Conference-Abstracts
The Heinz von Foerster Lecture 2003
Knowledge and Ignorance
Dirk Baecker
Three mathematical puzzles, as Warren McCulloch maintained, remain unresolved by early
cybernetics: the statistical problem, the coupling of nonlinear oscillators, and continuous
nonlinear prediction. McCulloch added that John "Johnnie" von Neumann was too preoccupied
by the Atomic Energy Commission and then died too early (in 1957) to be able to solve these
puzzles together with Norbert Wiener who, left alone, did not succeed in solving them. Von
Neumann and Wiener were said to have been the two mathematical geniuses of that time. I don't
know why nobody seems to have bothered to ask Claude E. Shannon about these puzzles.
Mathematicians are a difficult bunch of people. After all, cybernetics owed a lot to his use of
statistical mechanics in his mathematical theory of communication. Be that as it may, Heinz von
Foerster seems to have been fully aware of these puzzles even if as far as I know he never
addressed them explicitly. The lecture will try to link his ideas on computing, non-trivial
machines, and ignorance to the said three puzzles. The lecture as given by a sociologist will not
try to solve the puzzles. Instead, sociological ideas will be introduced to develop an
understanding of the puzzles and to spell out the problems mathematics still has live up to.
Der frühen Kybernetik, so hielt Warren McCulloch, der es wissen muss, im Rückblick fest, ist es
nicht gelungen, drei mathematische Rätsel zu lösen: das Problem der Statistik, die Kopplung
nichtlinearer Oszillatoren und die kontinuierliche nichtlineare Vorhersage. McCulloch fügte
hinzu, daß John "Johnnie" von Neumann zu sehr mit der Atomic Energy Commission
beschäftigt war und dann zu früh starb (1957), um sich zusammen mit Nobert Wiener mit der
Lösung dieser Rätsel befassen zu können. Von Neumann und Wiener galten als die beiden
mathematischen Genies der Kybernetikerszene, doch Wiener allein gelang die Lösung nicht. Ich
weiß nicht, warum sich niemand die Mühe gemacht zu haben scheint, Claude E. Shannon zu
diesen Rätseln zu befragen. Immerhin war es seine aus der statistischen Mechanik entwickelte
mathematische Kommunikationstheorie, der die Kybernetik entscheidende Impulse verdankte.
Wie auch immer, Heinz von Foerster war sich dieser drei Rätsel offensichtlich sehr bewußt, auch
wenn er sich, soweit ich weiß, nie explizit mit ihnen befaßt hat. Der Vortrag wird versuchen,
seine Ideen zum Rechnen, zur nicht-trivialen Maschine und zum Nichtwissen auf die genannten
drei Rätsel zu beziehen. Da der Vortrag von einem Soziologen gehalten wird, wird nicht versucht,
die Rätsel zu lösen. Statt dessen werden soziologische Ideen eingeführt, die dabei helfen können,
den Inhalt dieser Rätsel zu verstehen und die Probleme auszuführen, denen die Mathematik erst
noch gerecht werden muss.
Plenary Conference Speakers
Wonder
Ranulph Glanville
Towards the end of his life, Heinz von Foerster returned explicitly to his childhood interest in
magic. In particular, he became ever more concerned with the human sense of wonder (not so
much "I wonder if" but "this is wonder-ful"). The curiosity and delight he associated with
wonder drive our creativity, and help account for his rejection of categorisation and his dictum
that we can decide the undecideable.
In this presentation I will explore von Foerster's interest in and sense of wonder, and will relate
this to his pre-occupation with three cybernetic mechanisms: Maxwell's Demon; Eigen-Objects;
and the Non-Trivial Machine.
My intention is to bring to the fore the essentially human nature of von Foerster's achievement.
The Constructivist View of Communication
Ernst von Glasersfeld
Heinz von Foerster had a knack for statements that sounded paradoxical but, in fact, made a lot
of sense when they were unpacked. At the very beginning of our joint recollections in “Wie wir
uns erfinden”, a book we published together a few years ago, he said for example: “It’s the
listener who determines the meaning of an utterance.”
I shall provide an expansion of this statement and show that it springs from the constructivist
theory of meaning, which can be seen as a parallel to Shannon’s Theory of Communication. This
view opens a perspective on language acquisition, both semantics and syntax, that may be more
productive than the defeatist assumption of innateness.
BCL and the Visualization of Multidimensional Geometry
Alfred Inselberg (BCLnik 1959 – 1966)
Visualization is the visual input to perception and cognition. Ashby in 1965 wrote on "ManyDimensional Relations" and Madden in 1970 on "Multidimensional Systems". The visualization
of "multidimensionality" involves recursion and pattern recognition and it's applications include
models of concept formation, learning and the automation of cognitive processes. The
connection with the goals and activities of BCL having been made what actual interest can there
be in such an esoteric topic?
People working on multivariate (multidimensional) problems can benefit by understanding the
underlying geometry; that is learning what is possible and what is not. For example, in 1917 the
physicist Ehrenfest showed that planetary orbits are stable only in dimension 3 providing an
intriguing "explanation" for our world's longevity. Our applications are more down to earth!
For the visualization of multivariate problems a multidimensional system of PARALLEL
coordinates is constructed which induces a mapping between subsets of N-space and subsets of
2-space. The representation of a multidimensional object (hyper-surface) S is constructed
recursively. Starting from points in S, lines contained in S are costructed, then 2-D planes
contained in S, then 3-D planes and so on. The results are applied to collision avoidance
algorithms for air traffic control, computer vision and geometric modeling. Applications to visual
data mining are illustrated on financial and other real datasets. Hypersurfaces turn out to be well
suited for visual models of concepts, concept formation, learning and decision support.
Circa 1989 the great HvF, while visiting the "intrepid dimensionalist" (his words), enjoyed playing
the new multidimensional toys and blessed the "geometrical reincarnation" of some BCL's goals
and ideas.
PS. Do not be intimidated by this formal description. The speaker is also well known for his
numerological anecdotes and palindromic digressions!
From Wittgenstein's Language-World Connection Thesis to Holistic
Language
Lars Loefgren
With reference to my paper (forthcoming in Foundations of Science) "Unifying Foundations - to
be Seen in the Phenomenon of Language", let me explain as follows. Discussing Wittgenstein's
language-world connection thesis, I utilize a result from a paper that I wrote at BCL in 1967-8.
Later on (not at BCL; the 66-68 visit was my last at BCL), I have gradually developed a holistic
concept of language which has proved helpful as a foundational category in contexts earlier
dominated by logical, non-holistic understandings of language. I hope the new outlook will help
fill a need, notably in logical contexts which has so far been dominated by non-holistic language
ideas ("in order to make language a logical concept").
Inventing the World One Conversation at a Time:
the Once and Future Invitation of Heinz von Foerster
Robert Martin
Understanding that the world in which we live is not an external given but an invention that we,
as individuals and as a species, create, empowers us to take responsibility for the world we have
created, and to act so as to move in the direction of our desires. Heinz von Foerster and his
colleagues at the Biological Computer Laboratory provided a scientific and philosophic
foundation for this insight, as well as a body of practice. This presentation focuses on Heinz’s
methods as the embodiment of his ideas and on the implications of his ideas and methods for
our own practice as individuals and communities--and for the future of humanity.
The Past-Future of Cybernetics: Conversations, Von Foerster, and the BCL
Paul Pangaro
To speak "Biological Computer Laboratory" also speaks "Heinz von Foerster." To invoke von
Foerster also invokes the BCL community that he gathered through his unerring identification of
original thinkers and his unparalleled clarity about second-order cybernetics. Having chosen well
his lab's collaborators, von Foerster contributed seminal thinking that became foundations and
superstructures for theoreticians great and small of the generations that followed.
What contributions to cybernetics were rooted in the BCL? What insights did von Foerster
himself offer, such that his collaborators could stand tall on his shoulders and see more? With the
benefit of twenty-five years' hindsight, the speaker will analyze the published outcomes of the
BCL and conjure a picture of von Foerster's influence on collaborators such as Gordon Pask and
Humberto Maturana. A post hoc construction drawn from personal relationships with the
protagonists, the talk will offer a unification of major threads of cybernetics, its concepts of
memory, organizational closure and circularity, and show how von Foerster is inextricably woven
in.
HvF: Heritage and beyond: How to Apply What We Have Learned
Siegfried J. Schmidt
HvF has left behind an enormous intellectual heritage. Our task is to develop his ideas further in
order to create new options or alternatives. In my lecture I shall concentrate upon a
reformulation of two topics, viz. the construction of reality and the discourse on ethics, since I
am convinced that these are the topics which have caused a lot of very questionable discussions
and interpretations.
What I Learned from Heinz von Foerster about the Construction of Science
Stuart A. Umpleby
As a European, Heinz von Foerster used a deductive approach to science rather than an
American empirical approach. I encounter this difference repeatedly and am still learning about
it. Furthermore, von Foerster was willing to modify not only science but also the philosophy of
science. By proposing that scientists pay attention to the observer as well as the observed, he
added a dimension to the philosophy of science, which affects all disciplines. I have recently
proposed an additional dimension that might be added to the philosophy of science. Paying
attention to both the observer and the receiving society suggests a communication metaphor
rather than the photograph metaphor, which has prevailed in the philosophy of science.
Furthermore an empirical approach to the philosophy of science would be useful as a way of
expanding the philosophy of science from the physical sciences to the biological and social
sciences. Each of these lines of inquiry spring from von Foerster's enthusiasm for tackling
interesting problems unimpeded by disciplinary boundaries.
Non-trivial Machines
Ricardo Uribe
(to be announced)
A Walk Through the Forest
Paul Weston
BCL was born in the sixth decade of the twentieth century, shortly after the birth of the field of
Cybernetics, and continued through two decades as the field matured. At mid-century there
were already machines with error-correcting feedback designs which showed goal-directed
behavior of a sort. The concept of information had been reduced to a mathematical formulation,
and small mobile goal-seeking robots were running around in laboratories. Optimism in the
power of technology was at its highest, and many believed that truly intelligent machines were on
the distant horizon.
With great hopes, and equally great naiveté, the young BCL joined the pursuit of machines with
human-like intelligence, beginning with attempts to model on paper and in hardware the sensory
modalities of sight and hearing, and to construct networks of artificial neurons, based upon what
(little, as we now realize) was known of the real ones at the time.
Through the influence of Heinz and other mentors including Ross Ashby, Gordon Pask, and
Humberto Maturana, to name a few, attention was drawn away from the (essentially impossible)
task of reassembling the human brain in hardware, and toward thought about what intelligent
behavior is, regardless of the system in which it is realized, and what general laws and limits
apply.
The presentation will include a discussion of several of the author’s own projects in BCL as they
were influenced by the progression of ideas sketched above.
Afternoon-Sessions (Thursday, 13)
ASC-Session (Session I)
Systemic approaches to power in organisational consultancy
Andy Bilson
In this paper I will attempt to consider the implications of considering organisations as networks
of conversations for dealing with what Flood and Jackson (1991) have termed "coercive problem
contexts": that is, contexts in organisations in which there are "great disparities in power and in
resources" (Jackson 1991 p. 128).
John Mingers has criticised the way that power has been dealt with within a constitutive
ontological framework (1995, 1997) and this paper is aimed at starting a conversation about this
important issue which is central to the use of cybernetic ideas in the real world of organisations.
I will look at the types of networks of conversations in organisations that support inequalities and
how different conversations might be triggered that allow people to recognise the humanity of
others. In particular I will look at how to stimulate reflection on conversations that dehumanise
(negate) others within the organisation or those affected by its policy and practice. I will propose
that the stimulation of new conversations will hinge on the interplay between logic and emotion
and that this applies to the ability of the consultant to recognise the negative consequences of
conversations in organisations as well as to his or her work with people in the organisation.
In this I will use examples from my practice of consultancy in local, national and international
organisations in the field of health and social work.
Triple Closure
Søren Brier
This paper will show that a communication theory of second order needs at least three closed
systems of which the basal one it the biological autopoietic, the two others are the psyche and the
socio-communicative. Further to encompass human meaning it is necessary to go from a two
valued logic to a three valued semiotics. Cybernetics and semiotics is thus combined to give a
description of cognition and communication of the living and the conscious linguist.
The Complementary Set
Allenna Leonard, Ph.D.
One of Heinz von Foerster’s precepts we have been invited to contemplate is that to change the
world, we must first change one’s self. Another is that he taught us to think about relations –
relations between people, relations between processes and relations between perceptions and
actions. This paper will use Stafford Beer’s Viable System Model to show how it can be applied
to an individual life. Such an application serves three purposes. First, it provides a means to look
at one’s own life and its activities from several perspectives by doing several models from
different ‘identity’ vantage points. Second, it encourages the appreciation of the relation of the
different systems in which we are immediately embedded and our roles in them as well as the
higher recursions in which they are embedded. Finally, it is a way to practice the model on one’s
always present self so that other entities may also be modeled and their connections explored.
How Doing Leads to Seeing in Learning Science:
my Adventures in Teaching the Biology of Plants
Suzanne L. Martin
How science is presented in our culture makes a difference for how science is taught, learned,
and thought of. Science is usually taught, learned, and thought of as the objective discovery of
regularities (laws, patterns, etc.) that describe the universe and predict its behavior. Learning
science, however, is quite another thing. For students to learn to use a scientific tool, such as a
taxonomy, they must deal with the subjective, experiential, evaluative, communicative, communal
nature of scientific activity.
Using the example of plant taxonomy, this paper shows how learning science in a deep way can
take place by non-science majors in the lower tiers of the college population by embodying
assumptions about the subjective, experiential, evaluative, communicative, communal nature of
science in the action of learners. As in von Foerster’s aesthetical imperative, students who wish to
learn to see plants must learn how to act. Students don’t see what the instructor sees--no matter
how botanical terms are described or illustrated. The students don’t “get the point” until they
have a framework of experience. In the context of field and lab activities, introductory botany
students experience seeing as a result of a process of interaction with plants. In order to
successfully act, they learn through experience and through conversation that plant morphology
terms are created for convenience in identifying plants and that the terms are constructs rather
than intrinsic properties of plants—that the plants “don’t read the text.” The students gain an
insight into science as a way of seeing and as a system for communication rather than a collection
of facts. In the process, how they see and interact with the world changes.
Tatyana A. Medvedeva
(to be announced)
The Importance of the Concept of Constraint
Larry Richards
The concept of constraint has been central to many of the ideas that have emerged from the field
of study labeled “cybernetics”. Expanding on Norbert Wiener’s “A Simplification of the Logic of
Relations” in 1914, W. Ross Ashby introduced “Constraint Analysis of Many-Dimensional
Relations” in 1964 as a way of capturing information on potentially complex systems without
examining all conceivable relationships among a system’s variables. In 1967, Gregory Bateson
identified “restraints” as a (maybe the) key concept in “Cybernetic Explanation”, leading to an
epistemology of “negative explanation”—that is, a way of explaining that specifies what is NOT
the case, what is not possible within the circumstances of the system(s) being studied, rather than
specifying what is the case. In 1977, I proposed the term “negative planning” (in the sense of a
photographic negative) as a complementary alternative to rational/analytical planning, and
developed a constraint-theoretic approach to decision-making that had particular applicability to
policy formulation (1983). These early applications of constraint were built on a state-determined
framework, with constraints specified within a kinematic (frame-by-frame or time-sliced)
dynamics, requiring the selection of a particular concept of time (a clock). Of course, constraints
change and have their own dynamics, and dynamics are themselves constrained. This paper reintroduces the notion of constraint in the context of structure-determined and autonomous
systems. It concludes that there is an important role for constraint-oriented thinking in a society
with an everyday language that remains predominantly positivistic and goal-oriented. A way of
using the concept of constraint in the context of interactions among multiple observers with
multiple concepts of time (many clocks) is proposed.
Human Knowledge - Putting Taxis into Cosmos
Antonín Rosick
Speaking about organization we usually have in mind either institution as an organized social
system or generally system’s ordering. In the second case we can reflect statically on the way if
system arrangement or its order or dynamically on process of order formation and/or
maintenance. Just the second view corresponds with an effective concept of system in the sense
of ‘autonomous whole of interacting components’ [Bertalanffy]. Several sectional theories (synergy, chaos
theory, autopoiesis) explain such process as an evolution or self-organization. However most of
them fail to confront complexity of social systems emerging from individual knowledge(s) and
social processes of their sharing.
Tangible nature of human mind embodies instantly accessible information received by head with
his former absorbed experience and compiles actual knowing. This term - in comparison with
familiar term ‘knowledge’ - lays emphasis on dynamic merits of human cognition as well as on its
association with doing (Maturana and Varela). In circular relations also mental activities are such
doing and among them just abstraction plays an essential role. It generalizes, i.e. it forms patterns
of particular sensations and cohering practices and couples them with (lingual) symbols that yield
conceptual information. However such coupling has not fixed (determined, isomorphic) nature
that is embedded into artificial systems (inc. artificial intelligence & information systems and/or
technology). This ability affects (and is affected) the complexity and fundamentals of social
systems including social processes forming individual knowledge. The proposed paper will
emphasize neglected (biological) essentials of knowledge including its holistic and intentional
nature. Using some authorities interested in knowledge domain (Argyris, Nonaka, Boisot) will be
discussed social process of knowledge sharing and some from its basic aspects, such as:
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Changing nature of human cognition inc. language disposition;
Use of various form of information technology & systems and knowledge institutions;
Emergence of power and its circular relations with knowledge;
Some new view of globalization inc. intriguing & regrettable phenomena.
While the spontaneous order of (unorganized) society is designated cosmos the intended order
emerging from human knowledge is identified as taxis (Hayek). In this terminology (we) people using individual knowledge in social processes - do intentionally and change the living
environment: Putting taxis into cosmos we do it more and more artificial by natural way.
Understanding knowledge provides to us better possibility to steer (cultural) evolution.
Bernard Scott
(to be announced)
The Role of Coherence and Congruence in Organizational Self-Reflection
Doug Seeley
Functional, financial and information silos within organizations, along with the lack of
congruence of an increasing number of organizational information systems, are creating a chaotic
situation wherein incoherent decisions are being made lacking respect for the success of the
whole organization. This effect is exacerbated by a lack of application of the law of requisite
variety in coordinating decisions from corporate leadership with actual operational realities.
Organizations are largely functioning without attention to second-order cybernetic effects, such
as noting how their information tools organize information about themselves. The way in which
the implicit viewpoints of these tools filter and shape their actions and decisions is rarely
considered or even thought to exist. In effect, these tool viewpoints create an “unconscious selfimage” that is pre-determining much of the organization’s behaviour with a growing number of
deleterious impacts.
This paper will demonstrate how this self-image can be made more conscious within
organizations by incorporating a much more congruent systems image that includes dynamics
and interdependence. It has been successfully applied in the export of bulk commodities through
supply chains in Australia. The approach is shown to promote a far more coherent decisionmaking framework that leads to actions congruent to the organization’s core processes, reducing
the gap between Argyris’ “espoused theory” with “theory-in-use”.
A crucial paradigm shift in the underlying theories of corporate decision-making is however
required. Reductionist, atomistic and functionally separate models of how the world works
buried under most financial and management methods, need to be contrasted and then replaced
by interdependent, relational and holistic modeling approaches.
Living system parallels to this process towards more congruent decision-making will be described
that connect it with the quantum coherence considerations of Ho at the cellular level of
organisms, and the emergence of social coherence in group dialogues (Bohm) due to the
inclusion of multiple viewpoints. This multi-realm consideration of coherence will be seen as a
contribution to the notion of the “conscious organization” and to the consciousness of the
noetic planetary sphere.
Future Prospects for Constructivism (Session II)
Second Order Finance
Thomas Himmelfreundpointner
Within the last two decades Finance was established as one of the leading scientific disciplines as
can be seen by the number of scientific journals or Nobel price winners working in this field.
And it is not only Finance-theory that became prominent and self confident over years, it is also
the practical application of pricing-models by global financial institutions that counts for a huge
part of financial and therefore economic development.
Referring to the concept of second order cybernetics and its implications to methodological
aspects of scientific and practical work in Finance it is argued, that most of the basic assumptions
in use are based on a perspective comparable to naïve realism. This can be seen if one takes a
look at the idea that market prices over time will converge to what is named the “intrinsic value”
of a company or stock. Any market participant reflecting on the way he tries to look out for
“intrinsic values” would probably end up with nothing else but the idea of living an illusion. It is
only market prices one can observe and therefore deal on. Consequently it is the idea of “intrinsic
values” that drives capital markets and not “intrinsic values” per se.
Von Foerster´s concept could lead to a perspective of Finance that accounts much more for the
social aspects of valuation and pricing. The core of Finance seems to be the construction of
theories on value rather than value itself. If we shift our interest in the described way, we can not
make use of hard sciences alone any longer but must turn to concepts like game theory.
Warning!!! Avoid thinking of participants in the game as Non Trivial Machines! This may cause
emotional distress!
Reflections on the Epistemological Status of Phantoms
Theo Hug
When one begins to look into the phenomenon of phantoms, one comes across different
sections which are referred to in expressions such as phantom limb pain, Rinderphantome or
library phantoms. When are these phantoms? Do they have similarities or things in common?
How can we deal with them and which reality do they belong to? The present paper contains
some offers for dialogue and orientation in the area of conflict of phantom and reality. The core
question will be answered on the background of Nelson Goodman's and Catherine Z. Elgin's
variations-concept. Finally, and in the context of the medial turn, we will formulate some further
reflections about the medialisation of lifeworlds and the modalisation of experiences of reality.
The Construction of an Itinerant Self
Richard Jung
This occasion — in a city, which has been the cradle of many movements that formed the
intellectual history of the last Century — while specifically convened as a tribute to Heinz von
Foerster, also seems to offer an opportunity for reflection on the effort by a generation to
develop a mental framework called General Systems Theory and Cybernetics. It evokes a mood
for a summing up.
Cybernetics and Systems Theory, with us at least since the 17th Century, have evolved — through
stages of metaphysical, ethical and philosophy-of-nature speculations, generalized theoretical
schemata, mathematical formulations, computer and technical artifacts and generalized schemata
— into a standard way of theorizing in the established sciences. Constructivism and Second
Order Cybernetics however, except for attempts such as ethnomethodology and minor aspects of
decision theory, have not so far been employed in the sciences.
In trying to make myself a picture of the world — perhaps this allusion is permissible in the
Wittgenstein House — I have attempted to address similar issues in the context of psychological
and sociological theory. Accepting as possible and necessary a dual description of complex — not
only living — systems as res movens and res cogitans, a project for a cybernetic phenomenology has
ensued. I tried to systematize what I was able to absorb from epistemology as well as from
biology, psychology and the social sciences into a historical account of the quest for a general
system theory and into a formulation of systems of orientation, motivation and decision. This
became a part of a project I now call System and Significance.
I shall first sketch a conception of the nature of experience as the deformation of the boundary
of a system. A system constructed (in a revised Cartesian fashion) as a subject in semantic space
has as a center of subjectivity an entity called the Self. The Self is generated and regenerated
through the life history of the system. Its trajectory in physical spacetime can be visualized as a
swath of form within the field of indefiniteness. In semantic spacetime, one can conceive of the
history of the Self as the anabolism of indefiniteness into form and back into indefiniteness
through a sequence of modal transformations.
Constructivism and Systems Theory
Bert Klauninger
I would like to analyze the epistemological implications of von Foerster's constructivism and
compare it to a general system's approach towards cognition. Praxeology, Ontology and
Epistemology are interwoven and together they build the fundament of human cognition.
Interactions between systems are not a subjective act, but are happening objectively in the world
and are therefore suitable to generate accurate reflections of “eternal facts” within a system's
internal structure.
Appraising Constructivism
Josef Mitterer
The number of versions of constructivism is increasing rapidly. This is a mark of success and
happened to pragmatism and realism in their heydays as well. Constructivism is in the course
of becoming a lead-theory in media sciences, social and even natural sciences and yet
continues to be denounced or simply ignored by academic philosophy.
Under Construction
Alexander Riegler
Constructivism comes in many variants, which gives rise to the assumption that it is not (yet)
fully developed. I will review the most important versions related to cognition. This allows to
underline the common ground, to spot the differences, and to formulate general principles of the
(cognitive) constructivist endeavor. By making these principles explicit I will also hint at their
implications for scientific research and for the future of constructivism.
Konstruktivistische Perspektiven der Medien- und
Kommunikationswissenschaft
Gebhard Rusch
Ausgehend von einem operationalen Grundverständnis wissenschaftlichen Handelns und einer
entsprechenden Viabilitätslogik werden Perspektiven für eine konstruktivistischen Methodologie
erörtert. Diese wird sodann bezogen auf konstruktivistische Ansätze zur Bearbeitung (evtl.
Lösung) medien- und kommunikationswissenschaftliche Standardprobleme.
Afternoon-Sessions (Friday, 14)
On the History of the BCL (Session III)
Heinz von Foerster and the Bio-Computing Movements of the 1960s
Peter Asaro
This essay outlines the creation of the Biological Computer Laboratory (BCL) at the University
of Illinois under the vision and direction of Heinz von Foerster. It also considers the work at
that lab in relation to two significant scientific movements in the 1960s, the Self-Organizing
Systems movement, and the Bionics movement. The essay considers the history and goals of
these broad movements. More specifically, it considers several of the machines built at the BCL
under the guidance of von Foerster, including the Numa-Rete, Dynamic Signal Analyzer, and
Adaptive Reorganizing Automata, and how these machines constituted intellectual contributions
to these new fields. The relation of these machines to those movements was highly significant,
especially insofar as these devices could not be easily construed as contributions to more
traditional science and engineering sub-disciplines. The paper argues that von Foerster‚s
contributions to biological computation lay as much in his ability to help forge entire new
disciplines as it did in contributing theories and technologies to those disciplines. It also argues
that von Foerster‚s approach contributed to a new kind of design methodology that was far more
conceptually-driven than most traditional engineering methodologies.
W. Ross Ashby: His Life and Work
Michael Ashby
Ross Ashby was a member of Heinz von Foerster's Biological Computing Laboratory from 1961
until 1970. Ashby said that those ten years were amongst his most enjoyable and productive. In
this, the centenary year of his birth, this presentation, by one of Ashby's eight grandchildren,
provides an overview of Ashby's life and work. Originally trained in medicine and psychiatry, his
obsession to understand the principles behind the behaviors he observed propelled him into the
emerging fields of cybernetics and systems theory. It was his hope that cybernetics could help
find “... principles [to] be followed ... to restore normal function to a sick organism that is, as a
human patient, of fearful complexity.” Previously unpublished photographs, movies, and
documents provide a new insight into a man whose shyness and modesty allowed only a few
close friends and colleagues to know him well. Anecdotes, private correspondence, and extracts
from his research notebooks build a picture of a man who had an ambition “... someday to
produce something faultless.”
From Biological Computing to Polylogic Computing – A New Solution For
An Old Problem
Peter Krieg
The core project of the Biological Computer Lab was the development of a computer that would
implement biological complexity. Mapping complexity into a mechanism presents deep problems
of logic and representation, which the BCL protagonists like Heinz von Foerster or Gotthard
Guenther were well aware of. While their attempts to solve these problem were halted when
funding for the BCL ended in the early 1970ies, a new and independent approach by Israeli
inventor Erez Elul (Pile System)-who was unaware of the BCL efforts- seems to have been
successful. The presentation describes similarities and differences of the approaches and the
potential effects on computing.
The BCL and its Turn towards Society
Albert Müller
In 1957 the Biological Computer Laboratory (BCL) started as an research institute studying
phenomena of ‘nature’ and trying to rebuild them in a formal way aiming to construct ‘machines’
more or less acting under the laws of nature. What looked like a mere technical problem at the
beginning, turned out soon as a fundamental question in the field of epistemology, where several
major breakthroughs could be reached. Based upon this, in the late Sixties research projects of
the BCL more and more turned towards problems of society. The paper discusses exemplary
research projects and tries to embed them in the history of the BCL, moreover the history of
cybernetics, on the one side, and in the roughly drawn development of the United States’ society,
on the other.
Knowledge-Organisation (Session IV)
Observing Quantum Physicists:
Much Mystical Mist in the Quantum Business
Gerhard Grössing
Since the beginnings of modern quantum theory (around 1926) there exists a dispute on whether
(and if so, how) one can picture quantum processes at all. The so-called “Kopenhagen
interpretation” of quantum theory (after Bohr, Heisenberg, and others) has a leading role in
proclaiming the impossibility of more detailed, causal models: Heisenberg’s uncertainty relation is
said to prohibit in principle the usefulness of thinking about processes which might underly it (as
well as the quantum mechanical formalism in general). Various “no-go-theorems” were
postulated, which apparently proved that such models (which could, via “hidden parameters”,
provide a deeper explanatory level of the observed quantum processes) were impossible although the so-called “causal interpretation” (which, in fact, is a “systemic” or “holistic” one) by
deBroglie, Bohm, and others proved the contrary exactly by providing just such a viable model.
The latter, a decidedly “materialistic” interpretation of quantum processes, has been marginalized
over decades in both scientific and popular discussions, and has even provably been
misrepresented and lied about by leading quantum physicists. Many of the latter, in fact, prefer to
delve in (a banal) mysticism when the “deeper meaning” of quantum theory is under discussion.
This is not without practical consequences, however, simply because mysticism “sells better”
than the apparently “dry” rational discourse of conventional physics. Thus, apparently being
forced to rely on “media hypes”, physicists produce domains of “smeared knowledge”.
Art and Cybernetics
On Concepts of Transdisciplinarity between Art and Science(s)
Katharina Gsöllpointner
The talk will deal with the relationships between cybernetic concepts and art.
First I will give a short overview of the main cybernetic concepts as paradigms for artistic
approach. Furthermore I will discuss the concept of transdisciplinarity as not only a kind of
cooperation between art and hard sciences (as there are physics, computer sciences, biotechnical
sciences etc.) but also as an emerging field of approaches between art and soft sciences (cultural
studies, humanities).
As a second point I will present some examples of transdisciplinary work, showing that for most
projects it still is a question of "survival" to refer to either the art or the science system.
Third I will shortly introduce a project of the City of Vienna which aims at the implementation of
an institution to support new forms of transdisciplinary co-operations between art, science and
new technologies.
Günter Haag
(to be announced)
Aspects of managing knowledge in organizations as social systems
Barbara Heller-Schuh
In the recent literature the distinction between two types of managing knowledge in organizations
is made: The first type focuses on knowledge sharing and proceeds from the assumption that
valuable knowledge already exists. Its major task is to enhance the supply of existing knowledge
to individuals in an enterprise by capturing, codifying and sharing valuable knowledge - "getting
the right information to the right people at the right time".
In contrast, the so called New Knowledge Management focuses on knowledge producing and
assumes that valuable knowledge does not already exist, but is something that is produced in a
social process. It compiles methods to enhance the capacity of an organization to produce
knowledge and satisfy its demand for new knowledge.
Organizations as complex systems are self-organizing in the way they produce and integrate
knowledge. The main challenge for the new knowledge management is to apply insights from the
theory of social systems to improve the innovative ability of an enterprise by understanding the
mechanisms of how knowledge is created, how it is shared and diffused throughout the
organization.
Talking Space & Spatial Knowledge
Susanne Kratochwil, Josef Benedikt
Talking Space is drafted as a Geographical Information System (GIS) based communication platform to
map spatial knowledge, which contains inherent uncertainty. This uncertainty is argued to be due
to the semantics of categorization using linguistic symbols as applied in a communication
process, which is argued to create and shape space and spatial phenomena. Inherent uncertainty
is nothing to be eliminated but is an indispensable part in communicating knowledge and
therefore needs to be talked about.
Space is shaped in a deterministic and objective way – yet, in all probability, this overlooks the
perceptions, assessments and interests of many space protagonists. The formation and
information of actors in space implies relations among different points of view. Perception and
assessment of space is understood inadequately. Conventional planning and GIS do not meet
requirements on communicating space. GIS is sometimes even referred to as socially empty space.
This emptiness may be filled with our ability to talk about space, to perceive space and talk about
perceptions and to visualize what we are talking about.
We propose perspectives on different notions of spatial phenomena and their impact on creating
spatial knowledge.
Knowledge between Objectiveness and Constructiveness - a Two-headed
Driving Force of Economic Evolution
Marco Lehmann-Waffenschmidt
Knowledge as processed and stored information plays a crucial role for technical and
organizational progress. Consequently, knowledge is one of the most important driving factors of
economic evolution. Looking more closely, however, one easily recognizes that economic
evolution in many respects is not one-way directed in the sense of a monotonic progress. A main
feature of knowledge is the inherent ambiguity whether it reflects “truth”, or not. This not only
leads into the discourse of (radical) constructivism, but also may contribute to an answer to the
question why economic evolution is not a single-way directed process. An other reason for the
non-directedness of economic evolution is due the fact that the fructification of knowledge for
human needs in technological, technical, or economic activities is strongly infuenced by the
changing degree of activation, i.e. the degree of accessibility (explicitness, non-tacitness,
diffusion) and vividness (non-oblivion, non-obsolescence, generation of new knowledge),
respectively.
Wissen und Wissensmanagement in Empowermentprozessen
Markus Peschl
Martin Schaurhofer
Empowerment beschreibt Prozesse der Selbstbestimmung und Autonomiegewinnung. Dabei
erkennen Menschen ihre eigenen Stärken und schließen sich mit anderen Betroffenen
zusammen. Sie wollen soziale und politische Rahmenbedingungen verändern. Typische Beispiele
sind BürgerInneninitiativen, Menschenrechtsbewegungen und AktivistInnengruppen.
Motivationen für zivilcouragiertes Engagement hängt sehr stark vom persönlichen Wissen und
dem Zugang zu Wissensquellen und WissensträgerInnen ab. Darum widmet sich dieser Beitrag
der Verbindung von Wissen und Wissensmanagement in Empowermentprozessen.
Vor allem eine konstruktivistische Perspektive erscheint in diesem Zusammenhang sehr
fruchtbringend. Schließlich sind das Erkennen eigener Stärken, das Ausprobieren im
persönlichen Umfeld und das Reflektieren die drei Ausgangsprozesse eines konstruktivistischen
Erklärungsmodells für Empowermentprozesse.
Wesentliche Gedanken des Heinz von Foerster zu Veränderung, Wissenskonstruktion und
Selbstverantwortung umkleiden diesen Beitrag. Sie sind Wegbereiter für eine Theorie
wissensorientierter Empowermentbegleitung.
Knowledge makes power and power makes knowledge.
Ursula Schneider
The vision to manage knowledge seems to correspond to old dreams of human hybris. It is to
gather a so called body of knowledge about a cosmos in order to control: Either as humanity as a
whole, where all humans have even access (democratic but anthropocentric vision) or as reigning
elite (competitive or elitist, still anthropocentric vision). This vision understands knowledge as
given, solid, objective, free of contradictions and redundancies and as independent of the distinct
processors of data that are thought to configure into information which in its turn is conceived to
combine to knowledge.
This concept is limited and prone to flaws. It conceals for instance the processes by which
knowledge is socially constructed. As modern society is not free of power, social construction is
not either. This leads us to propositions that turn Bacon’s famous saying upside down:
Power makes knowledge. Definitional power is a self-reinforcing concept and unevenly
distributed in society. Knowledge is not free of values and (hidden) interest.
Applying the lenses of social constructionism (!) and CAS thinking to the issue of knowledge in
society as well as organisations we are confronted with a different story. Knowledge is induced in
brains which are operationally closed systems, it is constructed, subjective, full of contradictions
and redundancies and dependent on processing and context. The idea of an objective body of
knowledge can be detected as conservative and restrictive. Such a conservative structure will only
be shattered in short periods of “punctuation” as suggested by the models of Kuhn or Argyris. A
focus on knowledge, furthermore, ignores the other side of the distinction, the shadow, that is
ignorance. As each piece of knowledge generates a multitude of new questions whose answers
need to be explored, ignorance turns into a research field of more interest. That leads to the
following propositions:
Ignorance is an exponential function of knowledge.
Different types of ignorance serve different functions.
The most dangerous type is the ignorance of ignorance (the blind spot).
The most viable type is the way humans filter signals in order to survive in a sea of signals and information
overload.
Afternoon-Sessions (Saturday, 14)
Cybernetics and Cognitive Science Today (Session V)
(Organized by the Austrian Society for Cognitive Science)
From Cybernetics to Cognitive Robotics
Mark H. Bickhard
The triumph of symbol manipulation approaches to cognition in the 1960s was most directly a
triumph over calculational approaches, such as Perceptrons. Indirectly, however, it also rendered
action irrelevant, therefore interaction irrelevant, and, therefore, feedback and control irrelevant.
The heart of cybernetics was pushed aside, and it did not return with the resurrection of
calculational approaches in the 1980s, with connectionism. For all their power, however, symbol
manipulation and connectionist approaches make the understanding of representation, and,
therefore, of cognition, impossible. The development of cognitive robotics has resurrected issues
of action, interaction, control and feedback, but has done so in a way that retains the basic
problematics of standard approaches to representation. I wish to argue that action and interaction
are neither irrelevant to representation, as in classical approaches, nor do they render
representation itself irrelevant, as argued by some dynamicists. Most deeply, action and
interaction are the dynamic and evolutionary loci in which representation naturally emerges. If
correct, this point applies equally to all genuine agents, including, potentially, robots.
There is a relative of AI, however, ... that is concerned with true interactive systems, not just with
information processing systems. This is robotics. The conceptual issues, both theoretical and
philosophical, involved in the nature of genuine and competent interactive systems, robots, are
the conceptual issues of psychology in its broadest sense, for which human beings are our most
advanced examples, and including both epistemology and genetic epistemology. (Bickhard, M. H.
(1982). Automata Theory, Artificial Intelligence, and Genetic Epistemology. Revue Internationale de
Philosophie, 36, No. 142-143, 549-566, esp. pg. 563).
Cybernetics of Cognition: Simple Models of Complex Behavior
Hanspeter A. Mallot
Cognition can be defined as a level of complexity of behavior distinguished from the stimulusresponse level by the necessity to postulate internal states (representations) in order to explain
such behavior. The nature of this internal states is subject to empirical research. In cognitive
neuroscience, declarative memory and attention are the most frequently studied examples.
Spatial behavior is widespread throughout the animal kingdom. Simple forms like returning home
after an excursion or associating an action to a place can be explained on the stimulus-response
level while more complex ones like route-planning or some types of shortcut behavior clearly
reach the cognitive level. Spatial cognition is therefore an interesting example of the evolution of
cognition at large. In the talk, I will present a theory of spatial cognition that scales from
stimulus-response to cognitive behavior. The theory is "cybernetic" in the sense that
implementations based on signal flow and biological neural networks are feasible.
Scientific Creativity (Session VI)
Hans Rudi Fischer
(to be announced)
Noisy Recursions:
Why Systems can develop towards Increasing Complexity
Gerhard Grössing
Based on the studies of the phenomenon of self-organization (or emergence), new approaches to
understanding the abstract machines behind structure generating and structure changing
processes have emerged in recent years. This has led to the design of nonlinear models for
general systems, which, among others, are also applicable to processes of biological evolution.
It is shown that there exists a solid foundation for explaining the emergence of an »arrow of
time« in biological, and even in social systems. Here, decisive roles are attributed to a) the
presence of recursive processes and b) significant fluctuations around mean values. Such systems
can often be characterized by the self-organization of recursive »probes« in the space of potential
forms of their organization. In sufficiently complex systems, the latter may emerge by means of
their intrinsic dynamics, i. e., independent of any external control mechanisms.
The Emergence of Novelty
Karl H. Müller
In this talk, three objectives should be reached simultaneously.
First, the presentation will offer the outlines of an appropriate conceptual apparatus in order to
account for different degrees and forms of novelty and to link novelty with the body of available
knowledge.
Second, the talk will present a short sketch of four explanatory contexts for the emergence of
novelty as well as a small set of recombination operators which are both necessary and sufficient
for any transformation “old new”.
Third, the lecture will provide concrete examples from different science and technology domains
in which the emergence of novelty should be seen as an iterative process in which a small set of
recombination operators transforms a set of readily available building blocks into something
genuinely new.
On the History of Cybernetics (Session VII)
Jean Pietre Dupuy
(to be announced)
The Cybernetic Illusion
Claus Pias
(to be announced)
Wolfgang Pircher
Some notes on cybernetics and economics
In the conflict between the former socialist countries and the capitalistic society cybernetics
played a significant role on both sides. In the capitalistic societies cybernetic thinking served as a
proof for the possibility of homeostasis of the market system, in the communist countries
cybernetic models - after a period of ideological-philosophical damnation - strengthens the hope
for a rationalistic planned society. The cybernetic inspired reforms failed in the socialist countries,
nevertheless the bureaucratic apparatus designed a "cyberspeak" (S. Gerovitch). In the West
"economics becomes a cyborg science" (Ph. Mirowski).
Austria, Home of Cybernetics (and of Gov. Schwarzenegger)
Robert Trappl
Come and see/hear.
Systemics, Information, Organization (Session VIII)
Knowledge and Self-Organization
Christian Fuchs, Wolfgang Hofkirchner
Self-organizing systems are information-generating systems. A Unified Theory of Information is
possible by combining self-organization theory and a general concept of information. It
conceptualizes information as an evolutionary, dynamic entity. Information is a dynamic
relationship of reflection between units of self-organizing matter. Talking about knowledge
means talking about the self-organization of society and social systems. Knowledge is a
manifestation of information in the social realm, a process that comprises cognition,
communication, and co-operation. Knowledge is shaped by a dialectic of subjectivity/objectivity
and a dialectic of chance/necessity. We distinguish technological, ecological, economic, political,
and cultural knowledge. Each of these types consists in processual relationships that constitute
the self-organization of relatively autonomous subsystems of society.
Organization – Order, Ego and Flexibility
Jan Klas, Stanislav Gregor
The word „organization“ comes from Greek word „organon“ – tool. Organization could be also
understood as a concentration of people, resources and skills and knowledge. As a tool,
organization is supposed to perform some function, to have some mission, to have a target to
achieve.
From the flux point of view, organization is part of greater “reality” (of “great whole”), which
consists of many other forms of systems, including other organizations. However it is subject of
different paradigms if it is just only organization or the whole pattern that evolves. In such a
patterns, order is spontaneous. And it is agreed upon that form of such order is in advance
unpredictable.
However organizations, especially their managers, have their own opinions and positions, how
should their organization work or even how should the world looks like. Managers have the
need for feeling having the organization fully in their hands, fully controlling it. It seems little bit
egoistic, but under current paradigm, very convenient. In our opinion, most managers would be
frustrated, if they had not feeling of control.
There seems to be conflict. On one side there is a spontaneous, unpredictable order and on the
other side there is ego of managers and of organizations (can organizations have ego? Sure.).
Both of them (order and ego) could be very powerful. However in long run, order usually wins.
But, as one of our teachers said, in long run, we are all dead. People have tendency to neglect
long time aspects of their behaviour and to prefer short time measurable goals.
In our opinion, we cannot overrun our egos and neither can we cancel natural order. It takes fair
amount of time and effort to begin to understand our egos. And we also should learn the
principles of order, which play so important role in our lives (and of which we often aren’t
aware).
In the meantime, we should behave in a way that respects both order and ego. In our opinion,
important aspects of this approach are flexibility and free mind. Imagine a body falling of the hill.
If it is adult, it often tries to “solve” the situation, is tough, surely not free. If it is a child, it is
mostly soft and free. Under the hill, child has often less damage than the adult. The message of
this case is that it seems to be better to respect and enjoy the situation than to use violent force to
try changing the situation.
Two approaches regarding to order-ego conflict can be taken, active one and passive one. Passive
one lies in “designing” organization in a way they are very flexible in interactions with the parts
of the “great whole”, which seems to be outside of the organization. Active approach would
probably lead to experiments with attractors influencing organization.
Flexibility allows organizations less painful transition among attractors. But it means, that
organization is changing and is ready for change, even willing for change - simultaneously and in
every moment of time. The process of reactions among parts of the “great whole” is neverending. I don’t want to use the word “adoption”. Because when organization is one of the
influencers of the “outside” (even, what is outside?) conditions, the word “adapt” in our
understanding means “correction because of outside influences”. And flexibility should not be
only present in physical structure of organization, but also in organizational mind, in
organizational culture.
One of big challenges for “egoistic” managers are attractors influencing organization’s behaviour.
“Playing” with attractors is probably the best way, how to employ the “necessary” ego. However
relationship among attractors and organization usually isn’t direct. Balance of the net of attractors
and organization could be very delicate one, so “modifying” one attractor could lead to
unpredictable changes in forces influencing organization.
It is like traditional example with Chinese butterfly. It just flies to another flower to have some
feeding. But changes in air structure resulting from movement of butterfly’s wings would lead to
heavy rains e.g. in Mexico. And flood with many victims and huge material loses could be the
next outcome. And that surely wasn’t the butterfly’s intention. But in Czech republic, we have an
idiom: “Who is afraid, can’t be let into forest.” We should be aware of risks, but we shouldn’t be
frozen because of them.
To conclude, natural order and ego plays important role in lives of ours and of ours
organization. Forces resulting from such an order and ego result in a conflict, in which natural
order in long run prevails. We should learn and understand the nature we are living in. It is a
very long time tasks. In the meantime, we can start with “designing” flexible organizations
and with experimenting with influencing attractors. There is a huge risk in this approach, but
we should be aware of that, not frozen because of that.
Systemica and other Matters
Umberta Telferner
Systemics is the ability to consider things in concert. I intend utilize the concept as a noun, not as
an adjective (not systemic therapy or systemic paradigm). According to Heinz von Foerster, in
German there is a very interesting word for science, “Wissenschaft”, which means knowledge
production. There should be two different ways to produce knowledge, two ways of observing
and thinking, complementary with each other: “two different modalities to acquire knowledge:
science (sci devide), and systemics (sun, put together in order for different parts all together to
form a whole). Systemics chooses dialogue as its main tool and poses great attention to human
relationships, recuperating the original domain of human dialogue. Systemics is interested to
composition rules, and focuses on interaction between parts....Systemics becomes a way to
observe, to pose oneself in front of the world....” My intent is to share the project of the
epistemological dictionary - project which has been supervised by Heinz von Foerster - which
tries to connect theory with a coherent way of acting in clinical work.