control of control and the communication of communication" and differentiated first-order cybernetics as "the cybernetics of observed systems" and second-order Second-order cybernetics, also known as the cybernetics of cybernetics, is the recursive application of cybernetics to itself and the reflexive practice of cybernetics according to such a critique. It is cybernetics where "the role of the observer is appreciated and acknowledged rather than disguised, as had become traditional in western science". Second-order cybernetics was developed between the Second-order cybernetics, also known as the cybernetics of cybernetics, is the recursive application of cybernetics to itself and the reflexive practice of cybernetics according to such a critique. It is cybernetics where "the role of the observer is appreciated and acknowledged rather than disguised, as had become traditional in western science". Second-order cybernetics was developed between the late 1960s and mid 1970s by Heinz von Foerster and others, with key inspiration coming from Margaret Mead. Foerster referred to it as "the control of control and the communication of communication" and differentiated first-order cybernetics as "the cybernetics of observed systems" and second-order cybernetics as "the cybernetics of observing systems". The concept of second-order cybernetics is closely allied to radical constructivism, which was developed around the same time by Ernst von Glasersfeld. While it is sometimes considered a break from the earlier concerns of cybernetics, there is much continuity with previous work and it can be thought of as a distinct tradition within cybernetics, with origins in issues evident during the Macy conferences in which cybernetics was initially developed. Its concerns include autonomy, epistemology, ethics, language, reflexivity, self-consistency, self-referentiality, and self-organizing capabilities of complex systems, such as in complexity theory (extenuating to the field of complexity economics). It has been characterised as cybernetics where "circularity is taken seriously". The relationship of first-order and second-order cybernetics can be compared to that between Isaac Newton's view of the universe and that of Albert Einstein. Just as Newton's description remains appropriate and usable in many circumstances, even flights to the moon, so first-order cybernetics also provides everything that is needed in many circumstances. In the same way that the Newtonian view is understood to be a special, restricted version of Einstein's view, so first-order cybernetics may be understood as a special, restricted version of second-order cybernetics. The distinction between first and second-order cybernetics is sometimes used as a form…