A Landmark in the History of Science

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A Landmark in the History of Science H. von Foerster’s Cybernetics of Cybernetics (1974) Carlos Eduardo Maldonado1   · Eduardo Villar Concha1  Accepted: 4 November 2020 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020

Abstract This paper presents and discusses an authentic landmark in the history of science, namely H. v. Foerster’s Cybernetics of Cybernetics, 1974, a most fundamental book based on the students’ notes. This is a book rarely known even by many specialists. This paper claims that von Foerster’s book constitutes a unique achievement in the history of science and provides reasons. A thorough presentation is introduced that brings a complete panorama of concepts, problems and approaches. Keywords  System science · History of science · Control communication · Epistemology

1 Introduction Roughly speaking, since the nineteenth Century the advancement of science has been in the form of papers over books. A few notable exceptions include B. Mandelbrot’s The Geometry of Nature. By the years 1973–1974 Heinz von Foerster was already a prominent figure in the academic world. Author of more than 100 publications, by then he had already published the most conspicuous papers and chapters that made of him a leading feature in a field that crossed physics and philosophy and the father of second order cybernetics. In 1974 Heinz von Foerster’s students compiled the notes of a course taught at the University of Illinois, Urbana in an exhilarating book of nearly 500 pages. Since it is a true rarity even for insiders, this paper presents the book, its structures and contents, and frames it in the context of history of science in general, and the history of systems science in particular. The argument here is that von Foerster had very carefully thought and developed a second order cybernetics which can be adequately be grasped as control of control or also as the communication of communication. The book can be said to be an authentic landmark in the history of science.

* Carlos Eduardo Maldonado [email protected] Eduardo Villar Concha [email protected] 1



School of Medicine, Universidad El Bosque, Bogotá, Colombia

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C. E. Maldonado, E. V. Concha

To the best of our knowledge, the book was never published afterwards, which makes of the 1974 an authentic jewel in the history of science, systems science in general and cybernetics in particular. Hence, a thorough presentation becomes compulsory. This is the first section of this paper. The second section is devoted to a discussion of von Foerster’s book within the framework of systems science at large. Some key elements are highlighted that help understand complexity and systems approach. The third section evaluates the interplay between systems science and complexity science under the lights shed by the 1974 book. At the end some conclusions are drawn.

2 Cybernetics of Cybernetics Von Foerster’s book can be read and presented in a manifold ways. Thus, for example, it is possible to say that, aimed as a course it offers always firstly some key co

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