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Life and 'Mind' are systemic processes.

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
Mind
Life
Systemic
Processes
Process

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Science probes it does not prove.
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Logic cannot model causal systems, and paradox is generated when time is ignored [as in logic].
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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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Science, like art, religion, commerce, warfare, and even sleep, is based on presuppositions.
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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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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 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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A major difficulty is that the answer to the Riddle of the Sphinx is partly a product of the answers that we already have given to the riddle in its various forms.
Gregory Bateson
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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.
Gregory Bateson
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Multiple descriptions are better than one.
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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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The only way out is spiritual, intellectual, and emotional revolution in which, finally, we learn to experience first hand the interloping connections between person and person, organism and organism, action and consequence.
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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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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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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.
Gregory Bateson
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There are no monotone values in biology.
Gregory Bateson
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Surrender to alcohol intoxication provides a partial and subjective shortcut to a more correct state of mind.
Gregory Bateson
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The pathology is to want control, not that you ever get it, because of course you never do.
Gregory Bateson
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Those who lack all idea that it is possible to be wrong can learn nothing except know-how.
Gregory Bateson
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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