The Beginning of Heaven and Earth Has No Name: Seven Days with Second-Order Cybernetics

Epilogue in Heaven

Epilogue in Heaven The problem is not truth, he answered, the problem is trust. —Heinz von Foerster, Understanding Understanding If someone believes that he has flown from America to England in the last few days, then, I believe, he cannot be making a mistake. —Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty Therefore the Lord God sent him foorth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground, from whence he was taken. —Genesis 3:23 On the way back from San Francisco to New York we’re sitting—“tired and happy” would be a fitting phrase—in a flying and, for the next hours, hopefully, totally trivial machine. In our hand luggage we are carrying, in the form of sixteen cassette tapes, the extracts from one week of Hissing , Grunting, and Rattling Sounds From Rattlesnake Hill, also known as Dialog from This Side of Eden (since the Foersters’ estate is on West Eden Road). Heinz von Foerster made a special point when—in a coda to the sixth day—he added regarding our great design plan for the Foerster machine: Since such a book cannot be made; everything that you produce here is your invention—and therefore it is your responsibility to invent a 182 Epilogue in Heaven Foerster that you would like to have invented and that emerges from your form of “finding.” Therein lies the Müllerean appeal—and I’ll be fascinated to get to know him. About the Heinzean Heinz, the one which I am myself, I know nothing or much too little—so I need the Müllerean Heinz to get to know the Heinzean Heinz better. And since according to one of the two fundamental principles of Foersterian pedagogy one can learn even from the dumbest, this part of the “Know Thyself Better” game was set for the time being. The ways and means of the Foerster creation sub specie Müller and Müller was, in a certain sense, left open to us. If something seems to be fundamentally unattainable, every attempt comes equally close to the mark. Beneath us the landscape of the Rocky Mountains unfolds: white mountain ranges with dark flecks, white and black. I can tell you a little story that I really like and that touches on the problem of explanation. My son Johannes was a volunteer in Africa with the Peace Corps—and he made a very dear friend there, a Nigerian named Ignatius. After the tragic death of our son, we invited Ignatius to study at the University of Illinois and to live with us. Ignatius came then in September, straight from a small village. I soon noticed that he was interested in photography. On the table in his room he had a picture of the chief of his village, a second of his mother, and so on. For Christmas I gave him a camera. And he immediately started taking photograph after photograph with it. After a couple of days he picked up the developed film, came to me and said, “Heinz, the photo lab has lied to me and cheated me. I used color film to take a photo of my village chief and my mother on my table— and now the pictures are black and white.” I answered him, “Your original is also black and white, so you can’t get anything other than a black and white picture.” “No, no,” he said, “I’ve bought color film, now the colors have to be in the pictures as well.” I tried to explain the problem once more, but he just stuck with it: “Heinz, they’ve cheated me because it was a color film—and these pictures are just black and white.” Slowly I saw that I was having difficulties. Thank God my very intelligent son Thomas came to visit. He had just started vacation, and I said to him, “Tommy, you teach physics. Here is my friend Igna- Epilogue in Heaven 183 tius, tell him that you’re only ever going to get a black and white picture if you photograph a black and white picture!” Thomas made extraordinary efforts, but Ignatius still felt cheated. Then a young man came along, John White, who had taught in Africa himself. I asked him as well to explain the black and white problem. White went to him and just said, “It doesn’t work!” And Ignatius understood. I find this point central to the question “What is...