Originally published as Kybernetes, Volume 36, Issue 7+8

ISBN: 978-1- 84663- 578- 6

Guest Edited by: George Ivanovas

Gregory Bateson’s contributions to epistemology are so numerous that it is impossible to even show their main implications in this memorial.

His discovery of a context, of a meta-information qualifying the content (the formal ‘information’) led to the formulation of a complex communication theory. The idea of ‘double bind’ was only one – although a prominent – concept emerging from these investigations. More important, however, was that it became possible to think about topics such as psychiatric diseases, communication, information, mind and others from a totally different point of view. This e-book looks at how Bateson’s epistemology is understood and applied today, with some surprising results.

Contents:

Still not paradigmatic

A personal introduction to the Gregory Bateson memorial issue.

Adaptation, acclimation, addiction, remedy, etc.

Purpose – This piece seeks to reflect upon the nature of adaptation and our usage of it with relation to design, addiction, and final cause.

Bateson's cybernetics: the basis of MRI brief therapy: prologue

Purpose – To provide direct access to original documents relevant to the emergence of applied constructivist and cybernetic epistemology in the behavioral sciences.

The influence of Gregory Bateson: legacy or vestige?

Purpose – To assess the recent influence of Gregory Bateson on publication within the field of psychotherapy.

Batesonian epistemology, Bushman n/om-kxaosi, and rock art

Aims to define the conceptual tools of Gregory Bateson's epistemology – the nature of difference, logical typing, and recursion – and to apply this to understanding how we can approach the analysis of ethnographic reports of the Bushman n/om-kxaosi (shamans) and the Bushman rock art of Southern Africa.

Toward Batesonian sociocybernetics: from Naven to the mind beyond the skin

To construct, from Bateson's social ideas ranging from Naven to the 1979 Mind and Nature, a Batesonian sociocybernetics.

Gregory Bateson in contemporary cross-cultural systemic psychotherapy

This paper seeks to examine the relevance of Bateson's ethnographic work to systemic psychotherapy.

Caught in the middle of a double-bind: the application of non-ordinary logic to therapy

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the importance of Bateson and colleagues' double bind theory, which has been a breakthrough in the history of psychiatry and human behavior because it freed us from the prison of ordinary
logic.

Practicising psychotherapy employing Gregory Bateson's epistemological models

The task is to report what with more details was exposed in one of the author's recently published works, and consist in trying to develop a new approach to psychotherapy.

Towards aesthetic seduction using emotional engagement and stories

This paper aims to provide principles and to give a case study of the application of Bateson's ideas to promote epistemological change in organisations to deal with problems which many governments in English speaking countries currently attempt to address by control through detailed performance indicators and top-down monitoring. It suggests that epistemological change requires an approach that goes beyond rational argument and provides an example of the way that emotional engagement and story telling can be built into action research based on cybernetic ideas.

Still disturbing

The aim of this paper is to show how students of today react to Bateson's texts when they are not integrated in a semantic explanation.

Struggling for a Russian Bateson

This paper aims to describe the author's efforts to translate and publish books by Gregory Bateson in the difficult conditions of post-communist Russia.

Batesonian analysis of value hierarchies and the transformation of Russia

The aim is to analyse changes of mass distributed value hierarchies in the course of social transformations in Russia during the last 25 years.

Human robustness and conscious purpose in contemporary medicine

The purpose of this paper is to ask what role robustness plays in current medicine and in how far medical practices influence human robustness and thus the ability to be adapted and survive under changing conditions.

Reflections on learning and addiction: porpoises and palm trees

To provide a glimpse into Gregory Bateson's thought processes about addiction and learning.

“The logical categories of learning and communication”: reconsidered from a polycontextural point of view: Learning in machines and living systems

Bateson's model of classifying different types of learning will be analyzed from a logical and technical point of view. While learning 0 has been realized for chess playing computers, learning I turns out today as the basic concept of artificial neural nets (ANN). All models of ANN are basically (non linear) data filters, which is the idea behind simple and behavioristic input-output models.

Looking for “scientific” social science: The Macy Conferences on Cybernetics in Bateson's itinerary

The paper studies the participation of Gregory Bateson at the Macy Conferences on Cybernetics, that would prove to be a real turning point in his intellectual itinerary.

The two beginnings of communication theory

To clarify the parallels and differences between the communication theories of Gregory Bateson and Paul Watzlawick.

Legacy: lessons from the Bateson team meetings

To provide direct access to historically significant, original raw data from research conducted by the Bateson Team.

Language games and (hi)stories: Wittgenstein, Bateson and Schapp on the role of language in therapy

In Bateson's theory of mind, the adaptation of Russell's theory of logical types is of key importance. Korzybski represented the type-logical difference between language and reality as the metaphorical distinction between map and territory. The confounding of logical types generates cognitive, and logical problems, which Bateson reflected in his theory of schizophrenia. In Wittgenstein's philosophy, this type-logical distinction is of equal significance.

Second thoughts on Gregory Bateson and Alfred Korzybski

The paper is intended to show, that Bateson and Korzybski have a strong common ground for their “ecological”, respectively, “anti-aristotelian” critique of modern mentality insofar, as both reject the metaphysical doctrine of identity, identified by both as “Aristotelianism”. Instead of this, they postulate a concept of the mind based on differences (like the map-territory-relation) and patterns or mathematical structures.

Primary natural relationship: Bateson, Rosen, and the Vedas

To propose a conceptual paradigm for unifying concepts of material, living and spiritual nature, based on the natural philosophy of Gregory Bateson and the more formal relational theories of Robert Rosen.

Toward a science of metapatterns: building upon Bateson's foundation

Gregory Bateson defined a metapattern as a “pattern of patterns.” But, what did he mean by metapattern (which he used only once)? Can there be a meta-science, in which metapatterns are its objects or principles? The authors explore these issues.

Choreography: a pattern language

This paper aims to outline recent developments in the field of choreography, especially focusing on the influence of Gregory Bateson's ideas. Choreography is progressing towards a form of art that not only deals with the creation and manipulation of systems of rules, but does so in a non-deterministic, open way. The author argues that if the world is approached as a reality constructed of interactions, relationships, constellations and proportionalities and choreography is seen as the aesthetic, creative practice of setting those relations – or setting the conditions for those relations – to emerge.

How G. Bateson informs dogs

To show how Bateson's difference which makes a difference can be interpreted from a cybernetic view, i.e. in terms of control theory.

Metalogue: “less than one and more than two: developing a partiality for whole(some)ness”

To elaborate a systemic view of conducting psychotherapy with twins.

How to understand giants?

The paper is aimed at understanding and investigating Gregory Bateson's and Heinz von Foerster's peculiar relation to knowledge, the unknowable, and research. From this, the question of how to carry on their heritage is raised.

Fictional communication: developing Gregory Bateson's “Theory of Play and Fantasy”

To supplement Gregory Bateson's theory with findings from literary studies and attempt a new take on literary communication.

Bateson and the Arts

To elucidate the relationship between science and the arts in Gregory Bateson's thinking, from the viewpoint of an artist-musician and student of Bateson.

What would Bateson's work look like today?: Inside one of the world's most violent nations, now a model for peacemaking and sustainability

To demonstrate that Bateson's path-breaking life and breakthrough thinking have directly (and indirectly) inspired a profound shift which has specific and practical effects in the physical world – as well as in the world of ideas.

Slippery rigor

When the editors of this publication asked me to do a little editing for them, they also asked me to write a short piece for you about how my father's work has affected my work as a filmmaker.

About Kybernetes

The journal aims to endow cybernetics and general systems with an authoritative voice of its own and to establish a competent international forum for the exchange and knowledge of information. One of the primary objectives of the journal is to weed out pseudocybernetic claims and to base cybernetics on sound scientific foundations. The journal is concerned with the interdisciplinary study of cybernetics and systems in the widest sense. Papers accepted for publication are double-blind refereed to ensure academic rigour and integrity.

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