The first row stood up in protest and walked out. How can you possibly produce life artificiallyF It is a scandal even to ask that 6uestion@ it is blasphemy. ;f course, for a eighteen) or nineteen)year)old boy this was the best propaganda effort one could possibly make, because we immediately thought :This is what we have to listen to.: "hen the orthodo'y is walking out, it must be the do'y you would like to become interested in. 0o I went again and again to these lectures, and it turned out to be a lecture series generated by the Aienna #ircle of philosophers1 "ittgenstein, #arnap, Hahn, and so on. I was very early already absorbed by these thinkers. At that time I stumbled over some of the "ittgenstein writings and particularly the Tractatus 2ogico)3hilosophicus, and I fell in love with it. I thought :This is itG: ;f course I was raised with classical philosophy, I knew my 0chopenhauer, I knew my Hant, I knew my this and that. . . .but suddenly here comes "ittgenstein. . . ."owG I almost knew the (ractatus by heart. I had one other friend who also knew the (ractatus almost by heart. This was a cousin of mine, a nephew of "ittgenstein, 3aul "ittgenstein. "e both tested each other whether we could rattle off some of the propositions. 3aul used to ask me, :Heinz, what is B.<+F: and I had to rattle it out, and I/d ask him, :3aul, what is 9.+<F: and he came with his rattling. Anyway, I became absorbed in the logic, in the mathematics, in the philosophy of the Aienna #ircle. And here you see again, the possibilities are wide open@ they reach into almost all sorts of thinking1 how do we do it, how do we do things, how do we think about it, how can we describe our descriptions, how can we think about our thinkingF Thus, very early in my life I was e'posed to what I call today a second order notion )) the notion that speaks about notion, which I believe is one of the crucial concepts of second order cybernetics and refle'ive thinking in general. A logic which is associated with refle'ive thinking or with a closed semantic system is a very different logic than the classical one, and I think it contains insights which can be applicable practically to anything )) whether you take education, or philosophy, or mathematics, or physics. #onsider, for instance, what today people call chaos theory )) of course, it is a wonderful, very fascinating name, but it is recursive function theory, which was developed already in late nineteenth century by Hoch, Hilbert, and others. This, then, is Heinz von Foerster/s background as a human being1 a very broad basis which is associated with dancing, with music, with philosophy, with mathematics, with physics, and with a particular touch of the thinking of the Aienna #ircle people, including "ittgenstein and #arnap. It is with

this package of things plus my rucksack and my sleeping bag that I more or less entered the 7nited 0tates in +,C,. shr1 "as there anyone who was particularly influential on your thinking in the Aienna #ircle, besides #arnap and 2udwig "ittgensteinF hvf1 I would say "ittgenstein was an essential. Then I went to the lectures of 0chlick and the lectures of #arnap. $ow I would say "ittgenstein was most influential but Dudolf #arnap and his logic were also very important to me as well. I would also add Hans Hahn. Hahn was a leading mathematician at the time in the Aienna #ircle, and already very early I was very much impressed by one of his lectures on recursive functions, where he discussed undifferentiable curves, which is the basis for the fractals )) the fractal notion was already there in about +,.9. At that time the problem was1 :#an we construct curves which cannot be differentiatedF: That means curves where you can/t find the tangent because every point has infinite directions. "hich is of course lots of fun, and if you are interested in this kind of mental >uggling )) which I was as a kid )) you en>oy things which cannot be done. shr1 "hat prompted you to leave Aienna and come to the 7nited 0tatesF hvf1 That/s very easy to answer. "hen I left Aienna, it was still occupied by the Dussians. I had returned to Aienna in +,C9 and it was completely bombed out@ it was a very very miserable time. I could not find an apartment to live in with my wife and three kids. I had two crazy >obs at that time in Aienna, >ust to earn some money for bread and cigarettes. ;ne I found through relatives who owned a telephone company in Aienna associated with the ?ricsson #ompany in 0weden. They manufactured telephone relays and the whole switching systems for telephones, and I was working there, as they were rebuilding the whole company )) it was completely destroyed in the war. The first thing we did was to build one lathe out of some parts we could find. And then this lathe produced another lathe, and then we could start building things. This was one >ob. The other >ob was related to the American occupation forces )) there were four, the Dussians, the French, the ?nglish, and the Americans, and each one controlled a district in Aienna. The Americans saw in Aienna a fabulous opportunity to broadcast "estern information to the ?ast and therefore they were interested in establishing a radio station. 5y a series of incidents, they invited me to participate in that. I was one of the very early members of that American radio station established in Aienna by the Information 0ervice 5ranch. I was taking charge of the scientific and cultural department1 I interviewed the scientists, the musicians, the conductors, the dancers, etc. "ith these two >obs I earned the bread for my family through my work with the telephon company and I could buy my black market cigarettes as a reporter with the American radio station Ded "hite Ded, named after the colors of the Austrian flag. y wife had a very dear friend, whom she grew up with when they were both at the same high school. This woman, Ilse, had established herself in America@ she was living in $ew (ork, married to a successful stockbroker. They said :Heinz, we will lend you the money for a trip to $ew (ork, and maybe you can find a place where you could work in the 7nited 0tates.: 0o she bought me a ticket on the Iueen ary and I sailed to $ew (ork. shr1 This was in +,. . . .F hvf1 This was +,C,. %ust before my departure I had finished writing a little book which dealt with problems of memory. It was a 6uantum theory of memory. I brought that little book with me )) as a business card, so to speak )) when I came to the 7nited 0tates. shr1 #ould you give us a micro)account of your early theory of hvf memoryF hvf1 As I told you I was a very bad student in history, a bad student in geography, a bad student in all of these things where you have to memorize data. 0o I said to myself :History is absolutely catastrophic. I can/t remember whether #aesar came before Augustus or after Augustus or aacchhh.: 0o I thought I would make myself a table, a historical table. "hen I made this table I observed that the closer to the present you came, the more densely filled the paper was with data@ conversely, the further you went back the thinner the table. As it went back to the fifteenth century there was almost nothing, a century or more with nobody to mention@ then you go to Dome, of course there are a couple of wars, which you know. And then you go1 B.. 5#, C.. 5#, empty. 9.. 5# you get one entry or something. This is a bad

way of presenting things. The best way to represent such data is to shrink the e'tension of the graph the longer you go away, and the only method to do that )) or one elegant method to do that )) is to plot it logarithmically. ?very decade, or every power of ten, covers the same distance and that means that, as you go further back into the past, ten years are as big as one year, and then one hundred years are as big as ten year, etcetera. Thousand years the same, ten thousand the same, hundred thousand, they/re all the same size. "ith this kind of representation you get the same density everywhere. (ou can go back, and you have not only #aesar/s assassination, you also have the e'tinction of the dinosaurs, and you have not only the e'tinction of the dinosaurs, you have the beginning of life, and a little bit further down you have the beginning of the solar system, and one step further you have the beginning of the universe. The whole thing fits in one table if you use a logarithmic time scale.

(a&le of historical events dra+n on lo-arithmic paper7 (8lo-9t:%t;, +here (8representational time< t:8asymptotic moment< and t8historical time7 ,symptotic moment 9*o+=;: t:8midni-ht, 5ecem&er !, !""47 I was very proud of that table, and I thought it was a wonderful thing because it is so simple to plot, and everything has a place, and there is no waste of paper. 2ater on I thought :Aha, here is a funny thing. If the past is logarithmically compressed, maybe our memory is working in a similar way.: That means that things which are very far back disappear slowly, and only the most recent things are remembered. I was very proud )) what a beautiful theory )) but I had no way to prove it. I was back in Aienna after the war, and of course one always browses through bookstores, and here was a bookstore with old second)hand books sitting out in big bo'es in the open air. I pulled out a book that was called, I think, Introduction to 3sychology, I opened it in one place, and there was a graph titled :?bbinghaus/s Forgetting #urve.: I thought :"ow, there is somebody who actually measured these things.: I began to read it and I learnt that r. ?bbinghaus, at the turn of the century, measured the forgetting speed of people who tried to remember something. I bought that book )) it was probably <9 or maybe 9. cents )) took it home, studied the curve, and said to myself that I should analyze the data to see whether the e'ponential decay is indeed the way in which our memory works. The method by which ?bbinghaus measured forgetting was as follows1 he gave to some students a se6uence of nonsense syllables to learn, perhaps fifty, like :foh,: :ping,: :kah,: :pu,: etc. And he would say1 :(ou learn it today, and then you test yourself and see how many you remember@ you now remember fifty, ;H, then I will 6uestion you every two or three days to see how many of these syllables you retain.: He collected the data from the students, and drew a curve to represent these data. This was ?bbinghaus/s Forgetting #urve, a very famous result in the history of psychology.

1or-ettin- curve7 .n the hori'ontal a$is the num&er of days, on the vertical a$is the num&er of retained +ords, in percenta-e7 Reprinted from the >2# cents> &oo?, e7-7, Hu&ert Rohracher, Einf@hrun- in die 0sycholo-ie 96ien: Ur&an A Sch+ar'en&er-, second edition, !"4B; 24B7 0o I immediately set myself to analyze it, to see if it would fit my e'ponential law of memory decay. I wanted to see if my mathematical description of forgetting would fit ?bbinghaus empirical curve, but whatever I tried did not work. "ell, I thought, my beautiful e'ponential decay notion of memory goes down the 4anube to the 5lack 0ea. Then I began to study how ?bbinghaus did it, and realized that he did it e'actly as I described it to you, by always asking the students how many syllables they remembered. 5ut when you ask somebody what he remembers, you refresh their memory. It is, in a certain sense, like a feedback mechanism, where you reestablish the memory. :Aha,: I said, :my differential e6uation for decay is incomplete. I have to bring in also the period where 6uestions are being made, and how often a notion is being remembered, actively remembered.: I put this second element into the e6uation and )) incredible thing )) I got an absolutely perfect match with r. ?bbinghaus/s curve. I could establish the two parameters )) the forgetting parameter and learning parameter )) and everything was fine. I started to look at some other papers, and the fascinating thing was that most of the forgetting follows a decay which is e'actly the same as radioactive decay )) perhaps half a day or something like that )) and one remembers only by actively regurgitating what one still knows. 2ook outside. JA deer appears suddenly in the backyard garden of the house and looks intently at us as we speak. Heinz von Foerster cannot help admiring the animal but adds that they have become a real pest, since they eat whatever plant they have been trying to grow. $onetheless, the sheer elegance of the deer wandering amidst the bushes keeps us silent for a few seconds.K Anyway, I did that kind of research and then noticed that some very interesting facts were coming out, namely that the decay constant for some macromolecules )) biological molecules )) is e'actly the same. Thus, my argument was :Aha, there must be a link between the 6uantum mechanical interpretation of large biological molecules and our way of keeping things in our mind or forgetting it.: I wrote that up in a little booklet (he Memory %% a Cuantum Mechanical (reatise , and it had some also interesting history. There was a man, an absolutely fabulous man, Aiktor Frankl )) a psychiatrist who survived the concentration camp. He was captured very early when the $azis came to Aienna, and he was brought into 5elsen into one of those destruction camps, but survived it, remarkably. Then he came back to Aienna, and through my radio >ob, I got to know him very well. I invited him again and again to speak, because his comments were very essential to make people understand that under tremendous stress you can still survive. I gave him my account of memory and he got fascinated by it and said it should be published. His publisher was a gentleman by the name of 4eutieke. Frankl called his publisher, r. 4eutieke, and said :Here is a wonderful little story in about a hundred pages. I think you should print it. It is very important.: 4eutieke of course respected Frankl as a psychiatrist, but there was

a lot of mathematics and physics in the manuscript, and 4eutieke correctly insisted that he had to have another >udgment by a physicist. $ow, ?rwin 0chrLdinger happened to be an author for 4eutieke as well. 0o 4eutieke sent my manuscript to 0chrLdinger, who was in Ireland at that time, and asked him of his opinion. It didn/t take very long for 0chrLdinger to send back a note, saying :4ear r. 4eutieke, I don/t believe a word of what this thing is saying, but I couldn/t find any mistake.: 0o 4eutieke said1 :I don/t care what 0chrLdinger believes, I only want to know whether there is a mistake, and since there is no mistake I think we can print it.: 0o he published the manuscript@ I thought it was a very interesting >udgment on a good man who is a publisher. shr1 0o this is the book you had with you when you crossed the Atlantic ;cean. hvf1 ?'actly. I brought a couple of copies of that book to the 7nited 0tates. "henever I had a scientific friend in the 7nited 0tates I sent them that little booklet with a note and said1 :I/m still alive, this is the nonsense I was doing while I was gone.: ;ne of the people to whom I sent it was a very dear friend of my youth1 a>a 7nna, the wife of a 3rofessor of 3harmacology at the edical 0chool of the 7niversity of Illinois in #hicago. A couple of days later I got a telegram from her, which said :Heinz, come immediately to #hicago. I showed your book to a professor here and he really wants to discuss your memory theory with you.: 0o I immediately took a night flight with #apitol Airlines leaving at one o/clock in the morning and arriving in #hicago at eight am. It took seven hours to fly from $ew (ork to #hicago, and it was )) I remember )) seventeen dollars, which was cheaper than traveling by bus. 0o I flew to #hicago, went to the edical 0chool, and met a>a. 0he introduced me to a very fascinating gentleman who happened to be "arren c#ulloch. He was the head of the 4epartment of $europsychiatry at the 7niversity of Illinois at #hicago. He wanted to know the details of my theory. y ?nglish was very poor, and his *erman was practically nil, but the fascinating thing was that we could understand each other, because we were talking about scientific method. $o problem when you go to the e6uation1 if you can/t say something you >ust point to the numbers or to the e'pressions. It turned out that about two or three months before I came )) it was February /C, )) there had been a large meeting of some big scientists in America about memory. And they all had lots of data, but no theory. The fascinating thing is that this little booklet of mine had numbers that were matching e'actly the data they had. This was absolutely fascinating. I remember that "arren said1 :This is too good to be true,: and asked me to give a lecture on the spot. I replied I couldn/t give a lecture because of my linguistic inability, but there were so many immigrants )) *erman and Austrian immigrants )) at the 7niversity of Illinois at that time, that I >ust had to say it more or less in *erman and they translated it all very nicely. Then "arren invited me to give another talk. He said :In two weeks we have a conference in $ew (ork@ since you/re living in $ew (ork we invite you,: and this was one of the now very famous and legendary acy meetings. shr1 "ere these the conferences which $orbert "iener, *regory 5ateson, argaret ead, etc., took part inF hvf1 (es, e'actly. There was an organization, the %osiah acy %r. Foundation, which sponsored meetings in a variety of medical fields )) liver in>uries, glaucoma )) fundamental medical problems that did not have known solutions at the time. ;ne of these conferences was entitled #ircular #ausality and Feedback echanisms in 5iological and 0ocial 0ystems, and "arren c#ulloch was chairing it. The participants in that conference included $orbert "iener, *regory 5ateson, argaret ead, %ohn von $eumann, %ulian 5igelow who, with "iener and Dosenbluth, wrote the famous paper on Teleology@ J+K Heinrich Hluever, who completed the great book on The Aertebrate Aisual 0ystemJ<K by the late 0tephen 3olyak by adding a bibliography of about +.,... !yes, ten)thousand& items@ #laude 0hannon from 5ell 2abs, the inventor of :Information Theory,: and many others of that caliber, :la creme de la creme: of American scientists. And he asked me to present my memory story to that group. I was in $ew (ork and I went to that conference. I was not frightened by these people, because luckily I did not know anything about them. After I presented my story I left, since I was a guest, and after a while they called me in and said1 :Heinz, the story you told us is a very fascinating one, but the way you presented it is abominable.: And I replied1 :(es, I/m only starting to learn the language: They knew that, and therefore they decided to appoint me as the editor of their transactions to improve my ?nglish. I thought

I could not do that, but then I said to myself :$o, if they appoint me why wouldn/t I accept itF: 0o I said :;H, its wonderful, I accept thatG: but I couldn/t even pronounce the title of the conference. 0articipants of the (enth Conference on Cy&ernetics, ,pril 22%24, !"# , 0rinceton, *7J7 Sponsored &y the Josiah Macy, Jr7, 1oundation7 !st ro+: (7C7 Schneirla, D7 2ar%Hillel, Mar-aret Mead, 6arren S7 McCulloch, Jan 5roo-leever%1ortuyn, Duen Ren Chao, 67 /rey%6alter, Eahe E7 ,massian7 2nd ro+: Feonard J7 Sava-e, Janet 1reed Fynch, /erhardt von 2onin, Fa+rence S7 Gu&ie, Fa+rence G7 1ran?, Henry Cuastler, 5onald /7 MarHuis, Heinrich Gl@ver, 17S7C7 *orthrop7 rd ro+: 0e--y Gu&ie, Henry 2rosin, /re-ory 2ateson, 1ran? 1remont%Smith, John R7 2o+man, /7E7 Hutchinson, Hans Fu?as (eu&er, Julian H7 2i-elo+, Claude Shannon, 6alter 0itts, Hein' von 1oerster7 Fortunately, "arren c#ulloch, at my first meeting in #hicago had told me to read a book by $orbert "iener, titled #ybernetics, before going to that conference. I had done that and I thought to myself1 :Instead of calling that conference #ircular #ausality and Feedback echanisms in 5iological and 0ocial 0ystems, why not call it #yberneticsF: 0o I asked them1 :"hy don/t you call your conference #yberneticsF: ?verybody seemed to like the idea, so they applauded. $orbert "iener was so touched by his colleagues/ accepting the concept of cybernetics, he had tears in his eyes and he had to get up and walk out of the room to hide his embarrassment. "ith this new title accepted, I got the transcripts of ten or twenty speeches about two months later. I bought myself two dictionaries plus a medical dictionary, and I set off learning my way through all these papers. I think at the end we had a good result. shr1 ;ne group of people who were influential on your intellectual development was the Aienna #ircle. This was in your youth. #ould we regard the group that consisted of c#ulloch, "iener, von $eumann, 5ateson and so forth, as a second intellectual circle, the :#ybernetic #ircle,: in your mature yearsF hvf1 (esG An e'cellent suggestionG This was fascinating. The papers coming out of the #ybernetic group were very much in the same direction as the Aienna #ircle people approached problems. Think of the famous paper by "arren c#ulloch, :A logical calculus of ideas immanent in nervous activity,: for e'ample. If you look at the whole thing, the formal machinery is #arnap/s machinery which I grew up with, the same machinery which is at the basis of the 0rincipia Mathematica. 0o I felt immediately at home with the :#ybernetic #ircle.: I love differential e6uations because they provide a connection between geometrical thinking and algebraic thinking. 0uch formalisms are like bicycle riding or swimming to me, they come very naturally. shr1 "as your involvement with the acy group limited to the editorship of the 3roceedingsF hvf1 I became very fascinated by the group, and they liked my editorial >ob. Further, I was very fond of the philosophical position which was presented by these people. Here comes an interesting point which might perhaps have a particular relevance to the connection between the humanities and the hard sciences. For the first issue I edited for the acy foundation, I hadn/t written a preface. It so happened that argaret ead, who was very supportive of me, and Hans 2ukas Teuber, who was a *erman physiologist, decided to >oin me in the effort to write a preface to the second volume. I wrote a preface, and sent it to argaret and to Hans 2ukas, but somehow they didn/t like it. They thought I was too philosophical, too abstract@ the preface should have been more down)to)earth so that people would understand what cybernetics was all about. For me cybernetics was a fascinating notion, because it introduced for the first time )) and not only by saying it, but also methodologically )) the notion of circularity, of circular causal systems. And I thought that from an epistemological point of view that was very important. 0o I stressed in my preface the epistemological wit of the notions of circular causality, circular operations, closure, closed system, and so forth. 5ut this was felt to be too abstract for the pragmatic mind of American thinkers. They replied :Heinz, we love your wonderful somersaults and epistemological skills, but we would like to have it down)to)earth.: 5ut I said :"ell, I/m not a down)to) earth manG: Actually, I am a down)to)earth man, but not in that field. ?ventually, argaret and Hans 2ukas wrote another preface which I, in retrospect, find )) with apologies )) very pedestrian. It presented too narrow a notion of cybernetics, as if it were based only on the notion of feedback. ;f course you can

have control theory built on the notion of feedback@ control theory was already well developed then. It was a section in electrical engineering, where you learned control theory together with a thorough and consistent mathematical theory. I thought that wasn/t the fascination of cybernetics )) you can have that in dry control theory. #ybernetics considers systems with some kind of closure, systems that acts on themselves )) something which, from a logical point of view, always leads to parado'es since you encounter the phenomena of self)reference. I thought that cybernetics was trying to bring into view a crucial point in logical theory )) a point that is traditionally avoided by logic@ one which Dussell tried to eliminate by bringing in the theory of types. I thought of the theory of types as a miserable e'cuse for someone who doesn/t want to take on the responsibility of saying :I/m saying that,: because you are not supposed to say :I: with the theory of types. "hile working on these prefaces I got the feeling that some of the essential force of "iener/s arguments were somewhat diluted. And my hunch is that it was perhaps because of this perception, because of this dilution of the notion of cybernetics that artificial intelligence was separating itself from a cybernetics which had become nothing but control theory applied to living organisms. #ybernetics, for me, is the point where you can overcome Dussell/s theory of types by taking a proper approach to the notions of parado', self)reference, etc., something that transfers the whole notion of ontology )) how things are )) to an ontogenesis )) how things become. It is the dynamics of cybernetics that overcomes the parado'. The parado' produces a :yes: when it says a :no,: and then produces a :no: from a :yes.: It/s always a production. In cybernetics you learn that parado' is not bad for you, but it is good for you, if you take the dynamics of the parado' seriously. Indeed, it seems that classical artificial intelligence researchers tend to refrain from getting into such parado'ical matters. 0eymour 3apert once said of 0erceptrons )) the very influential book he wrote with arvin insky )) that if their work was so critical of cybernetics and neural nets research it was because there was too much romanticism and too little mathematical rigor in the field. shr1 4o you think he was trying to separate AI research from what he perceived as an overly :philosophical: pursuitF hvf1 I think you touch an important point here@ however, I would put it differently. It seems to me that there are different styles of thinking which, in "arren c#ulloch, were still the two sides of the same coin. 2et me cite the titles of some of what I would call his :metaphysical: papers, for instance, :"hat Is A $umber That A an ay Hnow It, And A an That He ay Hnow A $umberF: or :A 2ogical #alculus ;f The Ideas Immanent In $ervous Activity: or :Through The 4en ;f A etaphysician:@ and then the titles of some embrionic AI papers1 : achines That Think And "ant,: :Toward 0ome #ircuitry ;f ?thical Dobots,: :5iological #omputers,: :The 5rain As A #omputing achine,: etc., etc.JBK As you probably guessed, I was touched by "arren/s metaphysics, while others were stimulated by his computer metaphors or, as von $eumann put it, by :"arren/s Turing side,: with reference to Alan Turing/s invention of the machine that can compute all computable numbers. There were, of course, other separating forces that pulled these two styles apart. ;ne of which, I sense, may have been the prevailing funding strategies. If I remember correctly, lucky arvin insky succedeed in getting a ten million dollar grant for an Artificial Intelligence lab as a byproduct of IT operations. There was almost no other money available for any other studies which were not AI)ish, afterwards. shr1 "hat year was that, do you rememberF hvf1 /-<, /-B something like that. shr1 0o, there was actually a kind of funding warF hvf1 A tremendous funding war, yes. And that happened because although science is a wonderful thing, there is a public relations side to it. "hether or not you address yourself to it, public relations are a very important component of scientific activity, and I must confess that as a greenhorn in America I did not realize that. I was so happy being allowed to do some research which I felt was interesting and important to the people sponsoring it that I thought it was a paradise. I thought you didn/t have to do the politics, and I was so glad to have shed political concerns. It was only much later that I realized that politics was there, all along.

Anyway, I think there was a bifurcation of these two fields, cybernetics and Artificial Intelligence, which turned out to be detrimental. #ybernetics was unfortunately interpreted in too narrow a way, and I sometimes get the feeling that this was on purpose, to push it away from another big branch which became Artificial Intelligence. And Artificial Intelligence was promising so much, at the time@ it was absolutely incredible. And if you promise something, then of course everybody hopes that this promise will be realizable. It was appro'imately in those years, in the early 0i'ties that you founded the 5iological #omputer 2ab at 7rbana)#hampaign. shr1 "hat 4epartment was it part ofF hvf1 It was in the 4epartments of ?lectrical ?ngineering and of 5iophysics. 5iophysics. (ou may remember that the 7niversity of Illinois was a leading university in computing@ they developed very big machines. The Iliac I, Iliac II, Iliac III, Iliac IA, etc., etc. They really had a tradition of big machines, there. Through the influence of von $eumann and "iener and others I was of course drawn into the 4epartment of #omputer 0cience. I had two positions1 in the 4epartment of ?lectrical ?ngineering and in the 4epartment of #omputer 0cience. Then, when I became associated more and more with the acy *roup, I thought that the university needed a 4epartment of 5iophysics. y background was in physics, and I thought biophysics was way too much neglected. 0o with some friends in the 4epartment of 3hysics and in the 4epartment of 3hysiology, we wrote a program for establishing a new department. This was about at the same time I founded my 5iological #omputer 2ab. I am now a 3rofessor ?meritus from the two departments of !now >oined& ?lectrical ?ngineering and #omputer 0cience and 5iophysics and 3hysiology. ?arly on, I saw that electron tubes will not be the future of electronics know)how, so I planned a transition of the whole ?lectron Tube Desearch 2ab, which I was directing, to solid state electronics. I invited three gentlemen to take over my part and lead the lab during the transition. I then said to myself, :$ow I have to study biology, because I would like to start a new lab.: I took advantage of the fabulous institution of sabbatical leave, spent one half year with c#ulloch at IT, he was at IT at that time, another half in e'ico #ity. I discussed how to study physiology with $orbert "iener and he recommended to me to go to his friend, Arturo Dosenblueth in e'ico. 0o our whole family went to e'ico for a half year, and I studied under Arturo. I learned a lot from him@ he was really absolutely fabulous. Anyway, I came back after a year of indoctrination in biology, physiology, and I was ready to start the :5iological #omputer 2ab.: Fortunately, all the people from the acy group were very supportive. This was in +,9=. I was e'tremely lucky, because very early I got outstanding people to >oin me )) logicians, mathematicians, and physiologists. aturana was a very early participant, and so was *ordon 3ask. The lab was rolling out papers and papers and papers. I think this was very impressive for the sponsors and also kept us very inspired. shr1 How did aturana get to hear about 5#2 and >oin youF hvf1 I was invited to a meeting in 2eyden, a beautiful city in Holland. Dalph *erard, who was a member of the acy meeting, had arranged for a conference on Information 3rocessing in the $ervous 0ystem. 3eople from all over the world were invited. 0o I went, and I was very happy to go there for two reasons. $umber one, I was very glad to be in ?urope again, and number two, they had this conference on onday and Tuesday, but they had invited us to be there on Thursday evening, so you had Friday and 0aturday to en>oy 2eyden and the beautiful beaches of the ?astern 0ea and I wanted to go to Amsterdam, and see the Di>ksmuseum. The morning after I arrived there, Dalph arranged for a general meeting of all the people, and he said :2adies and gentlemen, we are here to have a dress rehearsal of our meeting on onday and Tuesday. ;n Friday and 0aturday everybody will present their papers, and there will be discussions and corrections on these papers. ;n onday and Tuesday we will present the corrected papers.: As I was listening to that, I thought that this was the most idiotic proposal I had ever heard. I mean, that/s what a conference is for@ you don/t need a dress rehearsal. "hen Dalph was talking to other people, I sneaked out of the long room through one of the many side doors. And as I was doing this I saw another gentleman doing the same )) sneaking out from another door. 0o I walked

to him and said1 :Are you taking part in that nonsense, participating in the rehearsal on Friday and 0aturday, or would you like to go with me to the Di>ksmuseum, to the oritzhaeus, and en>oy AmsterdamF: He said he would prefer to come with me. I said :;H, my name is Heinz von Foerster.: He said : y name is 7mberto aturana.: 0o this is how we met and he got to know about the 5iological #omputer 2ab. "e were from the beginning the black sheep of that whole conference. "hen we came back on onday, nobody was talking with us. It was e'tremely funny. Afterwards, I invited aturana to come to the 7niversity of Illinois. shr1 "as he in #hile at the timeF hvf1 (es, he was. He came to Illinois for a year, and then came again for another year, and then when I had a second sabbatical seven years later, I went to #hile and worked with him on some of the theoretical problems in neurophysiology, and of course learned about what he was doing, shr1 0o 5#2 was in e'istence from /9= until you retiredF hvf1 (es, until /89, until I retired. [Stefano Franchi]1 5#2 was one the reasons behind my decision to go to the 7niversity of Illinois as a graduate student in philosophy. ;f course I knew that you had retired in /89, which was more or less ten years before I applied, but I thought I would at least find some students of von Foerster/s left there working in the 2ab. Instead, when I got there, I couldn/t find one person who knew of 5#2. Instead I found this glass cathedral in the cornfield desert )) the 5eckman Institute. I was left wondering what happened after you retired. hvf1 I knew I had to retire )) because of compulsory retirement at si'ty)five )) and I knew that my whole program would have difficulty being sponsored by the usual sponsors after that. It was an e'pensive lab )) I mean had I brought in ten or twelve million dollars to the state of Illinois. There were thirty)five people, and they were e'pensive people. For instance take 2ars 2Lfgren, a 0wedish logician who wrote some fabulous papers. I knew 2ars from other meetings, and when I invited him to >oin us, he said :Heinz, you cannot afford me. The 0wedish ta' system is built in such a way that one third of my salary will be immediately subtracted when I am working in the 7nited 0tates. 0o in order to be able to live as a 3rofessor, you have to add thirty)three percent to my salary.: 0o I remember when I proposed to have 2ars 2Lfgren coming in, the chairman of the 4epartment of ?lectrical ?ngineering said :(ou are paying this man more than I/m earningG: I said :That is correct, but I bring the money in from "ashington, so why do you ob>ectF: 0o they said ;H, and 2ars could come. 5#2 was a very e'pensive lab, and I always found some considerable amount of funds to run this machine. There were fifteen or twenty students who pursued their doctoral dissertations and they were paid for doing that. I mean, it was absolutely uni6ue. That/s why students loved to come to 5#2. They had very strict and very good advisors, like 7mberto aturana, 2ars 2Lfgren, *otthard *uenther, Doss Ashby. . . .do you know *otthard *uentherF shr1 Is he a logicianF hvf1 He was fabulous man, a man who developed a kind of logic which looks, at first glance, as if it were a multivalued logic, but it isn/t. "ell, it is, and it is not. He called it a place)valued logic, and it is, I think, a very important contribution. 5ecause it gets you out of that yes)no traps, the true)false trap. The essential point in *uenther/s contribution is that he argues )) correctly, with a very good formalism )) that in order to take a proposition to be true or false, you have to have a place in which the proposition stands. That means, when you say :The sun is shining: you have to have a place where that proposition is to be put in, and only then you can say it is true or false. Furthermore, :The sun is shining: could be re>ected as a proposition to be considered. That means, he introduced the notion of re>ection instead of 5oolean :true and false: and by that one has the means to consider a proposition as a whole as being acceptable or not. A couple of years ago, the whole collected works of *otthard *uenther came out, if you/d like to look at it.JCK (ou should really know about *otthard/s work. It is very well understood and read in *erman, but very little in the American and ?nglish)speaking domain. Anyway, when I saw that I had to retire I was very interested that all the students who were working at that time would have completed their theses. All the students eventually went to different directions.

There is only one man who was with the group )) Dicardo 7ribe, one of the co)authors of the famous paper :Autopoiesis1 The ;rganization of 2iving 0ystems, its #haracterization and a odel: with 7mberto aturana and Francisco AarelaJ9K )) who is still with the 7niversity of Illinois. He did a very nice >ob of preparing the e'perimental programs for the 4epartment of ?lectrical ?ngineering and #omputer 0cience, and he/s doing very well there. 0o Dicardo is the only remnant of 5#2 at the 7niversity of Illinois. shr1 2et/s return to the previous point, to the relation between AI and cybernetics. (ou hinted earlier that after arvin insky received his huge grant for the establishment of an artificial intelligence lab at IT there was little money left for anything else. 0ince 0erceptrons came out in /-8, I wonder what it was like to work in cybernetics in the late si'ties and early seventies, when artificial intelligence was on the rise with its promises of delivering big results very fast. hvf1 In my case, it was 6uite interesting. aybe there are two points which may add interest to your story. The first is that at the 7niversity of Illinois there was a remarkable man )) Henry Iuastler, a Aiennese. Henry Iuastler had to leave Aienna because of his %ewish origin when the $azis entered Austria. 2ater, he established himself as a physician in the 7nited 0tates. #oincidentally, he became a physician at a ma>or clinic in 7rbana, close to the 7niversity of Illinois. "hen Hiroshima took place, and so many people were destroyed by radiation, he as a physician said, :It/s my responsibility to find out what the causes for destruction in radiation are. 0o I would like to pursue studies of the destruction of biological tissue through radiation.: He started with a small lab at the #linic, and soon the 4epartment of 3hysics at the 7niversity of Illinois had heard of Iuastler/s e'periments and invited him to work for them. I knew Iuastler from the first day we arrived there, and Iuastler realized that information theory as it was developed at that time could be a very helpful mathematical tool to account for the effect of radiation on living tissue. $amely, you could work with a notion of :hit rate,: or probability of losses, to make certain predictions. He learned the whole mathematics and philosophy of information theory very early and later I proposed that he should also come to the acy meetings. Iuastler was so successful in his work on radiation damage in living tissues that the 5rookhaven $ational 2ab invited him to go there. He arranged a very large conference on homeostasis there. Homeostasis was a very important topic. The 6uestion was :"hat are the conditions under which the system stays in or falls out of stabilityF: In other words, what were the stability conditions of comple' systemsF 0o he arranged this conference and invited me to give a very general overview of homeostatic problems. $ow, at the very end of this conference )) this was very early, +,-. or +,-+ )) a couple of gentlemen approached me and we had the following conversation1 Mr von 1oerster, it)s very interestin- +hat you are sayin- here7 Dou are the first mathematician +ho tal?s in such a +ay that &iolo-ists can understand7 3)m sorry, &ut 3)m not a mathematician7 2ut it sounded as if you +ere a mathematician7 6ould you li?e to +or? +ith us at the 5epartment of Hematolo-y at the *ational 3nstitute of HealthI .f course, 3 +ould love to, &ut 3)ve a&solutely no idea of hematolo-y7 3 never loo?ed in a microscope< 3 have a&solutely no +ay of understandin- your pro&lems7 *o, no, no, +e +ill tell you all the hematolo-ical facts7 Dou do the mathematics and +e)ll do the hematolo-y7 Des, &ut 3 can)t do the mathematics if 3 don)t understand the hematolo-y7 Just come to us and +e +ill teach you the hematolo-y and then you teach us the mathematics7 ?ventually, I came into very close contact with the hematology group, and we did some very successful work together. In fact, there is a paper of mine which deals with a partial differential e6uation accounting for cellular growth, and this has now become the von Foerster ?6uation in theoretical hematology. This is even taught in schools@ I was very impressed. To return to the funding issue, we had a large contract with the 4epartment of Hematology of the $ational Institute of Health, and there were some other contracts, for instance, by the $ational 0cience Foundation, and other grants from the 4epartment of ?ducation. The 4epartment of ?ducation was established in the si'ties, and I was one of the early

grantees of that outfit, because we were very much interested in learning and its underlying psychological processes. 0o there were several granting systems which supported 5#2. And 5#2 was a very hungry device, because I had responsibility for all the students and visiting scholars. shr1 4id you ever enter in the close relationship with the 4epartment of 4efense, and especially 4AD3A, that was so characteristic of AI researchF hvf1 (es, of course. I had no 4AD3A grants, but the ;ffice of $aval Desearch supported us. It was my main support when I had the ?lectron Tube 2ab, and since they knew Heinz von Foerster was doing decent work they decided to support me for doing decent work in biology. The early grants of 5#2 were all from the ;ffice of $aval Desearch. 2ater on, the Air Force also participated in supporting it. They had the Information 0ervice 5ranch, and they supported mostly the logic research. It/s very interesting, they supported someone like 2ars 2Mfgren, whose very strange mathematical and logical systems practically nobody else understood. shr1 0o the rising dominance of AI didn/t have as big an impact on your lab. hvf1 $o, we were >ust doing our thing. For e'ample, we developed the first parallel computers. ;ur first, real first large parallel computing machine was the $uma)Dete. The $uma)Dete was a :D?Tina: that :saw: $7 bers. The earliest version was a s6uare of <.'<.NC.. photocells, whose :post)retinal network: was computing in parallel the number of :perturbations: )) that is, ob>ects obstructing its visual field1 Five)ness, Ten)ness, <+)ness, or in general $)ness. The registering of this $)ness is of course independent of the shape of the ob>ects, or their position on the sensory surface of the $uma)Dete and, above a certain threshold, also independent of the intensity of the illumination. "hen %ohn von $eumann visited us on some occasions, he en>oyed very much trying to tease the machine1 placed a pretzel with its intricate topology on top, pressed the button, and the counter showed +G Then he placed a nickel in each of the loops of the pretzels, pressed the button, and it showed correctly B, etc. This early machine had a limit of about 9. ob>ects which it registered in a fraction of a second. 2ater versions accounted for about C.. entities in a few milliseconds.J-K shr1 "e have another 6uestion with regard to the historical developments. #ybernetics precedes artificial intelligence as a movement, and one could perhaps e'pect that those two movements could have, in a way, merged or done something together, but that almost never happened. 0omehow the rise of AI was independent of what was happening in cybernetics. and the two disciplines ignored one another or even fought against each other. "hy do you think the forces were never >oinedF hvf1 I think I understand your 6uestion, and it/s a very important one. y feeling is that cybernetics introduced a way of thinking which is implicit in so many fields but it is not e'plicitly referred to as cybernetics. 0o the notion, the perspective, the way of handling a class of problems, came out of the works of cybernetic thinkers like "iener, Ashby, 5eer, etc. For instance, if you follow 0tafford 5eer/s managerial contributions )) which are clearly cybernetic )) nobody will call it cybernetics, but they understand it/s a holistic kind of thinking, where you look at the relationship between elements. It brings about a way of looking at the relations instead of looking at separation. 0o an integrative form of thinking has been introduced by cybernetics. "ays of thinking that do not find e'plicit e'pression, but are implicit in the way in which people are doing things. 0o, from that point of view, I would say cybernetics melted, as a field, into many notions of people who are thinking and working in a variety of other fields. I would like to give you one more e'ample. I have already mentioned that I was slipping into hematology from #ybernetics. This second e'ample concerns *regory 5ateson. "hen I moved here to #alifornia, *regory 5ateson was already in the area, working at the Aeterans Hospital in enlo 3ark and at the 3alo Alto ental Desearch Institute, which he had founded with 4on %ackson and 3aul "atzlawick. I knew *regory 5ateson very well from the acy conferences and when they were discussing problems about logic *regory said :5ut look, I/m not a logician, I don/t do all that. 5ut there/s Heinz von Foerster, and he >ust came to #alifornia. "hy don/t you ask himF: 0o 3aul "atzlawick came to me, and we had a very good discussion. He was fascinated by some of the notions which I brought in from the Aienna #ircle, parado'es and all that. He said :Heinz, we have a

large group of family therapists and they would be delighted to hear about your perspectives.: I said :Aery good, I have no idea what family therapists are doing, but if you think my story would interest them, it would be nice.: 0o I was invited to give a keynote address in a family therapy conference that was arranged by the ental Desearch Institute in memoriam of 4on %ackson. The title of my presentation was1 :3arado'es, #ontradictions, Aicious #ircles, and ;ther #reative 4evices.: The people liked it, and invited me again and again. They invited me without even my understanding why family therapists should invite me, until later on when they finally showed me some actual family therapeutic sessions, so that I could get a grasp of what they were doing. Then I was convinced that they could indeed profit from cybernetic thinking. 0o cybernetics is a way of looking at things, handling things, handling the language, handling the problematic which is developing in dysfunctioning families. It appears in all these things, without e'plicitly being named. shr1 4o you not think that artificial intelligence is similarly implicit in other fieldsF hvf1 I do not think so. The founders and proponents of Artificial Intelligence were from the beginning very much motivated and e'tremely competent to go after highly specialized tasks as, for instance, how to build a robot which could rearrange an arrangement of blocks into another desired arrangement. The performance of these machines are very impressive indeed, but I see them more as witnesses to the e'traordinary natural intelligence of their designers, rather than cases of :artificial intelligence.: The anthropomorphization of these machine functions I see insofar as dangerous, because one may be tempted to believe that when we say :this machine /thinks/: we know now how we think, for we know how the machine :thinks.: 0yntactically, however, the distinction is clear, for when the machines :thinks: they do it between 6uotes1 6uote think un6uote. ?'cept for the name there is nothing in common between the functions :think: and thinkG shr1 This is somewhat reminiscent of some classical criti6ues of artificial intelligence, for e'ample, Hubert 4reyfus/s criti6ue. It seems that you are saying something along 4reyfus/s lines because you are saying that although artificial intelligence is claiming that they are working to solve the problem of intelligence at large, indeed they are working within a very narrow definition of cognition or intelligence, ignoring the larger background and conte't within which cognition operates. And it seems that your view of cybernetics, or your own work, strives to look at cognition the opposite direction, in its largest possible framework. hvf1 The way you put your 6uestion con>ures up in my mind the image of the Doman god of the 5eginnings, the *uardian of the 7niverse, the god %anus. He has a head with two faces that look in opposite directions. $ow I see one face watching Aristotle/s way of synthesizing imitations of life1 :bio) mimesis:@ the other face attending to those who follow the 3latonic of coming to grips with, as 5ateson put it, :mind and $ature, a $ecessary 7nity.: y sense is that we need to learn to look both ways, like the god %anus. shr1 The rift you have described between artificial intelligence and cybernetics seems to be echoed in the newer rift between artificial life and the earlier work on autopoeisis. #ertainly if a lot of technically talented people set out to build innovative models, some good ones will result, but a lot of effort is wasted if these people are unaware of the philosophical conte't the last forty years of scientific history have given us. "hat suggestions and advice do you have which might help move these two approaches back together, for their mutual benefit, particularly in this countryF hvf1 "ell, I am more or less on the outside of these matters now, but because of that I may be able to see them from a more global point of view. I believe we have to look at the ways in which this research is funded. It used to be that the foundations and agencies with which one dealt were often administered by thoughtful men with fairly broad views and liberal arts backgrounds. (ou could talk to them, they would consider your views and make their decisions. If you could make a good case for it, they were willing to go out on a limb and take a risk in funding a new idea or pro>ect. These institutions have now become bureaucracies, and the typical bureaucrat/s highest priority is to cover his ass. He says to himself :$o more risks, >ust make sure you don/t make any mistakes for which you could be blamed. Try

to do what everybody else is doing.: 0o the drift of science is much more influenced by trends and fashions. ;ne sees this in the predominance of attention paid to the more outrageous claims made in fields like artificial intelligence and virtual reality. shr1 5ut why is the situation different for ?uropean researchersF 3articipants in the American A2ife conferences are overwhelmingly in favor of diving into the problem and building anything, programming anything, rather than spending time on considering the fundamental and epistemological problems of the field. The ?uropean ?#A2 conferences, on the other hand, appear to have a strong focus on the philosophical approach. And there/s very little overlap in the constituencies of these two conference series. hvf1 Again, it/s due to the difference in funding strategies. ?uropean scholars, while perhaps not en>oying the most up)to)date facilities, are given the intellectual freedom of security in their positions, which allows them to focus on long)term and fundamental issues. They can afford to spend years and years on a single problem. American researchers have a shorter funding cycle, their grants are predominantly for specific targeted research, and they live with the pressure and urgency of a need for practical results. Another difference is in the preparation of the students. Two e6ually brilliant students in a technical field, one from ?urope and one from the 7.0., will be e'pected to have very different types and levels of skill. ;ne e'pects the ?uropean to know his field as well as some history, some philosophy, geography, literature, art, etc. etc., while the American will be e'pert in the highly specialized methods and results of the field and ignorant of anything outside of it. They don/t seem to read anymoreG shr1 4o you have any papers where you apply the cybernetics perspective to problems in other fields, such as Family Therapy that you mentionedF hvf1 0ure, I do. Are you interested, would you like to take a few papers alongF I can give you a few. shr1 0ure, we/d be delighted. This e'change ended our interview with Heinz von Foerster. In order to show the reader :Heinz von Foerster in action,: we are printing :?thics and 0econd ;rder #ybernetics: a keynote address he gave at the International #onference on 0ystems and Family Therapy )) ?thics, ?pistemology, $ew ethods, which took place in 3aris in +,,.. 0tefano Franchi, Heinz von Foerster, *Oven *Ozeldere@ August +,,C, 3escadero, #alifornia. Notes +. %ulian 5igelow, $orbert "iener and Arturo Dosenblueth, :5ehavior, 3urpose and Teleology,: 0hilosophy of Science +. !+,CB&. <. 0tephen 3olyak, (he Eerte&rate Eisual System, ed. Heinrick Hluver !#hicago1 The 7niversity of #hicago 3ress, +,CB&. B. 0ee the collection "arren c#ulloch, Em&odiments .f Mind !#ambridge, A1 IT 3ress, +,-9&. C. *ottard *uenther, 2eitrJ-e 'ur /rundle-un- einer operationsfJhi-en 5iale?ti? , B vols. !Hamburg1 Feli' einer Aerlag, +,8-&. Currents in Modern 2iolo-y 9,C !+,8C& +=8),-. -. 0ee 3aul "eston, :3hotocell Field #ounts Dandom ;b>ects,: Electronics, !0eptember <<, +,-+& for more details.

A 0election of "ritings by Heinz von Foerster

Exemplar 1
n !nteraction, the "hole and its #arts$ %ommunication &mon'st #lanariae A coalition is an e'ample of the old saying that :the whole is more than the sum of its parts:. Although we seem to understand very well what this means, this statement has been attacked by positivists and operationalists time and again, rightly so, I think, because the way it stands it clearly is nonsense. Two and two are both parts of four, but < P < N C and not a tiny bit more or less. However, if what we want to say by this statement is properly formulated, a most profound principle is defined. It is the principle of superadditive compositions for elements making up a system. 2et me first give a precise formulation of this principle in rather abstract terms, and later illustrate the application of this principle to pertinent concrete situations. "hat we really want to say is1 :A measure of the sum of the parts is larger than the sum of the measure of the parts:. This statement can be formulated in even more precise, mathematical terms. #onsider F to be a measure function. If you recall that the symbol :Q: stands for :left side larger than right side:, the above statement can be written in the following way1 F!aPb& Q F!a& P F!b& In order to make this highly symbolical e'pression more tangible, let me suggest a simple e'ample which may evoke old high school memories. Take for the moment as an e'ample of a measure function the operation :s6uaring:, that is F! & N ! &< 06uaring all F)e'pressions in our first e6uation we obtain1 F!aPb& N !aPb&< N a< P b< P <ab and F!a& N a<, F!b& N b< 3utting the results back in the form of our first e6uation, we obtain the undeniable truth that indeed1 a< P b< P <ab Q a< P b< The margin which makes the left hand side of this ine6uality larger than the right hand side is, of course, the product <ab. This provides us with an important clue. The product <ab is nothing else but the measure of the interaction of the two parts a and b, namely the interaction of a with b and b with a. Hence, by taking the mutual interaction of elements in a system into consideration, the system as a whole indeed represents a more valuable entity than the mere sum of its independent parts. That a

coalition is such a structure, where individual elements interact for the benefit of the system as a whole and hence for the advantage of each element comprising the system is, I believe, now reasonably clear. These so called :non)linear composition rules: allow in a non)trivial way the description of systems composed of interacting elements. Take, for instance, a colony of about a hundred million flatworms of the genus planaria. ?ach of these creatures has about one hundred nerve cells. The human brain also has about ten billion nerve cells. "hy don/t these hundred million planariae represent the intelligence of a human brainF "ith this short course on superadditive composition rules, you are certainly now in a position to answer this puzzle. It is because brain cells are in a state of perpetual interaction, constantly coordinating, abstracting, and sifting pertinent information for the system as a whole. 3oor planariae cannot do it@ add a couple of million planariae to our colony, and nothing changes in the structure of this colony. They do not interact, If they interact, they interact by competing for a limited supply of food. !Heinz von Foerster, :The Logical Structure of Environment and its Internal Representation >, in D.?. ?ckerstrom !ed.&, International 4esign #onference Aspen +,-<, Reeland, ichigan1 Herman iller, Inc. +,-B&

E(em)lar * Ma'netic %u+es in a ,o($ rder From Noise 2et me briefly e'plain what I mean by saying that a selfForganizing system feeds upon noise by using an almost trivial, but nevertheless amusing e'ample. Assume I get myself a large sheet of permanent magnetic material which is strongly magnetized perpendicular to the surface, and I cut from this sheet a large number of little s6uares. These little s6uares I glue to all the surfaces of small cubes made of light, unmagnetic material, having the same size as my s6uares. 4epending upon the choice of which sides of the cubes have the magnetic north pole pointing to the outside !Family +&, one can produce precisely ten different families of cubes. 0uppose now I take a number of cubes, say, of family +, which is characterized by all sides, having north poles pointing to the outside !or family +/ with all south poles&, put them into a large bo' which is also filled with tiny glass pebbles in order to make these cubes float under friction and start shaking this bo'. #ertainly, nothing very striking is going to happen1 since the cubes are all repelling each other, they will tend to distribute themselves in the available space such that none of them will come too close to its fellowFcube. If, by putting the cubes into the bo', no particular ordering principle was observed, the entropy of the system will remain constant, or, at worst, increase a small amount. In order to make this game a little more amusing, suppose now I collect a population of cubes where only half of the elements are again members belonging to family I !or I/&, while the other half are members of family II !or II/&, which is characterized by having only one side of different magnetism pointing to the outside. If this population is put into my bo' and I go on shaking, clearly, those cubes with the single different pole pointing to the outside will tend, with overwhelming probability, to mate with members of the other family, until my cubes have almost all paired up. 0ince the conditional probabilities of finding a member of family II, given the locus of a member of family I, has very much increased, the entropy of the system has gone down, hence we have more order after the shaking than before.

I grant you, that this increase in orderliness is not impressive at all, particularly if the population density is high. All right then, let/s take a population made up entirely of members belonging to family IA5, which is characterized by opposite polarity of the two pairs of those three sides which >oin in two opposite corners. I put those cubes into my bo' and you shake it. After some time we open the bo' and, instead of seeing a heap of cubes plied up somewhere in the bo', you may not believe your eyes, but an incredibly ordered structure will emerge, which, I fancy, may pass the grade to be displayed in an e'hibition of surrealistic art !see Figure B&.

Figure B1 An arrangement of magnetic cubes demonstrates order from noise. If I would have left you ignorant with respect to my magnetic)surface trick and you would ask me, what is it that put the cubes into this remarkable order, I would keep a straight face and would answer1 The shaking, of course F and some little demons in the bo'. "ith this e'ample, I hope, I have sufficiently illustrated the principle I called :order from noise,: because no order was fed to the system, >ust cheap undirected energy. However, thanks to the little demons in the bo', in the long run only those components of the noise were selected which contributed to the increase of order in the system. The occurrence of a mutation e.g. would be a pertinent analogy in the case of gametes being the systems of consideration. Hence, I would name two mechanisms as important clues to the understanding of selfForganizing systems, one we may call the :order from order: principle as 0chroedinger suggested, and the other one the :order from noise: principle, both of which re6uire the cooperation of our demons who are created along with the elements of our system, being manifest in some of the intrinsic structural properties of these elements. !Heinz Aon Foerster, :.n Self .r-ani'in- Systems and (heir Environments ,: in (ovits and #ameron !eds.&, 0elf ;rganizing 0ystems, $ew (ork 3ergamon, +,-., pp. B+F9..&

E(em)lar .he Gentleman in the ,owler Hat$ &utonom/, 0es)onsi+ilit/, 0ealit/ :The nervous system is organized !or organizes itself& so that it computes a stable reality.: This postulate stipulates :autonomy,: i.e. :self)regulation,: for every living organism. 0ince the semantic structure of nouns with prefi' :selfF: becomes more transparent when this prefi' is replaced by the noun, :autonomy: becomes synonymous with :regulation of regulation.:

It may be strange in times like these to stipulate autonomy, for autonomy implies responsibility1 If I am the only one who decides how I act, then I am responsible for my action. 0ince the rule of the most popular game played today is to make someone also responsible for my acts ) the name of the game is :heteronomy: F my arguments make, I understand, a most unpopular claim. ;ne way of sweeping it under the rug is to dismiss it as >ust another attempt to rescue :solipsism:, the view that this world is only in my imagination and the only reality is the imagining :l:. Indeed, that was precisely what I was saying before, but I was talking only about a single organism. The situation is 6uite different when there are two, as I shall demonstrate with the aid of the gentleman with the bowler hat !see Figure C&. He insists that he is the sole reality, while everything also appears only in his imagination. However, he cannot deny that his imaginary universe is populated with apparitions that are not unlike himself. Hence, he has to concede that they themselves may insist that they are the sole reality and everything also is only a conception of their imagination. In that case their imaginary universe will be populated with apparitions, one of which may be he, the gentleman with the bowler hat. According to the 3rinciple of Delativity which re>ects a hypothesis when it does not hold for two instances together, although it holds for each instance separately !?arthlings and Aenusians may be consistent in claiming to be in the center of the universe, but their claims fall to pieces if they should ever get together&, the solipsistic claim falls to pieces when beside me I invent another autonomous organism. However, it should be noted that since the 3rinciple of Delativity is not a logical necessity, nor is it a proposition that can be proven to be either true or false, the crucial point to be recognized here is that I am free to choose either to adopt this principle or to re>ect it.

Figure C1The gentleman in the bowler hat. Are his perceptions of other people fantasies or realityF If I re>ect it, I am the center of the universe, my reality is my dreams and my nightmares, my language is monologue, and my logic mono)logic. If I adopt it, neither me nor the other can be the center of the universe. As in the heliocentric system, there must be a third that is the central reference. It is the relation between Thou and I, and this relation is I4?$TIT(1 Deality N #ommunity. "hat are the conse6uences of all this in ethics and aestheticsF The ?thical Imperative1 Act always so as to increase the number of choices. The Aesthetical Imperative1 If you desire to see, learn how to act. !Heinz Aon Foerster, :.n Constructin- a Reality>, in ".F.?. 3raiser !ed.&, ?nvironmental 4esign Desearch, Aolume <, 4owden, Hutchinson and Dose, +,8B, pp. CCFC9.&

HE!N1 V N F E0S.E0 2345446

0tuart A. 7mpleby The *eorge "ashington 7niversity, "ashington, 4# <...9< $ovember <..+
.he 7ears ,efore lllinois Heinz has been a central figure in the field of cybernetics since its beginning. 4uring his student days in the +,B.s he became involved with the Aienna #ircle, a group of philosophers that included "ittgenstein, 0chlick, enger and #arnap. From them he developed an interest in the fundamental difference between the world as it is and its symbolic representation in language or e6uations. He wanted to learn more about the observer. However, "orld "ar II intervened, and he spent those years in various laboratories in *ermany working on plasma physics and microwave electronics. 2uckily he survived the war unscathed in mind or body. After the war he helped set up the first post)war radio station in Aienna and was in charge of its science and art program until +,C,. In those days of re>uvenation, he returned to the old riddle of the nature of the observer. "ith the encouragement of the psychiatrists Aictor Frankl and ;tto 3otzi, he published a short monograph on a 6uantum mechanical theory of physiological memory. 4uring a visit to the 7nited 0tates he met "arren c#ulloch who not only had the data for his theory of memory but who also introduced him to the campus at 7rbana. Through c#ulloch, at conferences about :#ybernetics1 #ircular #ausal and Feedback echanisms in 5iological and 0ocial 0ystems: sponsored by the %osiah acy %r. Foundation, he met the people who laid the conceptual foundation for understanding the really complicated systems ) teleological systems and self)organizing systems. The people attending these conferences included *regory 5ateson, %ulian 5igelow, argaret ead, %ohn von $eumann, $orbert "iener and Doss Ashby. Heinz was so fascinated by the ideas that emerged at these meetings that after seven years of research at the 7niversity of Illinois in microwave tubes and ultra)highspeed oscillography, he went on sabbatical leave to learn more about the neurophysiology of his enigmatic observer. After one year under the tutelage of "arren c#ulloch at IT and Arturo Dosenblueth in e'ico he returned to the 7niversity of Illinois and established the 5iological #omputer 2aboratory to study computational principles in living organisms. .he ,iolo'ical %om)uter 8a+orator/ Almost from the beginning it was apparent that the 5iological #omputer 2aboratory !5#2& was not an ordinary university research group. ;ne of the most amusing episodes in the history of 5#2 was the series of events that led up to Heinz/s being mentioned in the cartoon strip 3ogo, a distinction for scientists even rarer than the $obel 3rize !see Figure +&. 0omeone at the $ational Institutes of Health wanted a mathematical model of the population dynamics of white blood corpuscles. 5y working on this problem Heinz became interested in the dynamics of populations, both those whose elements interact and those with elements that do not interact. He figured that data on human population growth would be the most complete set of data for a population with elements capable of communication. The result was

an article in Science in +,-. by Heinz Aon Foerster, 3atricia ora and 2awrence Amiot called :4oomsday, Friday, +B $ovember, A.4. <.<-.:J<K They found that the e6uation which best fit the data was not an e'ponential but rather a hyperbolic e6uation. There is a ma>or difference. If population is an e'ponential function of time, population will become very large as time increases, but within a limited period of time the population will remain finite. A hyperbolic function, however, has asymptotes. That is, there will be a time at which population will go to infinity. Applying the method of least s6uares to parameterize the e6uation led to the date <.<8, hence the title of the article.

Fi'ure 4$ 0eference to the 9oomsda/ article in the #o'o comic stri) There followed one of the most entertaining e'changes of letters ever to appear in 0cience. The idea that the human population could, through communication, form a coalition and engage in a game against nature was a particularly troubling idea. ;ne demographer called attention to the widely accepted view that industrialization reduces rather than increases population. Heinz and his colleagues pointed out that, if an inverse relationship between population and technological know)how is applied to the human population over the last couple of millennia, then :either 0tone Age man was a technological wizard, who carefully removed his technological achievements so as not to upset his inferior progeny, orS our population dwindled from a once astronomical size to the mere three billions of today.: JBK The 5#2 e6uation turned out to be considerably more accurate than other forecasts in predicting world population in +,8.. The others were more conservative. However, +,89 data suggested that world population had moved ahead of even the 5#2 e6uation. JCK In addition to research the 5iological #omputer 2aboratory also had a significant impact on the students at the 7niversity. ;n even the largest college campuses there is usually a small group of students who are innovators in campus activities. They are the students who write for the campus newspaper and lead political or reform movements. These students usually know each other, and they often can be found in special pro>ects courses with the most stimulating faculty members. At the 7niversity of ichigan the ental Health Desearch Institute with %ames *. iller, Anatol Dapoport, Henneth 5oulding, %ohn D. 3latt, and Dichard 2. eier was a focus of innovative activity. Tom Hayden and #arl ;glesby were students of Henneth 5oulding. 5oulding once said that 0tudents for a 4emocratic 0ociety was born in his living room as a result of a seminar in economics. The 5iological #omputer 2aboratory served a similar function at the 7niversity of Illinois. ;ver the years Heinz/s students produced a "hole 7niversity #atalogue, a book on etagames, an ?cological 0ourcebook, and a large volume on the #ybernetics of #ybernetics. It is easy to understand why there was always a feeling of e'citement around 5#2 once one understands Heinz/s views on education. Heinz notes that most of contemporary education is designed to make students react to a 6uestion in e'actly the same way. Tests are given to determine how successful the system has been at making the student a completely predictable member of society. The higher the score, the more predictable the student. In other words the purpose of education is to turn nontrivial systems into trivial systems. Heinz, following Herbert 5run, defines an illegitimate 6uestion to be one for which the answer is known. A legitimate 6uestion is one for which the answer is not known. Hence formal education is mostly concerned with illegitimate 6uestions. At 5#2 the emphasis was on learning to ask legitimate 6uestions. J9K

Said Hein' there are t+o ?inds of Huestions, (o some there are ans+ers in lessons, 2ut the Huestions that count, (he ones to surmount, ,re the Huestions that not yet are Huestioned7 K4L To be :recruited: to 5#2 one only had to be attentive to the life of the campus. 5ecause of his highly entertaining as well as thoughtFprovoking manner of speaking, Heinz was a fre6uent lecturer on campus. ;ne of the first times I heard him speak was about +,-C at the weekly luncheon series at the ( #A. In his talk Heinz predicted that in the years ahead people would make three discoveries. First, they would discover that the earth is finite. That is, population growth cannot continue indefinitely. 0econd, people would learn that power resides where information resides. Third, human beings would discover that A is better off if 5 is better off. ?vents have tended to follow these predictions. In +,-=, 3aul ?hrlich published The 3opulation 5omb, and gradually people became more aware of rapidly increasing population and the impossibility of sustaining the high growth rate for very long. J8K Degarding the second prediction, the +,8./s brought greater attention to global communications ) satellites, television, computer networks ) and also revelations about the covert activities of the #IA and the F5I. In +,89 documents were made public which showed that during "orld "ar ll the Allies were able to listen to the message traffic of the *erman and %apanese high commands. J=K Alan Turing was a central figure in this work. It was no accident that "orld "ar II was such a successful war for the 7nited 0tates. This new perspective on "orld "ar II helps to e'plain the interest of the intelligence agencies in cybernetics research. The 7.0. government had learned that power resides where information resides. The achievement of Heinz/s third prediction ) people will realize that A is better off when 5 Is better off ) seems to lie within our grasp. The #old "ar is over. ?urope is becoming united, and nations are working together as never before. In about +,8C, I mentioned to Heinz the three predictions he had made a decade earlier. He had forgotten about them, and he attached little significance to them. He said he had put them together a short while before giving the talk because he thought they would amuse the audience. 5ut for me, those three predictions remain an e'ample of Heinz/s depth of insight, broad human concern, and faith in the eventual good sense of his fellow human beings. 2est this description of the activities at 5#2 leave the reader with the impression that the laboratory led an untroubled e'istence, I should say a few words about the difficulties that Heinz faced. 5#2 was a leader. It was chronically ahead of its time. There was an e'uberance at 5#2 that some interpreted as lack of seriousness. Iuite a few people thought that anyone with an interest in physics, linguistics, art, music, dance, and anthropology must be a dilettante. And more than a few people suspected that calling attention to perception was somehow subversive. "hile the lack of understanding was unfortunate, it did not greatly matter as long as Heinz maintained his reputation as a successful grantsman. 5ut then came the ansfield Amendment. ost of the early work on cybernetics had been supported by the ;ffice of $aval Desearch and the Air Force ;ffice of 0cientific Desearch. 5ut in about +,-= the ansfield Amendment put an end to research pro>ects supported by the 4epartment of 4efense that were not clearly related to a military mission. It was intended that the $ational 0cience Foundation and other agencies would pick up the support of pro>ects that had been funded by 4;4. The problem of course was that these agencies did not have people who were familiar with the work in cybernetics. There followed several frustrating years of searching for new sources of support. eanwhile Doss Ashby and *otthard *unther had retired and left the 7niversity. Finally in +,89 Heinz

retired and moved to #alifornia. The 7niversity decided not to hire new faculty members to continue the work of 5#2. For those familiar with the laboratory, it was a heartbreaking end to a remarkable episode in the history of science. How to do %/+ernetics 5#2 left behind a rich legacy. In its day, it was one of very few educational institutions training people in cybernetics. 5etween +,9= and +,89 operating under <9 grants, the laboratory produced <9- articles and books, +C masters theses and <= doctoral dissertations. The topics covered epistemology, logic, neurophysiology, theory of computation, electronic music and automated instruction. These materials are available in a microfiche file compiled by Henneth "ilson. 5ut merely to note the range of ideas developed at 5#2 does not capture the feelings regarding the laboratory. Among the graduates of 5#2 that I know there is a strong feeling that the work produced at 5#2 has not received the attention that it deserves. "hen we go to conferences on cybernetics and systems theory, we find that many people are still struggling with issues that were resolved at 5#2, often 6uite elegantly, long ago. "e believe that the field could progress more rapidly if the work done at 5#2 were more widely known. ;f course other groups were also doing important work during this period. *reat progress was being made in computer science, artificial intelligence, operations research, simulation languages, the brain sciences and other related fields. 5ut at 5#2 there was more emphasis on epistemology than at other cybernetics research institutes. The different epistemology has led to a sort of gap between the 5#2 point of view and other systems theorists. 3eople with a 5#2 background e'perience this gap as frustration when we try to discuss a wide range of theoretical issues. ;ur views are often re>ected for reasons that seem to us uninformed and unpersuasive. It is apparent that there is something rather comple' going on. In order to understand the importance of Heinz/s ideas and why they have so far e'perienced such limited acclaim, it is necessary to understand how science operates. ost scientific work follows well) trod paths. The 6uestions dealt with are widely shared. The methods used are commonly practiced. #onse6uently the results of most scientific work are readily understood and there is widespread agreement about their significance within the community concerned. 5ut scientific work that leads to the establishment of a new area of in6uiry is different in kind. To understand this difference I find it useful to refer to Thomas Huhn/s list of components of a :disciplinary matri':. In the epilogue to The 0tructure of 0cientific Devolutions Huhn identifies at least four elements of a scientific field. J,K T !+& There are :symbolic generalizations: such as F N ma and ? N ID. !<& odels and analogies include the idea that electric current is similar to water flowing in a pipe and the idea that the molecules of a gas behave like tiny elastic billiard balls in random motion. !B& :Aalues: could include the following propositions1 Iuantitative predictions are preferable to 6ualitative ones. 3redictions should be accurate. Theories should !or need not& be socially useful. !C& :?'emplars: are the concrete problem solutions that students encounter from the start of their scientific education, whether in laboratories, on e'aminations, or at the ends of chapters in scientific te'ts. ?'emplars show scientists how their >ob is to be done. "ork at The *eorge "ashington 7niversity on a :disciplinary matri': for the field of cybernetics has led to two additional components. !9& :*uiding 6uestions: state the principal concerns that motivate the development of theory. For e'ample, early in his career "arren c#ulloch asked the 6uestion, :"hat is a number that man may know it, and a man that he may know a numberF: !-& :Techni6ues: are the methods an author uses to persuade the reader to his point of view.

Techni6ues can be mathematical or verbal. ?'amples are set theoretical proofs, regression analysis, computer simulation, laboratory e'periments with animals, survey research, thought e'periments, and historical e'amples. a>or changes in science seem to occur through the formulation of new :guiding 6uestions:. Heinz, for instance, has been preoccupied with the nature of the observer. 3rogress toward the resolution of a guiding 6uestion usually takes the form of new :e'emplars:. The role of e'emplars in the development of a scientific field is crucial. Huhn e6uates his concept of :paradigm: with e'emplars. ?'emplars can be used to identify the groups within a scientific field who practice the discipline differently. Those with a 5#2 background use different e'emplars and hence are using a different paradigm. Heinz/s articles are filled with fascinating e'emplars. Three of these accompany this article as illustrations. A central concept within the field of systems science is the notion that a whole can be somehow greater than the sum of its parts !see ?'emplar +, at the end of this paper&. (et this very important idea is often not precisely understood. Heinz has resolved the mystery with two simple illustrations, one from mathematics and one from biology. The story of the magnetic cubes in a bo' demonstrates what Heinz calls :order from noise: !see ?'emplar <&. I believe that it is also the most readily understood illustration of a self)organizing system. In order for more comple' systems to evolve, two things must happen, $ew variety must be generated, and appropriate selection must take place. A self)organizing system is not a living system. Dather, a self)organizing system contains both organisms and their environments. As the system moves toward its stable e6uilibrial states, it :selects: the stable relationships. The e'ample of the magnetic cubes in a bo' illustrates how this very general process can also generate variety. As the separate bo'es find stable relationships, they form chains. The chains of bo'es can themselves be the elements in the ne't step in the process of selfForganization. Thus Heinz/s e'ample of the magnetic cubes in a bo' illustrates one way that new entities may emerge. The idea of a self)organizing system as a closed system !the interaction rules do not change during the period of observation& is one of the most important and powerful ideas in systems theory. The principle can be applied in many ways. For instance, anticipating the stable states of a system is an alternative to trend e'trapolation as a forecasting method. Re-ression fits systems Must trivial, 2ut humans are systems convivial, (o say +hat +ill last 1rom times that are past, 6ill lead to conclusions peripheral7 The gentleman in the bowler hat can be regarded as proof of the need for multi)valued logics !see ?'emplar B, at the end of this paper&. A principal concern of systems theory is the relationship between an organism and its environment. However, it is not sufficient to speak only of an organism and its environment. The logical structure of the concept :environment: is more comple' than can be described by a dyadic relationship. In order to establish the concept :environment,: there must be at least two elements observing this environment. And they must be sufficiently alike in order to serve as mutual witnesses for any ob>ective event. ;nly knowledge that can be shared belongs to the environment.

;bservers without shared knowledge inhabit different universes. The logical structure of environment is a triadic relation because it involves three entities1 an observer, A@ a witness, A/@ and that which is witnessed, 5. "hat is called the environment can be called :togetherFknowledge: for which the 2atin e'pression Is conscientia. Heinz has suggested that it was probably the triadic logical structure of this concept that gave philosophers over the last three thousand years difficulty when they tried to reason to a simple trueFfalse, twoFvalued, Aristotelian logic, where at least a threeFvalued logic is re6uired. J+.K ;f course It can be claimed that consciousness Is a single person/s affair and that you do not need a witness in order to be conscious. However, note that our consciousness is produced by the :together) knowledge: of our different senses. The ear is witness to what the eye sees. Touch confirms what the eye reports. For those for whom mental activity is an important part of life, a person who can invent images with such great organizing power becomes the ob>ect of tremendous affection. #ybernetics, like any science, is a different way of seeing. :4oing research: on a different way of seeing means creating e'amples of how the world looks from the new point of view. If the field of cybernetics has not progressed as rapidly as we would have liked@ the reason may lie in the fact that more of us have not realized that a new field re6uires new e'emplars. Second rder %/+ernetics and the %han'e of Science Heinz believes that in order to deal with current concerns, science must change to include attention to the observer. He calls the new point of view :second order cybernetics:. For several definitions of the difference between first order cybernetics and second order cybernetics, see Table +. [44] 2et me e'plain this new point of view in my own words. 0cience can be thought of as having moved through three stages in how it deals with ob>ectivity. In the early days of science researchers were concerned with inanimate ob>ects such as balls, pendula and planets. "e could call this an era of :un6uestioned ob>ectivity:. "hen science progressed to the study of human behavior, it was found that control groups were necessary to eliminate interaction effects between the observer and the sub>ects. That is, the e'perimenter would now have two groups of sub>ects rather than >ust one. For e'ample, one group would be given the medication to be tested and the other group would receive a placebo. The difference between the responses of the two groups was assumed to be due to the drug. ?ffects due to the attention received by the sub>ects from the doctor could thereby be eliminated. This second stage in the treatment of ob>ectivity could be called :constructed ob>ectivity:. Things became 6uite unwieldy, however, when social scientists began to do large)scale social e'periments. 4uring the mid)+,-./s a great wave of social legislation was passed in the 7nited 0tates as part of 2yndon %ohnson/s *reat 0ociety program. After a few years it became apparent that many of the programs were not working e'actly as anticipated. There then developed a peculiar commonality of interest between conservatives and social scientists. The conservatives wanted to stop the social programs. The social scientists argued that before implementing a new social program on a nationwide basis, e'periments should be run in selected communities to determine the effects of the program. These e'periments were fre6uently 6uite controversial. The purpose of the e'periment was usually defined differently by different people. The e'perimenters were considered suspect because they did not live in the community. And people demonstrated a remarkable ability to re>ect findings they did not agree with no matter how :scientifically: the e'periment was conducted. Table 1 Author Aon Foerster First ;rder #ybernetics The science of observed systems 0econd ;rder #ybernetics The science of observing systems

3ask Aarela 7mpleby 7mpleby

The purpose of the model #ontrolled systems Interaction among the variables in a system Theories of social systems

The purpose of the modeler Autonomous systems Interactions between observer and observed A theory of the interaction between ideas and society

These e'periences led itroff and 5lankenship to develop seven guidelines for conducting a holistic e'periment.[4*] The guidelines are a radical departure from current methods in the social sciences. The usual social science e'periment today, consistent with the second stage in the treatment of ob>ectivity, consists of testing a single hypothesis using a set of sub>ects and a control group. However, the guidelines for a holistic e'periment say that at least two points of view should be used. Furthermore, the e'perimenters should be included within the class of sub>ects, and the sub>ects should be included within the class of e'perimenters. These guidelines amount to a new scientific method that is compatible with the new epistemology and its emphasis on the role of the observer. This third stage in the treatment of ob>ectivity can be called the period of :contested ob>ectivity:. Some systems display little interaction, 2ut politics ma?es payments to each faction7 6hen esta&lishin- a-reement, 2ecomes a -reat achievement, 6ill >o&Mectivity> -ive sufficient satisfactionI The new epistemology or second order cybernetics encounters at least two kinds of resistance. 0ome people simply do not understand the 6uestion. Hence, they are unable to appreciate the answer. The concern with epistemology is not their concern. Their attention is elsewhere. 0o the discussion is irrelevant. This was my situation during my early association with 5#2. I began working with Heinz in +,8+ in order to better understand the work of Doss Ashby, which did seem relevant to my concerns at the time. Heinz kept talking about the observer, a point that seemed rather obvious to me and not worthy of lengthy discussion. I believe it took about eighteen months for me to begin to get an inkling of what Heinz was talking about. I find now that second order cybernetics provides me with a scientific basis for understanding things that I previously would have thought were outside the reach of science. For e'ample the rise of humanistic psychology and the human potential movement and the concern with values and ethics can be e'plained in terms of the observer/s being aware of his relationship with his environment and the desire that people have to develop communities of common understanding. The second type of opposition that the new point of view encounters is more difficult to cope with. This opposition is less a matter of ignorance than trained disbelief. It is not malicious, but It can be virulent. Its selfFconfidence springs from the belief that the concern with the observer is a new form of introspectionism, the point of view that psychologists abandoned when they adopted behaviorism in the +,-./s in their effort to be more scientific. It may well be that science tends to oscillate back and forth between positions F a concern with the observer, then with the outside world, then with the observer, etc. 5ut the pendulum never returns to e'actly the same position. The old position is redefined as a result of intervening e'perience. $evertheless it is e'tremely difficult to persuade a person whose early career involved the abandonment of one position and the adoption of a new one to embrace a point of view that appears to him to be 6uite similar to a position he long ago re>ected. For dealing with this second kind of opposition to the new epistemology I believe our best hope lies in the correspondence principle.

Heinz introduced me to the correspondence principle ) any new theory should reduce to the old theory for those cases in which the old theory is known to hold. The principle assumes that science grows somewhat like concentric circles. ;f course science can also grow by the development of theories to e'plain completely new phenomena unrelated to previously e'plained phenomena. 5ut if the correspondence principle can be applied, it brings with it several advantages. First, if the new theory is consistent with the old theory for those cases already investigated, a large body of support for the new theory is readily at hand. 0econd, and most important for our purposes, if the correspondence principle can be shown to hold, then those scientists who have devoted their professional lives to the development of the old theory have not labored in vain. That is, the new theory does not threaten to invalidate their work, merely to e'tend it. Thus the correspondence principle reduces the threat of the new theory to those who have developed the old theory. ;f course the correspondence principle does not completely reduce the emotional threat. $or does it seem to make the paradigm shift noticeably easier. $evertheless I have found it to be a useful debating point that seems to ease tensions. The principle tends to turn an eitherUor situation into a bothUand situation.

Fi'ure *$ Second order c/+ernetics fits the corres)ondence )rinci)le: The difference between the old cybernetics and the new cybernetics can be described as follows. 0tart with the assumption that first order cybernetics dealt with interaction among the variables in a system. 0econd order cybernetics, on the other hand, focuses attention on the observer as well as the system being observed. 4raw a line going from zero to some large number !Figure <&. The points on this line indicate varying amounts of attention being paid to the observer. #lassical science or logical positivism !not >ust first order cybernetics& dealt only with cases very near zero. #ontemporary science deals with cases all along the line. #learly the old conception of science is a special case, a subset of the new conception of science. Few scientists have made contributions as significant as Heinz Aon Foerster. He has contributed to electrical engineering and neurophysiology, he revolutionized demography !+B&, and he has been a central figure in establishing the new field of cybernetics. There are still some systems theorists who claim that systems theory is not and should not be a scientific field. 5ut Heinz had the daring to follow the idea of communication and control to its logical conclusion. 0ince science is a method of communication and control, cybernetics is in part a science of science. 5y concentrating on the observer it became apparent that a new kind of science is re6uired. Heinz and his colleagues not only established cybernetics as a scientific field in its own right, they have also developed theories which will eventually lead to the change of science itself.

Heinz Is currently en>oying a very active retirement in a house which he, his wife ai, and his son Andy designed, and with one helper built on Dattlesnake Hill close to 3escadero in #alifornia.
0ee also A 0election of "ritings by Heinz

von Foerster ?'emplar +

0eferences

+. This account is taken from Heinz Aon Foerster, ;#h/sics and &nthro)olo'/$ & #ersonal &ccount +/ the New #resident of the "enner<Gren Foundation;. #urrent Anthropology, Aol. 9, $o. C, +,-C, p. BB.. <. Heinz Aon Foerster, 3atricia . ora, and 2awrence ". Amiot, ;9oomsda/= Frida/, 4- Novem+er, &:9, *>*?,; 0cience, +B<, +,-.. pp. +<,+F+<,9. B. Aon Foerster, ora and Amiot, :#o)ulation 9ensit/ and Growth,; 0cience, +BB, +- %une +,-+, pp. +,B<F+,B8. C. %ames 0errin, :!s 9oomsda/ on .ar'et@: 0cience, +=,, ++ %uly +,89, p. C+,8. 9. 5ased on an article by 4on 5lyly, ;Von Foerster$ &ustrian #rofessor ,rin's %reativit/, !nnovation,; Technograph, the student engineering magazine at the 7niversity of Illinois, February +,8B, p. ++. -. 0tuart 7mpleby, :8imericAs a+out c/+ernetics,; #ybernetics and 0ystems, Aol. <B, $o. <, +,,<, pp. <<,)<B,. 8. 3aul D. ?hrlich, .he #o)ulation ,om+, $ew (ork1 5allantine, +,9=. =. F. ". "interbotham, The 7ltra 0ecret, A 4ell 5ook, +,89. ,. Thomas 0. Huhn, .he Structure of Scientific 0evolutions, 7niversity of #hicago 3ress, 0econd ?dition, +,8., pp. +=<F+=8. +.. Heinz Aon Foerster, :.he 8o'ical Structure of Environment and its !nternal 0e)resentation;, D.?. ?ckerstrom !ed.&, International 4esign #onference Aspen +,-<, Reeland, ichigan1 Herman iller, Inc., +,-B. ++. 0tuart A. 7mpleby, ;Second rder %/+ernetics and the 9esi'n of 8ar'e<Scale Social, E()eriments,; 3roceedings of the Annual eeting of the 0ociety for *eneral 0ystems Desearch, 5oston, February +,89. +<. Ian itroff and Aaughan 5lankenship, ; n the Methodolo'/ of the Holistic E()eriment$ An Approach to the #onceptualization of 2arge)0cale 0ocial ?'periments:, Technological Forecasting and 0ocial #hange, C+C, +,8B, pp. BB,FB9B. +B. 0tuart A. 7mpleby, ;.he Scientific 0evolution in 9emo'ra)h/,: 3opulation and ?nvironment, Aol. ++, $o. B, 0pring +,,., pp. +9,) +8C.

!n Memoriam H:v:F: "hen Heinz von Foerster was in his teens, he and his cousin artin spotted the twenty volumes of %ohann #hristian "iegleb/s $atuerliche agie in the window of an anti6ues shop. This work was the classic te'tbook of the professional magicians/ craft. The boys rushed home, borrowed the C. shillings the dealer asked for it !today about V<9&, and took the books home. A few years later they both passed the official e'amination of the guild and graduated as aster agicians. The diploma saved artin from the trenches during the 0econd "orld "ar, because he was detailed to entertain the troops.

For Heinz, the profound understanding of the magician/s attitude merged with his passion for physics and became the source of a kind of wisdom that is usually alien to science. "ittgenstein was a friend of the family, and when Heinz became a student in Aienna, he heard lectures of #arnap, Deichenbach, "aismann and others who belonged to the "iener Hreis. The unorthodo' views that flourished there had a profound influence on him. As he said later, the Aienna #ircle was not really a school of thought, but a school of thinking. It was more like a discussion group whose members were highly original thinkers who happened to agree on certain points. Heinz listened to them and then proceeded to adapt his interpretation of some of their ideas in the construction of his own picture of the world. Throughout his studies of physics and his subse6uent research on shortwave transmission and signal theory, a problem from a different field intrigued him1 what sort of mechanism could possibly underly our memoryF 5ecause remembering historical dates had always been difficult for him in school, he created a chart for himself on which he marked all the dates that seemed important. He discovered that the further you went back in time, the fewer were the events you learned about. He con>ectured that this was because things tended to be forgotten. His work with electromagnetic signals and the technical notion of information triggered the idea that forgetting might be caused by the physical decay of molecules in the brain. In his spare time, while working for the Austro)American radio station in Aienna, he started to develop this idea and found that the figures psychologists had compiled about forgetting could be considered a perfect match with those that physicists had measured for the decay of large molecules. He wrote it up, a monograph of C. pages. It became his first post)war publication and though he 6uickly gave up the molecular theory it turned a visit to the 7nited 0tates into the beginning of life)long emigration. In +,9= he founded the 5iological #omputer 2aboratory at the 7niversity of Illinois, where he had been in charge of microwave research until then. He directed the 5#2 for almost twenty years, providing a peaceful and stimulating work place for temporary co)researchers such as *ordon 3ask, Doss Ashby, Humberto aturana, *othard *uenther, and others. In an intensely interdisciplinary atmosphere he generated a way of thinking that he aptly called W0econd);rder #yberneticsX. If first)order cybernetics revolutionized the world we observe by introducing the notions of circular causality, feedback, and self)organization, the step to the second order challenged the very concept of observation. Heinz put the new view into a nutshell1 W;b>ectivity is the delusion that observations could be made without an observer.X Instead of worrying about an inaccessible e'ternal reality he focused attention on the world we build in the course of interactions with others in the domain of our e'perience. Though this e'periential world is a social construction, it is also individual because each constructs it according to his or her own e'perience. And because there is always more than one way of constructing, we are all responsible for the world in which we live. He was well aware of the fact that these ideas are not popular. 5ut he was encouraged by people all round the world who had been inspired by his writings and begun to form a network of individuals swimming against the stream of epistemological tradition. "e are mourning the loss of a friend, an irreplaceable intellectual companion, and a truly great thinker. "e are determined to make sure that his insights will not be forgotten. Ernst von Glasersfeld

;ctober <9, <..< Heinz von Foerster Earl/ e()onent of c/+ernetics and Bcircular causalit/B A0 A youth in Aienna, Heinz von Foerster/s first claim to fame was as a magician. 5ut more important, and to some people >ust as magical as his tricks, was his transformation of cybernetics !in the decade around +,8.& by insisting that the observer must be taken into account in the description of any system, because he may affect the processes being observed. From this he went on to develop systems to modify the formulation of the systems of classical cybernetics, in an e'tension of the field that became known as Wthe cybernetics of cyberneticsX or Wsecond)order cyberneticsX. Heinz von Foerster !originally FLrster& was born in Aienna, the eldest son of ?mil von FLrster and his wife 2ilith, and educated in philosophy and logic by the Aienna #ircle, and in physics at Aienna/s Technical 7niversity. He completed his doctorate at the 7niversity of 5reslau in +,CC. His family was distinguished and held a prominent position in the intellectual life of Aienna1 friends and relatives included the philosopher 2udwig "ittgenstein, the playwright Hugo von Hoffmansthal, the painter ?rwin 2ang, and the "iesenthal family. The family supported %osef atthias Hauer, the inventor of an alternative to 0choenberg/s +<)tone techni6ue. His grandfather was architect of the Aienna Ding. He had a brother, 7lrich, and a sister, ?rika, and was especially close to his cousin artin 2ang, with whom he studied magic and roamed Austria/s mountains in winter and in summer. In +,B, he married the actress ai 0tuermer, with whom he had three sons. 4uring the war von Foerster lived and worked in 5erlin, where he moved to disguise the %ewish element in his ancestry, and did research in short)wave and plasma physics. At the end of the war he found a way back to Austria, where he worked in the telephone industry while also reporting on art and science for the Austro)American radio station Dot)"eiss)Dot, his communication skills and showmanship flourishing. eanwhile, he was working on his book emory1 A Iuantum 3hysical ?'amination. To promote this, he moved to the 7nited 0tates in +,C,, where !with barely a word of ?nglish& he was taken up by the mathematician, neuroscientist and philosopher "arren c#ulloch, with whom he communicated in the language of mathematics. The trip was a turning)point. c#ulloch was then chairing the acy #onferences on W#ircular #ausal and Feedback echanisms in 5iological and 0ocial 0ystemsX in $ew (ork, which were attended by the anthropologists argaret ead and *regory 5ateson, the computation theorist %ohn von $eumann and the mathematician $orbert "iener. To improve his ?nglish, von Foerster was made secretary and editor. His first act was to add W#yberneticsX to the conference title. Together with "iener/s book #ybernetics !+,C=&, these conferences gave form and substance to the emerging discipline. The study of Wcircular causalityX can now be said to be the real heart of cybernetics. c#ulloch arranged for von Foerster to become director of the 7niversity of Illinois tube laboratory. Aon Foerster imported his family and lived in #hampaign until his retirement in +,8-, when he moved into a house that he built himself, with his architect son, above the 3acific outside 3escadero, #alifornia.

In +,9= von Foerster founded the 5iological #omputer 2aboratory, attracting considerable funding. As well as a cohort of students, he hosted most of the distinguished scholars in cybernetics for residencies, and the laboratory became the world/s most advanced centre for the development of cybernetic thinking. The first parallel computers were built there, and crucial research was carried out on the fast electronic switching that is critical to today/s computers. Although von Foerster is known in some circles for his e'cursion into demographics !when he started lively debate in the >ournal 0cience&, he was most important for sponsoring radical work in such sub>ects as the organisation of the living and the foundations of mathematics and logic. He tended to hide his own contribution behind the work of others, but his understanding of the refle'ive nature of systems led to profound changes in the understanding of knowledge and of our connection with the world in which we find ourselves. For many he reintroduced the amazement of wonder. Having held *uggenheim fellowships in +,9-)98 and +,-B)-C, von Foerster won many honours. He was president of the "enner)*ren Foundation, +,-B)-9, and of the 0ociety for *eneral 0ystems Desearch, +,8-)88. He was elected to a fellowship of the American Association for the Advancement of 0cience in +,=., and in +,,- the 7niversity of Aienna made him an honorary professor. 2ast year he won the first Aiktor Frankl 3rize. He published some <.. scientific papers and several books, and gave more than a thousand lectures around the world. He is survived by his wife, ai, and two sons. Heinz von Foerster, cybernetician, was born on $ovember +B, +,++. He died on ;ctober <, <..<, aged ,..
#opyright <..< Times $ewspapers 2td.

;n a cold day between #hristmas and $ew (ear +,-+, in search of a place to study, I met Heinz in his office at the 5iological #omputer 2aboratory. I knew of him through a network of designers who, like me, were interested in issues that conventional curricula did not address. Heinz greeted me, a total stranger, with the enthusiasm usually reserved for an old friend. To my surprise, he knew of the place where I had came from !the 7lm 0chool of 4esign, an avant)garde institution now e'tinct but reproduced everywhere ) much as cybernetics is now&, and he suggested that I come to the 7niversity of Illinois to study with ". Doss Ashby. This short encounter enrolled me into cybernetics and defined my intellectual focus for years to come. Heinz was an amazing orator. He used the language of mathematics to ingeniously demonstrate the profundity of simple ideas. In +,8C, now a professor of communication, I organized an American 0ociety for #ybernetics !A0#& conference on cybernetics in society at the 7niversity of 3ennsylvania. He had >ust finished teaching his famous course on the cybernetics of cybernetics and brought a carload of students from 7rbana to 3hiladelphia. He was the key note speaker, of course. I can still see him addressing the audience with his usual Aiennese charm1 Y2adies and *entlemenSZ #alling our attention to the a'iomatic phrase YAnything said is said by an observer,Z he named it Humberto aturana[s Theorem $umber ;ne, and suggested a YmodestZ e'tension1 YHeinz von Foerster[s #orollary $umber ;ne1 \Anything said is said to an observer[.Z In a stroke of genius, by changing only one two)letter word, he shifted our epistemologic attention from aturana[s acts of observation to acts of communication and proceeded to show that such acts entail responsibilities that we must not transfer to others.

Heinz accomplished rhetorical feasts like that often and with the ease of a magician1 asking 6uestions that others had not thought of@ turning conventional beliefs into puzzling opposites@ leading his audiences to consider alternative ways of thinking ) always moving recursive constructions of human activity into the center of the conversations. Heinz[ greatest strength undoubtedly was his ability to encourage others to be audacious as well, to have the courage to ponder radical 6uestions. 4oing this was his cybernetics and it has now become ours. "e stayed in touch by phone, e'changed papers, and met at many conferences and on his beloved Dattlesnake Hill. For the last couple of years, he was not well, he told me. 5ut as a second)order cybernetician, this did not prevent him from applying his own principles to himself and carrying on against all medical predictions, always positive, curious, interpersonally engaged, fascinated by new ideas, and e'cited about even the smallest accomplishments. The last time I saw Heinz was in %une <..<, with a friend. He greeted us with his characteristically animated, YHello,Z in6uired about our plans for the forthcoming cybernetics conference in 0anta #ruz, asked about the people in our lives, wanted to know of any breakthroughs, and showed us the latest books about him. He was full of live and present against all odds. Deading interviews of him or transcripts of his talks, those who knew him cannot but help hearing his e'uberance, sensing his energy, and en>oying his playful >uggling of ideas ] even through translations. "e will miss him, but his voice will continue to be heard. Hlaus Hrippendorff *regory 5ateson Term 3rofessor for #ybernetics, 2anguage, and #ulture The Annenberg 0chool for #ommunication 7niversity of 3ennsylvania <..<.+..+=
From1 >li^davis.com !%on 2i& 0F #hronicle ;bituary for Heinz

Heinz von Foerster ) population theorist, cybernetics trailblazer

Heinz von Foerster, an internationally influential physicist, philosopher and cybernetician who did groundbreaking studies of population growth and scientific cognition, died of heart failure at his 3escadero home "ednesday. He was ,. years old. r. von Foerster was already a pioneer in the study of biophysics and had founded the 5iological #omputer 2aboratory at the 7niversity of Illinois when he published his widely read :4oomsday Formula: in +,-.. The formula, printed in the >ournal 0cience, predicted that the world/s population would reach infinity by the year <.<- )) on r. von Foerster/s birthday, Friday the +Bth of $ovember )) barring offsetting circumstances. It drew immediate criticism from some demographers and was lampooned in the :3ogo: comic strip, but in the years since it has become a valuable reference in the study of population growth. In addition, r. von Foerster/s theory of :doubling time: laid the groundwork in the early +,-.s for the decade/s popular concept of population e'plosion. r. von Foerster/s doomsday formula touched off :the most controversial and delightfully acerbic debate ever to appear to in the pages of 0cience magazine,: 0tuart A. 7mpleby, a *eorge "ashington 7niversity professor who has written on the sub>ect, said onday.

?ven more important than r. von Foerster/s population study was his research into how the brain works, 7mpleby said, particularly how cognition affects scientific study. r. von Foerster was a pioneer in proving that the observations of two people will differ because of their individual interpretations )) not a radical concept to lay people, but somewhat revolutionary at the time to ob>ectively minded scientists. :He modified the philosophy of science in a way that modified all scientific disciplines,: 7mpleby said. Asked if r. von Foerster was ahead of his time, 7mpleby laughed and said, :only by decades.: r. von Foerster was born in Aienna in +,++ to ?mil and 2ilith von Foerster, whose family included the painter ?rwin 2ang, the philosopher 2udwig "ittgenstein and the playwright Hugo von Hoffmansthal. In his youth r. von Foerster was a mountaineer and a professional magician, but after earning a doctorate in physics at the 7niversity of 5reslau, he worked in various industrial laboratories. He married ai 0tuermer in +,B,, and the couple had three sons. After working as a science correspondent for the Dadio Free ?urope station Dot)"eiss) Dot after "orld "ar II, he moved to Illinois to become head of the ?lectrical ?ngineering Desearch 2aboratory at the 7niversity of Illinois. After arriving in America, r. von Foerster )) >ointly with argaret ead and H.2. Teuber )) edited the proceedings of a series of influential conferences titled :#ybernetic1 #ircular and #ausal Feedback echanisms in 5iological and 0ocial 0ystems.: He then founded the biological computer laboratory at the university/s electrical engineering department, which became a renowned interdisciplinary center for research in cybernetics and related fields including computational technology. He remained director there until +,8-, when he moved to 3escadero to be near relatives and in better weather. Dight up until his final days, he remained an intellectually 6uesting man who took life full bore, said his son, Thomas. :He was always /on,/ : said Thomas von Foerster, who is the publisher of >ournals for the American Institute of 3hysics. :?verything he did, he en>oyed and did as fully as he could )) from detailed mathematical investigations to ripping out the poison oak that grows wild on the hillside at his home.: r. von Foerster was a *uggenheim Fellow in +,9-)98 and +,-B)-C and was president from +,-B to +,-9 of the "enner)*ren Foundation for Anthropological Desearch. In <..+, he received the ?hrenring award from the city of Aienna, as well as the first Aiktor Frankl 3rize. r. von Foerster is survived by his wife, ai@ two sons, Thomas of $ew (ork and Andreas of ;regon@ three grandchildren, 2ilith Fowler of "isconsin, adeline von Foerster of $ew (ork and $icholas von Foerster of ;regon@ and a sister, ?rika de 3as6uali of Illinois. 3rivate services were held 0unday at the family home in 3escadero. ;n the 0houlders of a *iant1 Eigen-Stories of Uncle-Hein J3seudo)abstract of a talk for the American 0ociety of #ybernetics eeting in #hicago, April +,,9, in honor of Heinz von Foerster. the actual talk was an e'planation of the graphic below, in which the works of von Foerster, 3ask and aturana were coordinated.K This talk will begin, have a middle, and through to its end be about Heinz von Foerster. If it were Heinz talking, he would start by saying something like that. 0ince it will be me talking, the talk will say something about me as well. !About which Heinz would agree.& He/s the *iant, and I/m standing on his shoulders. I couldn/t say much about Heinz von Foerster without telling a story. !$either could he.& I will say he prepared the way, in theoretical concept and intellectual salon, for 3ask and aturana, to say the very least. All this says something to me about the evolution of <nd order cybernetics, a history which is not) yet)written. 5ut, in a setting such as this, some of it can be spoken.

ai von Foerster says, :Heinz has a mind like a crystalG: His works have added immeasurably to the field@ we can/t say how much until we have a measure !as he would be the first to point out&. 0o many clarifying ideas, and so many collaborations among towering individuals, have been his creations. These, and his panache, are overwhelming contributions to science in this century. !There is also a way in which he brings the distinction that is you, the plusses and the minuses, to your awareness like the gift of an important relative on your intellectual birthday.& ?very day, Heinz the 0toryteller, #ybernetician, Impresario1 Heinz my 7ncle)Heinz. 3aul 3angaro was first e'posed to concepts of cybernetics during lectures by %erry 2ettvin at IT. ;n meeting *ordon 3ask, 3angaro pursued 3ask/s theories, leading to a 3h. 4. and a consulting practice applying <nd order principles to software design and management science. His personal interactions with 2ettvin, 3ask, 5eer, von Foerster, aturana and *eoghegan, whether conversational or contractual, have been the fuel of his passion for the field of cybernetics. He is presently fulfilling the role of #hief ethodologist at _ero'/s ;b>ect Technology #ompetency #enter, whose charter is to harness the knowledge of the corporation in service of its goals, using :information technology: as the e'pressive medium.