Recollections of Heinz von Foerster, a rhetorical genius

On a cold day between Christmas and New Year 1961, in search of a place to study, I met Heinz in his office at the Biological Computer Laboratory. I knew of him through a network of designers who, like me, were interested in issues that conventional curricula did not address. Heinz greeted me, a total stranger, with the enthusiasm usually reserved for an old friend. To my surprise, he knew of the place where I had came from (the Ulm School of Design, an avant-garde institution now extinct but reproduced everywhere much as cybernetics is now), and he suggested that I come to the University of Illinois to study with W. Ross Ashby. This short encounter enrolled me into cybernetics and defined my intellectual focus for years to come. Disciplines Communication This journal article is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/asc_papers/284 Cybernetics And Human Knowing. Vol. 10, nos. 3-4, pp. 195-196 Recollections of Heinz von Foerster, a rhetorical genius1