Brier S. (2005) The construction of information and communication: A cybersemiotic reentry into Heinz von Foerster’s metaphysical construction of second-order cybernetics. Semiotica 154(1/4): 355–399.
Brier S.
(
2005)
The construction of information and communication: A cybersemiotic reentry into Heinz von Foerster’s metaphysical construction of second-order cybernetics.
Semiotica 154(1/4): 355–399.
This article praises the development of second order cybernetics by von Foerster, Maturana, and Varela as an important step in deepening our un- derstanding of the bio-psychological foundation of the dynamics of information, cognition, and communication. Luhmann’s development of the theory into the realm of social communication is seen as a necessary and important move. The triple autopoietic differentiation between biological, psychologi- cal, and social-communicative autopoiesis and the introduction of a technical concept of meaning is central. Finally, the paper shows that second order cybernetics lacks explicit and ontological concepts of emotion, meaning, and a concept of signs. C. S. Peirce’s theory is introduced for this purpose. It is then shown, through Varela’s development of Spencer Brown’s ‘Laws of Form’ from a dual to a dynamic triadic categorical structure, that both theories are triadic and second order, and therefore can be fruitfully fused to a Cybersemiotics.
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