Ethics and Second-Order Cybernetics - Understanding Understanding: Essays on Cybernetics and Cognition - page 300

present my theory of memory at a meeting in New York that was to take
place a few days later. He also recommended that I find a topic entitled
Cybernetics in order to prepare myself a bit for this meeting. I did that, and
with the little English at my disposal at that time, I tried hard to understand
some of its basic points.
Somewhat ill prepared in concepts and language, I came to this meeting
whose title was more or less an enigma as well: “Circular Causal and Feed-
back Mechanisms in Biological and Social Systems.” To my surprise, it was
a small meeting of about 20 participants, but to my even greater surprise,
this was an assembly of the crème de la crème of American scientists. There
was, of course, Warren McCulloch who was chairman of the conference,
and whose works in 4 volumes have recently been published. There was
Norbert Wiener himself, of whom a lovely biography by P. Masani appeared
last year. There was John von Neuman, the man who started the computer
revolution. Then there were Gregory Bateson and his wife Margaret Mead,
or should I say Margaret Mead and her husband Gregory Bateson, who
brought to anthropology wisdom, profundity and humor; both in different
ways.
These are but a few, whose names I believe would be familiar to my Euro-
pean friends. I don't know who invented the notion of “interdisciplinarity,”
but this meeting was its manifestation. If you were to begin with A nthro-
pology in an alphabetical list of academic professions, and end with
Z oology, my guess would be that almost every one of these disciplines had
a representative present.
I was called upon relatively early to present my story, and I wrestled
valiantly with my 20 English words to make myself understood. The whole
thing would have turned into a catastrophe if it weren't for the presence of
Gerhard von Bonin, Heinrich Klüver and others who spoke fluently
German and who rescued me by translating some of my arguments.
That evening, the group had a business meeting. Before it was over, I was
invited to come in. “Heinz,” began the chairman, “we listened to your mol-
ecular theory of memory, and your theory agrees with many observations
which other theories cannot account for. What you had to say was very
interesting. However, how you said it was abominable! Because we want
you to learn English fast, we have decided to appoint you to be the editor
of the transactions of this conference.”
I was of course speechless. How could I edit articles by such superb
writers as Wiener, Mead, Bateson, etc.? How could I organize material of
which I, at best, understood only half? But, I thought “Why not try?” So I
accepted the appointment. I immediately proposed that, “Since the title of
this conference is so long, it is hard to remember, and for me, hard to pro-
nounce; 'circular-causal-and-feedback-mechanisms...' I propose to call this
conference 'Cybernetics.' ”
Everybody looked at Norbert Wiener, who sat next to me, and applauded
in his honor and in acceptance of my proposal. Deeply touched by the