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

Second Day: Innovation, Life, Order, Thermodynamics

Second Day Innovation, Life, Order, Thermodynamics Life cannot be studied in vitro, one has to explore it in vivo. . . . Projecting the image of ourselves into things or functions of things in the outside world is quite a common practice. —Heinz von Foerster, Understanding Understanding In every serious philosophical question uncertainty extends to the very roots of the problem. We must always be prepared to learn something totally new. —Ludwig Wittgenstein, Remarks on Color And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters: and let it diuide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament; and diuided the waters, which were vnder the firmament, from the waters, which were aboue the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament, Heauen: and the euening and the morning were the second day. —Genesis 1:6–8 What will be created on our second day of creation? Water: it was created quite literally before everything else. More generally, however , following the beginning of heaven and earth, today will revolve around 30 Second Day their continuation. Yesterday we finished with images of an invitingly recursive universe—with the metaphor of the casino. Again and again we returned to variations on the idea that certain pieces—systems—can be peeled out of this universe—and must be. Now, if we examine these pieces or systems, a very important restriction arises. They all operate according to the Second Law of Thermodynamics: In closed systems, order can only decrease and, vice versa, disorder can only increase. Right away I must remind you of Ludwig von Bertalanffy, who starts out from the idea that thermodynamics represents such an incredible conceptual machine that we ought to use it much more often that we usually do.1 If I have a heavy hammer or machines, then I can build things that I could not build without the hammer or without the machines. After his initial dismay that thermodynamics were only used by engineers , by builders of steam engines and the like, Bertalanffy’s fascination led him to the idea of using thermodynamics for the analysis of living organisms. At first there was a problem with the first requirement that is usually necessary for the application of the Second Law and that cannot be used in the study of living beings. Because I have to presuppose an adiabatic— impermeable—covering, outfitting for the system I am observing to ensure that it remains an energetically closed system. If I do that with a cat and put an adiabatic cover over the cat, then, unfortunately, five minutes later only the cover will be intact—and there will be no more cat. Thus I lose the essence of “cat-ness” if I wrap it in an adiabatic compress or cover. Therefore, I must open the system that I want to analyze from a biological point of view; I must drill a hole in this cover so that energy can get in. Bertalanffy was the first to draw our attention to this: “If I want to apply thermodynamics to living organisms, then I must have an energetically open system.” If I have an energetically open system, however, then what can thermodynamics, what can classic thermodynamics do for me? And he quite rightly concluded, “A lot.” When the formula claims that the change of energy going through system equals exactly zero, that only indicates a simplified case, only represents a special instance. I can also write that dE/dt—the change of energy over time—equals 25 calories per second. What happens then? What do these different equations Innovation, Life, Order, Thermodynamics 31 look like now? Here the energy of the system is not a constant, the change of energy in the system does not equal zero. Now, how can I use the fundamental equations of thermodynamics for cases in which the change of energy has a certain positive or negative magnitude? And so Bertalanffy began to write these new equations, and through these began to found a theoretical biology. This step was crucial for me as a young man. “Aha, Bertalanffy understands this, wonderful, let’s build a mathematics that deals with the thermodynamics of open systems .” In what ways does this new view of thermodynamics fit the classical idea? Well, Boltzmann’s classic idea was to say, “I don’t just want to busy myself with simple thermodynamics and only ever produce equations for...