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Logic cannot model causal systems, and paradox is generated when time is ignored [as in logic].

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
Models
Cannot
Causal
Time
Generated
Ignored
Paradox
Systems
Model
Logic

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It is to the Riddle of the Sphinx that I have devoted fifty years of professional life as an anthropologist.
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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.
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Multiple descriptions are better than one.
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There are no monotone values in biology.
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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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No organism can afford to be conscious of matters with which it could deal at unconscious levels.
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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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Life and 'Mind' are systemic processes.
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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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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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Still more astonishing is that world of rigorous fantasy which we call mathematics.
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We are most of us governed by epistemologies that we know to be wrong
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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 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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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.
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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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