Laws of Form, at once a work of mathematics and of philosophy, emerged out of work in electronic engineering Spencer-Brown did around 1960, and from lectures on mathematical logic he later gave under the auspices of the University of London's extension program. First published in 1969, it has never been out of print. Spencer-Brown referred to the mathematical system of Laws of Form as the "primary algebra" and the "calculus of indications"; others have termed it "boundary algebra." The primary algebra is essentially an elegant minimalist notation for the two-element Boolean algebra, very similar to formal systems that Charles Sanders Peirce devised in work written in the 1880s and 90s (see entitative graph and existential graph), but in some cases not published until after the first edition of Laws of Form.
Laws of Form has influenced, among others, Heinz von Foerster, Louis Kauffman, Niklas Luhmann, Humberto Maturana, Francisco Varela and William Bricken. Some of these authors have modified and extended the primary algebra, with interesting consequences.
Read more about this topic: G. Spencer-Brown
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