Gregory Bateson Quotes - Page 2

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• 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.

  Gregory Bateson

  Powerful, Believe, Self

  "Steps to an Ecology of Mind". Book by Gregory Bateson, 1972.

  53 Copy quote

• In no system which shows mental characteristics can any part have unilateral control over the whole. In other words, the mental characteristics of the system are imminent, not in some part, but in the system as a whole.

  Gregory Bateson

  Characteristics, Show Me, Shows

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• The rules of the universe that we think we know are buried deep in our processes of perception.

  Gregory Bateson

  Thinking, Perception, Process

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• Whenever we pride ourselves upon finding a newer, stricter way of thought or exposition … we lose something of the ability to think new thoughts. And equally, of course, whenever we rebel against the sterile rigidity of formal thought and exposition and let our ideas run wild, we likewise lose. As I see it, the advances in scientific thought come from a combination of lose and strict thinking, and this combination is the most precious tool of science.

  Gregory Bateson

  Running, Pride, Thinking

  "Culture Contact and Schismogenesis". "MAN" Journal, Vol. 35, December, 1935.

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• No organism can afford to be conscious of matters with which it could deal at unconscious levels.

  Gregory Bateson

  Levels, Matter, Conscious

  Gregory Bateson (1972). “Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology”, p.143, University of Chicago Press

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• Pathology is a relatively easy thing to discuss, health is very difficult. This, of course, is one of the reasons why there is such a thing as the sacred, and why the sacred is difficult to talk about, because the sacred is peculiarly related to the healthy. One does not like to disturb the sacred, for in general, to talk about something changes it, and perhaps will turn it into a pathology.

  Gregory Bateson

  Healthy, Religion, Doe

  48 Copy quote

• People are going to have to make themselves predictable, or the machines will get angry and kill them.

  Gregory Bateson

  People, Machines, Angry

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• Information consists of differences that make a difference.

  Gregory Bateson

  Differences, Making A Difference, Information

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• Language commonly stresses only one side of any interaction.

  Gregory Bateson

  Stress, Sides, Language

  "Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity". Book by Gregory Bateson, 1979.

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• Creative thought must always contain a random component.

  Gregory Bateson

  Creative, Creative Thought, Components

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• Those who lack all idea that it is possible to be wrong can learn nothing except know-how.

  Gregory Bateson

  Ideas, Know How, Knows

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• Life and 'Mind' are systemic processes.

  Gregory Bateson

  Mind, Process

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• In the nature of the case, an explorer can never know what he is exploring until it has been explored.

  Gregory Bateson

  Cases, Explorers, Knows

  Gregory Bateson (1972). “Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology”, p.24, University of Chicago Press

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• The map is not the territory (coined by Alfred Korzybski), and the name is not the thing named.

  Gregory Bateson

  Names, Maps, Territory

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• Every move we make in fear of the next war in fact hastens it.

  Gregory Bateson

  Peace, War, Moving

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• Science probes; it does not prove.

  Gregory Bateson

  Doe, Prove

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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.

  Gregory Bateson

  Two, Interesting, Patterns

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• 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.

  Gregory Bateson

  Beauty, Beautiful, Believe

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• Logic is a poor model of cause and effect.

  Gregory Bateson

  Causes, Logic, Poor

  "Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity". Book by Gregory Bateson, 1979.

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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.

  Gregory Bateson

  Wise, Men, Tools

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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.

  Gregory Bateson

  Skills, People, Parent

  "Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity". Book by Gregory Bateson, 1979.

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• Surrender to alcohol intoxication provides a partial and subjective shortcut to a more correct state of mind.

  Gregory Bateson

  Alcohol, Mind, Shortcuts

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• Desired substance, things, patterns, or sequences of experience that are in some sense "good" for the organism - items of diet, conditions of life, temperature, entertainment, sex, and so forth - are never such that more of the something is always better than less of the something. 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.

  Gregory Bateson

  Sex, Fall, Simplicity

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• 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'

  Gregory Bateson

  Grace, Mind, Levels

  Gregory Bateson (1972). “Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology”, p.129, University of Chicago Press

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• 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 .

  Gregory Bateson

  Animal, Grace, Sensitive

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