Heinz von Foerster Lecture

Heinz von Foerster Lecture 2013

SECOND ORDER CYBERNETICS THEN AND NOW

Stuart A. Umpleby

The George Washington University

Washington, DC, USA

Monday 18th November 2013, 19:00

Hörsaal/Lecture Room 31

Universität Wien

Universitätsring 1, 1010 Wien

Abstract: When Heinz von Foerster coined the term “second order cybernetics,” his goal was to include the observer in the domain of science.  This was a fundamental change in the conception of science, and Heinz encountered stiff opposition.  One consequence of including the observer would be to extend cybernetics (and science) into the domain of ethics.  Scientists had previously sought to be objective.  Including the observer made science a subjective enterprise.  This suggestion was strongly resisted by Heinz’s colleagues in the UIUC College of Engineering and elsewhere in the U.S. academic community.

Since Heinz retired and moved to California, the people involved in cybernetics in the U.S. have been mostly social scientists.  Rather than people with backgrounds in neurophysiology, psychology, mathematics and philosophy, those interested in cybernetics tended to be therapists, management scientists, sociologists and people concerned with design.  Including the observer in science led to interest in scientific theories as part of social systems.  Several conceptions of second order science have now been formulated.  If we use the correspondence principle (i.e., every new theory should reduce to the old theory to which it corresponds for those cases in which the old theory is known to hold), we can say that two dimensions have been added to the conception of science:  a) amount of attention paid to the observer, and b) the amount of effect of a theory on the phenomenon described.

Stuart Umpleby is a professor of management at the George Washington University in Washington, DC.  He studied with Heinz von Foerster and Ross Ashby at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign.  He is a past president of the American Society for Cybernetics.

The lecture is organized by the Heinz von Foerster Society in cooperation with WISDOM and the Institut für Zeitgeschichte/Universität Wien and supported by the City of Vienna and Blaha Office.

Dr. Albert Müller

Dr. Karl H. Müller

Voice for Indi - a systemic governance innovation

I have been meaning to make a post about the phenomenon that emerged from the recent Federal Elections in Australia called the Voice for Indi (V4i).  Much has now been written about V4i in the Australian media - the excerpt below comes from the Bank of I.D.E.A.S newsletter (with thanks).

Cathy McGowan, now the Independent Member for Indi in the Federal Parliament completed an MSc at Hawkesbury in Systemic Development (or Systems Agriculture?) which is where I first met Cathy.  She is an amazing character as exemplified in many ways, including taking time to write me a hand written thank you note for my donation to her campaign - written only two days before the election.

"A remarkable campaign has been run in the recent national election in Australia, where the people of the rural electorate of Indi stood up against the party politics domination and demonstrated the power of community by electing a community member over a 12 year veteran and senior member of the Liberal Party.

Cathy McGowan was the nominated member of the Voice of Indi movement. Click on the following links to read about their achievement: Article 1 and Article 2.

The values that guide their actions and decisions are summarised as –

·         V 4 i is committed to encouraging a diversity of voices and opinion, and participation in the electoral process both regionally and nationally

·         V 4 i is committed to ensuring that our electorate voice is heard, and represented at the national level

·         V 4 i is committed to encouraging respectful and mature representation of our democratic voices

·         V 4 i is committed to undertaking activities which will create an invitation to participate in our democracy

·         V 4 i is committed to developing and using simple, elegant processes when engaging with the electorate

·         V 4 i is committed to being honest and respectful, to being well informed, and to referring to reputable sources when making statements"

What is important to take from this story is the design considerations that underpin the success in systemic governance innovation. In governance innovation terms it stands out against the systemic failure of so much of the rest of the election.

Kruger Images

Epi-thinking

Michael Lissack has developed a new site which he calls 'epi-thinking' for 'evoking a new way of thinking which recognizes that:

1.              Actions have a fundierung relationship with context and
2.              Cognition has a fundierung relationship with semiotic affordances.

 For Lissak 'fundierung (following Hegel) is 'the "overlooked taken for granted" things which underlie an action or understanding -- and have the power to change things merely by being paid attention to.' 

More background can be found from the Modes of Explanation site. 

Systemic revolution a la Russell Brand

Jeremy Paxman, of BBC2 Newsnight fame, may well come to be remembered most for his interview with Russell Brand calling for a revolution - as Martin Flanagan says in his article in yesterday's Age: 'I suspect Russell Brand is somehow speaking to the future.'

EPSRC funded Systems-NET

Advice has recently been received about an new EPSRC-funded Systems Initiative.

"Systems-NET  has been funded by EPSRC with the rationale of adding significant value to the UK’s industrial and academic base by enabling development of key cross-sector engagements and contributing to solve some of the UK’s emerging and future societal challenges. The UK systems community (academia, industrial and other stake holders) has the potential to achieve this provided it takes a coherent approach that is driven by real needs.

Systems-NET  aims to strengthen connections between university research and industrial applications so that the expanding complexity of present and future systems can be described, analysed and understood.

The purpose of this email is to make you aware of the network and to encourage you to join. There is no cost and we welcome participation from those new to the field who wish to find out more about systems through to more experienced practitioners.
 
Please take a look at the Systems-NET  web site and/or contact  the organisers at Loughborough University  if you are interested in finding out more
 
There is also a section in the website where you can register your interest. This will help us keep you informed of new developments.
 
Kind regards
Roy Kalawsky

Sent by: Dr Gema Styles
EPSRC UK Systems-NET Researcher and Coordinator
School of Electronic and Electrical and Systems Engineering
Loughborough University"

Systems thinking in practice (STiP) program

Our STiP postgraduate program at the Open University (UK) continues to strengthen on a range of measures.  For example, evidence of STiP impact to date can be seen through citations data and sales figures for the set of co-published books produced for the STiP programme (Table 1 and photo of books) as well as publication, including citation, data for recent scholarly publications by the STiP team.

Table 1.  Book sales (includes print sales, MyCopy sales, bulk sales and individual eBook sales – as of April 2013) and chapter downloads Jun 06, 2010 - March 2013 of the four books co-published by the Open University with Springer (UK) for use in the STiP (Systems Thinking in Practice MSc programme).

Title	2010	2011	2012	2013	Total
	Chapters	Chapters	Chapters	Chapters	Books	Chapters
Systems Thinkers (ST)	3344	2548	3621	574	1437	10903
Systems Approaches (SA)	1101	1171	1499	424	1022	4195
Systems Practice (SP)	346	439	582	107	477	1474
Social Learning Systems (SLS)	969	1281	1451	406	465	4107
TOTAL					3401	20,679

Springer also report the following visits to the book home pages during 2012: ST= 447 times; SA = 992 times; SP = 419 times; SLS = 617 times (see Table 1 for abbreviations).

The poster below was prepared for a Public Sector Fair held in London earlier in 2013. It shows some of the many links to websites and blogs generated by our STiP alumni.  An excellent example is the site 'Just Practicing'  authored by Helen Wilding, one of our first STiP graduates (photographed below with David Robertson, another STiP graduate).

 

 Anyone thinking of doing or recommending one of our courses or even sponsoring staff  might be well advised to consider the core course 'Managing systemic change: inquiry, action and interaction' (TU812) which is in presentation again at the end of this month.

In addition to the four books described in Table 1, five book chapters, three conference papers and one journal paper have been published based around STiP scholarship. STiP researchers have delivered 15 invited talks and/or keynotes and a range of other academic outputs. Examples of scholarly publications related to STiP include:

• Blackmore, C.P. & Ison, R.L. (2012) Designing and developing learning systems for managing systemic change in a climate change world. In Wals, A. & Corcoran P.B. eds. Learning for sustainability in times of accelerating change. pp. 347-364.  Wageningen Academic Publishers, Education and Sustainable Development Series, Wageningen, The Netherlands.
• Ison. R.L. (2012) A cybersystemic framework for practical action. In Murray, J., Cawthorne, G., Dey, C., and Andrew, C. eds. Enough for All Forever. A Handbook for Learning about Sustainability, pp. 269-84. Champaign, Illinois: Common Ground Publishing.
• Ison, R.L. (2012) Systems practice: making the systems in farming systems research effective. In Ika Darnhofer, David Gibbon and Benoit Dedieu (eds). The farming systems approach into the 21st century: The new dynamic. pp. 141-158.  Springer, Dordrecht.
• Ison, R.L. & Blackmore, C.P. (2012) Designing and developing a reflexive learning system for managing systemic change in a climate-change world based on cyber-systemic understandings, Proc. EMCSR 2012 (European Meetings on Cybernetics and Systems Research), Vienna, 9-13 April.
• Blackmore, C.P., Cerf, M., Ison, R.L. and Paine, M. (2012) The role of action-oriented learning theories for change in agriculture and rural networks. In Ika Darnhofer, David Gibbon and Benoit Dedieu, (eds). The farming systems approach into the 21st century: The new dynamic. pp. 159-178. Springer, Dordrecht.
• Reynolds, M. (2011). Critical thinking and systems thinking: towards a critical literacy for systems thinking in practice. In: Horvath, Christopher P. and Forte, James M. eds. Critical Thinking. New York, USA: Nova Science Publishers, pp. 37–68.
• Reynolds, M. (2011). Bells that still can ring: systems thinking in practice. In: Tait, Andrew and Richardson, Kurt eds. Moving Forward with Complexity: Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Complex Systems Thinking and Real World Applications. Litchfield Park, AZ: Emergent Publications, pp. 327–349.
• Reynolds, M. (2011). Heuristic for teaching systems thinking. In: UKSS 15th International Conference: The Future of Systems Learning, 1-2 September 2011, Oxford, UK.