CYBERNETICS & HUMAN KNOWING

A Journal of Second Order Cybernetics & Cyber-Semiotics

Volume 5, No.2 1998

Contents:


Volume 5 No. 2, 1998

 Søren Brier: Foreword Full text

Peter Bøgh Andersen: WWW as self-organizing system Abstract

Joy Murray: Information, Communication and Technology: What can second order cybernetics contribute to the literacy debate Abstract

Erminia Vaccari: Knowledge as Modelling Abstract

Louis H. Kauffman: Virtual Logic - Self Reference and The Calculus of Indications Abstract

Ranulph Glanville: A (Cybernetic) Musing: The Gestation of Second Order Cybernetics, 1968-1975 - A Personal Account Full text

 

Virtual Logic - Self reference and the caluculus of indications

By Louis H. Kauffman

Abstract:

This is the fifth column in this series on "Virtual Logic". In this column we shall begin by recalling the "Descent into the Form" that was described in the previous column, and how this descent makes clear how the mark of distinction can be seen as self-referential. We then relate this direct appearance of self-reference to other models and to Godel's Incompleteness Theorem. The author apologizes beforehand for the ending of Part III of this essay with its modulation on the final lines of "Little Gidding" by T. S. Eliot.