Can we Define a Fourth Order System?

• Fourth Order Cybernetics considers what happens when a system redefines itself.
• It focuses on the integration of a system within its larger, co-defining context.

• The 4th Order system is contextualised, embedded and integrated into the context
• It can thereby become representative for the integrated context.
• It therefore operates at two levels simultaneously.
• It is no longer a system, but a meta-system.
• It operates both as a system in its context, and as a system that is part of the context.
• It thereby has the capacity to integrate and disintegrate the contact between both.
• It is an active, interactive, reactive and ideally representative agent in/for/with/of that context.
• This requires a different level of description: not in relationship to the system, but to the relationship between systems.
• The Interface is now the system of reference, instead of the system.
• This relationship is the basis of the interaction.
• The transformation is the basis of the processing.
• The integration is the basis of integrity.
• The significant feature of the meta-system is its duality.
• The essence is the same, but the relevance brings inversion.
• The metasystem is an object; the meta-system is a subject.
• Whereas a system can normally be described, a meta-system can only be experienced
• The ‘pillars’ in this transition are the relationships (Second Order) and the interactions (Third Order).
• Fourth Order Design would integrate all activities in an inverted, contextualised form
• It would be embedded in its context and responsible in, and for, its actions
• The system would act as meta-system and design would act as meta-design.
• This represents the level of self-awareness.
• It is where the system reflects upon itself and steers itself (i.e. is autopoietic).
• These attributes facilitate self-regeneration, thus self-healing.
• They can therefore be managed to enable a healing process.