Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology

“We all have lots of ready-made phrases and ideas, and the printer has ready-made sticks of letters, all sorted out into phrases. But if the printer wants to print something new—say, something in a new language, he will have to break up all that old sorting of the letters. In the same way, in order to think new thoughts or to say new things, we have to break up all our ready-made ideas and shuffle the pieces.”

Using analogy, this quote underscores Bateson’s view that truly creative thinking requires dismantling established patterns and preconceived ideas, much like a printer must disassemble prearranged letters to craft something novel. By disrupting habitual ways of organizing knowledge, humans open the door for fresh insights and innovative perspectives, central to Bateson’s exploration of mental and ecological systems.

“Well—it’s as if sometimes two facts get added together and all you have is just two facts. But sometimes instead of just adding they multiply—and you get four facts.”

This quote reflects Bateson’s idea the dynamic interplay of ideas, where connections between facts can create emergent understanding greater than the sum of their parts. It aligns with his exploration of systemic thinking, illustrating how relationships and context transform isolated facts into richer, more meaningful patterns.

“Do animals peg down their metaphors? No. They don’t have to. You see, when a grown-up bird makes like a baby bird in approaching a member of the opposite sex, he’s using a metaphor taken from the relationship between child and parent. But he doesn’t have to peg down whose relationship he is talking about. It’s obviously the relationship between himself and the other bird. They’re both of them present. But don’t they ever use metaphors—act out metaphors—about something other than their own relationships? I don’t think so. No—not mammals. And I don’t think birds do either. Bees—perhaps. And, of course, people.”

Underscoring his thematic interest in the Integration of Scientific and Artistic Modes of Inquiry, Bateson illustrates the idea that animals, unlike humans, use metaphors instinctively and within the immediate context of their own relationships, such as a bird mimicking juvenile behavior to communicate. In contrast, humans uniquely expand metaphorical thinking beyond direct relationships, enabling complex symbolic and abstract connections central to language, culture, and cognition.

“So far I have spoken of my own personal experiences with strict and loose thinking, but I think actually the story which I have narrated is typical of the whole fluctuating business of the advance of science. In my case, which is a small one and comparatively insignificant in the whole advance of science, you can see both elements of the alternating process—first the loose thinking and the building up of a structure on unsound foundations and then the correction to stricter thinking and the substitution of a new underpinning beneath the already constructed mass. And that, I believe, is a pretty fair picture of how science advances, with this exception, that usually the edifice is larger and the individuals who finally contribute the new underpinning are different people from those who did the initial loose thinking. Sometimes, as in physics, we find centuries between the first building of the edifice and the later correction of the foundations—but the process is basically the same.”

This quote combines a reflective and conversational style, blending personal anecdote with broader scientific commentary to illustrate how the progression of knowledge oscillates between creativity and rigor. By likening his own intellectual journey to the broader scientific process, Bateson emphasizes the iterative nature of discovery, where initial loose frameworks often require later refinement, mirroring the dynamic interplay of theory and correction fundamental to scientific advancement.

“In sum it seems that the Balinese extend to human relationships attitudes based upon bodily balance, and that they generalize the idea that motion is essential to balance. This last point gives us, I believe, a partial answer to the question of why the society not only continues to function but functions rapidly and busily, continually undertaking ceremonial and artistic tasks which are not economically or competitively determined. This steady state is maintained by continual nonprogressive change.”

This quote reflects Bateson’s thematic interest in the Tension Between Flexibility and Stability in Systems. His observation of Balinese culture, where the concept of balance—rooted in physical motion—extends metaphorically to sustain societal harmony through constant, non-disruptive change. His stylistic use of anthropological insight connects cultural practices, such as ceremonies and artistic endeavors, to a broader ecological principle of dynamic equilibrium, illustrating how stability emerges not from stasis but from continual adaptation.

“Classical Freudian theory assumed that dreams were a secondary product, created by ‘dream work.’ Material unacceptable to conscious thought was supposedly translated into the metaphoric idiom of primary process to avoid waking the dreamer. And this may be true of those items of information which are held in the unconscious by the process of repression. As we have seen, however, many other sorts of information are inaccessible to conscious inspection, including most of the premises of mammalian interaction. It would seem to me sensible to think of these items as existing primarily in the idiom of primary process, only with difficulty to be translated into ‘rational’ terms. In other words, I believe that much of early Freudian theory was upside down.”

Throughout the text, Bateson remains critical of Freudian dream theory, suggesting that instead of dreams translating repressed material into metaphor, much of our unconscious information already exists in metaphorical or primary process form. His approach blends psychoanalytic critique with insights into communication and interaction. Ultimately, he reframes unconscious knowledge as inherently symbolic.

“Anglo-Saxons who are uncomfortable with the idea that feelings and emotions are the outward signs of precise and complex algorithms usually have to be told that these matters, the relationship between self and others, and the relationship between self and environment, are, in fact, the subject matter of what are called ‘feelings’—love, hate, fear, confidence, anxiety, hostility, etc. It is unfortunate that these abstractions referring to patterns of relationship have received names, which are usually handled in ways that assume that the ‘feelings’ are mainly characterized by quantity rather than by precise pattern. This is one of the nonsensical contributions of psychology to a distorted epistemology.”

This quote illustrates Bateson’s argument that emotions, far from being vague or merely quantitative, are precise expressions of relational patterns between individuals and their environments. His critique of psychology’s tendency to reduce emotions to simplistic, measurable entities reflects his broader concern with distorted epistemologies that overlook the complex interplay of relationships underlying human experience.

“Finally, the conflict is now a life-or-death struggle over the role which the social sciences shall play in the ordering of human relationships. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that this war is ideologically about just this— the role of the social sciences. Are we to reserve the techniques and the right to manipulate people as the privilege of a few planning, goal-oriented, and power-hungry individuals, to whom the instrumentality of science makes a natural appeal? Now that we have the techniques, are we, in cold blood, going to treat people as things? Or what are we going to do with these techniques?”

This quote reflects Bateson’s concern about the ethical implications of using social science as a tool for manipulating human relationships, raising profound questions about agency and power. By highlighting the tension between treating people as objects for control versus fostering mutual understanding, Bateson emphasizes the need for a thoughtful application of social science that respects the complexity and dignity of human systems.

“The resemblance between the process of therapy and the phenomenon of play is, in fact, profound. Both occur within a delimited psychological frame, a spatial and temporal bounding of a set of interactive messages. In both play and therapy, the messages have a special and peculiar relationship to a more concrete or basic reality. Just as the pseudocombat of play is not real combat, so also the pseudolove and pseudohate of therapy are not real love and hate. The ‘transfer’ is discriminated from real love and hate by signals invoking the psychological frame; and indeed it is this frame which permits the transfer to reach its full intensity and to be dis-cussed between patient and therapist.”

This quote highlights Bateson’s insight into the structural similarities between therapy and play, both of which operate within defined boundaries that allow symbolic interactions to explore deeper realities. By framing emotions like love and hate as “pseudo” within therapy, Bateson emphasizes the importance of the psychological frame in creating a safe space for symbolic engagement and reflection.

“What the patient is up against today—and was up against in childhood—is the false interpretation of his messages. If he says, ‘The cat is on the table,’ she replies with some reply which makes out that his message is not the sort of message that he thought it was when he gave it. His own message identifier is obscured or distorted by her when the message comes back. And her own message identifier she continually contradicts. She laughs when she is saying that which is least funny to her, and so on.”

This quote illustrates Bateson’s exploration of communication patterns, particularly in dysfunctional relationships, where messages are misinterpreted or distorted, leading to confusion and frustration. By examining such mismatches, Bateson sheds light on how early experiences of contradictory communication can create long-lasting challenges in understanding and expressing one’s own intentions, a theme central to his analysis of psychological and relational dynamics.

“It is not only safer for the victim of a double bind to shift to a metaphorical order of message, but in an impossible situation it is better to shift and become somebody else, or shift and insist that he is somewhere else. Then the double bind cannot work on the victim, because it isn’t he and besides he is in a different place. In other words, the statements which show that a patient is disoriented can be interpreted as ways of defending himself against the situation he is in.”

Bateson uses the concept of the double bind to argue that individuals trapped in contradictory communication often escape through metaphorical thinking or altered perceptions of self and reality. By interpreting disorientation as a defensive adaptation, Bateson points to the creative, albeit maladaptive, strategies people use to navigate untenable relational dynamics—a key theme in his analysis of communication and mental health.

“What is a person? What do I mean when I say ‘I?’ Per-haps what each of us means by the ‘self’ is in fact an aggregate of habits of perception and adaptive action plus, from moment to moment, our ‘immanent states of action.’ If somebody attacks the habits and immanent states which characterize me at the given moment of dealing with that somebody—that is, if they attack the very habits and immanent states which have been called into being as part of my relationship to them at that moment—they are negating me. If I care deeply about that other person, the negation of me will be still more painful.”

This quote reflects Bateson’s exploration of identity, suggesting that the self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic interplay of habits, perceptions, and actions shaped by relationships and context. Bateson underscores the deeply relational nature of identity and the emotional impact of being invalidated, especially by someone significant.

“As I see it, the world is made up of a very complex network (rather than a chain) of entities which have this sort of relationship to each other, but with this difference, that many of the entities have their own supplies of energy and perhaps even their own ideas of where they would like to go.”

This quote encapsulates Bateson’s systemic perspective, where the world is understood as an interconnected network of entities, each influencing and being influenced within the web of relationships. Opposing the theory of the Great Chain of Being, Bateson advances the idea of complexity of systems, where individual agency and goals coexist with broader interdependencies——a perspective that highlights The Use of Cybernetic Reasoning to Explore Interconnectedness.

“Consider the instrumental view of life. An organism with this view of life in a new situation will engage in trial-and-error behavior in order to make the situation provide a positive reinforcement. If he fails to get this reinforcement, his purposive philosophy is not thereby negated. His trial-and-error behavior will simply continue. The premises of “purpose” are simply not of the same logical type as the material facts of life, and therefore cannot easily be contradicted by them.”

This quote addresses Bateson’s critique of the instrumental view of life, where organisms persist in trial-and-error behavior guided by the pursuit of purpose, regardless of external outcomes. Bateson highlights the resilience of purpose in shaping behavior, illustrating the interplay between logical types and adaptive systems.

“In sum, I shall argue that the ‘sobriety’ of the alcoholic is characterized by an unusually disastrous variant of the Cartesian dualism, the division between Mind and Matter, or, in this case, between conscious will, or ‘self,’ and the remainder of the personality. Bill W.’s stroke of genius was to break up with the first ‘step’ the structuring of this dualism.”

Here, Bateson advances his analysis of alcoholism as a manifestation of an extreme form of Cartesian dualism, where the conscious self is disconnected from the rest of the personality. By recognizing that the first step in Alcoholics Anonymous challenges this fragmented self-concept, Bateson highlights the transformative power of admitting powerlessness, which re-integrates the individual into a more holistic understanding of self and agency.

“And then the student may be forced by the new system to look at the ‘Great Chain of Being,’ with Supreme Mind at the top and the protozoa at the bottom. He will see how Mind was invoked as an explanatory principle all through the Middle Ages and how Mind later became the problem. Mind became that which needed explanation when Lamarck showed that the Great Chain of Being should be inverted to give an evolutionary sequence from the protozoa upward. The problem then was to explain Mind in terms of what could be known of this sequence.”

This quote captures Bateson’s exploration of the shifting role of the mind as a concept in scientific and philosophical thought, transitioning from an explanatory principle in the Middle Ages to a phenomenon requiring explanation in evolutionary theory. Bateson traces philosophical conceptions of the mind through history, illustrating how the focus moved toward understanding the emergence of mind as part of the evolutionary process.

“In the broad picture of evolution, however, it seems that the trend is in the opposite direction: that natural selection, in the long run, favors regulators more than adjusters, and extraregulators more than regulators. This seems to indicate that there is a long-time evolutionary advantage to be gained by centrifugal shifts in the locus of control.”

This quote reflects Bateson’s systemic perspective on evolution, where natural selection increasingly favors external regulators (extraregulators) over internal adjusters, suggesting a shift in the locus of control toward broader environmental and relational contexts. By focusing on this centrifugal trend, Bateson emphasizes the adaptive advantage of interconnected systems that distribute control, resonating with his focus on the interdependence of organisms within ecological and social networks.

“In all mammals, the organs of sense become also organs for the transmission of messages about relationship. A blind man makes us uncomfortable, not because he cannot see— that is his problem and we are only dimly aware of it—but because he does not transmit to us through the movement of his eyes the messages we expect and need so that we may know and be sure of the state of our relationship to him. We shall not know much about dolphin communication until we know what one dolphin can read in another’s use, di-rection, volume, and pitch of echolocation.”

This quote emphasizes Bateson’s view that sensory organs in mammals serve dual roles: perceiving the environment and transmitting relational messages. By exploring the absence or alteration of these signals, Bateson emphasizes the connection between communication, perception, and social interaction in mammals.

“The technical term ‘information’ may be succinctly de-fined as any difference which makes a difference in some later event. This definition is fundamental for all analysis of cybernetic systems and organization. The definition links such analysis to the rest of science, where the causes of events are commonly not differences but forces, impacts, and the like. The link is classically exemplified by the heat engine, where available energy (i.e., negative entropy) is a function of a difference between two temperatures, In this classical instance, ‘information’ and ‘negative entropy’ overlap.”

Bateson invokes specific examples to define information in his cybernetic framework using the concept of difference. By linking information to concepts like negative entropy in thermodynamics, Bateson illustrates how the flow and recognition of differences are fundamental to understanding organization and communication across both biological and mechanical systems.

“Because the subject matter of cybernetics is the propositional or informational aspect of the events and objects in the natural world, this science is forced to procedures rather different from those of the other sciences. The differentiation, for example, between map and territory, which the semanticists insist that scientists shall respect in their writings must, in cybernetics, be watched for in the very phenomena about which the scientist writes. Expectably, communicating organisms and badly programmed computers will mistake map for territory; and the language of the scientist must be able to cope with such anomalies. In human behavioral systems, especially in religion and ritual and wherever primary process dominates the scene, the name often is the thing named. The bread is the Body, and the wine is the Blood.”

This quote advances Bateson’s focus on cybernetics as a science that deals with the informational and symbolic dimensions of natural phenomena. By noting how human systems, such as religion and ritual, often collapse this distinction—where symbols like bread and wine become what they represent—Bateson illustrates the challenges and richness of studying communication and meaning within behavioral and cultural contexts.

“Consider the state of medicine today. It’s called medical science. What happens is that doctors think it would be nice to get rid of polio, or typhoid, or cancer. So they devote research money and effort to focusing on these ‘problems,’ or purposes. At a certain point Dr. Salk and others ‘solve’ the problem of polio, they discover a solution of bugs which you can give to children so that they don’t get polio. This is the solution to the problem of polio. At this point, they stop putting large quantities of effort and money into the problem of polio and go on to the problem of cancer, or whatever it may be. Medicine ends up, therefore, as a total science, whose structure is essentially that of a bag of tricks. Within this science there is extraordinarily little knowledge of the sort of things I’m talking about; that is, of the body as a systemically cybernetically organized self-corrective system.”

This quote critiques modern medicine’s problem-solving approach, which Bateson characterizes as a “bag of tricks” focused on isolated issues like polio or cancer without addressing the systemic, cybernetic organization of the body. By contrasting this with his holistic perspective, Bateson emphasizes the need for a deeper understanding of the body as an interconnected, self-regulating system.

“In fact, what we mean by information—the elementary unit of information—is a difference which makes a difference, and it is able to make a difference because the neural pathways along which it travels and is continually transformed are themselves provided with energy. The pathways are ready to be triggered. We may even say that the question is already implicit in them.”

Bateson’s concept of information as a “difference which makes a difference” emphasizes information’s dynamic role in triggering pre-existing neural pathways that are primed for transformation. Bateson connects his cybernetic framework to the idea that systems, including the human mind, are structured to respond adaptively to informational stimuli.

“I don’t know how many people today really believe that there is an overall mind separate from the body, separate from the society, and separate from nature. But for those of you who would say that that is all ‘superstition,’ I am prepared to wager that I can demonstrate with them in a few minutes that the habits and ways of thinking that went with those superstitions are still in their heads and still determine a large part of their thoughts. The idea that you can see me still governs your thought and action in spite of the fact that you may know intellectually that it is not so. In the same way we are most of us governed by epistemologies that we know to be wrong. Let us consider some of the implications of what I have been saying.”

This quote highlights Bateson’s critique of outdated epistemologies, emphasizing that even when intellectually dismissed, habits of thought rooted in dualistic or erroneous frameworks continue to shape perception and behavior. Bateson calls for deeper reflection on the persistent influence of flawed worldviews and their implications for understanding interconnected systems.