Gregory Bateson (9 May 1904 – 4 July 1980) was a British The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland[note 7] is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of the island of Ireland, and many small islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK with a land anthropologist Anthropology is the study of humanity. Anthropology has origins in the natural sciences, the humanities, and social sciences. The term "anthropology", pronounced /ænθrɵˈpɒlədʒi/, is from the Greek ἄνθρωπος, anthrōpos, "human", and -λογία, -logia, "discourse" or "study", and was first, social scientist The social sciences are the fields of academic scholarship that explore aspects of human society. "Social science" is commonly used as an umbrella term to refer to a plurality of fields outside of the natural sciences. These include: anthropology, archaeology, economics, geography, history, linguistics, political science, international, linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of natural language. Linguistics encompasses a number of sub-fields. An important topical division is between the study of language structure and the study of meaning (semantics and pragmatics). Grammar encompasses morphology (the formation and composition of words), syntax (the rules that determine how words, visual anthropologist Visual anthropology is a subfield of cultural anthropology that is concerned, in part, with the study and production of ethnographic photography, film and, since the mid-1990s, new media. While the term is sometimes used interchangeably with ethnographic film, visual anthropology also encompasses the anthropological study of visual representation,, semiotician In linguistics, semiotics, also called semiotic studies or semiology, is the study of sign processes , or signification and communication, signs and symbols. It is usually divided into the three following branches: and cyberneticist Cybernetics is the interdisciplinary study of the structure of regulatory systems. Cybernetics is closely related to control theory and systems theory. Both in its origins and in its evolution in the second-half of the 20th century, cybernetics is equally applicable to physical and social systems 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) and Mind and Nature (1979). Angels Fear (published posthumously in 1987) was co-authored by his daughter Mary Catherine Bateson.

Biography

Bateson was born in Grantchester Grantchester is a village on the River Cam or Granta in Cambridgeshire, in England in the United Kingdom. It is listed in the Domesday Book as Grantesete and Grauntsethe, UK The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland[note 7] is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of the island of Ireland, and many small islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK with a land on 9 May 1904, the youngest of three sons of distinguished geneticist William Bateson William Bateson was a British geneticist, a Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge. He was the first person to use the term genetics to describe the study of heredity and biological inheritance, and the chief populariser of the ideas of Gregor Mendel following their rediscovery in 1900 by Hugo de Vries and Carl Correns and his wife, [Caroline] Beatrice Durham. He attended Charterhouse School from 1917 to 1921. He obtained a BA in biology Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy at St. John's College, Cambridge in 1925 and continued at Cambridge from 1927 to 1929. Bateson lectured in linguistics at the University of Sydney 1928. From 1931 to 1937 he was a Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge^[2] and then moved to the United States.

In Palo Alto Palo Alto (pronounced /ˌpæloʊˈæltoʊ/, from Spanish: palo: "stick" and alto: "tall") is a California charter city located in the northwest corner of Santa Clara County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, USA. It is named after a tree called El Palo Alto. The city includes portions of Stanford University and is, Gregory Bateson and his colleagues Donald Jackson Don D. Jackson was an American psychiatrist best known for his pioneering work in family therapy, Jay Haley Jay Douglas Haley was a psychotherapist. He was one of the founding figures of brief and family therapy and a teacher, supervisor, and author in these disciplines and John H. Weakland John H. Weakland was one of the founders of brief and family psychotherapy. At the time of his death, he was a Senior Research Fellow at the Mental Research Institute (MRI) in Palo Alto, California, Co-Director of the famous Brief Therapy Center at MRI, and a Clinical Associate Professor Emeritus in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral developed the double bind A double bind is a dilemma in communication in which an individual receives two or more conflicting messages, with one message negating the other. This creates a situation in which a successful response to one message results in a failed response to the other, so that the person will be automatically wrong regardless of response. The nature of a theory (see also Bateson Project).^[3]

One of the threads that connects Bateson's work is an interest in systems theory Systems theory is a transdisciplinary approach, which abstracts and considers a system as a set of independent and interacting parts. The main goal is to study general principles of system functioning to be applied for the all types of systems in all fields of research. As a technical and general academic area of study it predominantly refers to and cybernetics Cybernetics is the interdisciplinary study of the structure of regulatory systems. Cybernetics is closely related to control theory and systems theory. Both in its origins and in its evolution in the second-half of the 20th century, cybernetics is equally applicable to physical and social systems, a science he helped to create as one of the original members of the core group of the Macy Conferences The Macy Conferences were a set of meetings of scholars from various disciplines held in New York by the initiative of Warren McCulloch and the Macy Foundation from 1946 to 1953. The principal purpose of these series of conferences was to set the foundations for a general science of the workings of the human mind. Bateson's take on these fields centres upon their relationship to epistemology Epistemology or theory of knowledge is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope (limitations) of knowledge. It addresses the questions:, and this central interest provides the undercurrents of his thought. His association with the editor and author Stewart Brand Stewart Brand is an American writer, best known as editor of the Whole Earth Catalog. He founded a number of organizations including The WELL, the Global Business Network, and the Long Now Foundation. He is the author of several books, most recently Whole Earth Discipline 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 Naturalization is the acquisition of citizenship or nationality by somebody who was not a citizen or national of that country when he or she was born of the United States ^ b. English is the de facto language of American government and the sole language spoken at home by 80% of Americans age five and older. Spanish is the second most commonly spoken language. Bateson was a member of William Irwin Thompson William Irwin Thompson is known primarily as a social philosopher and cultural critic, but he has also been writing and publishing poetry throughout his career and received the Oslo International Poetry Festival Award in 1986. He has made significant contributions to cultural history, social criticism, the philosophy of science, and the study of's Lindisfarne Association. In the 1970s, he taught at the Humanistic Psychology Institute in San Francisco--which is now Saybrook University[4]--and also served as a lecturer and fellow of Kresge College at the University of California, Santa Cruz The University of California, Santa Cruz, also known as UC Santa Cruz or UCSC, is a public, collegiate university; one of ten campuses in the University of California. Located 80 miles south of San Francisco at the edge of the coastal community of Santa Cruz, the campus lies on 2,001 acres (8.10 km2) of rolling, forested hills overlooking the. In 1978, California Governor Jerry Brown Edmund Gerald "Jerry" Brown, Jr. is an American politician. He is a former California Governor (1975-1983) having been preceded by Ronald Reagan and was also the Secretary of State of California. Currently serving as California's Attorney General, he is facing former eBay CEO Meg Whitman for Governor of California in the 2010 general appointed Bateson to the Board of Regents of the University of California, in which position he served until his death.

Personal life

Bateson's life was greatly affected by the death of his two brothers. John Bateson (1898-1918), the eldest of the three, was killed in World War I. Martin Bateson (1900-1922), the second brother, was then expected to follow in his father's footsteps as a scientist, but came into conflict with William over his ambition to become a poet and playwright. The resulting stress, combined with a disappointment in love, resulted in Martin's public suicide by gunshot under the statue of Anteros In Greek mythology, Anteros was the god of requited love, literally "love returned" or "counter-love" and also the punisher of those who scorn love and the advances of others, or the avenger of unrequited love in Piccadilly Circus Piccadilly Circus is a famous road junction and public space of London's West End in the City of Westminster, built in 1819 to connect Regent Street with the major shopping street of Piccadilly. In this context, a circus, from the Latin word meaning "circle", is a round open space at a street junction. Coordinates: 51°30′36″N 0°8′, on 22 April 1922, which was John's birthday. After this event, which transformed a private family tragedy into public scandal, all William and Beatrice's ambitious expectations fell on Gregory Bateson, their only surviving son.^[4]

Bateson's first marriage, in 1936, was to American cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead Margaret Mead was an American cultural anthropologist, who was frequently a featured writer and speaker in the mass media throughout the 1960s and 1970s.^[5] Bateson and Mead had a daughter, Mary Catherine Bateson (born 1939), who also became an anthropologist.^{[citation needed]}

Bateson decided to separate from Mead in 1947, and they were formally divorced in 1950.^[6] Bateson then married his second wife, Elizabeth "Betty" Sumner (1919-1992), in 1951.^[7] She was the daughter of the Episcopalian Anglicanism is a tradition within Christianity comprising churches with historical connections to the Church of England or similar beliefs, worship and church structures. Anglicanism forms one of the principal traditions of Christianity, together with Protestantism, Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy Bishop of Chicago, Walter Taylor Sumner. They had a son, John Sumner Bateson (born 1952), as well as twins who died in infancy. Bateson and Sumner were divorced in 1957, after which Bateson married his third wife, therapist and social worker Lois Cammack (born 1928), in 1961. They had one daughter, Nora Bateson (born 1969).^[8] Nora is married to drummer Dan Brubeck, son of jazz musician Dave Brubeck David Warren "Dave" Brubeck is an American jazz pianist. He has written a number of jazz standards, including "In Your Own Sweet Way" and "The Duke". Brubeck's style ranges from refined to bombastic, reflecting his mother's attempts at classical training and his improvisational skills. His music is known for employing.^{[citation needed]}

Work

Double bind

In 1956 in Palo Alto Palo Alto (pronounced /ˌpæloʊˈæltoʊ/, from Spanish: palo: "stick" and alto: "tall") is a California charter city located in the northwest corner of Santa Clara County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, USA. It is named after a tree called El Palo Alto. The city includes portions of Stanford University and is Gregory Bateson and his colleagues Donald Jackson Don D. Jackson was an American psychiatrist best known for his pioneering work in family therapy, Jay Haley Jay Douglas Haley was a psychotherapist. He was one of the founding figures of brief and family therapy and a teacher, supervisor, and author in these disciplines, and John Weakland John H. Weakland was one of the founders of brief and family psychotherapy. At the time of his death, he was a Senior Research Fellow at the Mental Research Institute (MRI) in Palo Alto, California, Co-Director of the famous Brief Therapy Center at MRI, and a Clinical Associate Professor Emeritus in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral ^[3] articulated a related theory of schizophrenia as stemming from double bind A double bind is a dilemma in communication in which an individual receives two or more conflicting messages, with one message negating the other. This creates a situation in which a successful response to one message results in a failed response to the other, so that the person will be automatically wrong regardless of response. The nature of a situations. The perceived symptoms of schizophrenia were therefore an expression of this distress, and should be valued as a cathartic and transformative experience. The double bind A double bind is a dilemma in communication in which an individual receives two or more conflicting messages, with one message negating the other. This creates a situation in which a successful response to one message results in a failed response to the other, so that the person will be automatically wrong regardless of response. The nature of a refers to a communication paradox described first in families with a schizophrenic member.^{[citation needed]}

Full double bind requires several conditions to be met:^{[citation needed]}

1. The victim of double bind receives contradictory injunctions or emotional messages on different levels of communication (for example, love Love is the emotion of strong affection and personal attachment. In philosophical context, love is a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion, and affection. In religious context, love is not just a virtue, but the basis for all being , and the foundation for all divine law (Golden Rule) is expressed by words, and hate Hatred is an intense feeling of dislike. It may occur in a wide variety of contexts, from hatred of inanimate objects or animals, to hatred of oneself or other people, entire groups of people, people in general, existence, or everything. Though not always, hatred is often associated with feelings of anger or detachment by nonverbal behaviour; or a child is encouraged to speak freely, but criticised or silenced whenever he or she actually does so).
2. No metacommunication is possible – for example, asking which of the two messages is valid or describing the communication as making no sense.
3. The victim cannot leave the communication field.
4. Failing to fulfill the contradictory injunctions is punished (for example, 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 Etiology is the study of causation, or origination. The word is derived from the Greek αἰτιολογία, aitiologia, "giving a reason for" (αἰτία, aitia, "cause"; and -λογία, -logia) of schizophrenia Schizophrenia is a serious mental illness characterized by a disintegration of the process of thinking, of contact with reality, and of emotional responsiveness. It most commonly manifests as auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking with significant social or occupational dysfunction. Onset of. Currently, it is considered to be more important as an example of Bateson's approach to the complexities of communication.^{[citation needed]}

Other terms used by Bateson

• Abduction Abduction is a method of logical inference introduced by Charles Sanders Peirce which comes prior to induction and deduction for which the colloquial name is to have a "hunch". Abductive reasoning starts when an inquirer considers of a set of seemingly unrelated facts, armed with an intuition that they are somehow connected. The term. Used by Bateson to refer to a third scientific methodology (along with induction Inductive reasoning, also known as induction or inductive logic, is a type of reasoning that involves moving from a set of specific facts to a general conclusion. It uses premises from objects that have been examined to establish a conclusion about an object that has not been examined. It can also be seen as a form of theory-building, in which 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 Comparative anatomy is the study of similarities and differences in the anatomy of organisms. It is closely related to evolutionary biology and phylogeny), especially in complex organic (or mental) systems. The term was originally coined by American Philosopher/Logician Charles Sanders Peirce Charles Sanders Peirce (September 10, 1839 – April 19, 1914) was an American philosopher, logician, mathematician, and scientist, born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Peirce was educated as a chemist and employed as a scientist for 30 years. It is largely his contributions to logic, mathematics, philosophy, and semiotics (and his founding of, who used it to refer to the process by which scientific hypotheses are generated.
• Criteria of Mind (from Mind and Nature A Necessary Unity):^[10]

1. Mind is an aggregate of interacting parts or components.
2. The interaction between parts of mind is triggered by difference.
3. Mental process requires collateral energy.
4. Mental process requires circular (or more complex) chains of determination.
5. In mental process the effects of difference are to be regarded as transforms (that is, coded versions) of the difference which preceded them.
6. The description and classification of these processes of transformation discloses a hierarchy of logical types In mathematics, logic and computer science, type theory is any of several formal systems that can serve as alternatives to naive set theory, or the study of such formalisms in general. In programming language theory, a branch of computer science, type theory can refer to the design, analysis and study of type systems, although some computer immanent in the phenomena.

• Creatura and Pleroma. Borrowed from Carl Jung who applied these gnostic terms in his "Seven Sermons To the Dead".^[11] Like the Hindu term maya, 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:^[12]

• Schismogenesis - the emergence of divisions within social groups.

• Bateson defines information as "a difference which makes a difference." For Bateson, information in fact mediated Alfred Korzybski's map–territory relation, and thereby resolved the mind-body problem. ^[13][14]

See also

Publications

Books

• Bateson, G. (1958 (1936)). Naven: A Survey of the Problems suggested by a Composite Picture of the Culture of a New Guinea Tribe drawn from Three Points of View. Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-804-70520-8.
• Bateson, G., Mead, M. (1942). Balinese Character: A Photographic Analysis. New York Academy of Sciences. ISBN 0890727805.
• Ruesch, J., Bateson, G. (1951). Communication: The Social Matrix of Psychiatry. W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN 039302377X.
• Bateson, G. (1972). Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology. University Of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-03905-6.
• Bateson, G. (1979). Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity (Advances in Systems Theory, Complexity, and the Human Sciences). Hampton Press. ISBN 1-57273-434-5.
• (published posthumously), Bateson, G., Bateson, MC. (1988). Angels Fear: Towards an Epistemology of the Sacred. University Of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0553345810.
• (published posthumously), Bateson, G., Donaldson, Rodney E. (1991). A Sacred Unity: Further Steps to an Ecology of Mind. Harper Collins. ISBN 0-06-250110-3.

Articles, a selection

• 1956, Bateson, G., Jackson, D. D., Jay Haley & Weakland, J., "Toward a Theory of Schizophrenia", Behavioral Science, vol.1, 1956, 251-264.
• Bateson, G. & Jackson, D. (1964). "Some varieties of pathogenic organization. In Disorders of Communication". Research Publications (Association for Research in Nervous and Mental Disease) 42: 270–283.
• 1978, Malcolm, J., "The One-Way Mirror" (reprinted in the collection "The Purloined Clinic"). Ostensibly about family therapist Salvador Minuchin, essay digresses for several pages into a meditation on Bateson's role in the origin of family therapy, his intellectual pedigree, and the impasse he reached with Jay Haley.

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.

Trivia

• Bateson is often given as the origin of the story concerning the replacement of the huge oak beams of the main hall of New College, Oxford with trees planted on college land several hundred years previously for that express purpose^[15]. Although the precise facts do not entirely match the story, it is commonly cited as an admirable example of planning ahead.^[16]

References

1. ^ Thomas Hylland Eriksen, "Bateson and the North Sea Ethnicity paradigm" [1]
2. ^ NNBD, Gregory Bateson, Soylent Communications, 2007.
3. ^ ^{a b} Bateson, G.; Jackson, D. D.; Haley, J.; Weakland, J. (1956), "Toward a theory of schizophrenia", Behavioral Science 1: 251–264
4. ^ Schuetzenberger, Anne. The Ancestor Syndrome. New York, Routledge. 1998.
5. ^ Encyclopædia Britannica (2007). "Gregory Bateson". Britannica Concise Encyclopedia, 5 August 2007. Retrieved from http://concise.britannica.com/ebc/article-9356738/Gregory-Bateson.
6. ^ To Cherish the Life of the World: Selected Letters of Margaret Mead. Margaret M. Caffey and Patricia A. Francis, eds. With foreword by Mary Catherine Bateson. New York. Basic Books. 2006.
7. ^ Idem.
8. ^ Idem.
9. ^ Interview with Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead, in: CoEvolutionary Quarterly, June 1973.
10. ^ Bateson, Gregory (1972). Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology. University Of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-03905-6.
11. ^ Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, Vintage Books, 1961, ISBN 0-394-70268-9, p. 378
12. ^ Visser, Max (2002). Managing knowledge and action in organizations; towards a behavioral theory of organizational learning. EURAM Conference, Organizational Learning and Knowledge Management, Stockholm, Sweden.
13. ^ Form, Substance, and Difference, in Steps to an Ecology of Mind, p. 448-466
14. ^ [2] [3]
15. ^ Brand, Stewart, How Buildings Learn; what happens after they're built, Penguin, 1994, pp130-1
16. ^ http://msgboard.snopes.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=99;t=000102;p=1

Further reading

• 1982, Gregory Bateson: Old Men Ought to be Explorers by Stephen Nachmanovitch, CoEvolution Quarterly, Fall 1982.
• 1992 Gregory Bateson's Theory of Mind : Practical Applications to Pedagogy by Lawrence Bale. Nov. 1992, (Published online by Lawren Bale, D&O Press, Nov. 2000).
• Article The Double Bind: The Intimate Tie Between Behaviour and Communication by Patrice Guillaume
• 1995, 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.
• 1996, Paradox and Absurdity in Human Communication Reconsidered by Matthijs Koopmans.
• 1997, Schizophrenia and the Family: Double Bind Theory Revisited by Matthijs Koopmans.
• 2005, Perception in pose method rumng by Dr. Romanov
• 2005, "Gregory Bateson and Ecological Aesthetics" Peter Harries-Jones, in: Australian Humanities Review (Issue 35, June 2005)
• 2005, "Chasing Whales with Bateson and Daniel" by Katja Neves-Graça,
• 2005, "Pattern, Connection, Desire: In honour of Gregory Bateson" by Deborah Bird Rose.
• 2005, "Comments on Deborah Rose and Katja Neves-Graca" by Mary Catherine Bateson
• 2008. "A Legacy for Living Systems: Gregory Bateson as Precursor to Biosemiotics A Legacy for Living Systems: Gregory Bateson as Precursor to Biosemiotics", by Jesper Hoffmeyer (ed.)

External links

• Book "A Recursive Vision: Ecological Understanding and Gregory Bateson" by Peter Harries-Jones
• Book "Understanding Gregory Bateson" by Noel Charlton
• "Institute for Intercultural Studies"
• "Six days of dying"; essay by Catherine Bateson describing Gregory Bateson's death
• "Bateson's Influence on Family Therapy" ; inside details by MindForTherapy

Categories: 1904 births | 1980 deaths | British anthropologists | British immigrants to the United States | Cyberneticists | General semantics | Guggenheim Fellows | Humor researchers | Naturalized citizens of the United States | Neuro-Linguistic Programming predecessors | Philosophers of mind | Psychological anthropologists | Semioticians | Systems psychologists | Systems scientists | University of California, Santa Cruz alumni | Communication theorists | Consciousness researchers and theorists

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