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Heinz von Foerster

Heinz von Foerster
At the Biological Computer Laboratory, the University of Illinois in 1963
Born
Heinz von Förster

November 13, 1911
Vienna, Austria-Hungary
DiedOctober 2, 2002 (aged 90)
Pescadero, California, U.S.
NationalityAustria
United States
Alma materTechnical University of Vienna
University of Breslau
Known forVon Foerster equation
Second-order cybernetics
Computer science
Artificial intelligence
Epistemology
Biophysics
AwardsWiener Gold Medal (1983)
Scientific career
FieldsCybernetics
Physics
Philosophy
InstitutionsUniversity of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign

Heinz von Foerster (né von Förster; November 13, 1911 – October 2, 2002) was an Austrian-American scientist combining physics and philosophy, and widely attributed as the originator of second-order cybernetics. He was twice a Guggenheim fellow (1956–57 and 1963–64) and also was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1980. He is well known for his 1960 Doomsday equation formula published in Science predicting future population growth.[1]

As a polymath, he wrote nearly two hundred professional papers, gaining renown in fields ranging from computer science and artificial intelligence to epistemology, and researched high-speed electronics and electro-optics switching devices as a physicist, and in biophysics, the study of memory and knowledge. He worked on cognition based on neurophysiology, mathematics, and philosophy and was called "one of the most consequential thinkers in the history of cybernetics".[2] He came to the United States, and stayed after meeting with Warren Sturgis McCulloch, where he received funding from The Pentagon to establish the Biological Computer Laboratory, which built the first parallel computer, the Numa-Rete.[3] Working with William Ross Ashby, one of the original Ratio Club members, and together with Warren McCulloch, Norbert Wiener, John von Neumann and Lawrence J. Fogel, Heinz von Foerster was an architect of cybernetics and one of the members of the Macy conferences,[4] eventually becoming editor of its early proceedings alongside Hans-Lukas Teuber and Margaret Mead.[5]

  1. ^ Heinz von Foerster, P. M. Mora and L. W. Amiot (November 1960). "Doomsday: Friday, 13 November, A.D. 2026. At this date human population will approach infinity if it grows as it has grown in the last two millennia". Science. 132 (3436): 1291–1295. Bibcode:1960Sci...132.1291V. doi:10.1126/science.132.3436.1291. PMID 13782058.
  2. ^ Foerster, Heinz V; Müller, Albert; Müller, Karl H.; Rooks, Elinor; Kasenbacher, Michael (2013). The Beginning of Heaven and Earth Has No Name: Seven Days with Second-Order Cybernetics. Fordham University Press. ISBN 978-0823255610.
  3. ^ Jamie Hutchinson. Von Foerster made Illinois a cybernetics "nerve center" Archived 2016-02-15 at the Wayback Machine Ingenuity newsletter, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, May 2004
  4. ^ "The Heinz von Foerster Page". Archived from the original on 2004-08-03. Retrieved 2004-08-20.
  5. ^ Biography of Heinz von Foerster 2002

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