Ethics and Second-Order Cybernetics - Understanding Understanding: Essays on Cybernetics and Cognition - page 293

Ibos, etc., would tell you about their origins. In other words, tell me how
the universe came about, and I will tell you who you are.
I hope that I have made the distinction between decidable and, in prin-
ciple, undecidable questions sufficiently clear so that I may present the fol-
lowing proposition which I call the “metaphysical postulate:”
Only those questions that are in principle undecidable, we can decide.
Why? Simply because the decidable questions are already decided by the
choice of the framework in which they are asked, and by the choice of the
rules used to connect what we label “the question” with what we take for
an “answer.” In some cases it may go fast, in others it may take a long, long
time. But ultimately we arrive after a long sequence of compelling logical
steps at an irrefutable answer; a definite “yes,” or a definite “no.”
But we are under no compulsion, not even under that of logic, when we
decide on in principle undecidable questions. There is no external necessity
that forces us to answer such questions one way or another. We are free!
The compliment to necessity is not chance, it is choice! We can choose who
we wish to become when we have decided on an in principle undecidable
question .
That is the good news, as American journalists would say, now comes the
bad news. With this freedom of choice we are now responsible for the choice
we make. For some, this freedom of choice is a gift from heaven. For others
such responsibility is an unbearable burden. How can one escape it? How
can one avoid it? How can one pass it on to somebody else?
With much ingenuity and imagination, mechanisms have been contrived
by which one could bypass this awesome burden. Through hierarchies,
entire institutions have been built where it is impossible to localize respon-
sibility. Everyone in such a system can say, “I was told to do 'X.' ” On the
political stage, we hear more and more the phrase of Pontius Pilate, “I have
no choice but 'X.' ” In other words, “Don't hold me responsible for 'X.'
Blame someone else.” This phrase apparently replaces, “Among the many
choices I had, I decided on 'X.' ”
I mentioned objectivity before, and I mention it here again as a
popular device for avoiding responsibility. As you may remember,
objectivity requires that the properties of the observer be left out of
any descriptions of his observations. With the essence of observing (namely
the processes of cognition) having been removed, the observer is reduced
to a copying machine with the notion of responsibility successfully juggled
away.
Objectivity, Pontius Pilate, hierarchies, and other devices are all deriva-
tions of a choice between a pair of in principle undecidable questions which
are, “Am I apart from the universe?” Meaning whenever I look , I'm looking
as if through a peephole upon an unfolding universe; or, “Am I part of the
universe?” Meaning whenever I act , I'm changing myself and the universe
as well.