Review: Mind and Nature
Redactionele recensie - Kirkus ReviewsThis is a treatise on epistemology which is at once an argument against traditional ""muddleheaded"" thinking (mind/body dualism) and a thesis that biological evolution and creative thought are similar processes. Both have a double structure, Bateson says, and much of the text is an elaboration of the parallel characteristics of mind and nature. This is heady stuff and the early introduction of numerous references to ""see glossary"" for ""stochastic,"" ""typology,"" etc., will not sustain the faint of heart. Indeed, readers not familiar with Bertrand Russell's solution to logical paradoxes through the hierarchy of types may fail by the wayside. Courage. Further on, anthropologist Bateson describes his early work in New Guinea which provides a context for his style of thinking. In analyzing the Iakmul culture, he found the study of interactive processes to be fundamental. In particular, he discerned two general types of interaction: symmetric, e.g., aggression/aggression, boasting/boasting; or complementary, e.g., dominance/submission, nurture/dependency. The two contrasting types of interaction had a self-corrective tendency so that a runaway situation of dominance leading to more dominance could be defused by the addition of competitiveness. This kind of reasoning allows Bateson to arrive at basic criteria of mind: 1. A mind is an aggregate of interacting parts. . . 2. The interactions of parts of mind are triggered by difference. . . and so on. Many of Bateson's ideas are stimulating, if at times obscure or somewhat limiting. What has been left out? Bateson himself affirms he has not yet coped with consciousness or aesthetics. Presumably a grander synthesis will come in a future volume, where, it is to be hoped, the presentation will flow in a more orderly way, reflecting selectivity even within randomness.
Review: Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity
Gebruikersrecensie - Karl Georg - GoodreadsA thought-provoking thinker, but alas a terrible writer. He tends to start out with some ambitious claim (eg having solved the mind/body problem), and when he would have to prove it, digresses into ... Volledige recensie lezen
Review: Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity
Gebruikersrecensie - Van - GoodreadsI 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 ... Volledige recensie lezen
Review: Mind And Nature: A Necessary Unity
Gebruikersrecensie - Jake - GoodreadsLittle over my head. Volledige recensie lezen
Review: Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity
Gebruikersrecensie - Kipriadi prawira - GoodreadsBateson 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 ... Volledige recensie lezen
Review: Mind and Nature
Gebruikersrecensie - Scott Holmes - GoodreadsPatterns 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 ... Volledige recensie lezen
Review: Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity
Gebruikersrecensie - Sarah Multiverse - GoodreadsA 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 ... Volledige recensie lezen
Review: Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity
Gebruikersrecensie - Ashen - GoodreadsBateson 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 ... Volledige recensie lezen
Review: Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity
Gebruikersrecensie - shawn - Goodreadsthis 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 ... Volledige recensie lezen
Review: Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity
Gebruikersrecensie - Andreas - GoodreadsI 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 ... Volledige recensie lezen
