Directory of Second Order Cybernetics Resources

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'Second-order cybernetics' denotes a progressive intellectual movement within cybernetics and systems thinking that reached fruition in the 1970's. The most common explanation for the movement's agenda is that it turned the principles of cybernetics upon cybernetics itself. In second-order cybernetics, the observer of a system must be described and explained as well as the system observed. Key thinkers affiliated with second-order cybernetics include: von Foerster, Pask, Maturana, Varela, and Spencer Brown.

Resources in This Category

• Chilean School of Biology of Cognition

  http://www.inteco.cl/biology/index.htm
  Offering overview of Maturana's contributions to psychology, 'Ask Professor Maturana', and online archive editions of important articles.

• Radical Constructivism

  http://www.univie.ac.at/constructivism/
  The most comprehensive Webspace on constructivist epistemology (a component of the second-order cybernetics worldview), especially the work of von Glasersfeld and von Foerster

• Towards an Ecology of Mind

  http://www.oikos.org/psicen.htm
  Well-organized site addressing (e.g.) Gregory Bateson, Humberto Maturana, Ernst von Glasersfeld, Heinz von Foerster, and George Kelly.

 

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