Heinz Von Foerster Quotes

First-order cybernetics is the science of observed systems; Second-order cybernetics is the science of observing systems.

Hard sciences are successful because they deal with the soft problems; soft sciences are struggling because they deal with the hard problems.

Objectivity is the delusion that observations could be made without an observer.

If you desire to see, learn how to act.

Act always so as to increase the number of choices

Objectivity is a subject's delusion that observing can be done without him.

What we need now is the description of the "describer" or, in other words, we need a theory of the observer.

Cybernetics is NOT the banana.

Something that cannot be explained cannot be seen.

The environment as we perceive it is our invention.

Should one name one central concept, a first principle, of cybernetics, it would be circularity.

I shall act always so as to increase the total number of choices.