An Unfinished Revolution? Heinz von Foerster and the Biological Computer Laboratory/BCL, 1958‐1976

Citation

Vallée, R. (2009), "An Unfinished Revolution? Heinz von Foerster and the Biological Computer Laboratory/BCL, 1958‐1976", Kybernetes, Vol. 38 No. 1/2, pp. 271-272. https://doi.org/10.1108/03684920910930394

This book (509 pages) published by Edition Echoraum (Vienna, 2007), has been edited by Albert Müller (University of Vienna, responsible for the Heinz von Foerster Archive) and Karl H. Müller (Head of Wisdom, President of the Heinz von Foerster Society) with contributions of F.T. Anbari, P. Asaro, D. Baecker, S. Beer, T. von Foerster, R. Glanville, E. von Glasersfeld, A. Inselberg, R. Martin, H.R. Maturana, A. Müller, K.H. Müller, P. Pangaro, S.J. Schmidt, S.A. Umpleby, P. Weston. With a bibliography of more than 400 entries, it is illustrated by around 45 photos and many figures and divided into two parts, it contains a general introduction (A. Müller and K.H. Müller) and a foreword by Thomas von Foerster (second son of Heinz von Foerster).

The general introduction gives a biographical sketch of H. von Foerster, born in 1911 in Vienna and dead in 2002 in California. The importance of the Biological Computer Laboratory (BCL), its rise and decay, is emphasized. In his foreword, Thomas von Foerster evokes his most ancient memories in Vienna with his two brothers, his father and mother Mai (died in 2003), shortly after the end of the Second World War, before the family moves to the USA in 1949. In 1957, Heinz worked with Arturo Rosenblueth at the Institute of Cardiology, as did Norbert Wiener before. In 1958, he founded the BCL (once called the Electron Tube Laboratory) at the University of Illinois.

The first part, introduced by A. Müller and Kart H. Müller, is devoted to BCL as seen from inside by BCL‐co‐workers, resident researchers, former students or BCL‐visitors. The first four articles are interviews on Heinz von Foerster and connected subjects, by Humberto R. Maturana, Stafford Beer, Alfred Inselberg and Stuart A. Umpleby. Allusions are made to the experiences of Heinz and Stafford Beer in Chile and their contacts with Maturana up to the death of Salvador Ailende. Some traits of Heinz are given: he was very passionate and exclusively interested with the progress of his own idea (as was Norbert Wiener) The next four papers concern more precisely the projects of the BCL (Paul Weston, Robert Martin, Ranulph Glanville and Paul Pangaro). Among them: the “Numarete” a device able to count the number of distinct objects presented to it, research on human language, in particular the “Noun‐chain project” (having some connections with the Zipf‐Mandelbrot law), a Logic‐problem solver. The last contribution (Stuart A. Umpleby, Frank T. Anbari, Karl H. Müller) is about the impact of the example BCL‐structure on the works of innovative research organizations.

The second part, also with an introduction by A. Müller and Karl H. Müller, concerns BCL seen from outside. The first four papers by Karl H. Müller, Peter Asaro, Albert Müller (twice), concern the intellectual history of the BCL in its environment: changes in the organization of science, systems research (information, cybernetics) and BCL; self‐organizing systems, inspiring the adaptative reorganizing automaton and the numerate of BCL, bionics and the dynamic signal analyzer of BCL The last five articles (Siegfried J. Schmidt, Dick Baecker, Ernst von Glasersfeld, Ranulph Glanville, Karl H. Müller) have to do with the relevance of BCL work for today's science: communication, culture and societies; second order cybernetics and statistics, coupling of nonlinear oscillators, nonlinear prediction; radical constructivism and communication; importance of second order cybernetics; transdisciplinarity, second order cybernetics as an unfinished revolution.

There are two strategies concerning the continuation of BCL‐work: to start into new directions of research (S.J. Schmidt) or to link the past work with the current state of the art in cognitive sciences or social theory. We shall conclude by a quotation of Thomas von Foerster: Heinz von Foerster's ideas “should not be pined to a board and dissected; they should be transformed and developed, becoming new ideas suggested to new people”. In other terms, we think that this “unfinished revolution” has to change into a continuation of Heinz's insights considered as seeds which must grow up: Heinz's ideas “are to be”.

Notes

Section Editor's note – This book has also been reviewed by: A.M. Andrew – Kybernetes, Vol. 37 No. 6, 2008, pp. 828‐30.