Second-order cybernetics, also known as the "cybernetics of cybernetics," shifts focus from the observed system (like a machine or family) to the observer of the system, acknowledging the observer's inescapable role in shaping reality and the observation itself. Developed by thinkers like Heinz von Foerster, it emphasizes self-reference, circularity, and the idea that observers aren't neutral but are part of the system they study, making observations autobiographical and inherently subjective, thus changing how we understand control, feedback, and ethics in complex systems. 

Key Concepts

• Observer Participation: Unlike first-order cybernetics (studying systems from outside), second-order cybernetics includes the observer within the system, recognizing their influence.
• Circularity & Reflexivity: It's the recursive application of cybernetics to itself, questioning how we know what we know and how our descriptions influence the world.
• Autopoiesis: Deals with self-producing systems, where objects are stable patterns generated by the system's own operations, and only observing systems can perceive these patterns. 

How it Works in Practice

• Family Therapy: A therapist acknowledges their own impact on the family system, rather than acting as a detached expert.
• Design: A designer's thinking process involves acting and interacting with the world (drawing, building), blurring the line between mind and reality to co-create solutions.
• Self-Observation: In areas like somatics, it's about observing your own body's regulatory processes, making the observer and observed one. 

Core Idea

It turns cybernetics inward, asking not just how systems work, but how we, as observers, construct our understanding of those systems, acknowledging that every observation is an act of creation, not just discovery.