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Cybernetics Forum the Publication Oftheamerican Society for Cybernetics CYBERNETICS FORUM THE PUBLICATION OFTHEAMERICAN SOCIETY FOR CYBERNETICS FALL 1979 VOLUME IX NO. 3 A SPECIAL ISSUE HONORING DR. HEINZ VON FOERSTER ON THE OCCASION OF HIS RETIREMENT IN THIS ISSUE: Heinz Von Foerster: A Second Order Cybernetician, Stuart Umpleby. 3 An Open Letter to Dr. Von Foerster, Stafford Beer . 13 The lmportance of Being Magie, Gordon Pask . ...... ........ ....... ... .. ........ ... ...... 17 The Wholeness of the Unity: Conversations with Heinz Von Foerster, Humberto R. Maturana . 20 Creative Cybernetics, Lars LÖfgren . 27 With Heinz Von Foerster, Edwin Schlossberg . 28 Heinz Von Foerster's Gontributions to the Development of Cybernetics, Kenneth L. Wilson ........ .. .. 30 List of Publications of Heinz Von Foerster . 33 The Work of Visiting Cyberneticians in the Biological Computer Laboratory, Kenneth L. Wilson . 36 About the Autho ~$. 40 © 1979 American Society for Cybernetics BOARD OF EDITORS Editor Charles H. Dym Frederick Kile V.G. DROZIN Dym, Frank & Company Aid Assoe/ation for Lutherans Department of Physics 2511 Massachusetts Avenue, N. W. Appleton, Wl 54911 Buckne/1 University Washington, DC 20008 Lewisburg, PA 17837 Mark N. Ozer TECHNICAL EDITOR Gertrude Herrmann The George Washington University Kenneth W. Gaul School of Medicine and Conference Calendar Editor 111 0/in Science Building Health Seiences Buckne/1 University 1131 Unlversity Boulevard West, 12122 3000 Connecticut AvenueN. W. Lewisburg, PA 17837 Washington, DC 20008 Si/ver Spring, MD 20902 ASSOCIATE EDITORS Charles I. Bartfeld Doreen Ray Steg School of Business Administration, Harold K. Hughes Department of Human Behavior & The State University College American University Development, Potsdam, NY 13.767 Mass. & Nebraska Aves. N. W. Drexel University Washington, DC 20016 Philadelphia, PA 19104 N.A. Coulter, Jr. Department of Surgery Akira lshikawa Curriculum in Biomedical Graouate School of Business Paul Studer Engineering Administration School of Library and Information University of North Carolina Rufgers University Science, State University College School of Medicine 92 New Street of Arts and Sclence Chapel Hili, NC 27514 Newark, NJ 07102 Geneseo, NY 14454 OFF/CERS OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR CYBERNET/CS PRESIDENT VICE PRESIDENT TREASURER Stuart Umpleby Doreen Steg Al Kreger The George Washington University SECRETARY OMBUDSMEN Washington, DC 20052 Roger Conant Klaus Krippendorff Rolf Wigand TRUSTEES Stafford Beer Carl Hammer Daniel Howland Douglas Knight Heinz Von Foerster PRINTED BY: DISTRIBUTED BY: Colonial Printing American Society West Market and 20th Street for Cybernetics Lewisburg, PA 17837 (717) 523-0702 American SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Society ASC Cybernetics Forum Journal of Cybernetlcs and Information Science Both Publications Domestic $35.00 per year Domestic $55.00 per year Domestic $80.00 per year for . Foreign $40.00 per year Forelgn $60.00 per year Forelgn $90.00 per year Cybzrnehcs Copyright © 1979 American Society for Cybernetics The American Society for Cybernetics and its officers wish Heinz Von Foerster continued success in the field of cybernetics following his retirement from the Faculty of The University of lllinois after many years of leadership in the Biological Computer Laboratory. HEINZ VON FOERSTER Heinz Von Foerster, A Second Order Cybernetician Stuart A. Umpleby The George Washington University Washington, DC 20052 lt is a pleasure to introduce this issue of Cyber­ 1949. ln those days of rejuvenation, he returned to netics Forum dedicated to my triend and mentor, the old riddle of the nature of the observer. With Heinz Von Foerster. As the following articles demon­ the encouragement of the psychiatrists Victor Frank! strate, Heinz is a man who inspires not only and Otto Potzl, he published a short monograph on admiration and respect for his scientific contribu­ a quantum mechanical theory of physiological tions but also great affection. He is an outstanding memory. During a visit to the United States he met human being as weil as a great scientist. The Warren McCulloch who not only had the data for his articles by Stafford Beer, Gordon Pask, Humberto theory of memory but who also introduced him to Maturana, Lars Lofgren, Edwin Schlossberg and the campus at urbana. Kenneth Wilson often recount personal experiences Through McCulloch, at conferences about Cyber· with Heinz. Kenneth Wilson provides a very useful netics: Circular Causa! and Feedback Mechanisms in overview of Heinz' major articles as weil as the work Biological and Social Systems sponsored by the of visiting cyberneticians in the Biological Computer Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation, he met the people who Laboratory. laid the conceptual foundation for understanding the I shall provide some background on how Heinz really complicated systems-teleological systems came to the University of lllinois, a briet discussion and self-organizing systems. The people attending of the effect that the Biological Computer Labaratory these conferences included Gregory Bateson, Julian had on the students who worked there, and finally Bigelow, Margaret Mead, John Von Neumann, some personal reflections on the importance of Norbert Wiener and Ross Ashby. Heinz was so fas­ Heinz' work for cybernetics, science, and society. cinated by the ideas that emerged at these meetings that after seven years of research at the University of lllinois in microwave tubes and ultra-highspeed oscillography, he went on sabbatical leave to learn The Years Before lllinois more about the neurophysiology of his enigmatic observer. After one year under the tutelage of Heinz has been a central figure in the field of Warren McCulloch at MIT and Arturo Rosenblueth in cybernetics since its beginning. During his student Mexico 'he returned to the University of lllinois and days he became involved with the Vienna Circle, a established the Biological Computer Labaratory to group of philosophers that included Wittgenstein, study computational principles in living organisms.(1) Schlick, Menger and Carnap. From them he devel­ oped an interest in the fundamental difference between the world as it is and its symbolic repre­ The Biological Computer Labaratory sentation in language or equati0ns. He wanted to Almost from the beginning it was apparent that learn more about the observer. However, the war the Biological Computer Labaratory (BCL) was not intervened and he spent those years in various labo­ an ordinary university research group. One of the ratories in Germany working on plasma physics and most amusing episodes in the history of BCL was microwave electronics. Luckily he survived the war the series of events that led up to Heinz's being unscathed in mind or body. After the war he helped mentioned in the cartoon strip Pogo, a distinction set up the first post-war radio station in Vienna and for scientists even rarer than the Nobel Prize. (see was in charge of its science and art program until Figure 1) Someone at the National Institute of 4 A Second Order Cybernetician >- 4i ::.:: -0 3 ..a>- ;0. ' 0 $i! C> 0 ~ Cl. >- 4i ::.:: .:: 0 3 ..a>- 0 C> 0 a.. 0 C> 0 Q. Figure 1. References to the Doomsday article in the Pogo comic strip. Health wanted a mathematical model of the popula­ article. tion dynamics of white blood corpuscles. Heinz be­ There followed one of the most entertaining ex­ came interested in the dynamics of populations, both changes of letters ever to appear in Science. The those whose elements interact and those with idea that the human population could through com­ elements that do not interact. He figured that data munication form a coalition and engage in a game on human population growth would be the most against nature was a particularly troubling idea. One complete set of data for a population with elements demographer called attention to the widely accepted capable of communication. The result was an article view that industrialization reduces rather than in Science in 1960 by Heinz Von Foerster, Patricia increases population. Heinz and his colleagues Mora and Lawrence Amiot called "Doomsday: Friday, pointed out that if an inverse relationship between 13 November, A.D. 2026."(2) They found that the population and technological know-how is applied to equation which best fit the data was not an expo­ the human population over the last couple of mil­ nential but rather a hyperbolic equation. There is a lennia then either Stone Age man was a technologi­ major difference. lf population is an exponential cal wizard who carefully removed his technological function of time, population will become very !arge achievements so as not to upset his inferior progeny as time increases, but within limited time the popu­ or our population has dwindled from a once astro­ lation will remain finite. A hyperbolic function, how­ nomical size to the mere three billions of today.(3) ever, has asymptotes. That is, there will be a time at The BCL equation turned out to be considerably which population will go to infinity. Applying the more accurate than other forecasts in predicting method of least squares to parameterize the equa­ world population in 1970. The others were more con­ tion led to the date 2027, hence the title of the servative. However, 1975 data suggests that world Cybernetics Forum 5 population has moved ahead of even the SCL would discover that A is better off if S is better oft. equation.(4) Events have tended to follow these predictions. ln ln addition to research the Siological Computer 1968, Paul Erlich published The Population Bomb, Laboratory also had a significant impact on the stu­ and gradually people became more aware of rapidly dents at the University. On even the largest college increasing population and the impossibility of sus­ campuses there is usually a small group of students taining the high growth rate for very long.(7) The who are innovators in campus activities. They are 1970's brought greater attention to global communi­ the students who write for the campus newspaper cations-satellites, television, computer networks­ and Iead political or reform movements. These stu­ and also revelations about the covert activities of dents usually know each other, and they often can the CIA and the FSI.
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