Second-Order Cybernetics Methodology Applied to the Epistemological Problems of the Philosophy of Mind

The article shows that the reliance on subject-object dualism, which is widespread in the contemporary analytic philosophy of mind and is fuelled by classical epistemology, leads to a large number of theories based on epistemic contradictions. To illustrate this statement, the first- and second-order cybernetics apparatus (FOC and SOC) was used (Foester 1975). It is shown that the majority of modern analytical contexts working with mind are oriented to the so-called first-order cybernetics. Accordingly, the study suggests that if we replace FOC with SOC, we will get a more adequate epis-temology and will be able to avoid unproductive work on creating contradictory or inoperative theories. In particular, it is stated that using SOC one can build a model that differs from traditional (subject-object) models and propose a theory of the self-description of mind, which removes the division into a subject and an object, but deals with a self-understanding mind, organized as a total and immanent sphere of meanings-differences. The critical part of the study substantiates the irrelevance of the naturalist apparatus borrowed from the natural sciences. It is considered that to thematize a subject epistemology must construct a special language of description taking into account the specifics of the subjective measurement of reality. In particular, it is shown that the study of mind is the area of knowledge where the level of observer should be taken into account in the first place because the failure to take into account this level instantly leads to any theory of mind to paradoxes. The study points to the need to take into account the criticism of subject-object dualism undertaken by second-order cybernetics and shows what unproductive epistemological assumptions its non-acceptance in the study of consciousness leads to. It is considered that in dualistic models cognitive sciences implicitly conceal the notion of mind itself as a dualistic model, in which reflexion is possible only as meta-knowledge. Accordingly, it is shown that speaking about the self-description (reflexion) of mind itself, it is inefficient to speak about the meta-linguistic structure: when one tries to explain reflexion in the subject-object paradigm (in which there is a mind-object and a mind-subject independent of it), a paradox emerges. The positive part of the study, also using the positions of second-order cybernetics, explains why it is unproductive to see some essence in mind and shows how one could speak about mind using the apparatus of differences. In this part of the study, an attempt is made to attribute mind to autopoiet-ic systems, namely, to understand how it describes itself. Self-description is considered at two levels: (1) the local level of mind inherent in a certain carrier and (2) the global level of mind as a field of meanings in general, which tries to form knowledge about itself. Self-description is supposed to be understood as a way to address oneself by distinguishing some states from others (Luhmann 1990, 1995). It is shown that at the local level of cognition we fundamentally differentiate ourselves in order to form objects and at the limit of the entire reality with which we deal. It has been analyzed that the minimum basic level of cognition is the ability to distinguish and separate one from another (for example, when we understand something, we understand that it is not that either). It is stated that this is how perception becomes information.

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