Recursively Contextual Identity: A Variant Formulation of First- and Second-Order

The core cybernetics concept of first- and second-order has been interpreted in various ways, including as the cybernetics of cybernetics, as systems observed and observing, as epistemic and ethical modes, and as historical phases. In this paper, I describe an approach in which first-order systems are distinguished as contexts and second-order systems are distinguished by the self-reflective awareness of contextual participants. Seeking to analyze first- and second-order as a relational unity, I adopt Francisco Varela’s notation for complementarities, specifying their dialectics in the format: first/second. I use a performative exercise to constrain and enable the development of a variant formulation and then compare this variant with textual ones by Heinz von Foerster and Gordon Pask and with visual depictions by Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead and by Ray Ison. Interpretively, first/second approaches that I examine might be distinguished in several respects, including by their relational domains and associated modes (observers of objects versus organisms in contexts), diagrammatics (1-in-2 versus 2-in-1), and challenges of a second-order stance (e.g., resisting objectification versus maintaining awareness of one’s coupled, transcontextual, and situated relations). This enquiry emphasizes an object-context distinction while also imbricating or making a complementarity of the first/second distinction, such that both modes—observers of objects and organisms in contexts—are discussed in terms of self-reference.