Heinz von Foerster

"What we need now is the description of the “describer” or, in other words, we need a theory of the observer."

"While in the first quarter of this century physicists and cosmologists were forced to revise the basic notions that govern the natural sciences, in the last quarter of this century biologists will forc…"

"The main theme of this report is a particular facet of the general problem of pre-organization in self-organizing systems, namely, the theory and circuitry of information processing networks. One may …"

"Objectivity is a subject's delusion that observing can be done without him. Involving objectivity is abrogating responsibility – hence its popularity."

"Either Stone Age man was a technological wizard, who carefully removed his technological achievements so as not to upset his inferior progeny, or our population dwindled from a once astronomical size …"

"The world, as we perceive it, is our own invention."

"I don't know where my expertise is; my expertise is no disciplines. I would recommend to drop disciplinarity wherever one can. Disciplines are an outgrowth of academia. In academia you appoint somebod…"

"It seems that cybernetics is many different things to many different people. But this is because of the richness of its conceptual base; and I believe that this is very good, otherwise cybernetics wou…"