The Beginning of Heaven and Earth Has No Name: Seven Days With Second-Order Cybernetics

摘要

The book is a translation of a series of conversations that the editors conducted over 7 days-hence,the biblical theme,or perhaps the other,inverse,way round-with Heinz von Foerster in 1997.This book is a fun introduction to von Foerster for scholars and students who are not familiar or only have a passing acquaintance with his work or biography. One may have come across his name because one may have found him mentioned in a historical account of the cybernetics movement and the Macy conferences,such as in N.Katherine Hayles’s lauded How We Became Post-Human (Chicago University Press,1999) or mentioned in the later systems theoretical works of sociologist Niklas Luhmann. For these readers,The Beginning will prove useful,and they will find themselves surprisingly entertained and intellectually tickled,while readers already familiar with von Foerster’s unique style and wittiness will find this book a great treat.Witty is,in this case,also the best description one can give for the way that von Foerster-who counted as his “uncle” none other than Ludwig Wittgenstein,probably the philosopher of wit and jokes-attacks every problem that he is interested in and nearly every established position he can think of: Every problem we encounter lies,for von Foerster, in our language,that is,in the very way that I as the observer choose to describe,to problematize,to question whatever it is that peaks my interest.The two interviewers,constantly subject to von Foerster’s boundless and probing curiosity, try,at times desperately,to keep him discussing the theme they have picked for each day.This,however,proves a Herculean task they never fully master.Relating to one story after the other,von Foerster,however,never bores and never fails to teach readers at the same time - and what he teaches are not so much lessons but what happens when we question our point of view as radically and as relentlessly as possible. Yet his is not the kind of textbook knowledge that a student can recount in a term paper or that makes up a studiouslooking footnote in a thesis.For starters,there is the problem with von Foerster’s style in general,which these consecutive 7 days of dialogue are a prime example for: Even in most of his publications (e.g.,collected in Understanding Understanding,Springer,2002)-some of them originating in presentations-his ideas and arguments are presented full of jokes and allusions.His writings often end up mimicking his original vernacular and the (infamous) Wiener Schmäh, the Viennese style of half-jokingly,half-seriously creating a dialog that is meandering between charming and unflattering colloquialisms.