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Quote by Gregory Bateson

“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 .”

Quote by Gregory Bateson

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Gregory Bateson
Gregory Bateson

Gregory Bateson was a prominent anthropologist whose research spanned across various fields such as culture, semiotics, systems theory, and cognitive science. His work has had a profound impact on interdisciplinary studies that followed. more

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“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.”

MenImportantFactsTogetherAudienceDoubtHe ManBehaviorPerformancesAdmireFactorsNo DoubtReasonableAppropriatePromotingSpectacularStimulusReasonable DoubtAppropriate Behavior
Author:Gregory Bateson
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“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.”

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Book:Communication: The Social Matrix of Psychiatry
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“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.”

MatterFactsLevelsDealsEnvironmentParticularBehaviorConsciousEconomicsBeing TrueInstanceUnconsciousOrganismsSinkingPragmaticGeneralities
Author:Gregory Bateson
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“If a man achieves or suffers change in premises which are deeply embedded in his mind, he will surely find that the results of that change will ramify throughout his whole universe.”

IfsMenMindWholeSufferingUniverseResultsAchievePremisesEmbedded
Book:Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology
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“What we mean by information - the elementary unit of information - is a difference which makes a difference, and it is able to make a difference because the neural pathways along which it travels and is continually transformed are themselves provided with energy. The pathways are ready to be triggered. We may even say that the question is already implicit in them.”

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Author:Gregory Bateson
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“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.”

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Author:Gregory Bateson
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