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Thoughts and Notes on Cognition*
HEINZ vON FOERSTER
University of Illinois
Thoughts
Projecting the image of ourselves into things or functions of things in the
outside world is quite a common practice. I shall call this projection “anthro-
pomorphization.” Since each of us has direct knowledge of himself, the most
direct path of comprehending
X
is to find a mapping by which we can see
ourselves represented by
X
. This is beautifully demonstrated by taking the
names of parts of one's body and giving these names to things which have
structural or functional similarities with these parts: the “head” of a screw,
the “jaws” of a vise, the “teeth” of a gear, the “lips” of the cutting tool, the
“sex” of electric connectors, the “legs” of a chair, a “chest” of drawers, etc.
Surrealists who were always keen to observe ambivalences in our cogni-
tive processes bring them to our attention by pitching these ambivalences
against semantic consistencies: the legs of a chair (Fig. 1
2
), a chest of drawers
(Fig. 2
3
), etc.
At the turn of the century, animal psychologists had a difficult time in
overcoming functional anthropomorphisms in a zoology populated with
animals romanticized with human characteristics: the “faithful” dog, the
“valiant” horse, the “proud” lion, the “sly” fox, etc. Konrad Lorenz, the great
ornithologist, was chased from Vienna when he unwisely suggested con-
trolling the population of the overbreeding, underfed, and tuberculosis-
I am deeply indebted to Humberto Maturana, Gotthard Gunther,
1
and Ross Ashby
for their untiring efforts to enlighten me in matters of life, logic, and large systems,
and to Lebbeus Woods for supplying me with drawings that illustrate my points
better than I could do with words alone. However, should there remain any errors
in exposition or presentation, it is I who am to blame and not these friends who
have so generously contributed their time.
Some of the ideas expressed in this paper grew from work sponsored jointly by
the Air Force Office of Scientific Research under Grants AFOSR 7-67 and AF
49(638)-1680, and by the Office of Education under Grant OEC-1-7-071213-4557.
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