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Self-reference and paradox

Since I make statements in the 2nd order about systems which concern me as an observer myself, I am in a kind of circularity when I talk about observer operations (note 1). Self-reference can be seen as a logical challenge. There are famous mathematicians such as B. Russell who spent years trying to resolve paradoxes that they themselves had formulated. All actual paradoxes are based on a self-referential statement, whereby the observer who makes the statement is faded out, whats creating the paradoxes in the first place. B. Russell, for example, in a classical variant of paradox, has a barber say that he shaves all men in the village who do not shave themselves. But I don't know of a barber in the world who would seriously say and mean that. The statement comes from B. Russell, but of course he doesn't stand for it either, he just puts forward a non-existent barber. All paradoxes are fictitious. I will explain the self-reference by using C. Escher's picture gallery. C. Escher drew the gallery in such a way that I can't decide whether the young man standing in the gallery is the subject or object of his picture viewing. C. Escher drew his picture from a blind spot, so that the boy standing in the gallery can see the picture in which he himself is standing in the gallery. C. Escher's painting seems paradoxical if I am not consciously aware that I am looking at a painting. Quasi within the picture - that is, beyond the viewer of the picture - a boy, who naturally exists as little as B. Russell's Barber, "sees" himself in a picture that contains him. C. Escher can draw the boy because he makes the blind spot visible, which is necessary for this representation. While I, as an observer, cannot see my blind spot at the moment, i.e. I cannot see what I cannot see, C. Escher uses cybernetic analysis in the sense of cybernetics as a construction instruction for an ingenious picture.

In the first order, I observe the world from the outside. So I observe - to remain in the expression of C. Escher's picture - in my environment - to which I myself do not belong tautologically, because it is around me as an environment - houses, ships, bridges, people etc. In this respect I am not interested that I observe, but in what I observe. In this respect I see a city, but I do not see that I see the city. The crowd of houses therefore appears to me as an object. I see my surrounding world as objectively existing.

Of course, I can be aware that I am watching the world. I am not interested in what I see on the object level, but in the fact that the objects I see are objects of an observer. If I were not observing, I would not perceive objects. The city - and in C. Escher's picture - the image of the city in the gallery - is an object in the eyes of an observer. And when I observe an observer, he is - like any other object - an object in my eyes. In the second order I practically observe my own observations. I step out of the picture and take the perspective that I have opposite C. Escher's gallery as a viewer. The young man in the picture then appears to me, for example, as a self-portrait of C. Escher, which I can very well distinguish from the constructor of the picture. So I don't see a person seeing himself, but a picture of a person seeing himself. Above all, however, I also see the blind spot that is necessary for the person depicted to see himself in this way. As a picture viewer I see the blind spot in the picture, which the boy in the picture cannot see. I can see, as it were, how the supposed paradox comes about, because I see how it was constructed.

In the 2nd order I observe the distinctions that underlie an observation. When I observe myself as a systems theoretician, I am interested in exploring the systems theoretical perspective in a self-referential way by observing the distinctions I use in systems theory. I thus apply the categorical concept of my systems theory self-referentially to myself as an observer. I see this as the best (most radical) critique of systems theory thinking. When I observe my distinctions, I naturally use distinctions again, which I can observe again. So with the 2nd order I start an endless recursion of self-referential observations. C. Escher's representation seems to me formally equivalent to this recursion, his blind spot doubles in itself as often as I like.

In the second order I describe myself by describing how I perceive my world. Thus, the self-representation in the 2nd order does not show beforehand how I appear from the outside, but which world I construct for myself, whereby I can naturally perceive myself as part of the world, as the boy in C. Escher's gallery can also see himself. In the second order I recognize myself by recognizing how I see the world. My world reflects my being (note 2). By reflection I understand that I get a picture of myself back, like when I look into a mirror. My statements about the world form a kind of hyper mirror, which does not show how the world really is, but how I perceive it. In an actual mirror or on a video I see more of myself than any external description can show me. And when I listen to what I say about the world, I see more of myself than in any mirror that only shows me my surface. So the 2nd order systems theory is for me a kind of tool for self-observation - even if I can overcome my blind spot as little as I can look into my own eyes.

Metacommunication

Through the self-reference of the 2nd order systems theory I describe how I recognize myself as an observer through this theory. So it is not about the observer as such, but about understanding the implications of systems theory. In the aforementioned problem shift, I will thus experience what I represent in systems theory, not what I am as an observer.

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