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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
Dangerous
Wise
Almost
Use
Blunt
Others
Sharp
Thought
Useless
Kind
Kinds
Men
Tools

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I shall argue that the problem of grace is fundamentally a problem of integration and what is to be integrated is the diverse parts of the mind - especially those multiple levels of which one extreme is called 'consciousness' and the other the 'unconscious'
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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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Science, like art, religion, commerce, warfare, and even sleep, is based on presuppositions.
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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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To think straight, it is advisable to expect all qualities and attributes, adjectives, and so on to refer to at least two sets of interactions in time.
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Information is a difference that makes a difference.
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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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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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Science probes it does not prove.
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We are most of us governed by epistemologies that we know to be wrong
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Multiple descriptions are better than one.
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Official education was telling people almost nothing of the nature of all those things on the seashores, and in the redwood forests, in the deserts and in the plains.
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Those who lack all idea that it is possible to be wrong can learn nothing except know-how.
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We can never be quite clear whether we are referring to the world as it is or to the world as we see it.
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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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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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We do not know enough about how the present will lead into the future. We shall never be able to say, Ha! My perception, my accounting for that series, will indeed cover its next and future components, or Next time I meet with these phenomena, I shall be able to predict their total course.
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Yes, metaphor. That's how the whole fabric of mental interconnections holds together. Metaphor is right at the bottom of being alive.
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After mastery comes artistry and not before.
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