Gregory Bateson Quotes
-
Life and 'Mind' are systemic processes.
→ -
I shall argue that the problem of grace is fundamentally a problem of integration and what is to be integrated is the diverse parts of the mind - especially those multiple levels of which one extreme is called 'consciousness' and the other the 'unconscious'
→ -
Things have to be done fast in America , and therefore therapy has to be brief.
→ -
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.
→ -
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.
→ -
Prediction can never be absolutely valid and therefore science can never prove some generalization or even test a single descriptive statement and in that way arrive at final truth.
→ -
Wisdom is the intelligence of the system as a whole.
→ -
No organism can afford to be conscious of matters with which it could deal at unconscious levels. Broadly, we can afford to sink those sorts of knowledge which continue to be true regardless of changes in the environment, but we must maintain in an accessible place all those controls of behavior which must be modified for every instance. The economics of the system, in fact, pushes organisms toward sinking into the unconscious those generalities of relationship which remain permanently true and toward keeping within the conscious the pragmatic of particular instances.
→ -
Science, like art, religion, commerce, warfare, and even sleep, is based on presuppositions. It differs, however, from most other branches of human activity in that not only are the pathways of scientific thought determined by the presuppositions of the scientists but their goals are the testing and revision of old presuppositions and the creation of new.
→ -
Number is different from quantity. This difference is basic for any sort of theorizing in behavioral science, any sort of imagining of what goes on between organisms or inside organisms as part of their processes of thought.
→ -
The meaning of your communication is the response you get.
→ -
It is impossible, in principle, to explain any pattern by invoking a single quantity.
→ -
Creative thought must always contain a random component.
→ -
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.
→ -
People are going to have to make themselves predictable, or the machines will get angry and kill them.
→ -
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.
→ -
Still more astonishing is that world of rigorous fantasy which we call mathematics.
→ -
The rules of the universe that we think we know are buried deep in our processes of perception.
→ -
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.
→ -
Rather, for all objects and experiences, there is a quantity that has optimum value. Above that quantity, the variable becomes toxic. To fall below that value is to be deprived.
→ -
Perhaps there is no such thing as unilateral power. After all, the man in power depends on receiving information all the time from outside. He responds to that information just as much as he causes things to happen... it is an interaction, and not a lineal situation.
→ -
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.
→ -
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."
→ -
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 .
→ -
There are many matters and many circumstances in which consciousness is undesirable and silence is golden, so that secrecy can be used as a marker to tell us that we are approaching the holy.
→ -
Whatever the ups and downs of detail within our limited experience, the larger whole is primarily beautiful.
→ -
Women watched for the spectacular performances of the men, and there can be no reasonable doubt that the presence of an audience is a very important factor in shaping the men's behavior. In fact, it is probable that the men are more exhibitionistic because the women admire their performances. Conversely, there can be no doubt that the spectacular behavior is a stimulus which summons the audience together, promoting in the women the appropriate behavior.
→ -
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.
→ -
Our initial sensory data are always "first derivatives," statements about differences which exist among external objects or statements about changes which occur either in them or in our relationship to them. Objects and circumstances which remain absolutely constant relative to the observer, unchanged either by his own movement or by external events, are in general difficult and perhaps always impossible to perceive. What we perceive easily is difference and change and difference is a relationship.
→ -
Logic cannot model causal systems, and paradox is generated when time is ignored [as in logic].
→
Related Authors
-
Erving Goffman Sociologist -
-
Milton H. Erickson Psychiatrist -
Margaret Mead Cultural Anthropologist -
Heinz von Foerster Scientist -
Richard Bandler Author -
John C. Lilly Writer -
Virginia Satir Author -
Robert Dilts Author -
Paul Watzlawick Psychologist -
Francisco Varela Biologist -
-
Mary Catherine Bateson Writer -
Niklas Luhmann Sociologist -
William Bateson Geneticist -
Norbert Wiener Mathematician -
Frederick Salomon Perls Psychiatrist -
Alfred Korzybski Philosopher -
Humberto Maturana Philosopher