Ethics and Second-Order Cybernetics - Understanding Understanding: Essays on Cybernetics and Cognition - page 304

What is the problem here? Lying? No, the problem is “I,” the shortest self-
referential loop. When speaking about oneself, using “I,” magic is per-
formed. One creates oneself by creating oneself. “I” is the operator who is
the result of the operation.
Y. This is all magic to me. Where does “change” come in?
H. The paradoxical nature of change is much richer than the orthodox
“paradox of the liar” which switches from “true” to “false,” and from “false”
to “true,” and so on and so forth in dynamic stability. The unorthodox nature
of change arises when you apprehend “change” any way you wish to appre-
hend it, and it will yield something else, otherwise it wouldn't be “change.”
This is, I believe, its therapeutic force.
Y. But you said, “If you want to be yourself; change!” How can you be
yourself and change?
H. I wanted to appeal to ancient wisdom. It is 2600 years old and comes
from the I Ching . Under the 58th symbol “Fu,” or “The Turning Point,” it
says, “The ultimate frame for change is the unchanging.”
Y. (Smiling) This conversation with you, Heinz, has been a joyful and excit-
ing day of learning. It seems to have mirrored the theme of our conference;
ethics and family therapy. It feels as though I've discovered a new freedom
within a precise and rigorous framework. This framework, clearly defined
by the fundamental guidelines of therapeutic practice, encourages commu-
nication with another, thereby creating a new space. Does this not broaden
our possibilities by redrawing the line of the horizon? If rigor were com-
bined with creativity, the ethics of choice could also be the ethics of change!
At least that is the very personal understanding which I have gained from
our encounter. I now have an exquisite diffused feeling of a door which
opens onto another door, which opens onto another door, which opens onto
another door...