In this article, I shall examine the way in which information was central to the development of cybernetics. I particularly contrast the different uses of the concept by two key participants in that development – Norbert Wiener, who argued that information was a quasi-physical concept related to the degree of organisation in a system; and Gregory Bateson, who considered information to be a proc...

In 1974, Heinz von Foerster articulated the distinction between a firstand second-order cybernetics, as, respectively, the cybernetics of observed systems and the cybernetics of observing systems. Von Foerster’s distinction, together with his own work on the epistemology of the observer, has been enormously influential on the work of a later generation of cyberneticians. It has provided an arch...

J. Engelmann, W. Su, D. Jha, R. Mishra, J. Pfeuffer, K. Ugurbil High Field MR Centre, Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tuebingen, Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany, Physiology of Cognitive Processes, Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tuebingen, Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany, MREA Neuro, Siemens Medical Solutions, Erlangen, Bayern, Germany, Radiology, Neurosciences, and Me...

In this article, I shall examine the way in which information was central to the development of cybernetics. I particularly contrast the different uses of the concept by two key participants in that development – Norbert Wiener, who argued that information was a quasi-physical concept related to the degree of organisation in a system; and Gregory Bateson, who considered information to be a proc...

This issue of E:CO is reprinting a classic paper by Heinz von Foerster, one of the key players in the formation and development of cybernetics. Von Foerster was an Austrian/American engineer, scientist, science expositor, philosopher, and cultural commentator (rather than listing each reference which would render this document unwieldy, history of cybernetics were taken from Heims1, Kline2, Dup...