| When Heinz von Foerster suggested that the observer be included in the system, he provided a means of dealing with the observer effects which plagued social science [von Foerster, 1981]. It is necessary now to go beyond this Second Order Cybernetics to Third Order Cybernetics, which deals with participant effects as well as observer effects. The person may be described as the triple overlap of the natural world (ecosphere), social world (sociosphere), and artificial world (technosphere) [Gardiner, 1987]. Since the person is the most complex system within the ecosphere, traditional objective science can be applied in the natural sciences. However, since the person is the element of the sociosphere, observer effects must be considered; and since the person is the source of the technosphere, participant effects must be considered. The feedback from computers is a function of our participation with them. Some of us may reject them as oppressive and some of us may accept them as liberating. The perennial debate between technophobes and technophiles may persist partly because each camp is composed of self-fulfilling prophets. Third Order Cybernetics would recognise the person as a participant observer in his/her own culture.
Interactionism dovetails the primary process of growing from the inside out (humanism) with the secondary process of being acculturated from the outside in (behaviourism) [Gardiner, 1980]. Whereas behaviourism emphasises input information and humanism stored information, interactionism emphasises fedback information. The TOTE unit is a useful model for interactionism [see Figure 6]. It organises input, stored, and fedback information within a system [Miller et. al., 1960]. Input information is compared with a desired state in the image (stored information) and behaviour is guided by the discrepancy between input and stored information under the direction of a plan. Another advantage of the model is that it is inspired by the computer, with image corresponding to memory and plan corresponding to programme. Thus, the cyborg could be considered as two tightly-tied TOTE units in which the output of one is the input of the other.
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