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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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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
People
Customs
Rarely
Legislator
Rule
Confine
Usually
Affirming
Already
Initiate
Wise
Legislators
Law
Custom
Become
Behaviour

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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 rules of the universe that we think we know are buried deep in our processes of perception.
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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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Every move we make in fear of the next war in fact hastens it.
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Logic cannot model causal systems, and paradox is generated when time is ignored [as in logic].
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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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Still more astonishing is that world of rigorous fantasy which we call mathematics.
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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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There are no monotone values in biology.
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We are discovering today that several of the premises which are deeply ingrained in our way of life are simply untrue and become pathogenic when implemented with modern technology.
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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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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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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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Surrender to alcohol intoxication provides a partial and subjective shortcut to a more correct state of mind.
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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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The creature that wins against its environment destroys itself.
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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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A man walking is never in balance, but always correcting for imbalance.
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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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