{"id":7062,"date":"2006-10-28T16:42:22","date_gmt":"2006-10-28T16:42:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2006\/10\/28\/bateson-steps-t-1\/"},"modified":"2006-10-28T16:42:22","modified_gmt":"2006-10-28T16:42:22","slug":"bateson-steps-t-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2006\/10\/28\/bateson-steps-t-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Bateson, Steps To An Ecology of Mind<\/i>"},"content":{"rendered":"\u23f3 Approximate reading time: <\/span> 4<\/span> mins<\/span><\/span>\n

Bateson,
\n Gregory. Steps To An Ecology of Mind<\/i>. 1972. Chicago: U. of Chicago
\n P., 2000.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Steps To An Ecology of Mind<\/i> is a collection of lectures and essays
\nfrom Bateson’s career, ranging widely in topics from philology and evolution, to
\ngenetics and anthropology. Bateson is generally interested in deep
\nstructures<\/b> and patterns<\/b> (rather than substances); though it’s
\ndifficult to synthesize, his concern with form<\/b> and epistemology<\/b>
\nsurface repeatedly in his work. If a larger point can be summarily gleaned
\nfrom this collection, it involves the dramatic changes to epistemology<\/b>
\nwrought by cybernetics<\/b> and information theory<\/b>. <\/p>\n

In select pieces, Bateson is especially forthright about this
\n"Epistemology of Cybernetics"<\/b> (this, a subsection in his essay on "A
\nCybernetics of ‘Self’: A Theory of Alcoholism" (309)). In "Epistemology of
\nCybernetics," Bateson discusses a phenomenon that resembles distributed
\ncognition<\/b> in which mind<\/b>, his term of terms, coalesces in brain<\/b>,
\nbody<\/b>, and environment<\/b>: "Similarly, we may say that ‘mind’ is
\nimmanent in those circuits of the brain which are complete within the brain. Or
\nthat mind is immanent in circuits which are complete within the system, brain
\nplus<\/i> body<\/b>. Or, finally, that mind is immanent<\/b> in the larger
\nsystem–man plus<\/i> environment<\/b>" (317). To explain this concept,
\nBateson uses the example of a man cutting a tree with an axe. The total
\nsystem<\/b> of "tree-eyes-brain-muscles-axe-stroke-tree" "has the characteristics
\nof immanent mind" (317).<\/p>\n

These ideas are most germane to the exam on tools-in use: ecologies and
\naffordances. They receive further elaboration and clarification an essay
\nnear the end of the book called "Form, Substance, and Difference" (454)<\/b>,
\nin which Bateson seeks out ways to discuss "organism plus environment<\/b>"
\n(455). He contends that epistemology has shifted because of cybernetics and
\ninformation theory, and that rather than turning to hard science<\/b> for
\nexplanations of human psychology and behavior (458), we must understand the
\nco-adaptive complex systems<\/b> of the human individual<\/b>, the society<\/b>,
\nand the ecosystem<\/b> (435). In this chapter, he notes that the relationship
\nbetween thought and emotion (469) must be revisited in light of his view of
\nepistemology. Also, in the end-note, he mentions that mind includes
\nactions and tools (473). Here are two of the more pithy quotations that connect
\nthe chapter to methodological delineations (the limits of systems) and the
\nscalability of mind (its multiple rings of immanence):<\/p>\n

    \n
  • "The way to delineate the system<\/b> is to draw the limiting line in
    \n such a way that you do not cut any of these pathways<\/b> in ways which
    \n leave things inexplicable<\/b>" (465). <\/li>\n
  • "The cybernetic epistemology<\/b> which I have offered you would suggest
    \n a new approach. The individual mind is immanent but not only in the body. It
    \n is immanent also in the pathways and messages outside the body; and there is a
    \n larger Mind of which the individual mind is only a subsystem" (467). <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    Key Terms: ecology of mind (xxiii), ecology of ideas (xxiii), metalogue (1),
    \noutlines (27), analogy and homology (80), "feel" of culture (81), ethos and
    \ncultural structure (83), deutero-learning (167), transcontextual (272), feedback
    \nloops (274), governor (316), territory and map (455)<\/p>\n

    "The questions which the book raises are ecological<\/b>: How do ideas
    \ninteract? Is there some sort of natural selection which determines the survival
    \nof some ideas and the extinction or death of others? What sort of economics
    \nlimits the multiplicity of ideas in a given region of the mind? What are the
    \nnecessary conditions for stability (or survival) of such a system or subsystem?"
    \n(xxiii).<\/p>\n

    "In fact, the phenomenon of context<\/b> and the closely related phenomenon
    \nof ‘meaning’ defined a division between the ‘hard’ sciences and the sort of
    \nscience which I was trying to build" (xxv).<\/p>\n

    "I stressed the fact that ‘data<\/b>‘ are not events or objects but always
    \nrecords<\/b> or descriptions<\/b> or memories of events or objects" (xxv).<\/p>\n

    "Be that as it may, the central–but usually not explicit–subject matter of
    \nthe lectures which I used to give to psychiatric residents and of these essays
    \nis the bridge between behavioral data and the ‘fundamentals’ of science and
    \nphilosophy; and my critical comments above about the metaphoric use of ‘energy’
    \nin the behavioral sciences add up to a rather simple accusation of many of my
    \ncolleagues, that they have tried to build the bridge between form and substance.
    \nThe conservative laws for energy and matter concern substance rather than form.
    \nBut mental process, ideas, communication, organization, differentiation,
    \npattern, and so on, are matters of form rather than substance.
    \n Within the body of fundamentals, that half which deals
    \nwith form has been dramatically enriched in the last thirty years by the
    \ndiscoveries of cybernetics and systems theory. This book is concerned with
    \nbuilding a bridge between the facts of life and behavior and what we know today
    \nabout the nature of pattern and order" (xxxii).<\/p>\n

    "As I see it, the advances in scientific thought come from a
    \ncombination of loose and strict thinking<\/i><\/b>, and this combination is the
    \nmost precious tool<\/b> of science" (75). <\/p>\n

    "All biological systems (organisms and social or ecological organizations of
    \norganisms) are capable of adaptive change. But adaptive change takes many forms,
    \nsuch as response, learning, ecological succession, biological evolution,
    \ncultural evolution, etc., according to the size and complexity of the system
    \nwhich we choose to consider" (274).<\/p>\n

    "The weaving of contexts and of messages<\/b> which propose contexts–but
    \nwhich, like all messages whatsoever, have ‘meaning’ only by virtue of
    \ncontext–is the subject matter of the so-called double-bind theory<\/b>"
    \n(276). <\/p>\n

    "Thus, in no system which shows mental characteristics can any part have
    \nunilateral control over the whole. In other words, the mental characteristics
    \nof the system are immanent, not in some part, but in the whole<\/i>" (316).<\/p>\n

    "In a word, schizophrenia<\/b>, deutero-learning<\/b>, and the double
    \nbind <\/b>cease to be matters of individual psychology and become part of the
    \necology of ideas in systems<\/b> or ‘minds’ whose boundaries no longer coincide
    \nwith the skins<\/b> of participant individuals" (339). <\/p>\n

    "Similarly, from the cybernetic point of view, a word in a sentence, or a
    \nletter within the word, or the anatomy of some part within an organism, or the
    \nrole of a species in an ecosystem, or the behavior of a member within a
    \nfamily–these are all to be (negatively) explained by an analysis of
    \nrestraints<\/b>" (406). <\/p>\n

    "All that is not information, not redundancy, not form and not restraints–is
    \nnoise<\/b>, the only possible source of new patterns<\/b>" (416). <\/p>\n

    "Occasionally actual pieces of the external environment<\/b>—scraps<\/b>
    \nof potential nest-building material, ‘trophies<\/b>,’ and the like–are used
    \nfor communication, and in these cases again the messages usually contribute
    \nredundancy to the universe message plus the relationship between the
    \norganisms<\/i><\/b> rather than to the universe message plus external
    \nenvironment<\/i><\/b>" (424). <\/p>\n

    "I refer to the ‘semipermeable’ linkage between consciousness and the
    \nremainder of the total mind. A certain limited amount of information about
    \nwhat’s happening in this larger part of the mind seems to be related to what we
    \nmay call the screen of consciousness<\/b>. But what gets into
    \nconsciousness is selected; it is a systematic (not random) sampling of the rest"
    \n(438). <\/p>\n

    "The unit of survival is a flexible organism-in-its-environment<\/b>"
    \n(457). <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    \u23f3 Approximate reading time: <\/span> 4<\/span> mins<\/span><\/span>Bateson, Gregory. Steps To An Ecology of Mind. 1972. Chicago: U. of Chicago P., 2000.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[175],"tags":[639,404,1448,152,398,1449,1040,886,410,1450,1451,1452,841,970,1453,1454,1158,1455,963,1049,1312,417],"class_list":["post-7062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-toolsinuse","tag-abstraction","tag-context","tag-cybernetics","tag-data","tag-ecology","tag-energy","tag-environment","tag-epistemology","tag-form","tag-fundamentals","tag-immanence","tag-induction","tag-information","tag-mind","tag-organism","tag-outline","tag-pattern","tag-prediction","tag-science","tag-substance","tag-system","tag-theory"],"yoast_head":"\nBateson, Steps To An Ecology of Mind - Earth Wide Moth<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2006\/10\/28\/bateson-steps-t-1\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bateson, Steps To An Ecology of Mind - Earth Wide Moth\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u23f3 Approximate reading time: 4 minsBateson, Gregory. 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Invention as a Social Act. Studies in Writing and Rhetoric Ser. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1987. Invention as a Social Act is a landmark book on rhetorical invention. Lefevre introduces \"a more adequate terminology\" for rhetorical invention, complicating commonplace associations between the \"generation of ideas\" and the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Writing Technologies"","block_context":{"text":"Writing Technologies","link":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/category\/writing_technol\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7064,"url":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2006\/10\/31\/hayles-how-we-b-1\/","url_meta":{"origin":7062,"position":1},"title":"Hayles, How We Became Posthuman","author":"Derek Mueller","date":"October 31, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Hayles, Katherine N. How We Became Posthuman : Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics. Chicago: Chicago Press, 1999. In this extended effort to explain the events and conditions leading up to posthumanism, Hayles manages to protect the flesh (defending embodiment and bodies from dispersing into information constructs) and plucking\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Tools-in-use"","block_context":{"text":"Tools-in-use","link":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/category\/toolsinuse\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"The three waves of cybernetics","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/static.flickr.com\/118\/287236991_0cbe406c3c_m.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":7068,"url":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2006\/11\/04\/fuller-media-ec\/","url_meta":{"origin":7062,"position":2},"title":"Fuller, Media Ecologies","author":"Derek Mueller","date":"November 4, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Fuller, Matthew. Media Ecologies. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005. That the twenty-three quotations listed below are just the tip of the iceberg should serve to remind me to return for a more careful reading of Fuller. Every damn sentence in this book is like a compressed coil; in combination, they\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Visuality and New Media"","block_context":{"text":"Visuality and New Media","link":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/category\/visuality_and_n\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7080,"url":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2006\/11\/18\/syverson-wealth-1\/","url_meta":{"origin":7062,"position":3},"title":"Syverson, Wealth of Reality","author":"Derek Mueller","date":"November 18, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Syverson, Margaret. The Wealth of Reality: An Ecology of Composition. Carbondale: Southern Illinois Press, 1999. Syverson's The Wealth of Reality--revised from her dissertation, which won the Berlin and Burns awards in 1995--calls for a reconceptualization of writing activity as radically situated in the interest of moving us away from reductionism\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Tools-in-use"","block_context":{"text":"Tools-in-use","link":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/category\/toolsinuse\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7379,"url":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2011\/08\/22\/open-source-eco\/","url_meta":{"origin":7062,"position":4},"title":"Open Source Ecology","author":"Derek Mueller","date":"August 22, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"This morning I came across this short video on efforts by the Open Source Ecology initiative to develop prototypes for easy cast, easily assembled, low cost farming and building technologies, what they're calling the Global Village Construction Set (GVCS). It connected with some of the things I've been thinking about\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Networks"","block_context":{"text":"Networks","link":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/category\/networkacy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7045,"url":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2006\/10\/02\/cooper-the-ecol\/","url_meta":{"origin":7062,"position":5},"title":"Cooper, “The Ecology of Writing”","author":"Derek Mueller","date":"October 2, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Cooper, Marilyn. \"The Ecology of Writing.\" College English 48.4 (1986). 364-375. Setting out from Hairston's 1982 embrace of \"a process-centered theory of teaching writing\" to \"process, not product,\" what happens when writers write has been reduced, hazardously, to a simplistic cognitive process. 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