rattus rattus’ blog

Change an assumption
and save the world.

— Heinz von Foerster, 1970

Quoted after Paul Schröder who 2009-11-14 at the Heinz von Foerster Congress 09 said he found this quote several times in his notes.

At several occasions, Heinz von Foerster presented a numerical sequence which, in a modesty, I shall call “Heinz von Foerster’s sequence”. Given the numbers 0, 1, 2, 3 … up to 9 how would you complete the following ordered sequence:

8 — 5 — 4 — 9 — 1 — …

If you prefer to read about the riddle in detail have a look into Heinz von Foerster’s article “Perception of the future and the future of perception” published in Instructional Science 1 (1972) 2: p31-43.

Here is a variant of “Heinz von Foerster’s sequence”, again for numbers 0 to 9:

8 — 3 — 1 — 5 — 9 — …

The portal of the St. Marx cemetery (Friedhof St. Marx) shows a hexagram, well known as Star of David. Yet, I was told that this hexagram was (and still is) not meant as a Jewish symbol.

Interestingly, a number of gravestones there show six-pointed stars which some consider variations of hexagrams. Though, I found one engraving showing a six-pointed star within a hexagram.

What is part of a symbol?

One of Heinz von Foerster’s favorite symbols was the Ouroboros. (Von Foerster often used a variation where 2 snakes devour each other’s tail.)

At the St. Marx cemetery some gravestones carry Ouroboros, many with an arrow pointing from left to right.

Are symbols just symbols?

I vividly feel as if I was an Ouroboros on fire.

Heinz von Foerster shares with us a beautiful riddle about trust and truth. When I wrote about it my working title was “Trust not truth”. I was thinking this title forth and back because one of my inner voices kept yelling something like “You can’t say one shall not trust the truth if Heinz von Foerster clearly shows that truth is based on trust. I mean, what else could we do but trust the truth?
Trust not truth is nonsense. Put it in your Nonsense Box.”

I did see that “trust not truth” can be read in many ways, too. One being “trust — not truth”. Yet, I eventually changed the title to “The problem is not truth” as if this was any less nonsense. But, I could always say it’s a quote of a quote of a quote :-) That’s why.

So, the problem is trust — not truth.
And this is the truth.

What? You mean there is probably more to it? You mean trust not truth? — Oh, yes, you got me on this one ’cause I am a liar.

There is a wonderful quote by Heinz von Foerster that I first learned about at a workshop in April 1991 in Vienna where he presented it in his opening talk:

The problem is not truth,
the problem is trust.

This is a very riddle. One can read it in many ways, and every time I look at it it’s likely to tell me another story. I am most thankful to Heinz von Foerster that he suggested 2 things for reading this riddle: Look up the words in an etymological dictionary, and … silence. He just looked into my eyes and smiled.

May I invite you to see for yourselves. Here is the quote with links to the Online Etymology Dictionary:

The problem is not truth,
the problem is trust.

In an opening address for a conference in 1990, see “ethics and second-order cybernetics“, Heinz von Foerster tells a story about the origin of the quote.