Verantwortung für Denken und Wissen

"... Man braucht in der Tat gar nicht sehr tief in das konstruktivistische Denken einzudringen, um sich darüber klar zu werden, dass diese Anschauung unweigerlich dazu führt, den denkenden Menschen und ihn allein für sein Denken, Wissen, und somit auch für sein Tun verantwortlich zu machen. Heute ... ist eine Lehre ungemütlich, die andeutet, dass wir die Welt, in der wir zu leben meinen, uns selbst zu verdanken haben." -
Ernst von Glasersfeld, (1981) Einführung in den radikalen Konstruktivismus. In: P. Watzlawick (ed.) Die erfundene Wirklichkeit. Munich, Germany: Piper, 16–38.

L'HOMME EST PLEINEMENT RESPONSABLE

"Mais si vraiement l'existence précède l'essence, l'homme est responsble de ce qu'il est. Ainsi, la première démarche de l'existentialisme est de mettre tout homme en possession de ce qu'il est et de faire reposer sur lui la responsabilité totale de son existence. Et, quand nous disons que l'homme est responsable de lui-même, nous ne voulons pas dire que l'home est responsable de sa stricte individualité, mais qu'il est responsable de tous les hommes."

Jean-Paul Sartre, L'Existentialisme est un Humanisme. Paris: Nagel, 1970, p. 24

Ceccato 1970: Analisi operativa di "Responsabilità" e "Rischio"

"... Si provi ad aprire la mano sentendo prima la "responsabilità" e poi il "rischio" di quell'aprire. Pur senza condurre l'analisi sino alle complesse combinazioni di stati attenzionali, credo non possa sfuggire una fondamentale antitesi fra due gruppi di operazioni che costituiscono i due atteggiamenti.
    L'assunzione della responsabilità introduce un soggetto di due attività di cui l'aprire la mano diviene oggetto, e precisamente una attività di controllo e di eventuale intervento, cioè attività modificatrice; ed il soggetto dell'aprire la mano e questo del controllo e dell'intervento possono essere lo stesso soggetto o due soggetti diversi.
   Nell'assunzione del rischio, oggetto diviene la mano che si apre, l'aprir-si della mano, mentre all'assuntore dell'atteggiamento non rimane che l'attività d'osservazione, attività di natura costitutiva e quindi del tutto immodificatrice."

------------------------------
Ceccato, S. (1970) Cibernetica per tutti. Vol. 2. Milano: Feltrinelli, pp.84-85.

Resposibility: a cybernetic model

What could be a definition (explanation) of "Responsibility"?
Starting with an operational definition by Silvio Ceccato (1970) and inspired by what Humberto Maturana called a "generative mechanism" I have tried to draft it here: as "a proposition which consists in a process or a mechanism that if it were to be allowed to operate" (Maturana 1992) would give as a consequence, as a result the concept of resposibility.

Generative mechanism of "Responsibility":

Responsibility for any process (or activity), for example "my life", is constituted by the following steps (operations):

1. to make the process (i.e. "my life") become the OBJECT of a feedback loop (control loop) constituted by a sequence of three activities: A, R and C (ARC loop).
2. the loop begins with activity A: the AWARENESS of the OBJECT
3. it continues with activity R: a REFLECTION on the OBJECT of AWARENESS
4. finally it ends with activity C: an intervention of reflected CHANGE of the OBJECT.

References:
Ceccato, S. (1970) Cibernetica per tutti. Milano: Feltrinelli, Vol. 2.
Maturana, H. (1992) Explanations and reality. Talk in Heidelberg. See: http://www.weknow.ch/marco/A1992/Heid/Maturana921018.htm

What means Cyber Ethics?

... I guess the discipline dealing with "ethical computer use and behavior" in all application domains; for the domain of education see

• International Journal of Cyber Ethics in Education (IJCEE)
• Published Quarterly. Est. 2011

What means "Cybernetics"?

I searched Wikipedia for a definition of the term "Cybernetics" and found a sentence, that in my view is rather wrong and misleading for various reasons (Cybernetics is the interdisciplinary study of the structure of regulatory systems; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybernetics, 11.12.2011).

Then I searched on the website of the American Society for Cybernetics (http://www.asc-cybernetics.org/foundations/definitions.htm), but could not find a convincing solution.

Finally, looking in my archive I found a folder with notes of 1988 in which I had tried to define the term "Cybernetics"; I have completed them now, and here is the summary of what came out (an article will follow later):

• We call Cybernetics the science that considers dynamic systems in terms of OPERATIONS and CONTROL and aims at enabling artificial systems to perform like organisms at 3 levels: physical, biological and mental.

 This definition is based on my experience as engineer in the fileds of System Dynamics and Process Control as well as on my cooperation with Silvio Ceccato and Ernst von Glasersfeld. I have tried to integrate in one sentence the definitions given by three cybernetic pioneers: Norbert Wiener, Heinz von Förster and Silvio Ceccato.

What Marcuse missed in Bridgman

 Marcuse saw in Bridgman's Operationalism a "total empiricism in the treatment of concepts" because it required an "adequate account of them in terms of operations"; he estimated that this approach was predominant "in philosophy, psychology, sociology, and other fields" and lamented that as a consequence "Many of the most seriously troublesome concepts are being "eliminated”." (Marcuse, 1964 "The One-Dimensional Man", ch. 1, pp. 14-16, http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/marcuse/works/one-dimensional-man/ch01.htm)

What a pity, that Marcuse limited his assessment of Bridgman's approach to the weaknesses and missed the opportunity to build on its strenghts!

He could have connected Bridgman's operational view of concepts  with Kant's treatment of concepts in his Critique of Pure Reason; in that same period Ceccato, who did such a connection, was able to do pioneering work in developing a completely new approach to language: Operational Linguistics (http://www.vonglasersfeld.com/242)

Erzeugung der Realität und Verantwortung

"Wir bringen die Welt hervor, die wir leben. Weil das so ist, denke ich, dass wir alle Verantwortung übernehmen müssen für unsere Handlungen in Hinblick auf die Konsequenzen unserer Handlungen für andere menschliche Wesen." Maturana (1998), S. 20

"Dies bedeutet auch, dass wir Verantwortung für unsere Handlungen und Emotionen übernehmen oder nicht ... gemäss der Anerkennung oder Ablehnung unserer konstitutiven Mitwirkung an der Erzeugung der Realität, die wir in jedem Augenblick leben." Maturana (1998), S.304

"Wir sind verantwortlich in dem Moment, in dem wir in unserer Reflexion feststellen, ob wir die Konsequenzen unserer Handlungen wollen oder nicht wollen;" Maturana (1998), S.379

H. Maturana (1998) Biologie der Realität. Frankfurt a/M: Suhrkamp.

The sleep of dogmatism and its function

We sleep an intellectual sleep; it is the sleep of dogmatism - or “slumber” as Kant called it (1783). Why this dogmatic sleep?

Because this sleep helps us. How? Its function is to protect us against the troublesome affordances and the boulversing power of a question:

• how could the reality we refer to be constituted also by profound inner patterns and images made by ourselves?

To ask this question requires to be ready to accept an answer that explains the "how" asked for in the question. It means that we could have to accept an answer which shows, that the reality we claim to be independent from us and valid for all (and "social") is merely our own individual reality, valid for one single person.

As a consequence the dogmatic sleep protects us also against the potentially threatening insight that the reality we refer to (RWRT), although experienced as independent from us/me, is always merely our/my individual reality.

Kant 1783 - Dogmatic slumber

• "I openly confess, the suggestion of David Hume was the very thing, which many years ago first interrupted my dogmatic slumber, and gave my investigations in the field of speculative philosophy quite a new direction." Immanuel Kant, Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics  (1783) full text on wikisource.org
• "J’avoue de grand cœur que c’est à l’avertissement donné par David Hume que je dois d’être sorti de­puis bien des années déjà du sommeil dogmatique, et d’avoir donné à mes recherches philosophiques dans le champ de la spéculation, une direction toute nou­velle." Emmanuel Kant (1783), Prolégomènes à toute métaphysique future qui aura le droit de se présenter comme science, Préface. texte complete sur fr.wikisource.org
• "Ich gestehe frei: die Erinnerung des David Hume war eben dasjenige, was mir vor vielen Jahren zuerst den dogmatischen Schlummer unterbrach, und meinen Untersuchungen im Felde der spekulativen Philosophie eine ganz andere Richtung gab.", Immanuel Kant (1783), Prolegomena zu einer jeden künftigen Metaphysik, die als Wissenschaft wird auftreten können, A13. Artikel auf Wikipedia.de

Ceccato 1946 - the birth of a paradigm shift

Today, 27. May 2011, I would like to tell a story of 1946 about the birth of a new research paradigm, that one day will be recognized as a crucial paradigm shift in science. My narration is based on what Silvio Ceccato himself told me and also wrote in his books, for example: Ceccato, S. (1968) Cibernetica per tutti, Vol. 1, Milano: Feltrinelli, 1968, p. 176.

Under the title "Order and Life", Yale University published in September 1936 the Silliman Memorial lecture given in 1935 by Joseph Needham, the famous British scientist. The italian translation had just appeared in 1946 when Ceccato (aged 32) and a group of friends met in Milan to discuss about it.

Needham used arguments from biology to justify his left-wing political ideas. The eye, he wrote, depends in various ways from the entire organism (the animal's body), a dependency of the part from the whole. Thus, he claimed, also the individual - as a part of society - should depend from society - the whole. As a consequence, a collectivist orientation must be considered as "natural" and its opposite, individualism, as "non-natural".

After the discussion, Ceccato spent a few days on the hills of his birthplace, Montecchio Maggiore, reflecting about Needham's argumentation in view of a public presentation of the book that he had to prepare ....

... eye-part, organism-whole, eye-part ....

Suddenly Ceccato saw the eye articulated in the few elements that he reminded from his high school education, like retina, pupil, lens, etc.

Ergo, Ceccato continued with excitement, the eye is not merely a part, but also its contrary, a whole!

Consequently, this being part or whole does not belong at all to the eye as such and we do not find them (part, whole) just by perceiving the eye (or a horse, a car, etc.); being part or whole is something that we do, mental operations done by ourselves ... and hence, he will explain later, our own responsibility.

Bleep (movie)

 I saw the film when it came out and again last monday (Dec. 20) because my 16 years old daughter wanted to see it. She asked for explanations about many scenes, dialogues, sentences, terms and I realized that it was difficult for me to explain to her my intuitive understanding of the movie. Why?
Because my way of explaining is constrained by the established type of thinking in science and common sense but the ideas expressed in the bleep movie require a new type of thinking and a related new type of explaining.

Einstein said in an interview with Michael Amrine in 1946: "a new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move to higher levels."

That's exactly what we need also here: but I do not see any trace of this consciousness in the words of the bleep sceptics (for example here). Unfortunately!

David K. Johnson - Sleepysand in the Mind’s Eye

The newest critique to Radical Constructivism (RC), an article by David K. Johnson titled "Footprints in the Sand" in Constructivist Foundations 6 (1),  does in no way contribute to understand the weaknesses of Radical Constructivism, it is merely sleepysand in the mind's eye:

• http://www.univie.ac.at/constructivism/journal/6/1 
• http://www.univie.ac.at/constructivism/journal/6/1/090.johnson

At the basis of the obfuscation and jungle of misunderstandings contained in David K. Johnson's article lies the fundamental confusion:

• "a THING, in contrast to our thoughts of that THING, surely does exist outside of thought"

This is well exemplified in a statement found in the new book by David K. Johnson & Matthew Silliman (2009:8):

• "But rocks, in contrast to our thoughts of rocks, surely do exist outside of thought, a fact that alone explains Alison’s stumbling on this rock along a road in Vermont without first thinking it into existence." From: Johnson D. K. & Silliman M. R. (2009) Bridges to the world. Sense, Rotterdam, page 8.

From David K. Johnson's article we can learn three lessons:

1. The fundamental emotion of Johnson's critique “is powered by the authority of universally valid knowledge” (Maturana & Poerksen 2004:41-42) and the basis of its explanations is the reference to objects in the external reality.
2. This kind of criticism to RC originates from an unaware confusion between what belongs to RC and what belongs to Realism.
3. A blind spot makes that critics do not understand how to deal with things in themselves and as a consequence easily overlook the intimate relationship between the two sides of the radical constructivist coin: construction & viability.

Fundamental human factor

In a paper published this year I wrote:

• Recent developments in brain sciences show an increasing tendency to determinism: the denial of the possibility of choice. This is the (logical) consequence (and demonstration) of the underlying assumption that knowledge is the logic of reality. But we are not like stones rolling downhill (Spinoza): the power to choose is a constitutive and unalienable property of human life (Freeman, W. J., How brains make up their minds, New York, 2000). The blessing of freedom and the burden of responsibility: the fundamental human factor!

From: Bettoni, M. & Eggs, C. (2010). "User-centred Knowledge Management: A Constructivist and Socialized View". Constructivist Foundations, Vol. 5, number 3, 130-143. http://www.univie.ac.at/constructivism/journal

Ernst von Glasersfeld in Beats Biblionetz

In Beats Biblionetz gibt es

• im Bereich Personen
• den Eintrag Ernst von Glaserfeld mit
• Texte
• Definitionen
• Bemerkungen zu Personen, Bücher, Texte, Fragen, Aussagen
• persönliche Bemerkungen
• Biographie (aktualisiert 1999)
• CoautorInnen
• Zitationsnetz

Interessant wäre zu jedem Autor ein "Aussagen-Netz" mit allen wichtigen Aussagen des Autors zu seinen wichtigsten Begriffen aus allen seinen Werken.

Anaxagoras - the mind causes all things

In the Phaedo, Socrates says ....

• “Then one day I heard a man reading from a book, as he said, by Anaxagoras, [97c] that it is the mind that arranges and causes all things. I was pleased with this theory of cause, and it seemed to me to be somehow right that the mind should be the cause of all things, and I thought, 'If this is so, the mind in arranging things arranges everything and establishes each thing as it is best for it to be'. 
• So if anyone wishes to find the cause of the generation or destruction or existence of a particular thing, he must find out what sort of existence, or passive state of any kind, or activity is best for it."
•  Plato, Phaedo, section 97c
• As I considered these things I was delighted to think that I had found in Anaxagoras a teacher of the cause of things
•   Plato, Phaedo, section 97d 
• [98b] So I thought when he assigned the cause of each thing and of all things in common he would go on and explain what is best for each and what is good for all in common.
•   Plato, Phaedo, section 98b

in: Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 1 translated by Harold North Fowler; Introduction by W.R.M. Lamb. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1966. 1925

Plato - Unwritten Doctrines

Giovanni Reale wrote in his History of Ancient Philosophy (1992):

• ... the writings have not been for Plato the full expression or the most important communication of his thought, and therefore the reading and the interpretation of the dialogues are to be reassessed through a new vision. (p. 8)
• We are hence able ... to understand why so great a writer could be convinced of the limited character of the communicative function of writing; and therefore we are finally in a position to interpret his self-testimony contained in the Phaedrus in a correct manner .. (p. 9)
• ... Aristotle himself has told us that these teachings that Plato communicated only in oral discussions were called the Unwritten Doctrines (aàgrafa dógmata). (p. 14)

Reale, Giovanni (1990) A History of ancient philosophy. Vol.2 Plato and Aristotle. Translation of: Storia della filosofia antica, 5th edition. Edited and translated  by John R. Catan. Albany (NY): State University of New York Press.

Socrates on "absolute beauty" ...

In the Phaedo, Socrates is quoted as follows ....

• “Then,” said he, “see if you agree with me in the next step. I think that if anything is beautiful besides absolute beauty it is beautiful for no other reason than because it partakes of absolute beauty; and this applies to everything. Do you assent to this view of cause?”  
• Plato, Phaedo, section 100c
• in: Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 1 translated by Harold North Fowler; Introduction by W.R.M. Lamb. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1966. 1925

Reflect about how this relates with "responsibilty for what we know" by taking into consideration new ways of interpreting Plato, for example that proposed by Bernard Suzanne here: http://plato-dialogues.org/plato.htm

Why responsible? EvG 2002

In 2002 Ernst von Glasersfeld wrote in his obituary for Heinz von Förster:

• Heinz put the new view into a nutshell: «Objectivity is the delusion that observations could be made without an observer.» Instead of worrying about an inaccessible external reality he focused attention on the world we build in the course of interactions with others in the domain of our experience. 
• Though this experiential world is a social construction, it is also individual because each constructs it according to his or her own experience. And because there is always more than one way of constructing, we are all responsible for the world in which we live.
• In Memoriam H.v.F., http://www.oikos.org/foerster.htm

How do we know? EvG 1996

In 1996 Ernst von Glasersfeld wrote:

• The concept of knowledge is thus actually changing. Traditional philosophy was forever searching for timeless truths that would be independent of the thinking subject. With the spreading of the Kantian insight that what we rationally grasp is always what human reason builds up according to its own rules, interest has been growing in how this building-up proceeds. And this is the area in which we celebrate Heinz von Foerster as a pioneer. 
• There can be no final answers in this area but only models that, for the time being, satisfy our demands. Hence he reminds us that the responsibility for the world we conceptually construct and enact rests with us.
• Farewell to objectivity (Revised and expanded English version of 136) . Systems Research 13(3): 279–286.