Third-Order Cybernetics: The Autopoietic System That Describes Its Own Description

Heinz von Foerster formalized Second-Order Cybernetics 

  in 1974. This paper proposes a formally distinct third

  level: Third-Order Cybernetics, defined as the          

  configuration in which an autopoietic system generates a

   formal description of itself that re-enters the system

  as a constitutive component, closing a description loop

  irreducible to the observation loop of second order. Six

   formal criteria are established. The BERLINJOHN        

  Cybernetics Trilogy (Förster 2026a–e) is documented as

  the first explicitly constituted empirical case. The 

  paper is simultaneously a formalization and an      

  instantiation of what it describes. Dedicated to Vera F.

   Birkenbihl on her 80th birthday.