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It is to the Riddle of the Sphinx that I have devoted fifty years of professional life as an anthropologist.

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
Riddle
Devoted
Professional
Fifty
Years
Life
Anthropologist
Sphinx
Anthropologists

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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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A man walking is never in balance, but always correcting for imbalance.
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Logic cannot model causal systems, and paradox is generated when time is ignored [as in logic].
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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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Science probes it does not prove.
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Information is a difference that makes a difference.
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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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No organism can afford to be conscious of matters with which it could deal at unconscious levels.
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There are no monotone values in biology.
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Science, like art, religion, commerce, warfare, and even sleep, is based on presuppositions.
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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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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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Life and 'Mind' are systemic processes.
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After mastery comes artistry and not before.
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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.
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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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The pathology is to want control, not that you ever get it, because of course you never do.
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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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