Should one name one central concept, a first principle, of cybernetics, it would be circularity.
Something that cannot be explained cannot be seen.
Objectivity is the delusion that observations could be made without an observer.
The environment as we perceive it is our invention.
What we need now is the description of the "describer" or, in other words, we need a theory of the observer.
First-order cybernetics is the science of observed systems; Second-order cybernetics is the science of observing systems.