DOI: 10.1002/sres.

2597

RESEARCH PAPER

A note on Ludwig von Bertalanffy and the form problem

of life

Dirk Baecker

Culture Theory and Management, Witten/

Herdecke University, Witten, Germany
Correspondence
Dirk Baecker, Culture Theory and
Management, Witten/Herdecke
University, Alfred‐Herrhausen‐Str. 50,
58448 Witten, Germany.
Email: dirk.baecker@uni‐wh.de
Abstract
The paper looks at two early books written and edited, respectively, by Ludwig
von Bertalanffy, both published in 1928. They share an interest in the individ-
uality of individual things and living beings and thus are both skeptical of a
general substance able to explain existence and life. The first book is
Bertalanffy's Critical Theory of Form Formation; the second, a small collection
of texts written by Nicholas von Cusa and preceded by an introduction by
Bertalanffy, which is as admiring of the Cardinal and Bishops diplomatic life
as it is impressed by his philosophy containing many ideas which only later,
and differently, became prominent by writers like Leibniz, Pascal, or Luther.
Von Bertalanffy calls von Cusa the first philosopher with a notion of infinity,
which proves to be pertinent both theologically and mathematically. The paper
discusses the problem of the individuality of individual living beings within the
context of the so‐called philosophy of organism, in which Plato is fascinated by
the question of how organisms manage to distinguish themselves from a sur-
rounding they at the same time depend on. The paper introduces Fritz Heider's
notion of medium and George Spencer‐Brown's notion of form to show how a
possible calculus of indications doubling as operations of reflexive negation
relate to a medium of life which consists, among other things, of decaying
forms of life.

KEYWORDS
form, life, medium, organism

1 | TWO EARLY BOOKS latter's interest in the individuality of individual things

In 1928 Ludwig von Bertalanffy published two books, a
Kritische Theorie der Formbildung (1928a) and a small col-
lection of texts by Cardinal and Bishop of Brixen Nicholas
of Cusa, which he edited and preceded by an introduction
(1928b). This paper will look at a connection between
those two books, which may shed some light on a prob-
lem of theoretical biology, which von Bertalanffy pursued
in his later work yet formulated perhaps more radically in
these early essays. The main idea is that von Bertalanffy's
interest in von Cusa may well be triggered by both the
Syst Res Behav Sci. 2019;36:1–10. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/sres
and his interest in the alterity of the unity of any individ-
ual thing. The “form” problem von Bertalanffy was after
is the problem of how to handle the question of negation
in living beings as well as in other entities which for
instance in the sphere of meaning live a “life” of their
own. The paper brings in Fritz Heider's (1959) notion of
medium and George Spencer‐Brown's (1969) concept of
form to show that there are ways to follow up on von
Bertalanffy's interest in von Cusa, which may even be
compatible with the idea of “open” systems being charac-
terized by a steady state far from equilibrium.
© 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 1
2 BAECKER
2 | T H E I N D I VI D U A L I T Y O F
LIVING BEINGS AND I NDIVIDUAL
THINGS
The problem the two books of 1928 pose is the same. In
the Kritische Theorie der Formbildung, von Bertalanffy
confronts the “form problem” (1928a: 10) of life in the fol-
lowing words: “We know the phenomenon of life only of
well‐individualized, more or less complicated natural
bodies with a certain shape, which we call ‘organisms’
and which, of course, are extraordinarily different from
one another: slime mold, amoeba, oak tree, fish, man”
(ibid.: 67; transl. DeepL). And from von Cusa he draws
the insight: “All our knowledge refers only to the individ-
ual things we see around us” (1928b: 17; transl. DeepL).
The correlate of the latter thesis is: “There is no ‘living
substance’ in our experience, only living beings, organ-
isms” (1928a: 68; transl. DeepL). There is no life “as such”
apart from individual living beings. There is no possibility
to think about a more general structure explaining indi-
vidual living beings. The whole enigma of life resides in
those individual lives, and nowhere else. Yet, did anybody
at any time think differently? Has anybody at any time
been successful in delineating and proving a “substance”
of life? Is there nothing the noun of life could possibly
refer to?
Von Bertalanffy may have been interested in von Cusa
because the position the latter assumes is not just that of
a helpless positivist indicating, as a matter of fact, the evi-
dence of those individual living beings. For von Cusa
there is something more general than those individuals.
There is God's creation, of course. But this is not the prob-
lem. God's creation could well have been the creation of
nothing but individuals, being born and dying. There is
something else which cannot be reduced to any of those
individuals, let alone to all of them. As von Cusa's famous
sentence, quoted by von Bertalanffy, reads: “Ex omnibus
partibus relucet totum”; in all parts the whole shines
(1928b: 24). What is the status of this “whole”? What does
it consists of? Surely, it is not just the aggregate of all indi-
viduals, for how would this shine? Is it the emergent
“more” which, as Aristotle (Aristotle, 2002: 1041b) alleg-
edly would have it, is more than the sum of the parts?
Aristotle, anyhow, was more interested in the question
of what it is to be as it is (to ti ên einai; Metaphysics,
1029b ff), which may be read as a question relating more
to a possible self‐reference of being than to some external,
transcendent, or substantial reference lending and
guaranteeing its existence. There is a whole which
becomes almost visible—“it shines”—in any individual.
The forms of life participate with this whole, just as the
whole in a way participates in them. An additive and pos-
itive, let alone positivist, exploration of living beings is
not sufficient. There is something they adhere to, be it
nothing more than their dependency on their interdepen-
dency. Their individual independence, important as it is,
can only be appreciated in the context of a dependency
whose status is unclear.
Let it be understood right from the beginning that von
Bertalanffy as well as von Cusa and Aristotle may well
refer to conditions of life, which since the nineteenth cen-
tury were called “thermodynamic.” Living beings evi-
dently consume energy in both material and immaterial
form. But this is not the enigma all three of them and
many others are reasoning about. Living beings owe their
life to themselves while being dependent on energy they
take up and release. How do they owe something to
themselves? This is von Bertalanffy's form problem.
The concept of life von Bertalanffy was trying to come
up with is not a generalization that would be guilty of the
“fallacy of misplaced concreteness” (Whitehead, 1967:
51 f), but a generalization that identifies as the real prob-
lem of living beings their dependency as a prerequisite for
independency, and vice versa. The concept of life does not
only describe the individual living beings in their isolated
condition as self‐contained organisms, but at the same
time as organisms in a self‐referential if not also self‐con-
taining exchange with other organisms and their environ-
ment. How is this exchange to be conceived of if it is not a
thermodynamic exchange but an exchange defining life,
taking order from order, as Ernst Schrödinger (1944)
would have it, or order from noise, as von Foerster
(2003a) insinuated?
3 | R HENISH H UM OR
Von Cusa seems to follow two rather separate ideas when
delving into questions of this kind, relating individuals to
a whole which shines in them. One is to express an over-
whelming awe when considering the wholeness, great-
ness, indeed infinity of God. And the other is to get God
and his creation completely out of the way when trying
to explain anything proving itself before our very eyes.
Being born near Trier in Germany not far from the
Rhineland there is something peculiarly Rhenish in his
deep philosophical humour. God is way too infinite to
be able to explain whatsoever. Calling God inconceivable
means to be able to call all the more attention to His liv-
ing creatures. Von Cusa even endows the individuals
with some participation in God, thus honouring Him
while all the same appreciating every one individual. Liv-
ing beings are not parts of a whole, but the whole and the
part as much as the general and the special, are unfolded
from, and folded into, one another (von Kues, 1982b:
47ff.).
BAECKER
Nothing is evident just as it is. It is not just scepticism
von Cusa is interested in. It is trivial to say that the eyes
can be deceived, and the mind can err. Instead, there is
something insensible which is not God but which must
be accounted for when trying to understand the individu-
ality of individual living beings.
4 | A P RO BL EM OF
PARTICIPAT I ON
Although the whole cannot be experienced by the mind
(sensus) it is accessible for reason (ratio; von Kues,
1982a, 1982b). This is von Cusa's doctrine of ignorance.
One knows by admitting one's ignorance. One's igno-
rance is the first step toward relating one's self to some-
thing else one does not know but is dependent on. God
may know but He will not tell and it is blasphemy to
try to know what He may know. God is the inconceivable
infinity of the largest and the smallest at the same time
(coincidentia oppositorum). Yet, there is something
beyond the individual. The individual is never left alone,
as solitary as it may be. It has a life of its own consisting
in some peculiar reliance on itself and the way this is
dealt with. This is why von Bertalanffy speaks of a form
problem of life. He cannot completely take the side of
the individual organisms but realizes that they are depen-
dent on something beyond them. Rightly, however, he
rejects the assumption that this general has a real exis-
tence, whether as a platonic idea, a divine creation, or a
thermodynamic field miraculously bringing it about. Its
infinity escapes any possible indication. Von Bertalanffy
may have been more interested in the mathematical incli-
nations of the notion of infinity than its theological ones.
Von Cusa develops a monadic doctrine that tries to
view dependency and independency, the double fold of
the parts into the whole and of the whole into the parts,
as two sides of one coin. In a similar way Leibniz pro-
posed to think of the relationship of the mutually closed
monads to each other as a relationship of each individual
to the divine within and outside of it (Leibniz, 2014; cf.
Serres, 1968). Jacob Böhme, Pascal, Luther, even Kant,
and Hegel will pursue that distinguished Gnostic and
then Christian idea of conceiving of an individual self
by first of all calling it empty with respect to God by
His inexhaustible mercy filling it (Jonas, 1958; Rossbach,
1996). A similar yet different thought fascinates von
Bertalanffy in von Cusa: Infinity (of God or number) is
outside everything, inside everything, and permeating
everything (von Bertalanffy, 1928b: 19). This idea goes
beyond an empty self, and it is inconceivable vis‐à‐vis. It
is a conjecture about a complex kind of relationship. If
anything, it is a doctrine of hierarchical opposition, as
3
developed much later by Louis Dumont in the context
of a theory of modern individualization (Dumont, 1983:
244f., omitted in Dumont, 1986): Here each individual is
understood as an element of a not necessarily closed
whole exactly in so far, as it can simultaneously set itself
in opposition to this wholeness.
That comes very close to the thought that von Cusa
tries to think insisting, as it were, on the individuality of
individual things. God permeating all individual things
does not spare them their distinction from everything
else. The same goes for von Bertalanffy. All living being
sharing the feature of life does not spare them the need
to produce and reproduce their life as a distinction from
everything else. Individual things as individual living
beings owe their existence to a primordial closure, a self.
Thus, the conundrum is how to conceive of a sharing
which relies on distinction. Participation is von Cusa's
concept, and participation becomes von Bertalanffy's idea
he tries to come to grips with.
Both von Bertalanffy and von Cusa are part of the tra-
dition of a “philosophy of the organism,” which, accord-
ing to Alfred North Whitehead, was developed by Plato
and ever since was continued by European philosophy
as a series of “footnotes to Plato” (Whitehead, 1979,
39f.). This philosophy deals with the problem of “partici-
pation” (methexis) of the part in the whole, and the whole
in the part, without being able, and without having, to
decide beforehand in which hierarchical relationship, if
at all, the one to the other stands. The form problem of
life continues to fascinate even when no cosmos, God,
nature, history, or reason is providing us with an address
that idea of a whole may refer to. Instead, ecologies
abound (Bateson, 1972), and problems of closure, fold,
and boundary remain all of them sitting rather uneasily
with questions about the defining feature of a self.
5 | PHYSICS, TELEOLOGY, A ND
DE SC E NDE NC E
Von Bertalanffy's Kritische Theorie der Formbildung is
“critical” in the sense that it renounces a formulated “the-
ory” of form formation. Instead, it provides an intensive
and dismissive examination of mechanistic and vitalistic
explanations of life and discusses sympathizing efforts to
develop a theory of biology, for example, by Hans
Driesch, Wilhelm Roux, and Jakob von Uexküll. And it
provides “considerations” that can be related to the form
problem of life in the sense that although renouncing a
substance of life, they trace the “immanent Gestalt princi-
ple” of life (von Bertalanffy, 1928a: 221), that is, the
dependency of each individual living being on the solu-
tion of the form problem. Any individual living being
4 BAECKER
must be able to solve the form problem of its life, just as
much as biology has to solve its form problem to become
a science and theoretical endeavour worthy of that name.
Three specific considerations are essential to von
Bertalanffy (ibid.: 88): Each organism satisfies physical
and chemical conditions for the preservation of its life.
Each organism is teleologically composed; that is, it seeks
and sets itself goals which it pursues in different
(“equifinal”) ways. And each organism is phylogeneti-
cally and ontogenetically descending, that is, historically
determined. One immediately recognizes that these three
conditions, which do not claim to be complete, are
related to the form problem of life. Physics and chemistry
can be found inside and outside the organism. The goals
of an organism are set internally but can only be realized
externally. And also the history of an organism links it
with itself and the conditions in which it has survived.
Note that the assumption of “teleology” does not refer
to a whole bounding of the organism to define its func-
tions and functioning but assumes instead that the organ-
ism must be able to orient itself towards goals and to
react to deviations from goals (Parsons, 1979;
Rosenblueth, Wiener, & Bigelow, 1943). In place of teleol-
ogy it might be better to speak of “teleonomy” to empha-
size the internal rather than external functionality of
means and ends (Mayr, 1974). The telos is not given but
must be sought, tested, and changed with respect to the
uncertainty itself of the relationship between organism
and environment. Teleonomy does not provide the organ-
ism with some higher kind of necessity but instead and
quite to the contrary exposes it to all vicissitudes of its
surroundings and its ideas and decisions to deal with
them.
Von Bertalanffy is rightly skeptical about the possibil-
ity of already concluding from these specific consider-
ations, which are nothing but empirical observations of
circumstances and characteristics of life, that a theory of
Formbildung might already be possible. Completely lack-
ing are considerations, thoughts, or hypotheses on the
question of boundary, that is, on the question of how
the organism acquires and maintains the necessary indi-
vidual independency despite its dependency on the cir-
cumstances of its life. No doubt the organism is
participating. But what makes it securely distinct from
anything it is participating with? Bertalanffy will, in the
further course of the development of his theory, speak
of the organism as an “open system” (von Bertalanffy,
1976), but it remains to be seen whether and how this
solution is compatible with the form problem. The ener-
getic and material openness of the organism system does
not necessarily explain how this system simultaneously
draws its own boundary, that is, realizes a closure. Heinz
von Foerster will therefore later describe the system as a
self‐referential system, which, on the basis of “opera-
tional closure,” is preserved as a recursive sensory‐
motoric calculus of its own operations (von Foerster,
2003b). Humberto R. Maturana and Francisco J. Varela
will develop the concept of “autopoiesis” on the basis of
a theory of self‐referential systems (Maturana & Varela,
1980), and already W. Ross Ashby, in his Introduction to
Cybernetics (Ashby, 1956: 4), speaks of “information‐
tight” systems, which are “open to energy but closed to
information and control.” It must be emphasized that clo-
sure, autopoiesis, and information‐tightness do not solve
the form problem of life empirically, but axiomatically.
They postulate self‐reference of systems on the basis of
their ability to distinguish themselves from their environ-
ment and examine which empirical observations can be
better explained by the means of this postulate than on
the basis of other theories. We will have to look more
closely at von Bertalanffy's concept of steady state to see
how it may contribute to the understanding and solution
of the form problem.
6 | A L T E R I T Y IN UN I T Y
Von Bertalanffy's interest in von Cusa may throw light on
some different idea, which avoids an axiomatic postulate
of some boundary between system and environment yet
will prove as compatible with it as closure, autopoiesis,
and information‐tightness proved empirically fruitful.
Consider again the individual being unfolded out, and
folded into, the infinitely large and infinitely small. One
may think of Pascal's later idea of the “deux infinis,”
the double infinity of the ever larger and ever smaller,
into which man is hooked in a precarious and fragile
way (Pascal, 1954: 1105ff.). Yet, for von Cusa, it is not
only the separation and interdependency of the individ-
ual which is decisive but also the otherness, alterity of
each entity, which in the mode of negation, the nonpar-
ticipant, is responsible for the multiplicity of the individ-
ual beings (von Kues, 1982b: 43f., 109 et seq.).
This alterity is presupposed as a condition not only of
the multiplicity of entities but also of the variety of the
unity they still participate in. Variety in unity will later
be called complexity. Von Cusa makes sure that it already
applies to the symbolic archetype of all things, that is,
number: Each number consists of itself and of its differ-
ence to all other numbers. “Each number is composed
of opposites which differ from one another and are in
relation to one another, so that these are the number
itself” (ibid.: 11). Only this inner contradiction, which
contains a reference to all other numbers, makes it a
number—and makes man, who is able to count, that is
BAECKER
to simultaneously divide and combine, a “spiritual”
being.
Von Bertalanffy's considerations lack this thought of
inner alterity. It may be part of the distinction of system
from environment yet immediately is lost again in the
concept of the open system. My question is therefore
whether and how the idea of inner alterity contains a ref-
erence to a continuation and solution of the form prob-
lem of life. There might be a necessary concept of form
preceding any consideration of systems and their
environments.
7 | ANOTHER L OOK A T G REEK
PHILOSOPHY
In more recent systems theory, as it is proposed in Niklas
Luhmann's theory of social systems, the idea of an inner
alterity if not an ability of negation inherent in individual
living being is taken up from the point of view of the dis-
tinction between form and medium (Luhmann, 2012:
113ff). This distinction combines several thoughts already
known from Greek philosophy. The first is the idea in
Plato (Plato, 2000: 51d‐52b) that there is a third genre,
which is not being or becoming but “receiving” (chôra).
Then there is in Aristotle (Aristotle, 1907: 419a) the
thought of a surrounding (periechon), which cannot be
experienced sensually itself, yet makes every sensual
experience possible. And last not least there is in Aristotle
(Aristotle, 1984: 191a) the idea of an apparently produc-
tive role of lack or privation (stêresis). All three thoughts
embed the philosophy of the organism into the even more
general question of whether and how philosophy and sci-
ence can be understood as endeavours to deal only with
the positively present or rather must also reckon with
what is absent (i.e., receiving, surrounding, and lacking
at the same time). Moreover, it is not just the absent in
itself which attracts attention. Philosophy and science
are not playing the game of curiosity towards hidden enti-
ties. It is the absent negating the self‐evidence of what is
present, which is thought about. The absent, for instance,
becomes important when not only reality but also the
potential (dynamis) of a living being is to be understood
(Heidegger, 1981). Because the absent by definition is
not to be grasped by the positively sensual mind, a theory
must use not just “identifying” but also “speculative”
assertions, as Hegel in his considerations on what scien-
tific thinking is about put it (Hegel, 2018: 40).
The interesting question is whether, and how, some-
thing absent as well as receiving may not only in‐form
but underlie any entity being present. It is something sur-
rounding an entity, an organism, an individual such that
any life is dependent on it while distinguishing itself
5
from, and in, it (stêresis). The term periechon for “sur-
rounding” in Thomas Aquina's Aristotle translation was
rendered by the Latin word “medium,” so that in the
English translation the relevant passage reads as follows:
“For sight takes place through an affection of the sensi-
tive faculty. Now it cannot be affected by that which is
seen, the colour itself: therefore it can only be the inter-
vening medium [periechon, DB]: hence the existence of
some medium is necessary. But, if the intermediate space
became a void, so far from being seen distinctly, an object
would not be visible at all” (De anima, 419a). The invisi-
ble medium is absent and present at the same time. It
permeates entities, organisms, individuals, while not
being absorbed by them. Ever since Aquina's translation,
there is a media theory which is dated back to Aristotle
(Hagen, 2008), although, as Spitzer (1948) pointed out,
the terms milieu and ambiance, that is, environment,
could also have been used as a translation of periechon.
This ambivalence of medium and environment is an
indication that the living being itself, the alterity in unity,
has still not been sufficiently understood. The problem of
form is unsolved because the relationship between form
and medium is just as unclear as that between system
and environment.
8 | THE STEADY STATE
Let us take up another thought of von Bertalanffy to make
some progress here. In his later work he thinks of the
organism as an open system in some steady state far from
equilibrium, which tries to achieve its goals or telos
(“appropriate place” in cosmos) with interchangeable
(equifinal) means (von Bertalanffy, 1976: 139–154). “Far
from equilibrium” can be read as a form of stêresis, as a
negation of thermodynamic equilibrium or maximum
entropy, insofar as this negation is to be understood not
as antinomy or opposition, but as a reflexive, inclusive,
and exclusive opposition (cf. Luhmann, 1975). Self‐organi-
zation, as emphasized again by Heinz von Foerster, is at
the same time self‐disorganization, that is, the gain of
material (negative entropy) from the consumption of mate-
rial (entropy; von Foerster, 2003a; cf. Atlan, 1974). Von
Bertalanffy speaks of “import and export, building‐up
and breaking‐down” of components and “the system
remains constant in composition” (von Bertalanffy, 1976:
142). The steady state is defined in terms of kinetics and
thermodynamics “generalized” to include open systems.
In his later as well as in his earlier work von
Bertalanffy refers to physics as a model of science, which
is as exemplary in its mathematical rigor as it is insuffi-
cient in its restriction to closed systems. In biology as well
as sociology open systems are the rule. They export
6 BAECKER
entropy and import “free energy” or negentropy (ibid.:
41). The problem is that the distinction of open from
closed systems in model and mathematics may appear
sharper than in reality. Von Bertalanffy is very interested
in some kind of a taxonomy of systems, distinguishing
open from closed as well as real from conceptual and
abstract systems, only to notice that these distinctions
are conceptual in turn and that there is no “reality”
beyond our reckoning for the “viability” of our construc-
tions. As he emphasizes in his 1976 preface to the revised
edition of General System Theory even the objects of our
everyday world “by no means are simply ‘given’ as sense
data or simple perceptions, but actually are construed by
an enormity of ‘mental’ factors ranging from gestalt
dynamics and learning processes to linguistic and cul-
tural factors largely determining what we actually ‘see’
or perceive” (ibid.: xxi).
The same may apply to von Bertalanffy's distinction of
open systems theory focusing on concepts like “interac-
tion, transaction, organization, teleology, etc.” (ibid.:
xxii), on one hand, from cybernetics entertaining con-
cepts like communication, including information, feed-
back, and control, on the other (ibid.: 21f.). It is as
conceptual as any other distinction. Even though von
Bertalanffy misses Talcott Parsons' importance for a
sociological theory of systems by just taking note of a
once widespread criticism of the latter's alleged “conser-
vatism and conformism” in rather defending the “sys-
tem” by “conceptually neglecting hence obstructing
social change” (ibid.: 196), he acknowledges a world of
“symbols, values, social entities and cultures” (ibid.:
xxiif.) any conceptual apparatus of science would be a
part of and emphasizes the need not just for systems sci-
ence and systems technology but also for systems philos-
ophy including systems epistemology to deal with
conceptual questions far from being solved.1
My question is whether the concept of steady states may
offer means to think alterity in unity. In fact, because the
1
It would be a fascinating research project to try to embed von
Bertalanffy's “general system theory” within the “paradigm of the
human condition,” which Parsons (1978) was developing in the same
time when von Bertalanffy prepared the revised edition of the collection
of his papers in General System Theory. A self‐application of Parsons'
action theory and his AGIL scheme (any action having to come up,
and highly dynamically so, as I would say, with solutions to the four
functional prerequisites of adaptation, goal‐attainment, integration,
and latent‐pattern maintenance and conflict regulation) to various gen-
eral and specific system theories remains a work not even envisioned, as
far as I know, to this day. Not just system theories but any theory would
have to be considered an “action,” which seeks its adaptation to some
physical, chemical, and technological environment, must muster organ-
isms and personalities aligning their “goals” with it, should be inte-
grated in some wider field of societal concerns, and would have to rely
on some values if questioned about its legitimation.
steady state is defined in physical terms (even if general-
ized physical terms) issues of negation seem far off. Von
Bertalanffy defines steady states by a general transport
equation describing the variation of an element Qi as a dif-
ferential function of the velocity of its transport, T i, and
the rate of its production, Pi (von Bertalanffy, 1976: 126).
That does not help us. Yet, his explanation may help. He
describes those two variables as variables of “temporal
cross” and “longitudinal sections,” respectively (ibid.:
127). And he adds a third dimension, which is that of
“periodic changes,” or oscillation (ibid.). It is striking to
see that he comes up with exactly those two dimensions
defining any systems theory since its conceptualization
in Auguste Comte's work (Comte, 1853: 75f), if not earlier.
Those two dimensions are those of differentiation in mat-
ter or fact and reproduction in time, misleadingly called
“static” and “dynamic” by Comte. Actually, Comte's static
is nothing else but a description of a “steady state” main-
tained by a phenomenon by being both differentiated from
other phenomena, and related to, or, with some later term,
embedded within those other phenomena. It is fascinating
to see that both Parsons' AGIL scheme and Luhmann in
his reconsideration of Parsons' project hold on to just two
axes (internal/external and instrumental/consummatory)
as defining the core problem of sociological theory
(Luhmann, 1982; Parsons, 1977).
Steady states are to be maintained by differentiation
and reproduction. And in order to be able to do this, they
oscillate. They oscillate between a consideration of the sys-
tem and its environment, and they oscillate between a con-
sideration of present states and past or future states. It may
well be possible to call such oscillations alternations (e.g.,
Lotman & Uspensky, 1978). And alternations are nega-
tions working as both operators and operands. It may, of
course, be easier to see that kind of “considerations” of sys-
tem and environment, and of present, past, and future, in
symbolic social systems which are able to not only do their
operations but also reflect on them or regulate them. Yet,
this only emphasizes that the “attempt to introduce the
notion of negative magnitudes into world wisdom” (Kant,
1992) is a still unfinished one. I therefore switch to a math-
ematical notion of a negational operator which may turn
out to be helpful here.
9 | F ORM AND M EDIUM
George Spencer‐Brown in his Laws of Form (2008) sug-
gested an understanding of a concept of form, which con-
ceives of inner alterity or negation as a relation to
anything outside the boundary separating the entity from
everything else. He speaks of the form as a two‐sided dis-
tinction that includes what it excludes, and is thus to be
BAECKER
understood as inner and outer opposites. This concept of
form organizes a calculus of indications, that is, a calcu-
lus that operationally demonstrates and makes traceable
how a form is obtained and reproduced through indica-
tions of its two sides in the mode of, first, a distinction
between the two sides, and, then, the re‐entry of the dis-
tinction into the form. An indication comes about by a
distinction “crossing” a boundary, which is produced by
that very operation. Considering the two sides of the dis-
tinction means to “re‐enter” it into its very form. First‐
order observation (a “cross”) becomes a second‐order
observation (a form), thus watching inside its outside,
indicating within the cross the very contingency of it.
The form, as emphasized by Spencer‐Brown, is not only
memory of itself but also oscillation between the two
sides of the distinction (Spencer‐Brown, 2008: 50). It is
itself and its negation. Von Cusa might have enjoyed that
idea and the calculus ensuing from it.
We may call anything a reflexive negation, set about
by inner alterity, which is referring to the “medium” of
a form. Medium, with Fritz Heider (1959), is the loose
coupling of elements, and a form—Heider spoke of
“things”—brings those elements into a rigid or tight cou-
pling. A medium is not exactly the milieu, niche, or envi-
ronment of a form; rather it is an open, or endless, set of
alternative ways to realize a form. It may thus refer to
“homeostasis” (Cannon, 1929) as much as to “adapta-
tion” (Ashby, 1962). One might also think of Ludwig
Wittgenstein's (1953) concept of “life form” as a way to
describe the production of a life by conducting it and
exploring its possibilities within the surroundings it is
dependent on, yet is also received by.
Heider conceives of the medium very similar to
Aristotle's idea of periechon as a set of loosely coupled ele-
ments or events (light waves and sound waves) that can-
not be experienced by the senses themselves, yet enable a
distant perception to be achieved by proximal causality.
We do not see the excitation of the photons on our retina,
but the image on the wall. Niklas Luhmann has expanded
and generalized this idea for the examples of the medium
of language, of distribution media of communication
(writing, book printing, and electronic media), and of
success media of communication (money, power, love,
truth, law, and art; Luhmann, 2012: 113–120). Here,
too, what von Bertalanffy said for living beings and von
Cusa said for individual things applies. There is no sub-
stance of writing, printing, money, power, and so on,
but only texts, books, payments, orders, and so on, which
one can understand and describe with Heider as things or
forms in their medium.
The distinction between form and medium solves the
problem of form insofar as the form is a rigid coupling
of those elements, which are provided by the medium
7
as loosely coupled. For this, one needs (a) reflexive nega-
tion to treat each individual state as an alternative to
other possible states, (b) a system that recursively derives
its operations from operations of the same system, and (c)
with all this the self‐reference of the form that grasps its
unity as alterity, or its “self‐identity” as “self‐diversity”
in the sense of Whitehead (1979: xxii, 25f). One needs a
differential and certainly multivalued calculus that
knows how to put every distinction (contexture) both
discontexturally and polycontexturally in relation to
other distinctions (contextures; Günther, 1979 and
1972). The discontexture links the present to the absent,
the actual to the potential, and, via negation, the current
distinction to an alternate one. It is an empirical question
which discontextures an organism or, for that matter, an
action or communication have at their disposal. And it is
an open question how a calculus of multi‐negational
polycontexturality may be able to conceive of, and
describe, if at all, an ecology of life, action, and
communication.
The precondition for any solution of the form problem
is the operation of an operator of general (in contrast to
binary) negation, which is able to memorize itself while
oscillating between its two sides (Luhmann, 1997).
10 | A C AL C UL US
Using Spencer‐Brown's (1969) notation of his calculus of
indications, we may call a any individual thing or living
organism. Without exactly knowing how it comes about
we know that it must distinguish itself, that is, cross the
boundary between nonexistence and existence:
Within the form of a the cross is at the same time a
general, that is, nonbinary, negational operator
distinguishing a from, say, b:
This means that b, within the two‐sided form of dis-
tinction, takes part in the definition, or, better, determi-
nation of a. The unity of the form of a resided in its
distinction from b:
This expression is called the re‐entry of the distinction
(between a and b) into the form (of a). Such a re‐entry,
8 BAECKER
being not just categorical (in watching the form) but
operational (in bringing it forth) in cybernetics, may be
called closure. Note that it autopoetically produces its
own elements out of its own form once it comes about.
Note as well that it is informationally tight while at the
same time containing, within the form, the unmarked
state on the outside of the form. Any re‐entry is distin-
guished itself from some further state, which remains
unmarked as long as the form succeeds in (re)producing,
yet may be marked, say by c, to indicate it, thus moving
the unmarked state one position further to the right.
The form, thus, elegantly contains von Cusa's infinity,
or else, an indefinite (Jung, 2007: 258ff) indication of fur-
ther elements qualifying as a possible or potential
medium for (re)production.The form of a may also be
called a Günther contexture. It determines a closure pos-
sibly (re)producing. It is a discontexture as well, since b
implying, by negating, a further c:
may lead to another contexture:
letting a disappear.
The procedure may be iterated at will without know-
ing whether moving within some hierarchy establishing
itself or a heterarchy constantly coming up with new
and interesting inconsistencies (McCulloch, 1989).
Any third value, such as c, is called by Günther a rejec-
tion value oscillating, since negational as well, between
rejection and acceptance the former distinction between
a and b. A multinegational calculus of polycontexturality
consists of crosses and re‐entries producing, separating,
and linking contextures which all of them have two
binary values yet include a third embedding them within
a nexus of contextures calling on each other and standing
orthogonal to each other without, to this day, a way to
write them down.
1 1 | NECESSARY DECAY
Is there still a connection of this formulation to von
Bertalanffy and his interest in Nicholas von Cusa? “Self‐
reference,” Kauffman (1987: 54) says, “is the infinite in
finite guise.” We are faced with the task of a form theory
of polycontexturality, that is, the question of what distinc-
tion organisms, but also action and communication, use
to create a contexture that can both be maintained and
varied. Without the incorporation of reflexive negation
into the units under consideration, this task cannot be
solved. I would assume that this was one of the reasons
von Bertalanffy was interested in von Cusa. And yet, his
theory of open systems exactly avoids to ask the two deci-
sive questions of self‐reference and negation. There might
be reason enough to think “openness” in terms of closure.
Maybe, the distinction between form and medium and
a concept of a two‐sided form operating at its own reflex-
ive negation do not solve Bertalanffy's form problem
either. But they help to identify it a little better. Any tran-
scendence towards a whole gets dissolved into an alto-
gether empirical, yet not exactly positivist, reference to
media providing the necessary elements to any form.
And the individuality of individual things and living
beings resides in their ability to self‐negate in a way
which relates their reproduction to an environment they
have to be able to rely on and to withdraw from. The
unity of the difference of these two ideas consists in a
concept of life, or, for that matter, action and communi-
cation, which by producing and reproducing itself brings
forth the decay it is feeding on. Folded out of, and folded
into, its debris life maintains itself. If that sounds too pes-
simistic, or even defeatist, one forgets the creativity of
negation bringing forth a new and splendid form.
12 | C ON C L US I ON
The form problem of life cannot be solved. It can only be
accounted for. It can be taken seriously in terms not of a
whole and its parts nor of a general and its particulars but
in terms of a generic mechanism of closure. This closure
produces a system which presupposes an environment it
can be distinguished, and distinguishes itself, from. This
distinction is to be thought of as a general negator. By
negating, that is, reflecting, its environment the system
turns the environment into the medium of its reproduc-
tion. The system becomes form, featuring an inside, an
outside, and a boundary linking both sides.
Or else, by reading Aristotle's and Plato's, von Cusa's
and von Bertalanffy's, Heider's and Spencer‐Brown's,
and Parsons' and Luhmann's reflections on the paradox
of closure the paper opts for an understanding of entities,
beings, and systems as operations in time. Systems and
environments, forms, and media are operational terms
describing both a space of possibilities they generate
and a mode of reproduction which consists in relying
on a self that is nothing but recursion, forward and back-
ward, between its operations.
Is there a general lesson to be learned from the differ-
ent languages pursued to deal with the paradox of the
organism's closure? Perhaps, it is nothing more than once
BAECKER
again to emphasize the need to step from a substantial to
a functional description of living beings and other com-
plex entities (Cassirer, 2003). The form problem of life
cannot be solved because there is no other solution but
the problem itself. Whatever the substance of life, its
reproduction is a function of itself referring it to anything
else.
Translated with some help by DeepL (https://www.
deepl.com/translator).
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How to cite this article: Baecker D. A note on
Ludwig von Bertalanffy and the form problem of
life. Syst Res Behav Sci. 2019;1–10. https://doi.org/
10.1002/sres.2597