Second-order cybernetics

Second-order cybernetics, also known as the cybernetics of cybernetics, is the recursive application of cybernetics to itself and the reflexive practice of cybernetics according to such a critique. It is cybernetics where "the role of the observer is appreciated and acknowledged rather than disguised, as had become traditional in western science". Second-order cybernetics was developed between the late 1960s and mid 1970s by Heinz von Foerster and others, with key inspiration coming from Margaret Mead. Foerster referred to it as "the control of control and the communication of communication" and differentiated first order cybernetics as "the cybernetics of observed systems" and second-order cybernetics as "the cybernetics of observing systems". The concept of second-order cybernetics is closely allied to radical constructivism, which was developed around the same time by Ernst von Glasersfeld. While it is sometimes considered a break from the earlier concerns of cybernetics, there is much continuity with previous work and it can be thought of as a distinct tradition within cybernetics, with origins in issues evident during the Macy conferences in which cybernetics was initially developed. Its concerns include autonomy, epistemology, ethics, language, reflexivity, self-consistency, self-referentiality, and self-organizing capabilities of complex systems. It has been characterised as cybernetics where "circularity is taken seriously". Second-order cybernetics can be abbreviated as C2 or SOC, and is sometimes referred to as the cybernetics of cybernetics, or, more rarely, the new cybernetics, or second cybernetics. These terms are often used interchangeably, but can also stress different aspects: Most specifically, and especially where phrased as the cybernetics of cybernetics, second-order cybernetics is the recursive application of cybernetics to itself. This is closely associated with Mead's 1967 address to the American Society for Cybernetics (published 1968) and Foerster's "Cybernetics of Cybernetics" book, developed as a course option at the Biological Computer Laboratory (BCL), where Cybernetic texts were analysed according to the principles they put forward.