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 "Many-Dimensional 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 consultancyAndy 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 SetAllenna 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 ConstraintLarry 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 re-introduces 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 CosmosAntonín 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:

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 self-image” 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 decision-making 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 PhantomsTheo 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 1960sPeter 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 WorkMichael 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 CyberneticsOn 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 PeschlMartin 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 stimulus-response 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 FlexibilityJan 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 never-ending. 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.