Heinz von Foerster

Heinz von Foerster (

He knew well and was in conversation with John von Neumann, Norbert Wiener, Humberto Maturana, Francisco Varela, Gordon Pask, Gregory Bateson, Lawrence J. Fogel and Margaret Mead, among many others. He influenced generations of students as a teacher and an inclusive, enthusiastic collaborator.

He died on October 2, 2002, in Pescadero, California.

Work

Von Foerster was influenced by the

He also worked on mathematical models of population dynamics and in 1959 published a model now called the "von Foerster equation", which is derivable from the principles of constant aging and conservation of mass.

${\displaystyle {\frac {\partial n}{\partial t}}+{\frac {\partial n}{\partial a}}=-m(a)n,}$

where: n = n(t,a), t stands for time and a for age. m(a) is the death in function of the population age; n(t,a) is the population density in function of age.

When m(a) = 0, we have:^[10]

${\displaystyle {\frac {\partial n}{\partial t}}=-{\frac {\partial n}{\partial a}}}$

It relates that a population ages, and that fact is the only one that influences change in population density.^[11]

It is therefore a

The gross birth rate is given by the following boundary condition:

${\displaystyle n(t,0)=\int _{0}^{\infty }b(a)n(t,a)\,dt,}$

The solution is only unique given the initial conditions

${\displaystyle n(0,a)=f(a),\,}$

which states that the initial population distribution must be given; then it will evolve according to the partial differential equation.

Biological Computer Laboratory

In 1958, he formed the Biological Computer Lab, studying similarities in cybernetic systems in biology and electronics.^[12]

Macy conferences

He was the youngest member of the core group of the Macy conferences on Cybernetics and editor of the five volumes of Cybernetics (1949–1953), a series of conference transcripts that represent important foundational conversations in the field. It was von Foerster who suggested that Wiener's coinage "Cybernetics" be applied to this conference series, which had previously been called "Circular Causal and Feedback Mechanisms in Biological and Social Systems".

Doomsday equation

A 1960 issue of

• Logarithmic timeline
• Macy conferences
• Power law: The equation that he derived for the date calculated is one that nowadays is called a power law.^{[citation needed]}
• List of dates predicted for apocalyptic events
• The Dream of Reality by Lynn Segal, 1986. A book summarizing von Foerster's constructivist epistemology.
• Malthusian growth model

Publications

Von Foerster authored more than 100 publications.^[14] Books, a selection:

• 1949, Cybernetics: Transactions of the Sixth Conference, (editor), Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation: New York, 220 pp.
• 2002, Understanding understanding, a volume of von Foerster's papers, published by Springer-Verlag, 2002.
• 2010, with Monika Broecker: Part of the World. Fractals of Ethics – A Drama in Three Acts. Heinz von Foerster's most extensive biography. First published in German in 2002: with Monika Broecker. Teil der Welt. Fraktale einer Ethik – ein Drama in drei Akten.

Articles, a selection:

• 1958, "Basic Concepts of Homeostasis." In: Homeostatic Mechanisms, Upton, New York, pp. 216–242, 1958.
• 1960, "Doomsday: Friday, November 13, AD 2026," with P. M. Mora und L. W. Amiot, Science 132, pp. 1291–1295, 1960.
• 1961, "A Predictive Model for Self-Organizing Systems," Part I: Cybernetica 3, pp. 258–300; Part II: Cybernetica 4, pp. 20–55, with Gordon Pask, 1961.
• 1964, "Biological Computers," with W. Ross Ashby, In: Bioastronautics, K. E. Schaefer, Macmillan Co., New York, pp. 333– 360, 1964.
• 1969, "What is Memory that it may have Hindsight and Foresight"
• 1971, "Computing in the Semantic Domain"
• 1971, "Technology. What Will It Mean to Librarians?"

References

Further reading

• Asaro, Peter M. (2007). "Heinz von Foerster and the Bio-Computing Movements of the 1960s," in Albert Müller and Karl H. Müller (eds.) An Unfinished Revolution? Heinz von Foerster and the Biological Computer Laboratory | BCL 1958–1976. Vienna, Austria: Edition Echoraum.

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to Heinz von Foerster.

• Humanities Review Interview Archived 2014-05-27 at the Wayback Machine at Stanford University
• The Heinz von Foerster Page
• Biological Computer Laboratory web site, University of Illinois
• An anthology of Circularity Principles from the Heinz von Foerster entry at The Cybernetics Society
• Gooch, Sherwin, & Nordin, Hud, "High Tech Heroes television interview, episode 10, part 1," Heinz von Foerster discusses the founding of Cybernetics, and the possibility of achieving immortality through prosthetic brains, Foothill College, California, August 22, 1989. on
  YouTube
• "High Tech Heroes, episode 10, part 2." on
  YouTube
• "Heinz Von Foerster Papers at the University of Illinois Archives"