Anonymous medieval illuminator - uploader Carlos Adanero - Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
“First-order cybernetics is the science of observed systems; Second-order cybernetics is the science of observing systems”…
— Heinz von Foerster
Ouroboros and the Decoupling of Reality
Marxism, Progressivism and Dialectical Materialism - The Snake eats its Tail
“And if you ask me: “My dear Heinz von Foerster, what is meta-physicist?”, I would say the following:
There are questions among those we ask about the world that it is possible to answer: “Heinz von Foerster, how old are you?”Well, you can look that up in a catalog: Born in 1911, that means he is 90.
Or you can ask questions which cannot be answered, like for example: “Heinz von Foerster, tell me, what was the origin of the universe?” Well, then I could give you one of 35 different theories...
…there are so many different hypotheses because the question cannot be answered…
… How can we let a world-wide networked system of machines grow more or less into infinity, if it based on theories that apparently have holes or are only “good stories”.
I mean such shaky foundations?
Isn’t that dangerous?
Well in this world-wide functioning system of machines all theories are correct...
And of course that's what people want.
And why are they correct?
Because they can be deduced from other theories and “stories”
But what will it lead to?
How does it go on?
It goes on deducing indefinitely.
But there have to be limits somewhere?
No, not at all, thats the good thing about it.
You can go on forever.
In logic…
Yes, precisely…
But in reality?
Where is reality?
Can you show it to me?”…
- Excerpt, Interview with Heinz von Foerster
[ LINK ]
The concept of the Ouroboros depicted through the Serpent or Snake eating its own tail has its origins in ancient symbolism and mythology.
Some of the interpretations of the meaning of the image are positive and highlight the cyclicality of the lived experience and the perpetual cycle of birth, death, destruction, renewal, progress and transformation.
“Should one name one central concept, a first principle, of cybernetics, it would be circularity”…
— Heinz von Foerster
Other perspectives are more critical and highlight the self-destruction and stagnation.
A self referencing feedback loop - a circular reference - an error.
An Ego or Conscious-Self reflecting back on its own Ego - Conscious-Self.
Reality was about Man imposing and manifesting his own beliefs on the World.
Discovering his own inventions and interpretations.
“To talk about sensemaking is to talk about reality as an ongoing accomplishment that takes form when people make retrospective sense of the situations in which they find themselves and their creations. There is a strong reflexive quality to this process. People make sense of things by seeing a world on which they already imposed what they believe. In other words, people discover their own inventions. This is why sensemaking can be understood as invention and interpretations understood as discovery. These are complementary ideas. If sensemaking is viewed as an act of invention, then it is also possible to argue that the artifacts it produces include language games and texts”…
— Karl Weick
An idea that was explored in Adrift - The Crisis of a Post-Nietzschean Modernity and Post-Modernity [ LINK ] and Modern Sophism - Post-Truth, the End of History and a Will to Power [ LINK ] .
The History of Western Civilisation - The Observer and Observed - Physical and Metaphysical
“All things and events are foreshown and brought into being by causes; but the causation is of two kinds; there are results originating from the Soul and results due to other causes, those of the environment” …
– Plotinus
The essence of the history of Western Civilisation can be summarised as the story of an open inquiry into the relationship between the Created (Man - the Conscious Self - the Observer) and the Creator (Observed - God).
Initially this exploration was via Judeo-Christian Theology and Ancient Greek Philosophy anchored in metaphysical questions about the nature of Being and Existence (Vertical Metaphysics).
Man’s (Observer) relationship with God (Observed).
Over time this was extended to Scientific Inquiry and questions relating to Man’s understanding of the Material World (Horizontal Metaphysics).
Man’s (Observer) relationship with the Natural World & God (Observed).
By the Middle Ages, Theologians and Philosophers such as Saint Thomas Aquinas [ LINK ] [ LINK ]and John Duns Scotus [ LINK ] [ LINK ] had developed sophisticated triadic frameworks that combined Man, God and the Natural World.
However, the emergence of new forms of inductive reasoning - the Scientific Method (Sir Francis Bacon’s Novum Organum (New Instrument or New Method, published in 1620 )), coupled with a growing self-confidence (ego) in the power of human reason and human agency to transform the World it inhabited saw these Triadic ideas increasingly being decoupled.
The utility value of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics saw Temples of Reason, the Cult of Reason replacing Temples of Prayer and ultimately, Western Civilisation transitioning to Secular Liberalism and the clash of Two Cultures.
Scientific Positivism was anchored in Horizontal Metaphysics and Nominalism.
The Entanglement of the Observer and the Observed
As Modernity progressed there was an increasing recognition by a range of Modern and Post Modern Philosophers of the interdependent relationships between the Mental World (Observer) (Human Consciousness - Conscious Self - Ego - Beliefs) and the Material World (Observed) we inhabited.
Idealism and Materialism were examples of ways to describe elements of this relationship.
Conscious Man was entangled with his Physical Body and the broader Material and Natural World.
It was an idea expanded upon by 20th Century Polymath, Physicist and Metaphysicist Heinz von Foerster who developed a Theory of Second Order Cybernetics where the construction of Reality was the interaction between the Observer and Observed.
A perspective that highlights the active role of the Observer in shaping their understanding of Reality rather than something purely external, at “arms-length” and objective.
“Objectivity is the delusion that observations could be made without an observer”…
- Heinz von Foerster
These empirical ideas of Man understanding the external World through combining embodied Material World observations with Mental World abstractions were rapidly metastasising away from open inquiry, fallibilism and discovery into a Reality imposed by force - a Will to Power - a Scientism - Scientific Gnosticism.
“There is indeed an essential opposition between the spirit of Greek science, oriented towards contemplation, and the secular spirit of modern science, directed at dominating the world through technology, and thus informed by the spirit of domination and power”…
— Augusto del Noce
A Reality enforced via the Stories of Man (a Primacy of Human Consciousness):
The World is a Mechanical Machine (Cartesianism, Newtonian Physics)
The Body is a Machine (Descartes)
Evolution Theories (Darwinism etc )
Man creates Reality (Hegel’s Second Nature, Praxis and Materialism)
The Self-Actualisation of Man (Übermensch, Hegel’s Absolute Idealism)
Man determines History (Hegelian Dialectic, Dialectical Materialism, Marx’s Historical Materialism)
Man transforms Society ( Progressivism, Utopianism, Marxism, Communism, Socialism, Globalism, Technocracy)
Man transcends God (Transhumanism, Artificial General Intelligence and the Singularity)
But was this the equivalent of the “snake beginning to eat its tail” ( via the endemic embracement of the Theology of Marxism in our Modern and Post-Modern Society)?
An Observer without the Observed - a Nihilism.
A collapse in the Semiotic Triadic and Pragmatic Maxim.
Man transcending Nature in an attempt to create a Technology Society and Technology System.
An Ouroboros - The Simulacra, Simulation, HyperNormalisation, Virtual Reality and HyperReality.
“But humanity, in reality, is poised midway between gods and beasts, and inclines now to the one order, now to the other; some men grow like to the divine, others to the brute, the greater number stand neutral”…
– Plotinus
The decoupling of Reality with all the real-world consequences that follow.
“He is free to evade reality, he is free to unfocus his mind and stumble blindly down any road he pleases, but not free to avoid the abyss he refuses to see”…
— Ayn Rand