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{{Infobox_Systems scientist |
region = [Cybernetics |
era = 20th century |
color = #B0C4DE |
image_name = Gregory Bateson.jpg |
image_caption = |
signature = |
name = '''Gregory Bateson''' |
birth = 9 May [
[Grantchester, [England |
death =
4 July [ [San Francisco, [CA |
school_tradition = [Anthropology |
main_interests = [anthropology, [social sciences, [linguistics, [cybernetics, [Systems theory |
influences = |
influenced = [Paul Watzlawick, [Donald deAvila Jackson, [Jay Haley, [John Grinder, [Richard Bandler, [Neuro-linguistic programming, [family therapy, [brief therapy, [Systemic coaching, Application of [type theory in social sciences, [Visual anthropology |
notable_ideas = [Double Bind, Ecology of mind, deuterolearning, [Schismogenesis |-->
Gregory Bateson (9 May
1904 –
4 July 1980) was a United Kingdom
anthropology,
social sciences,
linguistics, and
cybernetics whose work intersected that of many other fields. Some of his most noted writings are to be found in his books,
Steps to an Ecology of Mind (1972),
Mind and Nature (1980), and
Angels Fear: Towards an Epistemology of the Sacred (1988), the last published posthumously and co-authored with his daughter
Mary Catherine Bateson.
Biography
Bateson was born in Grantchester, England on 9 May 1904. His father was the distinguished geneticist William Bateson. He went to the Charterhouse School high school from
1917 to 1921. He got a BA in
biology at the St. John's College of the Cambridge University in 1925 and continued at Cambridge from
1927 to
1929. Bateson lectured in linguistics at the University of Sydney 1928. Form 1931 to 1937 he was a fellow at Cambridge NNBD, Gregory Bateson, Soylent Communications, 2007. and then went to the United States.
In
Palo Alto, Gregory Bateson and his colleagues Donald deAvila Jackson,
Jay Haley and John H. Weakland developed the Double Bind theory.Bateson, G., Jackson, D. D., Haley, J. & Weakland, J., 1956, Toward a theory of schizophrenia. (in: 'Behavioral Science', vol.1, 251-264)
Bateson was married to the American cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead between 1936 and 1950. "Gregory Bateson." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. 5 Aug. 2007 Margaret Mead had been married twice before Bateson — first to
Luther Cressman, who was theological student during the marriage (and later became an anthropologist himself), and second to Reo Fortune. Bateson and Mead had a daughter
Mary Catherine Bateson, who also became an anthropologist. Their granddaughter, Sevanne Margaret Kassarjian, is a stage and television actress who works professionally under the name Sevanne Martin.
One of the threads that connects Bateson's work is an interest in systems theory and cybernetics, a science he helped to create as one of the original members of the core group of the
Macy conferences. Bateson's take on these fields centers upon their relationship to
epistemology, and this central interest provides the undercurrents of his thought. His association with the editor and author Stewart Brand was part of a process by which Bateson’s influence widened — for from the 1970s until Bateson’s last years, a broader audience of university students and educated people working in many fields came not only to know his name but also into contact to varying degrees with his thought.
In
1956, he became a
naturalized citizen of the United States. Bateson was a member of William Irwin Thompson's Lindisfarne Association.
Work
Epigrams coined by or referred to by Bateson
- Number is different from quantity.
- Map-territory relation, and the name is not the thing named. Coined by Alfred Korzybski.
- There are no monotone "values" in biology.
- Logic is a poor model of Causality.
- Language commonly stresses only one side of any interaction. Double description is better than one.
- Bateson defines information as "a difference that makes a difference"
Terms used by Bateson
- Abductive reasoning. Used by Bateson to refer to a third scientific methodology (along with Inductive reasoning and deduction) which was central to his own holistic and qualitative approach. Refers to a method of comparing patterns of relationship, and their symmetry or asymmetry (as in, for example, comparative anatomy), especially in complex organic (or mental) systems. The term was originally coined by American Philosopher/Logician Charles Sanders Peirce, who used it to refer to the process by which scientific hypotheses are generated.
- Criteria of Mind (from Mind and Nature A Necessary Unity):
- Mind is an aggregate of interacting parts or components.
- The interaction between parts of mind is triggered by difference.
- Mental process requires collateral energy.
- Mental process requires circular (or more complex) chains of determination.
- In mental process the effects of difference are to be regarded as transformation (that is, coded versions) of the difference which preceded them.
- The description and classification of these processes of transformation discloses a hierarchy of type theory immanent in the phenomena.
- Creatura and Pleroma. Borrowed from Carl Jung who applied these Gnostic terms in his "The Seven Sermons To the Dead". Like the Hinduism term maya (illusion), the basic idea captured in this distinction is that meaning and organization are projected onto the world. Pleroma refers to the non-living world that is undifferentiated by subjectivity; Creatura for the living world, subject to perceptual difference, distinction, and information.
- Deuterolearning. A term he coined in the 1940s referring to the organization of learning, or learning to learn:
- Double bind. Scottish psychiatrist R.D. Laing argued that the strange behavior and seemingly confused speech of people undergoing a psychotic episode were ultimately understandable as an attempt to communicate worries and concerns, often in situations where this was not possible or not permitted. Laing stressed the role of society, and particularly the family, in the development of madness. He argued that individuals can often be put in impossible situations, where they are unable to conform to the conflicting expectations of their peers, leading to a 'lose-lose situation' and immense mental distress for the individuals concerned. In 1956, Palo Alto, Gregory Bateson and his colleagues Donald deAvila Jackson, Jay Haley and John H. Weakland Bateson, G., Jackson, D. D., Haley, J. & Weakland, J., 1956, Toward a theory of schizophrenia. (in: 'Behavioral Science', vol.1, 251-264) articulated a related theory of schizophrenia as stemming from double bind situations. Madness was therefore an expression of this distress, and should be valued as a cathartic and trans-formative experience. The double bind refers to a communication paradox described first in families with a schizophrenic member. Full double bind requires several conditions to be met: a) The victim of double bind receives contradictory injunctions or emotional messages on different levels of communication (for example, love is expressed by words and hate or detachment by nonverbal behavior; or a child is encouraged to speak freely, but criticised or silenced whenever he or she actually does so). b) No metacommunication is possible; for example, asking which of the two messages is valid or describing the communication as making no sense c) The victim cannot leave the communication field d) Failing to fulfill the contradictory injunctions is punished, e.g. by withdrawal of love. The double bind was originally presented (probably mainly under the influence of Bateson's psychiatric co-workers) as an explanation of part of the etiology of schizophrenia; today it is more important as an example of Bateson's approach to the complexities of communication.
See also
Publications
Articles
- 1956, Bateson, G., Donald deAvila Jackson, Jay Haley & Weakland, J., "Toward a Theory of Schizophrenia", Behavioral Science, vol.1, 1956, 251-264.
Books
Documentary film
- Trance and Dance in Bali, a short documentary film shot by cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson in the 1930s, but it was not released until 1952. In 1999 the film was deemed "culturally significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.
References
External links
- Article Gregory Bateson: Old Men Ought to be Explorers by Stephen Nachmanovitch, CoEvolution Quarterly, Fall 1982. Reprinted at freeplay.com
- Paper Gregory Bateson: Cybernetics and the social behavioral sciences by Lawrence S. Bale, Ph.D.: First Published in: Cybernetics & Human Knowing: A Journal of Second Order Cybernetics & Cyber-Semiotics, Vol. 3 no. 1 (1995), pp. 27-45.
- Article The Double Bind: The Intimate Tie Between Behaviour and Communication by Patrice Guillaume: Excellent introductory article about Double Bind
- Webpage Perception in pose method rumng by Dr. Romanov, March 01, 2005: Article on biomechanics with Bateson mentioned
- Article 'Escher, Enaction & Intersubjectivity'
- Article Schizophrenia and the Family: Double Bind Theory Revisited by Matthijs Koopmans, 1997.
- Article Paradox and Absurdity in Human Communication Reconsidered by Matthijs Koopmans, 1996.
Gregory Bateson
Features a biography, a bibliography, a forum, and articles focusing on Bateson's epistemological work.
Gregory Bateson
Gregory Bateson. While NLP was born under the influence of the two prominent figures of this century, namely, Milton H. Erickson and Gregory Bateson (1904-1980), Guhen Kitaoka ...
Gregory Bateson - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Gregory Bateson (9 May 1904 – 4 July 1980) was a British anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, semiotician and cyberneticist whose work intersected that of many other ...
Bateson
Bateson - pointers to his work ... Gregory Bateson: associates: key concepts: books: on this website: internet: Gregory Bateson was one of the most influential systems thinkers of ...
Gregory Bateson
Gregory Bateson. Reading Gregory Bateson (1972) 'The logical categories of learning and communication' in Steps to an ecology of mind, Chandler Part 3 pp 279-308.
Gregory Bateson Links
Martin Ryder University of Colorado at Denver School of Education Gregory Bateson Links
The Institute for Intercultural Studies: Gregory Bateson
What pattern connects the crab to the lobster and the orchid to the primrose and all the four of them to me? And me to you?" - Gregory Bateson
Mikele Pasin’s Weblog » Blog Archive » Quotation from Gregory ...
From: Bateson, G., 1978, ‘Afterword’, in J. Brockman (Ed.) About Bateson, London: Wildwood House pp. 244-245. Consider for a moment the phrase, the opposite of solipsism.
Amazon.co.uk: With a Daughter's Eye: A Memoir of Gregory Bateson and ...
Amazon.co.uk: With a Daughter's Eye: A Memoir of Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead: Mary Catherine Bateson: Books
The Institute for Intercultural Studies: Gregory Bateson: Biography
Obituary Reprinted with permission from the American Anthropologist, Volume 84, Number 2, June 1982.