Heinz von Foerster
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[[Image:Heinz von Foerster II.jpg|240px|thumb|right|Heinz von Foerster]]
'''Heinz von Foerster''' ([[November 13]], [[1911]], [[Vienna]] – [[October 2]], [[2002]], [[Pescadero, California]]) was an Austrian American scientist combining [[physics]] and [[philosophy]]. Together with [[Warren McCulloch]], [[Norbert Wiener]], [[John von Neumann]], [[Lawrence J. Fogel]], and others, Heinz von Foerster was an architect of [[cybernetics]].<ref name="Constructivism">[http://www.univie.ac.at/constructivism/HvF.htm The Heinz von Foerster Page<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>
== Biography ==
Von Foerster was born in [[1911]] in [[Vienna]], Austria. 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]].
He moved to the [[United States|USA]] in [[1949]], and worked at the [[University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign]], where he was a professor for signal engineering from [[1951]] to [[1975]]. From [[1962]] to [[1975]] he also was professor of [[biophysics]] and [[1958]]–75 director of the [[Biological Computer Laboratory]]. Additionally, in 1956–57 and 1963–64 he was a Guggenheim-Fellow. From 1963 to 1965 he was president of the Wenner-Gren-Foundation for anthropological research.<ref name="Constructivism"/>
He knew well and was in conversation with [[John von Neumann]], [[Norbert Wiener]], [[Humberto Maturana]], [[Francisco Varela]], [[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 was essential for the development of [[radical constructivism]] theory and [[second-order cybernetics]], for which he was an eloquent advocate. He is also known for his interest in (computer) music and [[Magic (illusion)|magic]].
=== Biological Computer Laboratory ===
In [[1949]] Von Foerster started work at the [[University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign]]. There he formed the ''Biological Computer Lab'', studying similarities in cybernetic systems in [[biology]] and [[electronics]].<ref>[http://bcl.ece.uiuc.edu/ Biological Computer Laboratory<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>
=== Macy conferences ===
He was the youngest member of the core group of the [[Macy conferences]] 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 Wiener's coinage [[Cybernetics]] be applied to this conference series, that had previously been called "Circular Causal and Feedback Mechanisms in Biological and Social Systems".
=== Doomsday Equation ===
A 1960 issue of ''[[Science (magazine)|Science]]'' magazine included an article by von Foerster and his colleagues P.M.Mora and L.W.Amiot stating that the human population would reach "infinity" on this date, and he proposed a formula for representing all the available historical data on world population and for predicting future population growth.<ref>{{Cite journal
| author = Heinz von Foerster, P. M. Mora and L. W. Amiot
| title = Doomsday: Friday, 13 November, A.D. 2026. At this date human population will approach infinity if it grows as it has grown in the last two millenia
| journal = [[Science (journal)|Science]]
| year = 1960
| month = November
| volume = 132
| pages = 1291–1295
| pmid = 13782058
}}</ref>
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 ===
Recent research has confirmed the basic soundness of von Foerster's findings. 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<ref>see, e.g., [http://urss.ru/cgi-bin/db.pl?cp=&page=Book&id=37484&lang=en&blang=en&list=14 ''Introduction to Social Macrodynamics''] by [[Andrey Korotayev]] ''et al.''</ref>:
* 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
== Publications ==
Von Foerster authored more than 100 publications.<ref> The [http://www.univie.ac.at/constructivism/HvF/bib.htm Bibliography of Heinz von Foerster 1943–2003], from Alexander Riegler, dec 2003 gives an overview of all his publications.</ref> 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.
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.
==References==
<references/>
== See also ==
* [[Logarithmic timeline]]
* [[Das Netz]]: interview with von Foerster, 2003
* [[Power law]]: The equation that he derived for the date calculated is one that nowadays is called a power law.
== External links ==
* [http://www.stanford.edu/group/SHR/4-2/text/interviewvonf.html Stanford Humanities Review Interview]
* [http://www.univie.ac.at/constructivism/HvF.htm The Heinz von Foerster Page]
* 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 [http://urss.ru/cgi-bin/db.pl?cp=&lang=en&blang=en&list=14&page=Book&id=34250].
* [http://bcl.ece.uiuc.edu/ Biological Computer Laboratory web site, University of Illinois]
* [http://www.cybsoc.org/heinz.htm An anthology of Circularity Principles] from the Heinz von Foerster entry at [http://www.cybsoc.org/ The Cybernetics Society]
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