Interview von Bernhard Pörksen mit HvF über die Entwicklung der Kybernetik, die Computermetapher des Geistes und die Versuche, das Gehirn zu verstehen.

Ist Wahrheitserkenntnis möglich? Oder sind unsere Weltbilder lediglich Erfindungen? Solche Fragen stellen (und beantworten) die Vertreter einer Erkenntnistheorie, die als Konstruktivismus Furore macht. Im DS-Interview spricht Heinz von Foerster, einer der bedeutendsten Vertreter dieser Denkschule, über die vermeintliche Realität unserer Wahrnehmungen und das konstruktivistische Lebensgefühl.

contains an index to the large amount of his publications and notes

Biographical sketch

Biographical sketch

Zum Tode eines großen Dialogikers: Ein letztes Gespräch mit dem Physiker, Mathematiker und Theoretiker Heinz von Foerster über die Karriere des Konstruktivismus, Möbius-Schleifen des Denkens sowie Etiketten, die echten Gedankenaustausch stören [A last interview with Heinz von Foerster]

Mit Beiträgen von Heinz J. Kersting, Bernhand Pörsken und Theodor M. Bardmann

HvF on “On Interaction, the Whole and its Parts: Communication Amongst Planariae,” “Magnetic Cubes in a Box: Order From Noise,” and “The Gentleman in the Bowler Hat: Autonomy, Responsibility, Reality.”

HvF talks about his collaboration and friendship with Gotthard Günther.

This essay tells the story of BCL which is inseparable from that of its charismatic founder and only director, ECE professor Heinz von Foerster.

The issues covered were: Are firms autopoietic? (Biggiero); An Aristotelian model of autopoiesis (Dougall); Knowledge as an autopoietic system (Fujigaki); Autopoiesis and language/phenomenology (Introna); Autopoiesis and apoptosis (Ishikawa); Luhmann’s social theory (Jokisch); Autopoiesis and governance (Little); Autopoiesis and embodied cognition (Mingers); Modelling Luhmann’s theories (Simon); and Autopoiesis and creativity (Gornev).

Autopoietic Theory is one of the most serious attempts to characterize life and living entities in contemporary biology. However, its foundation lies on operations of distinction so sharp and adamantine that cannot be realized in the concrete work of a biologist. The cases of biomembranes and of the cell are discussed, showing the inexcapable limits of observative distinctions. A proposal of reconsidering the relation between life and autopoiesis is finally advanced.

Bernhard Pörksen im Gespräch mit Humberto R. Maturana über dessen Begegnung mit Pinochet und über eine Theorie der Macht [Maturana about his encounter with Pinochet]

Gordon Pask’s life and work may be interpreted through the filter of two themes: interaction and drama. Those who knew him, or saw him make a presentation, will be acutely aware of the drama of the persona. And all those who know his work will be familiar with the use of the word interaction as well as words such as conversation, implying/embodying interaction.

Gordon Pask set out to create a formal theory of learning conversations capable of being used to build well formalised people-machine-system executable models of conversations.

The philosophy which Kelly called constructive alternativism is the idea that, while there is only one true reality, reality is always experienced from one or another perspective, or alternative construction.

The key message of the Personal Construction Theory is that the world is ‘perceived’ by a person in terms of whatever ‘meaning’ that person applies to it and the person has the freedom to choose a different ‘meaning’ of whatever he or she wants. In other words, the person has the ‘freedom to choose’ the meaning that one prefers or likes. Kelly called this alternative constructivism. In simple words, the person is capable of applying alternative constructions (meanings) to any events in the past, present or future. The person is not a prisoner of one’s ‘biography or past’ and could liberate oneself from the misery of ‘miserable’ events if one desires by reconstruing (reinterpreting and redefining) them. The theory rejects the existing schism between affect, cognition, and action and recommends that they be construed together for developing a fuller understanding of human behavior.

PCP is a system of psychology developed by George Kelly in the early 1950s that has wide application in modeling human knowledge processes.

In this article the ideas of von Uexkülls main book “Theoretische Biologie” (1928) are presented. It shows that the author intended to carry biology beyond purely structural-anatomical analysis. Biology should also take the subject of the human (as observer) and the subject of the animal into consideration. Relating his ideas to those of German philosopher I. Kant, von Uexküll emphasizes that objects are appearances which owe their organization to a subject.