Ethics and Second-Order Cybernetics - Understanding Understanding: Essays on Cybernetics and Cognition - page 303

Y. If I were to ask you to give me the shortest description of the distinc-
tion between first-order cybernetics and second-order cybernetics, what
would you say?
H. I would say, first-order cybernetics is the cybernetics of observed
systems, while second-order cybernetics is the cybernetics of observing
systems.
Y. Very short indeed! Would you like to expand on this?
H. Perhaps only briefly, because my “shortest description” is nothing else
but a paraphrase of the description I made in my address, where I juxta-
posed the two fundamentally different epistemological, even ethical, posi-
tions where one considers oneself: on the one hand, as an independent
observer who watches the world go by; or on the other hand, as a partici-
pant actor in the circularity of human relations.
When taking the latter position, (the position I believe taken by systemic
family therapists) one develops notions like “closure,” “self-organization,”
“self-reference,” “self,” “auto-poiesis,” “autonomy,” “responsibility,” etc.,
etc. In other words, one arrives at the whole conceptual machinery of con-
temporary cybernetics, the cybernetics of observing systems, and thus one
comes very close to the theme of your Congress: “Ethics, Ideologies, New
Methods.”
Y. At the conclusion of your paper, On Constructing a Reality, which was
published in Paul Watzlawick's topic The Invented Reality , you ask, “What
are the consequences of all this in ethics and aesthetics?” You also wrote,
“The ethical imperative: Act always so as to increase the number of
choices.” And, “The aesthetical imperative: If you desire to see, learn how
to act.” Can you add something to the connections between ethics, aes-
thetics and change; which from my point of view, are the three basic coor-
dinates in family therapy?
H. I like your three coordinates, because all three have a second-order
flavor. And, of course, I am delighted that two of my imperatives corre-
spond to two of your coordinates. However, I feel some uneasiness that
your third coordinate “change” is not yet accompanied by an appropriate
imperative. Let me remedy this situation at once by inventing an impera-
tive for you; the therapeutic imperative: “If you want to be yourself,
change! ” Is this paradoxical? Of course! What else would you expect from
change?
Y. You say with so much self assurance, “Paradoxical, of course!” How can
you connect change with paradox?
H. Easily! You remember paradox? It yields one meaning when appre-
hended one way, and one meaning when apprehended the other. What do
you do when I say “I am a liar,” do you believe me? If you do, then I must
have spoken the truth; but if I had spoken the truth, I must have lied, etc., etc.