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Some tools of thought are so blunt that they are almost useless others are so sharp that they are dangerous. But the wise man will have the use of both kinds.
Gregory Bateson
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Gregory Bateson
Age: 76 †
Born: 1904
Born: May 9
Died: 1980
Died: July 4
Anthropologist
Biologist
Film Director
Linguist
Philosopher
Psychologist
Semiotician
Sociologist
Grantchester
Cambridgeshire
Men
Tools
Dangerous
Wise
Almost
Use
Blunt
Others
Sharp
Thought
Useless
Kind
Kinds
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The rules of the universe that we think we know are buried deep in our processes of perception.
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Interesting phenomena occur when two or more rhythmic patterns are combined, and these phenomena illustrate very aptly the enrichment of information that occurs when one description is combined with another.
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In the nature of the case, an explorer can never know what he is exploring until it has been explored.
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People are going to have to make themselves predictable, or the machines will get angry and kill them.
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But epistemology is always and inevitably personal. The point of the probe is always in the heart of the explorer: What is my answer to the question of the nature of knowing?
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The wise legislator will only rarely initiate a new rule of behaviour more usually he will confine himself to affirming in law what has already become the custom of the people.
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There are no monotone values in biology.
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Multiple descriptions are better than one.
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There are many matters and many circumstances in which consciousness is undesirable and silence is golden, so that secrecy can be used as a marker to tell us that we are approaching the holy.
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The pathology is to want control, not that you ever get it, because of course you never do.
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In the transmission of human culture, people always attempt to replicate, to pass on to the next generation the skills and values of the parents, but the attempt always fails because cultural transmission is geared to learning, not DNA.
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The creature that wins against its environment destroys itself.
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A man walking is never in balance, but always correcting for imbalance.
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After mastery comes artistry and not before.
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Science, like art, religion, commerce, warfare, and even sleep, is based on presuppositions.
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No organism can afford to be conscious of matters with which it could deal at unconscious levels.
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It is of first-class importance that our answer to the Riddle of the Sphinx should be in step with how we conduct our civilisation, and this should in turn be in step with the actual workings of living systems.
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Let's not pretend that mental phenomena can be mapped on to the characteristics of billiard balls.
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Surrender to alcohol intoxication provides a partial and subjective shortcut to a more correct state of mind.
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We are most of us governed by epistemologies that we know to be wrong
Gregory Bateson