Contents:Søren Brier: Foreword Full Text Claus Emmeche: Defining life as a semiotic phenomenon Abstract David J. Depew & Bruce H. Weber: What Does Natural Selection Have to Be like Abstract Jesper Hoffmeyer: Surfaces Inside Surfaces Abstract Robert Vallée: Cognition et Système, Essai d'Épistémo-praxéologie Abstract Robert Vallée: An Introduction to "Epistemo-praxiology" Abstract Columns Ranulph Glanville: A (Cybernetic) Musing: Varieties of Variety? Full Text Louis H. Kauffman: Virtual Logic - The Calculus of Indications Full Text Reviews Maj-Britt Rosenkilde, Anja Abel Sørensen, Christine Nordentoft and Søren Brier: Review of International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics Full Text Axel Randrup: Whispering Pond Full Text Mariaelena Bartesaghi: "The Therapy of Dialogical Possibility" Full Text
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An Introduction to "Epistemo-praxiology"By Robert Vallée Abstract: A system is considered which is able, metaphorically or not, to observe, decide and act. The observation step is described by a mathematical "observation operator" which gives a representation of the relation of indiscernibility and of other epistemological aspects of subjectivity such as "inverse transfer" of intrinsic structures of the system to the set of its possible evolutions. The decision step, which can be considered in a similar way, involves a decision operator and may be connected to the observation step, giving a pragmatic phase described by a "pragmatic operator" having properties analogous to those of the observation operator (pragmatic inverse transfer). The last phase is that of action which, by the modifications it brings to the system and its environment, modifies what the system observes and consequently what it decides, introducing an "epistemo-praxiologic loop". An equation may then be written which describes the super-system constituted by the system itself and its environment. It shows that the evolution of this super-system is a fixed point of an operator. In this way a point of view concerning a system and its environment is introduced involving a kind of cognition which is both epistemological and praxiological.
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