Robert Vallée has passed away

It is with great sadness that I communicate the passing of Professor Robert Vallée on January the 1st 2017. He was 95 years old.

He was WOSC´s President from 2003, became a WOSC honorary member in 1979 and received the WOSC´s Norbert Wiener Memorial Gold Medal in 1990.

In the process of organising WOSC 2017 in Rome later this January I had already communicated to him our intention to dedicate  it in his honour.  His last communication to me with reference to WOSC 2017 was on the 5th of September, 2016:

“The choice of Roma, la citta eterna, for this congress is very satisfactory for the World Organisation of Systems and Cybernetics. Moreover, Professor Minati is the President of Union Européenne de Systémique and a recent biography of Norbert Wiener has been translated into Italian.  I would like to say a few words about the future of cybernetics and systems. Much has been said about “second order cybernetics”, but it is more or less included in the “first order cybernetics” which deals with observation, decision, and action. I developed this theme under the name of “epistemo-praxiology (1975). One of the results I obtained is the “inverse transfer of structures” from the inner part of the observing system to the appearance the universe observed. I think that cybernetics and systems may progress in the direction of a better understanding of the position of man in the universe as both observer and actor.”

I will miss the wisdom of his short and profound statements.

Professor Raul Espejo

Director General