Heinz von Foerster quotes
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“Objectivity is a subject's delusion that observing can be done without him”
-- Heinz von FoersterSource : "The Certainty of Uncertainty: Dialogues Introducing Constructivis" by Bernhard Poerksen, (p. 3), 2004.
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“Hard sciences are successful because they deal with the soft problems; soft sciences are struggling because they deal with the hard problems.”
-- Heinz von FoersterSource : Heinz von Foerster (2007). “Understanding Understanding: Essays on Cybernetics and Cognition”, p.191, Springer Science & Business Media
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“Should one name one central concept, a first principle, of cybernetics, it would be circularity.”
-- Heinz von Foerster -
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“What we need now is the description of the "describer" or, in other words, we need a theory of the observer.”
-- Heinz von FoersterSource : Heinz von Foerster (2007). “Understanding Understanding: Essays on Cybernetics and Cognition”, p.247, Springer Science & Business Media
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“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.”
-- Heinz von FoersterSource : "Population Density and Growth". "Science", Vol 133, June 16, 1961.
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“Act always so as to increase the number of choices”
-- Heinz von FoersterSource : Heinz Von Foerster (1984). “Observing Systems”
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“Something that cannot be explained cannot be seen.”
-- Heinz von Foerster -
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“The environment as we perceive it is our invention,”
-- Heinz von FoersterSource : Heinz von Foerster (2007). “Understanding Understanding: Essays on Cybernetics and Cognition”, p.212, Springer Science & Business Media
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“First-order cybernetics is the science of observed systems; Second-order cybernetics is the science of observing systems.”
-- Heinz von Foerster -
“If you desire to see, learn how to act.”
-- Heinz von FoersterSource : Heinz Von Foerster (1984). “Observing Systems”
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