Cybernetics Texts

An Unfinished Revolution? Heinz von Foerster and the Biological Computer Laboratory (BCL), 1958–1976. Albert Müller & Karl Müller, eds. (Vienna: Edition Echoraum, 2007) $39.00

This is a fascinating analysis of the scientific agenda of Heinz von Foerster, clearly one of the major scientists of the twentieth century. No one did more to create a revolutionary transdisciplinary research program involving biology, the cognitive neurosciences, cybernetics, and the social sciences. Von Foerster was one of those scientific minds so far ahead of his time that even today scholars in all fields of scientific inquiry should study his programs so that we might eventually realize his objectives. This is a splendid collection of essays that challenges us to look back on von Foerster if we are to advance our efforts to learn more from others in diverse fields of inquiry.
—J. Rogers Hollingsworth, University of Wisconsin

The Biological Computer Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, led by Heinz von Foerster, was the nexus of Cybernetics and the point of origination of Second Order Cybernetics in the 1960s and 1970s. Here in this book, in these articles, drawings and photographs, it all comes back to life with a lucidity that belies the passing years and shows that this theory of feedback process and awareness indeed shares in the living world of the eternal forms.
—Louis H. Kauffman, University of Illinois

Booksellers may contact us directly.

Spineless Books also carries other
cybernetics texts by Edition Echoraum,
and the Cybernetics of Cybernetics.

	Cybernetics of Cybernetics. (paperback)	ISBN: 0964704412. 8.5 x 11 inches. 497 pages. Perfect bound. Published by Future Systems. $100.
	Cybernetics of Cybernetics. (hardback)	ISBN: 0964704404. 8.5 x 11 inches. 497 pages. Hardcover with dustjacket. Published by Future Systems. $150.
	The Cybernetics of Cybernetics was originally published by Heinz von Foerster and the Biological Computer Laboratory at the University of Illinois. One of the greatest compendiums of cybernetics theory ever published in English, it was out of print for two decades.
	Political Faces of Slovenia. Niko Tos, Karl H. Müller [Ed.]	6 by 9 inches. Case laminate hardback with illustrations. Published by Editions Echoraum (Vienna); distributed by Spineless Books. 2007. $33.
	Political Orientations and Values at the End of the Century. Preface by Janez Potocnik [European Commissioner for Science and Research.]
	An Unfinished Revolution? Heinz von Foerster and the Biological Computer Laboratory (BCL), 1958–1976. Albert Müller & Karl Müller, eds.	6 by 9 inches. Case laminate hardback with illustrations. Published by Editions Echoraum (Vienna); distributed by Spineless Books. 2007. $39.
	The Biological Computer Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, led by Heinz von Foerster, was the nexus of Cybernetics and the point of origination of Second Order Cybernetics in the 1960s and 1970s. Here in this book, in these articles, drawings and photographs, it all comes back to life with a lucidity that belies the passing years and shows that this theory of feedback process and awareness indeed shares in the living world of the eternal forms. —Louis H. Kauffman, University of Illinois
	Experience and Action. Richard Jung.	6 by 9 inches. Case laminate hardback with illustrations. Published by Editions Echoraum (Vienna); distributed by Spineless Books. 2007. $33.
	In 13 ecstatically composed essays, the author brings to life, in a spiral of historical reflections, his take on what we might understand by the self.
	The Importance of Being Ernst: Festschrift for Ernst von Glasersfeld . Ranulph Glanville & Alexander Riegler [Ed.].	6 by 9 inches. Case laminate hardback with illustrations. Published by Editions Echoraum (Vienna); distributed by Spineless Books. 2007. $39.
	Radical constructivism has had a profound impact on the field of science education, especially in the past three decades. Initially introduced by Ernst von Glasersfeld in mathematics education the ideas were picked up and widely applied in many scholarly ways.
	Gordon Pask, Philosopher Mechanic: An Introduction to the Cybernetician's Cybernetician. Ranulph Glanville & Karl H. Müller [Ed.].	6 by 9 inches. Case laminate hardback with illustrations. Published by Editions Echoraum (Vienna); distributed by Spineless Books. 2007. $33.
	"The art and science of Andrew Gordon Speedie Pask, born on June 28th, 1928, is symptomatic of his role as a founding father of the transdisciplinary fields of cybernetics and systems science. His interests were distributed over a vast array of problem areas such as psychology, biology, educational sciences, mathematics, logic, machine learning, epistemology, linguistics, etc. He was also a gifted artist, novelist, and lyricist. In all of these areas he sought underlying principles of organization and communication which, though embedded in different contexts, dealt with the necessity of incorporating the unique subjectivity of human experience and the objects of a given group's discourse." — Luis M. Rocha

Systems Readings

Selected chapters from An Unfinished Revolution?

• P. Weston, "A Walk through the Forest," Chapter 5
• K. Müller, "A Period of High Trans-Disciplinarity, 1948–1958," Chapter 10
• P. Asaro, "Heinz von Foerster and the Bio-Computing Movements of the 1960s," Chapter 11
• A. Müller, "A Brief History of the BCL: Heinz von Foerster and the Biological Computer Laboratory," Chapter 12
• A. Müller, "The End of the Biological Computer Laboratory," Chapter 1

The Whole University Catalog

In 1969, Heinz von Foerster and his university students created a collaborative publication expressing the spirit of the times as an homage to The Whole Earth Catalog. The Whole University Catalog is made available here in PDF form

J. Hutchinson

• "'Nerve center' of the cybernetic world: Heinz von Foerster and the Biological Computer Laboratory"

W. Ross Ashby

An Introduction to Cybernetics (complete book)

Stafford Beer

• Designing Freedom
• Fanfare for Effective Freedom

Marianne Brün

• Designing Society

Herbert Brün

• The Listener's Interpretation of Music
• Teaching the Function of Time in Art
• Wayfaring Sounds
• ... to hold discourse---at least---with a computer...
• Drawing Distinctions Links Contradictions
• Existentialism and the Arts (two fragments)
• Gustav Mahler and the Virtues of Ambiguity (two fragments)

Heinz von Foerster

• Perception of the Future and The Future of Perception
• On Constructing a Reality
• Interview with Heinz von Foerster, by Christina Waters
• Heinz von Foerster, the scientist, the man: prologue to the interview, by Francisco Varela
• Interview with Heinz von Foerster, by Stefano Franchi, Güven Güzeldere, and Eric Minch
• Thoughts and Notes on Cognition [extract]
• Disorder/Order: Discovery or Invention?
• Ethics and Second-Order Cybernetics
• Cybernetics of Cybernetics

Humberto Maturana

• Cognitive Strategies
• Ontology of Observing

Warren Weaver

• Recent Contributions to the Mathematical Theory of Communication

Biological Computer Laboratory Home

Read   Write   Listen
Qu'est-ce que c'est que ca?