THE OBSERVER’S EXPERIENCE [01.18.98]

Whatever is perceived is basically composed of signals within our sphere of experience. We are of course, free to consider these original signals the effect of some outside causes. But since there is no way of approaching or 'observing' these hypothetical causes, except through their effects, we are in the same relation to that 'outside' in which the first cyberneticists found themselves with regard to living organisms - that is to say, we are facing a 'black box'. ... It is a black box with which we can deal remarkably well. As far as its structure, its ontological character, is concerned, it is nonetheless black, and there is no hope of a rational way of dispelling its blackness.

Ernst von Glasersfeld