Cybernetics of Cybernetics - Understanding Understanding: Essays on Cybernetics and Cognition - page 283

1 Cybernetics of Cybernetics*
HEINZ VON FOERSTER
University of Illinois, Urbana
Ladies and gentlemen—As you may remember, I opened my remarks at
earlier conferences of our Society with theorems which, owing to the gen-
erosity of Stafford Beer, have been called “Heinz von Foerster's Theorems
Number One and Number Two”. This all is now history. 1,10 However, build-
ing on a tradition of two instances, you may rightly expect me to open my
remarks today again with a theorem. Indeed I shall do so but it will not
bear my name. It can be traced back to Humberto Maturana, 7 the Chilean
neurophysiologist, who a few years ago, fascinated us with his presentation
on “autopoiesis”, the organization of living things.
Here is Maturana's proposition, which I shall now baptize “Humberto
Maturana's Theorem Number One”:
“ Anything said is said by an observer .”
Should you at first glance be unable to sense the profundity that hides
behind the simplicity of this proposition let me remind you of West Church-
man's admonition of this afternoon: “You will be surprised how much can
be said by a tautology”. This, of course, he said in utter defiance of the logi-
cian's claim that a tautology says nothing.
I would like to add to Maturana's Theorem a corollary which, in all
modesty, I shall call “Heinz von Foerster's Corollary Number One”:
“ Anything said is said to an observer .”
With these two propositions a nontrivial connection between three con-
cepts has been established. First, that of an observer who is characterized by
being able to make descriptions. This is because of Theorem 1. Of course,
what an observer says is a description. The second concept is that of lan-
guage . Theorem 1 and Corollary 1 connect two observers through language.
But, in turn, by this connection we have established the third concept I wish
to consider this evening, namely that of society : the two observers constitute