Heinz von Foerster

Heinz von Foerster
At the Biological Computer Laboratory, the University of Illinois in 1963
Born	November 13, 1911 Vienna, Austria
Died	October 2, 2002 (aged 90) Pescadero, California
Nationality	Austria United States
Citizenship	United States
Alma mater	Technical University of Vienna University of Breslau
Known for	Von Foerster equation Second-order cybernetics Computer science Artificial intelligence Epistemology Biophysics
Awards	Wiener Gold Medal (1983)
Scientific career
Fields	Cybernetics Physics Philosophy
Institutions	University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
Influences	Ludwig Wittgenstein, William Ross Ashby, Warren Sturgis McCulloch
Influenced	William Ross Ashby, Gordon Pask, Gotthard Günther, Humberto Maturana, Francisco Varela, Ernst von Glasersfeld, Ranulph Glanville, Stafford Beer, John C. Lilly, Niklas Luhmann

Heinz von Foerster (German spelling: Heinz von Förster; November 13, 1911, Vienna – October 2, 2002, Pescadero, California) was an Austrian American scientist combining physics and philosophy, and widely attributed as the originator of Second-order cybernetics. He was twice a Guggenheim fellow (1956–57 and 1963–64) and also was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1980. He is well known for his 1960 Doomsday equation formula published in Science predicting future population growth.

As a polymath, he wrote nearly two hundred professional papers, gaining renown in fields from computer science and artificial intelligence to epistemology, and researched high-speed electronics and electro-optics switching devices as a physicist, and in biophysics, the study of memory and knowledge. He worked on cognition based on neurophysiology, mathematics, and philosophy and was called "one of the most consequential thinkers in the history of cybernetics". He came to the United States, and stayed after meeting with Warren Sturgis McCulloch, where he received funding from The Pentagon to established the Biological Computer Laboratory, which built the first parallel computer, the Numa-Rete. Working with William Ross Ashby, one of the original Ratio Club members, and together with Warren McCulloch, Norbert Wiener, John von Neumann and Lawrence J. Fogel, Heinz von Foerster was an architect of cybernetics and one of the members of the Macy conferences, eventually becoming editor of its early proceedings alongside Hans-Lukas Teuber and Margaret Mead.

Biography

Von Foerster was born in 1911 in Vienna, Austria-Hungary, as Heinz von Förster. He was the grandson of Austrian architect Emil Ritter von Foerster. He studied physics at the Technical University of Vienna and at the University of Breslau, where in 1944 he received a Ph.D. in physics. His relatives included Ludwig Wittgenstein, Erwin Lang and Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Ludwig Förster was his great-grandfather. His Jewish roots didn't cause him much troubles while he worked in radar laboratories during the Nazi era, as "he hid his ancestry with the help of an employer who chose not to press him for documents on his family."

He moved to the USA in 1949, and worked at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, where he was a professor of electrical engineering from 1951–1975. He also was professor of biophysics (1962–1975) and Director of the Biological Computer Laboratory (1958–1975). Additionally, in 1956–57 and 1963–64 he was a Guggenheim Fellow and also President of the Wenner-Gren-Foundation for anthropological research from 1963–1965.

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 inclusive, enthusiastic collaborator.

Work

Von Foerster was influenced by the Vienna Circle and Ludwig Wittgenstein. He worked in the field of cybernetics and is known as the inventor of second-order cybernetics. He made important contributions to constructivism. He is also known for his interest in computer music and magic.

The electron tube laboratory

In 1949 von Foerster started work at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign at the electron tube laboratory of the Electrical Engineering Department, where he succeeded Joseph Tykociński-Tykociner. With his students he developed many innovative devices, including ultra-high-frequency electronics

He also worked on mathematical models of population dynamics and developed a general model now called the "von Foerster equation"

The mathematical formula can be derived from first principles and reads:

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

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:

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

It relates that a population ages, and that fact is the only one that influences change in population density; the negative sign shows that time flows in just one direction, that there is no birth and the population is going to die out.

It is therefore a transport equation; it can be solved using a characteristics method. Another way is by similarity solution; and a third is a numerical approach such as finite differences.

To get the solution, the following boundary conditions should be added:

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

which states that the initial births should be conserved (see Sharpe–Lotka–McKendrick’s equation for otherwise), and that

$n(0,a)=f(a),\,$

which states that the initial population 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.

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 Science magazine included an article by von Foerster and his colleagues P. M. Mora and L. W. Amiot proposing a formula representing a best fit to available historical data on world population; the authors then predicted future population growth on the basis of this formula. The formula gave 2.7 billion as the 1960 world population and predicted that population growth would become infinite by Friday, November 13, 2026 – von Foerster's 115th birthday anniversary – a prediction that earned it the name "the Doomsday Equation."

Based on population data obtained from various sources, von Foerster and his students concluded that world population growth over the centuries was faster than an exponential. In such a situation, doubling-time decreases over time. Von Foerster's tongue-in-cheek prediction of Doomsday on November 13, 2026, was based on an extrapolation into the future of doubling-time, with the finding that doubling-time would decrease to zero on that date.

Responders to his Doomsday prediction objected on the grounds of the finite human gestation time of 9 months, and the transparent fact that biological systems rarely persist in exponential growth for any substantial length of time. Those who knew von Foerster could see in his rejoinders an evident sense of humor.

Doomsday equation: recent research

The hyperbolic growth of the world population observed until the 1970s has recently been correlated to a non-linear second order positive feedback between demographic growth and technological development that can be spelled out as follows:

• technological growth implies an increase in carrying capacity, an increase in the number of people who can survive on any given plot of land
• demographic growth (more people) implies more potential inventors and hence an acceleration of technological growth
• accelerating technological growth causes accelerating growth of carrying capacity, in a positive feedback loop
• faster population growth likewise feeds back by accelerating growth of the number of potential inventors, and then even faster technological growth
• hence, even faster growth of the Earth's carrying capacity for people, and so on

See also

• Logarithmic timeline
• Das Netz: interview with von Foerster, 2003
• Macy conferences
• Power law: The equation that he derived for the date calculated is one that nowadays is called a power law.
• List of dates predicted for apocalyptic events

Publications

Von Foerster authored more than 100 publications. 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?"

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.
• Korotayev A., Malkov A., Khaltourina D. Introduction to Social Macrodynamics: Compact Macromodels of the World System Growth. Moscow: URSS, 2006. ISBN 5-484-00414-4 [1].

External links

• Humanities Review Interview 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"