A Gathering of the Non-trivialized

Dear Larry,

Barbara wrote to me that you are a Feldenkrais practitioner which gives me a feeling of being related to you as I am a Tai ji and Qigong teacher. Both arts share a devotion to the understanding and use of the relationship between body and mind.

She told me about your interest in having the “Heinz von Foerster Conference” in Santa Cruz. Together with Alan Stewarts, I have worked out a lot of ideas and concepts for such a conference in Vienna. I believe that they could be very valuable for a Heinz von Foerster conference in Santa Cruz. I think it should be possible to link these two conferences as Heinz linked the German and English language world.

In fact, I feel the need for something other than a conference which has crystallized for me in the words “A Gathering of the Non-trivialized.” I think this expression immediately speaks to the heart and mind of everyone who knew Heinz and his philosophy.

I feel that Heinz was a living eigen-system of his concept of the non-trivialized machine. His way of living showed how ethical and practical his systemic thinking/behaving was. And nothing expresses this thinking/behaving more than the concept of the non-trivial machine.

His life showed that the individual person, the human being, the scientist, and the thinker are inseparable. Many conferences around the world have proved that categories like these must fail to grasp the whole. Only if we meet as humans and converse as humans, we can capture or evoke what was inseparable in Heinz’s life.

This doesn’t mean that such a gathering/conference must be a private meeting. No, everything should be integrated if possible. And even if it takes on the form of a tea-party, it should be a scientific or, to be more exact, a systemic tea-party.

I consider it a socio-cybernetic secret how Heinz brought these spheres together and thus made his life transdisciplinary. Heinz’s life and presence were phenomena within the cybernetic movement, as it were. He linked a heterogeneous thinking community which constitutes a far wider circle than just the cybernetically oriented thinking community.

I believe that this is a wonderful phenomenon to be acknowledged. So far, I’ve missed this acknowledgment in conferences dedicated to Heinz von Foerster and his work.

Thinking how joyful Heinz’s lectures, conversations, and stories were, I feel that I do not only want to practice but also to celebrate this way of researching and teaching. Those who didn’t laugh or didn’t learn anything from his way of thinking/behaving or think it’s not serious enough don’t have to come.

I am convinced that there are lots of people who would love to study and work this way and love to meet and to organize themselves. And I am convinced that they just wait for an opportunity to do so. I am certainly one of them, and I am sure it would be serious fun.

Deadly serious, as when Heinz was asked, “Heinz, every scientist wants to liberate mankind from one kind of horrible death threat – from which death do you want to liberate mankind?” Heinz replied, “From collective brain death! Most certainly, from collective brain death. I want to liberate humanity from the threat of collective brain death!”

Cheers!

Lucas