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104th out of 130 books
—
72 voters
Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity
A celebratory trade paper edition of a mass market classic of contemporary thought in which Bateson exhorts us to learn to "think as Nature thinks" if we are to live in harmony on this planet.
Paperback, 220 pages
Published
September 1st 2003
by Hampton Press (NJ)
(first published April 30th 1979)
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I liked Bateson's premise that the world is aesthetic, and his definition of aesthetic is "responsive to the pattern which connects."
Here's what I wrote in my blog about it...
...Bateson discusses the wider knowing which he described as "the glue holding together the starfishes and sea anemones and redwood forests and human communities." His point was that we humans notice the starfishes, but we don't notice the glue that holds the starfishes and the rest of the world together.
So why does it m...more
Here's what I wrote in my blog about it...
...Bateson discusses the wider knowing which he described as "the glue holding together the starfishes and sea anemones and redwood forests and human communities." His point was that we humans notice the starfishes, but we don't notice the glue that holds the starfishes and the rest of the world together.
So why does it m...more
A potentially transformative book if you are interested in learning how evolutionary processes shape the mind!
As one of the first cyberneticists, Bateson shows how the mind consists of a series of relationships, and goes on to point out that any instance of these same relationships in nature (such as in a plant or animal) may also be said to exhibit mind. Although at times his ideas may seem to be on the verge of religious or New Age thought, especially with his references to Shiva and the aesth...more
As one of the first cyberneticists, Bateson shows how the mind consists of a series of relationships, and goes on to point out that any instance of these same relationships in nature (such as in a plant or animal) may also be said to exhibit mind. Although at times his ideas may seem to be on the verge of religious or New Age thought, especially with his references to Shiva and the aesth...more
Worth comparing to Godel, Escher, Bach in substance. Bateson often veers from subject to subject, but he is a rigorous and clear writer, and an excellent expositor. The point of this book is not 'Mind and Nature,' but rather certain ways of thinking about Mind and Nature. Bateson is explicit about this book being epistemology, meta-science rather than science.
Bateson implicitly draws from several different thinkers and their ideas, the ones I picked up were Wiener's cybernetics, Russell's Princi...more
Bateson implicitly draws from several different thinkers and their ideas, the ones I picked up were Wiener's cybernetics, Russell's Princi...more
this book rests at the strange nexus of the writings of Merleau-Ponty and Douglas Hofstadter, and is presented to us within a framework of biology with an ultimate concern for the institution of education. just trying to parse these referents is difficult, and the book does well at keeping a handle on the far more difficult task of putting forward what can only be called a philosophy based on the necessary implications of putting all these things into a pile and looking at it from just the right...more
Bateson was a great thinker who emphasized that logic and quantity are inappropiate devices for describing organisms, and their interactions and internal organisations. Reading Mind and Nature during the 80s I felt affirmed in my intuition that it splits us inside if we separate Mind from Nature. He showed how patterns connect, how they are not static but dance in a rhythm of repetition. He showed how information spreads inside a system and controls growth and differentiation. This is as seminal...more
Patterns that connect. One frequently hears phrases such as everything in the world is connected to everything else but rarely do we find much in the way of discussion. Gregory Bateson was the epitome of the multidisciplinarian. He could not be pigeonholed in any particular field of study but he could recognize the most significant aspects of each and demonstrate how they all connect together.
I must admit here that he is far and away beyond my own level of comprehension. I must continually rere...more
I must admit here that he is far and away beyond my own level of comprehension. I must continually rere...more
Feb 06, 2013
Kipriadi prawira
added it
Bateson begins with a list of basic scientific presuppositions that "every schoolboy should know", n further epistemological foundations are laid in two later chapters, one on the importance of combining different perspectives, of having "multiple versions of the world", and the other on different types of relationship. This material is used as the basis for tackling three major topics: finding explicit criteria for the existence of "mind"; examining parallels between learning n evolution as sto...more
Un libro un po' difficile da leggere ma assolutamente geniale, idealmente da affiancare a "G��del, Escher, Bach" per chi sia interessato a riflettere sul funzionamento della mente. Io ho trovato Bateson un po' pi�� difficile di Hofstadter, per�� pu�� dipendere dalla mia formazione scientifica - probabilmente gli umanisti avranno l'opinione opposta.
A thought-provoking thinker, but alas a terrible writer. He tends to start out with some ambitious claim (e.g. having solved the mind/body problem), and when he would have to prove it, digresses into something else. Maddening. On the other hand, he is exploring how mind and (not in this book) consciousness might be explained as emerging from matter - which I am inclined to believe is what is actually happening myself, without of course being able to properly explain much further.
I may very well have to read this again sometime soon. The scope of this book is astounding. It starts out as a primer on how to think, redefining epistemology along the way in an attempt to enable the reader to think in cybernetic circuits of calibration and feedback, form and process.
Bateson seeks to tease out "the pattern that connects", a pattern of patterns, the meta-pattern that connects all living things. The pattern that connects us. It's all a bit fuzzy, but it'll definitely make you t...more
Bateson seeks to tease out "the pattern that connects", a pattern of patterns, the meta-pattern that connects all living things. The pattern that connects us. It's all a bit fuzzy, but it'll definitely make you t...more
I had just read Wittgenstein's Tractatus before I read this, so I thought it intriguing, the appearance of a ladder, climbing levels of logical type... definitely a thought provoking read, for thinking about thinking that is. He is still relevant on the topic of stagnant educational institutions and epistemology too. Talk it over with a friend. As Bateson says: “[...] two descriptions are better than one.” (therein lies the difference...)
One of the seminal thinkers of systems theory (once called cybernetics) compares the process of evolution to the process of learning. I listened to recordings of Bateson's talks given at Esalen around the time he was writing this. Francisco Varela picked up where Bateson left off.
Oct 15, 2008
Nancy
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
everyone
Recommended to Nancy by:
saw it on a bookstore shelf
To me, this book is a primer on how to think. I read it when it first was published, and believe it really changed me.
Apr 30, 2009
Iris
is currently reading it
So I lent my mother Anathem. After reading it she gave me this book to read.
Professor Bateson lays out a transformative dialogue for maeta-relfection.
A great scientist's introduction to epistemology.
This is one of the most influential books in my life.
Critical thinking
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Gregory Bateson (9 May 1904 – 4 July 1980) was an English anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual anthropologist, semiotician and cyberneticist whose work intersected that of many other fields. He had a natural ability to recognize order and pattern in the universe. In the 1940s he helped extend systems theory/cybernetics to the social/behavioral sciences, and spent the last decade of h...more
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