Foerster Quotes & Sayings

Everything that is said is said by an observer. — Heinz Von Foerster

First-order cybernetics is the science of observed systems; Second-order cybernetics is the science of observing systems. — Heinz Von Foerster

If you desire to see, learn how to act. — Heinz Von Foerster

Objectivity is the delusion that observations could be made without an observer. — Heinz Von Foerster

I shall act always so as to increase the total number of choices. — Heinz Von Foerster

Should one name one central concept, a first principle, of cybernetics, it would be circularity. — Heinz Von Foerster

The great affair, the love affair with life, is to live as variously as possible, to groom one's curiosity like a high-spirited thoroughbred, climb aboard, and gallop over the thick, sunstruck hills every day. — Diane Ackerman

Mr. Market's job is to provide you with prices; your job is to decide whether it is to your advantage to act on them. You no not have to trade with hime just because he constantly begs you to. — Benjamin Graham

Most employees are smarter than their employers. All employers are braver than their employees. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

It can be difficult to accept the fact that a lot of birds have to be identified as "possible" or "probable. — David Allen Sibley

Objectivity is a subject's delusion that observing can be done without him — Heinz Von Foerster

Let the other person save face. — Dale Carnegie

The more passionate and argumentative I get the more followers and friends I make online. — Tasha Turner

Cybernetics is NOT the banana. — Heinz Von Foerster

I've come to the conclusion that a man without a cause is nothing. He has nothing to look forward to, he has nothing to work toward; he is as a man lost, wandering in the darkest part of his heart to find a deeper, better purpose in his life. — Hazel B. West

Act always so as to increase the number of choices — Heinz Von Foerster

The environment as we perceive it is our invention, — Heinz Von Foerster

For there were good men. As long as we women remembered to be strong. As long as we remembered to be ourselves — Mindy Klasky

In 1865, he was assigned to the Catholic Mission in North Kohala on the island of Hawaii. — Brien Foerster

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 to the mere three billions of today. — Heinz Von Foerster

What we need now is the description of the "describer" or, in other words, we need a theory of the observer. — Heinz Von Foerster

Hard sciences are successful because they deal with the soft problems; soft sciences are struggling because they deal with the hard problems. — Heinz Von Foerster

How can someone live with their own conscience when you reward a domestic terrorist with continued safety and betray the family of fallen police officer waiting for decades for justice for his murder? So let's ask the question. Hillary Clinton as a coddler of the brutal Castro brothers and betrayer of the family of fallen state trooper Werner Foerster and his family. — Chris Christie

Something that cannot be explained cannot be seen. — Heinz Von Foerster