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the wrong question. The right question is; with whom are you going to dance
your story, so that your partner will float with you over the decks of your
ship, will smell the salt of the ocean, will let the soul expand over the sky?
And there will be a flash of jealousy when you come to the point of your
flirt.
In its function, language is constructive because nobody knows the source
of your story. Nobody knows, nor ever will know how it was, because “as it
was” is gone forever.
You remember René Descartes as he was sitting in his study, not only
doubting that the was sitting in his study, but also doubting his existence.
He asked himself, “Am I, or am I not?” “Am I, or am I not?” He answered
this rhetorical question with the solipsistic monologue, “Je pense, donc je
suis” or in the famous Latin version, “Cogito ergo sum.” As Descartes knew
very well, this is language in its appearance, otherwise he would not have
quickly published his insight for the benefit of others in his “Discourse de
la méthode.” Since he understood the function of language as well, in all
fairness he should have exclaimed, “Je pense, donc nous sommes”, “Cogito
ergo sumus” or, “I think, therefore
we
are.”
In its appearance, the language I speak is
my
language. It makes me
aware of myself. This is the root of
consciousness
. In its function, my lan-
guage reaches out for the other. This is the root of
conscience
. And this is
where Ethics invisibly manifests itself through dialogue. Permit me to read
to you what Martin Buber says in the last few lines of his topic
Das Problem
des Menschen
:
Contemplate the human with the human, and you will see the dynamic duality, the
essence together. Here is the giving and the receiving, here is the aggressive and
the defensive power, here the quality of searching and of responding, always both
in one, mutually complementing in alternating action, demonstrating together what
it is; human. Now you can turn to the single one and you can recognize him as human
for his potential of relating. We may come closer to answering the question, “What
is human?” when we come to understand him as the being in whose dialogic, in his
mutually present two-getherness, the encounter of the one with the other is real-
ized and recognized at all times.
Since I cannot add anything to Buber's words, this is all I can say about
ethics, and about second-order cybernetics.
Thank you very much.
Yveline Rey: Interview with Heinz von Foerster
Yveline: The first time I heard your name mentioned, it was accompanied
by the term “cybernetician.” How does one become a cybernetician? Why
this choice at the beginning? What were the influential steps throughout the
course of your life?
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