Cybernetics of Cybernetics

The Cybernetics of Cybernetics was originally published by Heinz von Foerster and the Biological Computer Laboratory at the University of Illinois. Although it is one of the greatest compendiums of cybernetics theory ever published in English, it was out of print for two decades, until it was reprinted by Future Systems. The book contains writing by Ashby, Bateson, Beer, Brün, Hardin, Maturana, McCulloch, Pask, Powers, von Foerster, and Wiener, as well as many others. The book is unconventional in layout and especially in the way it is indexed. For example, the book contains another book—a metabook—affixed inside the back cover with velcro, and containing conceptual maps of the ideas within the book. There are also circles the reader is encouraged to cut out of the book, creating tunnels between different, related pages. Futhermore, the book is sprinkled with definitions of key terms in cybernetics, and these definitions refer to other definitions. The book has no table of contents as such, but there is an index (a parabook) in the middle. In these ways the structure of the book is unique, and grows out of the ideas and their relationships. This is a facsimile of a book designed before computers, in the playful spriti of collaboration. The design is somewhat informal, with much done freehand, enjoyable illustrations, and the articles reproduced in various typefaces. The result is neither cold nor professional, and in this manner the book seems somewhat defiant of academic tradition, despite containing excusrions into math, biology, systems, and communication theory.