In Memoriam H.v.F.
When Heinz von Foerster was in his
teens, he and his cousin Martin
spotted
the twenty volumes of Johann Christian Wiegleb's
Natuerliche
Magie in the window of an
antiques shop. This work was the classic textbook of
the professional magicians'
craft. The boys rushed home, borrowed the 40
shillings the dealer asked for it (today about $25),
and took the books home.
A few years later they both passed the
official examination of the guild and
graduated as Master Magicians. The diploma saved Martin
from the trenches
during the Second World War, because he was detailed to
entertain the troops.
For Heinz, the profound understanding of
the magician's attitude merged
with his passion for physics and
became the source of a kind of wisdom that
is usually alien to science.
Wittgenstein was a friend of the family,
and when Heinz became a student in
Vienna, he heard lectures of Carnap, Reichenbach, Waismann
and others who belonged to the
Wiener Kreis. The unorthodox views that
flourished there had a profound
influence on him. As he said later, the Vienna
Circle was not really a school
of thought, but a school of thinking. It was
more like a discussion group
whose members were highly original thinkers who
happened to agree on certain points. Heinz listened to
them and then proceeded to adapt his
interpretation of some of their ideas in the
construction of his own picture of the world.
Throughout his studies of physics and
his subsequent research on shortwave
transmission and signal theory, a problem from a different
field intrigued him: what sort
of mechanism could possibly underly our memory?
Because remembering historical dates had always been
difficult for him in
school, he created a chart for himself on which he
marked all the dates that
seemed important. He discovered that the further you
went back in time, the
fewer were the events you learned about. He conjectured
that this was because
things tended to be forgotten. His work with
electromagnetic signals and the
technical notion of information triggered the idea that
forgetting might be
caused by the physical decay of molecules in the brain.
In his spare time,
while working for the Austro-American radio station in
Vienna, he started to
develop this idea and found that the figures
psychologists had compiled about
forgetting could be considered a perfect match with
those that physicists
had measured for the decay of
large molecules. He wrote it up, a monograph of
40 pages. It became his first
post-war publication and though he quickly
gave up the molecular theory it
turned a visit to the United States into the
beginning of life-long emigration.
In 1958 he founded the Biological Computer Laboratory
at the University
of Illinois, where he had been in charge of microwave
research until then.
He directed the BCL for almost
twenty years, providing a peaceful and
stimulating work place for temporary co-researchers such as
Gordon Pask, Ross
Ashby, Humberto Maturana, Gothard Guenther,
and others.
In an intensely interdisciplinary
atmosphere he generated a way of thinking that he
aptly called «Second-Order
Cybernetics». If first-order
cybernetics revolutionized
the world we observe by introducing the notions of
circular causality, feedback, and
self-organization, the step to the second order challenged
the very concept of observation.
Heinz put the new view into a nutshell: «Objectivity
is the delusion that observations could be made without
an observer.»
Instead of worrying about an inaccessible external reality
he focused attention on the
world we build in the course of interactions
with others in the domain of our
experience. Though this experiential world is
a social construction, it is
also individual because each constructs it
according to his or her own experience. And because
there is always more than
one way of constructing, we are all responsible for the
world in which we
live.
He was well aware of the fact that these
ideas are not popular. But he was
encouraged by people all round the world who had been
inspired by his writings and begun to
form a network of individuals swimming against the
stream of epistemological tradition.
We are mourning the loss of a friend, an
irreplaceable intellectual companion,
and a truly great thinker. We are determined to make sure
that his
insights will not be forgotten.
Ernst von
Glasersfeld
October 25, 2002
Heinz von Foerster
Early exponent of cybernetics and 'circular causality'
AS A youth in Vienna, Heinz von Foerster's
first claim to fame was as a magician. But more important, and
to some people just as magical as his
tricks, was his transformation of cybernetics (in the decade
around 1970) by
insisting that the observer must be taken into account in the
description of any system, because he may affect the
processes being observed. From this he
went on to develop systems to modify the
formulation of the systems of classical cybernetics, in
an extension of the field that became
known as «the cybernetics of
cybernetics» or «second-order
cybernetics».
Heinz von Foerster (originally Förster)
was born in Vienna, the eldest son
of Emil von Förster and his wife
Lilith, and educated in philosophy and
logic by the Vienna Circle, and in physics at Vienna's
Technical University. He completed his
doctorate at the University of Breslau in
1944. His family was distinguished and held a prominent
position in the intellectual life of
Vienna: friends and relatives included the
philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, the playwright Hugo
von Hoffmansthal, the
painter Erwin Lang, and the Wiesenthal family.
The family supported Josef Matthias Hauer, the inventor of an
alternative to Schoenberg's
12-tone technique. His grandfather was architect of
the Vienna Ring. He had a
brother, Ulrich, and a sister, Erika, and was
especially close to his cousin Martin Lang, with whom
he studied magic and
roamed Austria's mountains in
winter and in summer. In 1939 he married
the actress Mai Stuermer,
with whom he had three sons.
During the war von Foerster lived and worked in Berlin, where
he moved to
disguise the Jewish element in his ancestry, and did research
in short-wave and plasma physics. At
the end of the war he found a way back
to Austria, where he worked in the telephone industry while
also reporting
on art and science for the Austro-American radio station
Rot-Weiss-Rot,
his communication skills and
showmanship flourishing.
Meanwhile, he was working on his book Memory: A Quantum
Physical Examination. To promote this,
he moved to the United States in 1949,
where (with barely a word of English)
he was taken up by the mathematician,
neuroscientist and philosopher Warren McCulloch, with whom he
communicated in the language of
mathematics.
The trip was a turning-point. McCulloch was then chairing the
Macy Conferences on «Circular
Causal and Feedback Mechanisms in Biological
and Social Systems»
in New York, which were attended by the
anthropologists Margaret Mead and
Gregory Bateson, the computation theorist John von
Neumann and the mathematician Norbert Wiener.
To improve his English, von Foerster was made secretary and
editor. His first act was to add
«Cybernetics» to
the conference title. Together with
Wiener's book Cybernetics
(1948), these conferences gave form and
substance to the emerging discipline. The study of
«circular
causality» can now be said to be the
real heart of cybernetics.
McCulloch arranged for von Foerster to become director of the
University of Illinois tube laboratory.
Von Foerster imported his family and lived
in Champaign
until his retirement in 1976, when he moved into a house that
he built himself, with his
architect son, above the Pacific outside
Pescadero, California.
In 1958 von Foerster founded the Biological Computer
Laboratory, attracting considerable
funding. As well as a cohort of students, he
hosted most of the distinguished scholars in
cybernetics for residencies,
and the laboratory became the world's
most advanced centre for the
development of cybernetic thinking. The first parallel
computers were built there, and crucial
research was carried out on the fast electronic
switching that is critical to today's
computers.
Although von Foerster is known in some circles for his
excursion into demographics (when he
started lively debate in the journal Science), he
was most important for sponsoring radical work in such
subjects as the organisation of the
living and the foundations of mathematics and logic.
He tended to hide his own contribution behind the work
of others, but his
understanding of the reflexive nature of systems led to
profound changes in the understanding
of knowledge and of our connection with the world
in which we find ourselves. For
many he reintroduced the amazement of
wonder.
Having held Guggenheim fellowships in 1956-57 and 1963-64, von
Foerster won many honours. He was
president of the Wenner-Gren Foundation,
1963-65, and of the Society for
General Systems Research, 1976-77. He was elected
to a fellowship of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science
in 1980, and in 1996 the University of Vienna made him
an honorary professor. Last year he won
the first Viktor Frankl Prize. He published
some 200 scientific papers and several books, and gave
more than a thousand lectures around
the world.
He is survived by his wife, Mai, and two sons.
Heinz von Foerster, cybernetician, was born on November 13,
1911. He died
on October 2, 2002, aged 90.
Copyright 2002 Times Newspapers Ltd.
On
a cold day between Christmas and New Year 1961, in search of a
place to study, I met Heinz in his office at the Biological
Computer Laboratory. I knew of him through a network of
designers who, like me, were interested in issues that
conventional curricula did not address. Heinz greeted me, a
total stranger, with the enthusiasm usually reserved for an
old friend. To my surprise, he knew of the place where I had
came from (the Ulm School of Design, an avant-garde
institution now extinct but reproduced everywhere
-
much as cybernetics is now), and he suggested that I come to
the University of Illinois to study with W. Ross Ashby. This
short encounter enrolled me into cybernetics and defined my
intellectual focus for years to come.
Heinz was an amazing orator. He used the language of
mathematics to ingeniously demonstrate the profundity of
simple ideas. In 1974, now a professor of communication, I
organized an American Society for Cybernetics (ASC) conference
on cybernetics in society at the University of Pennsylvania.
He had just finished teaching his famous course on the
cybernetics of cybernetics and brought a carload of students
from Urbana to Philadelphia. He was the key note speaker, of
course. I can still see him addressing the audience with his
usual Viennese charm: “Ladies and Gentlemen…” Calling our
attention to the axiomatic phrase “Anything said is said by an
observer,” he named it Humberto Maturana’s Theorem Number One,
and suggested a “modest” extension: “Heinz von Foerster’s
Corollary Number One: ‘Anything said is said to an
observer’.” In a stroke of genius, by changing only one
two-letter word, he shifted our epistemologic attention from
Maturana’s acts of observation to acts of communication and
proceeded to show that such acts entail responsibilities that
we must not transfer to others.
Heinz accomplished rhetorical feasts like that often and with
the ease of a magician: asking questions that others had not
thought of; turning conventional beliefs into puzzling
opposites; leading his audiences to consider alternative ways
of thinking
-
always moving recursive constructions of human activity into
the center of the conversations. Heinz’ greatest strength
undoubtedly was his ability to encourage others to be
audacious as well, to have the courage to ponder radical
questions. Doing this was his cybernetics and it has now
become ours.
We
stayed in touch by phone, exchanged papers, and met at many
conferences and on his beloved Rattlesnake Hill. For the last
couple of years, he was not well, he told me. But as a
second-order cybernetician, this did not prevent him from
applying his own principles to himself and carrying on against
all medical predictions, always positive, curious,
interpersonally engaged, fascinated by new ideas, and excited
about even the smallest accomplishments. The last time I saw
Heinz was in June 2002, with a friend. He greeted us with his
characteristically animated, “Hello,” inquired about our plans
for the forthcoming cybernetics conference in Santa Cruz,
asked about the people in our lives, wanted to know of any
breakthroughs, and showed us the latest books about him. He
was full of live and present against all odds.
Reading interviews of him or transcripts of his talks, those
who knew him cannot but help hearing his exuberance, sensing
his energy, and enjoying his playful juggling of ideas – even
through translations. We will miss him, but his voice will
continue to be heard.
Klaus Krippendorff
Gregory Bateson Term Professor for Cybernetics, Language, and
Culture
The Annenberg School for Communication
University of Pennsylvania
2002.10.18
From: jli@davis.com (Jon Li)
SF Chronicle Obituary for Heinz
Heinz von
Foerster - population theorist, cybernetics trailblazer
Heinz von Foerster, an internationally
influential physicist, philosopher and
cybernetician who did groundbreaking studies of
population growth and scientific cognition, died of
heart failure at his Pescadero home
Wednesday.
He was 90 years old.
Mr. von Foerster was already a pioneer
in the study of biophysics and had
founded the Biological Computer Laboratory at the University
of Illinois when he published his
widely read "Doomsday Formula" in 1960.
The formula, printed in the journal
Science, predicted that the world's
population would reach infinity by the year 2026 -- on Mr.
von Foerster's birthday, Friday the 13th of November --
barring offsetting circumstances.
It drew immediate criticism from some
demographers and was lampooned in the
"Pogo" comic strip, but in the years since it has become a
valuable reference in the study of
population growth. In addition, Mr. von
Foerster's theory of "doubling time" laid the groundwork in
the early 1960s for the decade's
popular concept of population explosion.
Mr. von Foerster's doomsday formula
touched off "the most controversial and
delightfully acerbic debate ever to appear to in
the pages of Science magazine," Stuart A. Umpleby, a
George Washington University professor
who has written on the subject, said
Monday.
Even more important than Mr. von
Foerster's population study was his
research into how the brain works, Umpleby said, particularly
how cognition affects scientific study.
Mr. von Foerster was a pioneer in
proving that the observations of two people will differ
because of their individual
interpretations -- not a radical concept to lay people, but
somewhat revolutionary at the time to objectively
minded scientists.
"He modified the philosophy of science
in a way that modified all scientific
disciplines," Umpleby said.
Asked if Mr. von Foerster was ahead of
his time, Umpleby laughed and said,
"only by decades."
Mr. von Foerster was born in Vienna in
1911 to Emil and Lilith von Foerster,
whose family included the painter Erwin Lang, the
philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein and the
playwright Hugo von Hoffmansthal.
In his youth Mr. von Foerster was a
mountaineer and a professional
magician, but after earning a doctorate
in physics at the University of
Breslau, he worked in various industrial laboratories.
He married Mai Stuermer in 1939, and the
couple had three sons. After working as
a science correspondent for the Radio Free Europe station
Rot-Weiss- Rot after World War II, he moved to Illinois
to become head of the Electrical
Engineering Research Laboratory at the University of
Illinois.
After arriving in America, Mr. von
Foerster -- jointly with Margaret Mead
and H.L. Teuber -- edited the proceedings of a series of
influential conferences titled
"Cybernetic: Circular and Causal Feedback Mechanisms
in Biological and Social Systems."
He then founded the biological computer
laboratory at the university's
electrical engineering department, which became a
renowned interdisciplinary center for research in
cybernetics and related fields
including computational technology. He remained
director there until 1976, when he moved to Pescadero
to be near relatives and in better
weather.
Right up until his final days, he
remained an intellectually questing man
who took life full bore, said his son, Thomas.
"He was always 'on,' " said Thomas von
Foerster, who is the publisher of
journals for the American Institute of Physics. "Everything he
did, he enjoyed and did as fully as he
could -- from detailed mathematical
investigations to ripping out the poison oak that grows wild
on the hillside at his home."
Mr. von Foerster was a Guggenheim Fellow
in 1956-57 and 1963-64 and was
president from 1963 to 1965 of the Wenner-Gren Foundation for
Anthropological Research. In 2001, he received the
Ehrenring award from the city of
Vienna, as well as the first Viktor Frankl Prize.
Mr. von Foerster is survived by his
wife, Mai; two sons, Thomas of New York
and Andreas of Oregon; three grandchildren, Lilith Fowler of
Wisconsin, Madeline von Foerster of New York and
Nicholas von Foerster of Oregon; and a
sister, Erika de Pasquali of Illinois.
Private services were held Sunday at the
family home in Pescadero.
