Gregory Bateson
Gregory Bateson
Gregory Batesonwas an English anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual anthropologist, semiotician, and cyberneticist whose work intersected that of many other fields. In the 1940s he helped extend systems theory and cybernetics to the social and behavioral sciences. He spent the last decade of his life developing a "meta-science" of epistemology to bring together the various early forms of systems theory developing in different fields of science. His writings include Steps to an Ecology of Mindand Mind and Nature. Angels Fearwas...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth9 May 1904
There is a strong tendency in explanatory prose to invoke quantities of tension, energy, and whatnot to explain the genesis of pattern. I believe that all such explanations are inappropriate or wrong.
What is true is that the idea of power corrupts. Power corrupts most rapidly those who believe in it, and it is they who will want it most. Obviously, our democratic system tends to give power to those who hunger for it and gives every opportunity to those who don't want power to avoid getting it. Not a very satisfactory arrangement if power corrupts those who believe in it and want it.
Most of us have lost that sense of unity of biosphere and humanity which would bind and reassure us all with an affirmation of beauty. Most of us do not today believe that whatever the ups and down of detail within our limited experience, the larger whole is primarily beautiful.
There are times when I catch myself believing that there is such a thing as something; which is separate from something else.
But the myth of power is, of course, a very powerful myth, and probably most people in this world more or less believe in it. It is a myth, which, if everybody believes in it, becomes to that extent self-validating. But it is still epistemological lunacy and leads inevitably to various sorts of disaster.
From the point of view of any agent who imposes a quantitative change, any change of pattern which may occur will be unpredictable or divergent.
Of all these examples, the simplest but the most profound is the fact that it takes at least two somethings to create a difference.
The processes of perception are inaccessible; only the products are conscious and, of course, it is the products that are necessary.
If we pursue this matter further, we shall be told that the stable object is unchanging under the impact or stress of some particular external or internal variable or, perhaps, that it resists the passage of time.
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.
Perhaps the attempt to achieve grace by identification with the animals was the most sensitive thing which was tried in the whole bloody history of religion .
Logic can often be reversed, but the effect does not precede the cause.
It is impossible, in principle, to explain any pattern by invoking a single quantity.
Logic is a poor model of cause and effect.