The New Science of Cybernetics: A Primer

 Historically, the new science of cybernetics can be viewed as a potential outline of Heinz von Foerster’s vision of second-order cybernetics as the science of observing systems or, alternatively, of living systems by living systems for living systems. Heinz von Foerster introduced the concept of second-order cybernetics on several occasions, without specifying, however, its content and cognitive organization (Foerster, 1974, 2003)  Systematically, the new science of cybernetics operates on a new level which, not quite unexpectedly and surprisingly, can be characterized as second-order level. This secondorder level is self-reflexive by nature and by design, because this level comes into play whenever a concept, a model or an academic field turns onto itself, like in understanding understanding or in cybernetics of cybernetics.  Functionally, the new science of cybernetics can be viewed as a transor post-disciplinary second-order field for navigating through an ocean of first-order level science. NSC operates primarily with objects or with operations from first-order science and transforms them into new components which exhibit strong comparative advantages in terms of novelty and robustness.