Foreword: A Mathematics of Form, A Sociology of Observers

How do we observe an observer? We know, as George Spencer-Brown has put it, “that the first distinction, the mark, and the observer are not only interchangeable, but, in the form, identical.”2 So we watch the distinctions drawn by the observer. We turn them into what they (i.e., she and he) are observing. We make them active players in their world who bring forth this world through the distinctions they use to watch it. It is a specific world, one among many others, because the distinctions used are selective. They include this and exclude that. They focus on this and shadow that. Yet, in turning our observers into active players we also note that they may switch the distinction they use. They may become bored and abandon it. They may become curious and look for the other side to it. They may become anxious and protect their distinction through further distinctions, or they may gain hope and invest in further distinctions to be drawn if the first proves successful. One way or another, their distinctions are unstable. But how do we watch observers who switch their distinctions? By trying to frame them. We try to ensure that we contextualize them in such a way that when switching distinctions they still obey certain frames on which we keep an eye. Suddenly, however, we realize that in talking about observers we are talking about ourselves, as well. We also actively select our distinctions to bring forth our world. We are aware of some of these distinctions but not of others. Some we may learn to understand, others will elude us forever. But we know that we do not want to frame ourselves or to be framed by others. And we realize that others may feel the same. Others will try to avoid being framed as well. This is when we realize that observers hide behind their distinctions just as we hide behind ours. Even while drawing distinctions they may be about to switch them for others. The only thing we can be certain of is that they will be drawing some distinction or other just as we will be drawing some distinction or other while all of us are on the way to drawing yet some other distinction. How do we observe observers who are hiding behind their distinctions? This issue of Cybernetics & Human Knowing, like past and coming issues, addresses the epistemology, topology, sociology, and even anthropology of distinctions drawn by observers watching each other in the knowledge that to draw a distinction means to be on the way to switching it. It calls to mind the ideal chair, which does not exist