Heinz von Foerster citations

Heinz von Foerster est un scientifique austro-américain situé à la croisée de la physique et de la philosophie. Il fut l'un des fondateurs de la cybernétique de deuxième ordre et un contributeur important du constructivisme radical. Il est aussi connu pour son intérêt pour l'informatique musicale et la magie. Wikipedia  

✵ 13. novembre 1911 – 2. octobre 2002
Heinz von Foerster: 11   citations 0   J'aime

Heinz von Foerster: Citations en anglais

“Either Stone Age man was a technological wizard, who carefully removed his technological achievements so as not to upset his inferior progeny, or our population dwindled from a once astronomical size to the mere three billions of today.”

Von Foerster, Mora and Amiot (1961) "Population Density and Growth". in: Science, Vol 133, 16 June 1961, pp. 1932-37 as cited in: Stuart A. Umpleby (2001) " Heinz von Foerster (1911 - 2002) http://projects.isss.org/heinz_von_foerster_by_stuart_umpleby"
1960s

“All this (the early excitement of Cybernetics) is now history, and in the decade which elapsed since these early baby steps of interdisciplinary communication, many more threads were picked up and interwoven into a remarkable tapestry of knowledge and endeavour: Bionics. It is good omen that at the right time the right name was found. For, bionics extends a great invitation to all who are willing not to stop at the investigation of a particular function or its realization, but to go on and to seek the universal significance of these functions in living or artificial organisms.
The reader who goes through the following papers which constitute the transactions of the first symposium held under the name Bionics will be surprised by the multitude of astonishing and unforeseen connections between concepts he believed to be familiar with. For instance, a couple of years ago, who would have thought to relate the reliability problem to multi-valued logics; or, who would have thought that integral or differential geometry would serve as an adequate tool in the theory of abstraction? It is hard to say in all these cases who was teaching whom: The life-sciences the engineering sciences, or vice versa? And rightly so, for it guarantees optimal information flow, and everybody gains…”

Von Foerster (1960) as cited in Peter M. Asaro (2007). "Heinz von Foerster and the Bio-Computing Movements of the 1960s," http://cybersophe.org/writing/Asaro%20HVF%26BCL.pdf
1960s

“Objectivity is a subject's delusion that observing can be done without him. Involving objectivity is abrogating responsibility – hence its popularity.”

Heinz von Foerster cited in: Bernhard Poerksen (2004). The Certainty of Uncertainty: Dialogues Introducing Constructivism. p.3
2000s and attributed from posthumous publications

“The world, as we perceive it, is our own invention.”

Heinz von Foerster (1988) The Invented Reality p.45–46
1980s

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

Heinz von Foerster (1984) " Disorder/Order: Discovery or Invention? http://ada.evergreen.edu/~arunc/texts/cybernetics/heinz/disorder.pdf. p.6
1980s