Towards a Dynamic Heterarchical Ecology of Conversations1

摘要

As the head of the Biological Computer Lab (BCL), in both his theory and scientific practice, Heinz Von Foerster exhibited a holistic multi-perspective approach to the body and knowing. This took form through an overarching embodied attitude toward knowledge production. Von Foerster, through conversation, collaborative research, advanced publication, and focused symposia, functioned as an exceptional organizational vehicle for knowledge production across a scries of widely differing domains. He sometimes did this by playing the contrarian—exploring language inversions, humor and playful linguistic game strategies which I will expand on. He was deeply interested in metaphor and the ideas of Wittgenstein concerning language. He thus became a living nexus for conceptual dances that played out across a multiplicity of conversations.