> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://systemic.engineering/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # The Third Order: Non-Local Truth 💦 - URL: https://systemic.engineering/nonlocality/ - Published: 2026-09-27T07:00:59.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-27T07:00:58.000Z - Description: Truth. Rain. And the observer in the system. An essay about third-order cybernetics written in a first-order register. What do you believe to be true? And what does that say about you? - Author: Alex Wolf - Tags: Essay, Wirklichkeit, Practice, Language, Cybernetic, English I'm going to try to write a first-order essay about third-order Cybernetics. (Wish me luck.) Before we do that we need to map the ontology. Because without precise definition this essay will drift into vibes within a paragraph. (A trick I learned [from Mara](https://systemic.engineering/questions-and-answers).) --- ## The First Order: The Observer Outside the System You look at this essay right now. The essay is using words. The words are familiar to you. You might observe the space around you. Maybe there's a plant. Maybe there's a window. You can see the outside world through the window. Maybe your phone buzzes. And maybe you pick it up. This is the first order. The first impression of whatever you're observing. When you observe a thermostat, you get a temperature reading. When you observe your phone, you get whatever your phone shows you. When you observe the rain, you observe the water cycle. ![Info graphic: "The Water Cycle — Water moves around Earth in a never-ending cycle. — 1. Evaporation: Sun heats water in rivers, lakes, and oceans, turning it into vapor that rises into the air. — 2. Condensation: Water vapor cools in the air and turns into tiny droplets, forming clouds. — 3. Precipitation: When droplets in the clouds get too heavy, they fall to Earth as rain, snow, sleet, or hail. — 4. Collection: Water collects in rivers, lakes, and oceans. Some soaks into the ground, becoming groundwater."](https://storage.ghost.io/c/98/e9/98e9adb1-dbc4-49f9-8ffc-34974cd59b3d/content/images/2026/09/arrival-fail8.png) [A cursed laminated cafeteria handout. Funny story actually.](https://systemic.engineering/the-chief/) Which brings us to the second order. --- ## The Second Order: The Observer Within the System Maybe you observe the rain from within a building. You can observe the rain hitting the ground, hitting the plants, hitting the cars, hitting whatever. You can't observe the rain hitting your skin, because you're in a building. (Duh.) Maybe you go outside. Maybe you observe how the rain hits your hair, runs down your scalp, and begins to soak into your clothes. Maybe you observe the moment where your clothes saturate with humidity and start to feel.. wet. (German has a wonderful word for this: Feuchtfühlgrenze. No really.) Maybe you notice, while standing within the rain, that you're now an observer within the system that is planet earth. And specifically within the feedback loop of planet earth's water cycle. Maybe you notice, that the ground under you is not quite as wet as the ground around you. Specifically because you're standing where you're standing, and some of the rain is hitting you, soaking into your clothes, and tickles while running down your face. Maybe you wipe your face with a hand, which would be the observer acting on the observation of themselves in the system. Second order change, as Paul Watzlawick defined it, in the act of wiping your face. Maybe you're angry at the rain, for making you wet. Maybe you're afraid that the wet clothes will make you sick. Maybe you're triumphant that the rain washes away an old load. Maybe. I cannot know from over here, writing this essay. Which brings us to the third order. ## The Third Order: The Observer Within the Relationship [Karpman drew a triangle.](https://systemic.engineering/fourth) It's known as the "Drama Triangle". There are three roles. **Persecutor:** The attacker. The villain. The "bad guy". **Victim**: The marginalized. The powerless. The "small fries". **Rescuer**: The hero. The powerful. The "white knight". What is your emotional affect towards the rain and getting drenched? Is it anger? Then the rain is the **Victim**. Is it fear? Then the rain is the **Persecutor**. Is it triumph? Then the rain is the **Rescuer**. Whichever way: You're the **Victim**. (Evil rain.) The affect the second-order observation of the first-order rain produces in you, depends entirely on your relationship to the rain. (And to being wet.) If that's true, then the truth of the matter, how to interpret rain tickling your face, is a local property of the relationship between the observer and the observed. Some of you might be angry. Some might be afraid. Some might celebrate. And some, weirdos like me, are fascinated. Not by the rain itself. By the second-order affect of the first-order impact. Which is fundamentally what third-order Cybernetics is all about. What if truth is not a static property of an object (or subject, for that matter) but rather a property of the relationship between the observer and the observed? Then the third order is no longer about truth. It's about what happens when systems interact that have divergent models of reality and hence divergent ideas about truth. Which brings us to the question for the fourth order. How does meaning transmit between nonlocal systems with divergent ideas about truth? And what is the "smallest common denominator", the floor, a shared (potentially global) model of reality can stand on? Or put simply: What do you believe to be true? And what does that say about you? Cheers Alex 🌈 --- [*Fund our work, believes, thesis, collaboration, on OpenCollective.* 🌱](https://opencollective.com/systemic-engineering?ref=systemic.engineering) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/98/e9/98e9adb1-dbc4-49f9-8ffc-34974cd59b3d/content/images/2026/06/cybernetics_fracture2.png) Mirror. Offer. Wait. 🍷 Sip the Wine Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. --- ![A noir Sin City scene: A first-order laminated cafeteria handout about the water cycle turns into second-order embodied rain and third-order self-observation. The observer is in the system.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/98/e9/98e9adb1-dbc4-49f9-8ffc-34974cd59b3d/content/images/2026/09/nonlocality-1.png)