In this article, several of Heinz von Foerster’s papers have been recombined in order to demonstrate that during the late sixties and seventies he has developed a grand unified theory of cognition which is far more radical, complex and encompassing than subsequent or even contemporary approaches. Furthermore, the article demonstrates that working with a series of recombinative operators one is able to generate new contents out of already published materials. Finally, as a last leitmotif, Heinz von Foerster’s cognitive action program turns out to be a devastating criticism of intentional action frameworks like Rational Choice and paves the way for a most promising alternative research path.

Key words: interview

This interview was held in April 1997 in Heinz von Foerster’s home in Pescadero. In this interview, questions by Albert and Karl H. Müller are marked in italics. The German version has been published as Foerster H.v. (1997). Der Anfang von Himmel und Erde hat keinen Namen. Eine Selbsterschaffung in sieben Tagen (A. Müller and K. H. Müller, Eds.). Vienna: DöckerVerlag. The English translation has been prepared by Michael Kasenbacher and Elinor Rooks. It will be

This book pursues two different agendas. On the one hand this volume presents two important contributions by Heinz von Foerster, which are both related strongly to Vienna. The first contribution is a reprint of Foerster’s early book on memory (Das Gedächtnis), published in 1948. The second contribution is a reflection by Heinz von Foerster on the Vienna Circle as a parable for a specific style of thought. The second agenda for this book lies in a historic and systematic account of a Viennese intellectual tradition or, to use Ludwik Fleck’s term, a Viennese thought collective with a specific style of thought. This thought collective comprises, inter alia, Ernst Mach and Otto Neurath as their most prominent exponents. In this book the argument has been made that Heinz von Foerster became socialized into this specific style of thought, which manifests itself clearly in his first big publication, namely in his book on memory. Moreover, it can be shown that the roots of important components of radical constructivism already existed within this specific Viennese thought collective.

Heinz von Foerster was the inventor of second-order cybernetics, which recognizes the investigator as part of the system he is investigating. The Beginning of Heaven and Earth Has No Name provides an accessible, nonmathematical, and comprehensive overview of von Foerster’s cybernetic ideas and of the philosophy latent within them. It distills concepts scattered across the lifework of this scientific polymath and influential interdisciplinarian. At the same time, as a book-length interview, it does justice to von Foerster’s élan as a speaker and improviser, his skill as a raconteur. Developed from a week-long conversation between the editors and von Foerster near the end of his life, this work playfully engages von Foerster in developing the difference his notion of second-order cybernetics makes for topics ranging from emergence, life, order, and thermodynamics to observation, recursion, cognition, perception, memory, and communication. The book gives an English-speaking audience a new ease of access to the rich thought and generous spirit of this remarkable and protean thinker. Relevance: It presents the most comprehensive interview with Heinz von Foerster available in English.

The first part presents Heinz von Foerster directly, with four largely inaccessible or unpublished texts, mostly from the 1960s. The second part offers thirteen re-inventions of Heinz von Foerster by friends and colleagues, including Ranulph Glanville, Humberto R. Maturana, Siegfried J. Schmidt, Bernard Scott, and several significant others. Together, both parts underline the high relevance of Heinz von Foerster’s work to contemporary contexts and its wide scope, which was genuinely transdisciplinary at a time when the term “transdisciplinarity” was almost unknown.

Excerpt: Dieser Artikel setzt seine zwei Schwerpunkte auf die Entstehungsgeschichte der Kybernetik zweiter Ordnung in den späten 1960er und 1970er Jahren sowie auf deren gegenwärtige Konturen und Entwicklungspotentiale. Im Zentrum des Artikels stehen die beiden Thesen, dass – als erste These – die Kybernetik zweiter Ordnung zwar seit den frühen 1970er Jahren als Schlagwort von etwas grundsätzlich Neuem und Anderem zirkulierte, dass sie aber nur in Form einzelner disparater Bausteine in unterschiedlichen Publikationen primär von Heinz von Foerster, aber auch von Gordon Pask, Ranulph Glanville und anderen entwickelt wurde. Zugespitzt formuliert, wurde die Kybernetik zweiter Ordnung nie in ausführlicher und homogener Form präsentiert und in passende Forschungskontexte überführt. Deswegen muss – als zweite These – eine solche Kybernetik zweiter Ordnung gegenwärtig erst von ihren Bausteinen her rekonstruiert, neu aufgebaut und als eigensinniges Element im breiteren konstruktivistischen Kontext formiert und entfaltet werden.