Summary: The aim of this collection is to provide a two-fold access to von Foerster’s legacy and his work at the Biological Computer Laboratory, the institution he founded and directed at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from 1958 to 1976. It represents a precious contribution for the understanding of BCL, a crucial but still not properly understood chapter in the history of cybernetics and, more generally, of cognitive science. It is greatly recommended.

Open peer commentary on the target article “From Objects to Processes: A Proposal to Rewrite Radical Constructivism” by Siegfried J. Schmidt. Upshot: I focus my commentary on the fundamental metaphysical issue that Siegfried J. Schmidt’s very stimulating paper addresses in §45 and particularly upon the relationship between the ontological status of the processes from which worlds emerge and the temporality of the objects to be found therein. I argue that Schmidt’s emphasis on world-forming processes raises many questions concerning the temporal stability of objects and the relationship between objects and actors belonging to different worlds. I suggest that some classic as well as contemporary thinkers (e.g., Fichte, Hegel, Heidegger, Gadamer, Foucault, and S. J. Gould) have faced similar problems and discuss how their answers could be integrated within Schmidt’s revised radical constructivism.

Open peer commentary on the article “Constructivism and Computation: Can Computer-Based Modeling Add to the Case for Constructivism?” by Manfred Füllsack. Upshot: While I do agree with Füllsack’s positive assessment of the use of computer simulations in advancing constructivism’s program, I am less convinced by the alleged opposition between computers and constructivism he builds up. In my opinion, his depiction of computers and computation is inaccurate in several respects. As a result, the alleged incompatibility with constructivism Füllsack objects to disappears, and his whole essay could then be construed as a classic straw man fallacy. This is unfortunate, because it could lead to an unwarranted dismissal of his positive contribution.

Upshot: The target article suggested that Ashby’s device, the homeostat, embodies and illustrates a conception of life as a passive-contingent phenomenon. It advocated renewed experiments with updated and extended versions of his device that would allow us to understand better what passive-contingent life “would be like.” In assessing the proposal, we should be particularly careful when dealing with the concept of “passivity,” and we should not mistake the proposed theoretical exploration for a substantial metaphysical thesis about life in general.

Context: W. R. Ashby’s work on homeostasis as the basic mechanism underlying all kinds of physiological as well as cognitive functions has aroused renewed interest in cognitive science and related disciplines. Researchers have successfully incorporated some of Ashby’s technical results, such as ultrastability, into modern frameworks (e.g., CTRNN networks). Problem: The recovery of Ashby’s technical contributions has left in the background Ashby’s far more controversial non-technical views, according to which homeostatic adaptation to the environment governs all aspects of all forms of life. This thesis entails that life is fundamentally “heteronomous” and it is conceptually at odds with the autopoiesis framework adopted by Ashby’s recent defenders as well as with the primacy of autonomy in human life that most of the Western philosophical tradition upholds. The paper argues that the use of computer simulations focused on the more conceptual aspects of Ashby’s thought may help us recover, extend and consequently assess an overall view of life as heteronomy. Method: The paper discusses some computer simulations of Ashby’s original electro-mechanical device (the homeostat) that implement his techniques (double-feedback loops and random parameter-switching). Results: First simulation results show that even though Ashby’s claims about homeostatic adaptivity need to be slightly weakened, his overall results are confirmed, thereby suggesting that an extension to virtual robots engaged in minimal cognitive tasks may be successful. Implications: The paper shows that a fuller incorporation of Ashby’s original results into recent cognitive science research may trigger a philosophical and technical reevaluation of the traditional distinction between heteronomous and autonomous behavior. Constructivist content: The research outlined in the paper supports an extended constructionist perspective in which agency as autonomy plays a more limited role.

Key words: Second-order cybernetics, autonomy and agency, general homeostasis thesis, W. R. Ashby, homeostat, concept simulation

Open peer commentary on the article “A Cybernetic Computational Model for Learning and Skill Acquisition” by Bernard Scott & Abhinav Bansal. Upshot: Scott and Bansal’s assessment of the limitations of their work relies on a concept of simulation that I find problematic. It assumes that the ultimate goal of a model is a replication of the phenomena it applies, whereas a limited model produces only simulations. I argue that this position leads to unfortunate epistemological results, and it ends up assigning an unduly exclusive role to the study of the biochemical substrate of cognition.

Open peer commentary on the article “What Can the Global Observer Know?” by Diana Gasparyan. Upshot: While I agree with Gasparyan’s incisive critique of the concept of the “general observer,” her use of the concept of “event” is somewhat ambiguous. On the one hand, she equates “events” to Wittgenstein’s and (and, truly, Leibniz’s) “configurations of objects” or “states of affairs” and she consider the world as a collection of such states of affairs. On the other hand, she cites Badiou’s work in support of her criticism of the “general observer.” Yet Badiou’s conception of events is very different from Wittgenstein’s: they are locally produced by historically (hence, spatio-temporally) situated agents in their concrete inter-subjective (social) activities. I argue that a resolution of the target article’s ambiguity in favour of Badiou’s conception of events would allow constructivism to escape a narrow epistemological reading of its basic thesis (which Gasparyan convincingly defends) in favor of a broader interpretation.

The paper argues that the conception of life as generalized homeostasis developed by W. R. Ashby in Design for a Brain and his other writings is orthogonal to the traditional distinction between autonomy and heteronomy that underlies much recent work in cellular biology, evolutionary robotics, ALife, and general AI. The distinction is well-entrenched in the Western philosophical canon but it fails to do justice to Ashby’s conception of life. We can assess the philosophical and technical viability of the general homeostasis thesis Ashby advocated, the paper argues, through the construction of virtual cognitive agents (i.e. simulated robots in a physically plausible environment) that replicate the architecture of Ashby’s original homeostat through a Ctrnn-like network architecture, whose outline implementation is then discussed.

Key words: homeostasis, w. r. ashby, life, autonomy, heteronomy.

Purpose: Seeks to promote an understanding of a multidisciplinary approach to artificial intelligence and the humanities. Design/methodology/approach – This paper is based on an interview with Heinz von Foerster. Findings: Describes von Foerster’s personal and intellectual journey which made him a transdisciplinary scientist and the founder and director of the Biological Computer Laboratory. Originality/value – Provides a better understanding in how the complexity of scientific practice should be reflected in an open and flexible attitude towards the objects of enquiry.

Key words: artificial intelligence, cybernetics.