Part 2 of 2
The Logical Categories of Changing Mind: Bateson’s Theory of LearningWhile highly formal and abstract, Bateson’s criteria of mind and the model of mind he presents offer valuable insights for pedagogy. His model of mind is intended to be understood as a relational process rather than a ‘thing’ that is somehow disassociated or separable from another ‘thing’ (the “body”). His insights introduce a rigorously formulated basis for what I call removing “ego” from the process of teaching, replacing authoritative modes of instruction with more dialogical modes of instruction, such as mentoring and apprenticeship. Taken seriously, his concept of mind insists that teaching must address the whole person—physical, emotional and intellectual—in dialogues that cut across a wide range of contextual boundaries and communication pathways.
One significant implication of Bateson’s holistic and dialogical notion of mind is that when the patterns of interaction we commonly refer to as “minds” actually do connect via communication, the relationship thus established triggers or releases a potential for change that may bring about a profound transformation of the “entities” involved, as well as the larger mental systems in which they are embedded. Hence, the insight that mental systems become thinking subsystems of larger holistic minds (more inclusive Gestalten) suggests that when genuine dialogue occurs, we enter into a process that holds the possibility of experiencing one another in a manner that is as integrative and consequential as that which is evident in the integration of a living organism.Equally significant implications of Bateson’s work emerge when we consider his theory of learning. Bateson examined the phenomenon of learning in several essays written between 1942 and 1971. He presented his theory of learning from more than one perspective, addressed a number of related agendas, and fine tuned the details of his work over time. Since my aim in concluding this essay with an examination of Bateson’s learning theory is to help us explore the relationship between the phenomena involved in learning and the contexts of learning we attempt to established in a classroom, it is not be necessary to detail all the nuances of this sizable body of work.
For Bateson, the key to understanding the learning process is the phenomena of change, context, and the recognition of context of contexts. “The whole matter turns on whether the distinction between a class and its members is an ordering principle in the behavioral phenomena” which we call learning.28
The word “learning” undoubtedly denotes change of some kind. To say what kind of change is a delicate matter. However, from the gross common denominator, “change,” we can deduce that our descriptions of “learning” will have to make the same sort of allowance for the varieties of logical type which has been routine in physical science since the days of Newton. The simplest and most familiar form of change is motion, and even if we work at that very simple physical level we must structure our descriptions in terms of “position or zero motion,” “constant velocity,” “acceleration,” “rate of change of acceleration,” and so on.29
Bateson employs the theory of logical types to delineate a set of five classes of learning labeled Learning 0 through IV, with each higher class encompassing the lower classes of learning. Learning IV is a special type of learning that is not readily accessible, and since this level of learning “probably does not occur in any adult living organism on this earth,”30 our focus is necessarily limited to examining Learning 0 through III.
Before continuing, we should note some of the difficulties posed by language. The terms “higher” and “lower” convey a considerable surplus meaning, with “higher” suggesting a “superior” value and “lower” suggesting an “inferior” value. In this discussion of learning theory we should not fail to recognize that the first four levels of learning are potentially available to everyone. Just as the class “furniture” is no better or worse than the subclasses included within it—”table” or “chair,” for example—Learning 0 and Learning I are also to be understood as no better or worse than Learning II or Learning III. All four are potentially a part of the human experience and thus equally important. It is precisely our awareness that this is the case which is commonly difficult to perceive and understand.
Learning 0: Zero learning is “the simplest receipt of information from an external event in such a way that a similar event at a later (and appropriate) time will convey the same information: I ‘learn’ from the factory whistle that it is twelve o’clock.”31 This type of learning represents a context where a person exhibits minimal change in response to an item of sensory input, be it simple or complex. Learning 0 lacks any stochastic process, i.e., it does not contain components of trial and error, and it is typified “by specificity of response, which—right or wrong—is not subject to correction.”32 This level of learning may be identified in phenomena that occur in various contexts, and here a brief list of such contexts may help illustrate the intended meaning:
(a) In experimental settings, when “learning” is complete and the animal gives approximately 100 per cent responses to the repeated stimulus.
(b) In cases of habituation, where the animal has ceased to give overt responses to what was formerly a disturbing stimulus.
(c) In cases where the pattern of the response is minimally determined by the experience and maximally determined by genetic factors.
(d) In cases where the response is now highly stereotyped.
(e) In simple electronic circuits, where the circuit structure is not itself subject to change resulting from the passage of impulses within the circuit—i.e., where the causal links between “stimulus” and “response” are as the engineers say “soldered in.”33
Although Learning 0 does not contain a component of trial and error, at this level of learning we are capable of at least two types of “error.” If the context offers a set of alternatives to choose from, one may correctly employ the information that signals these available alternatives, but choose the wrong alternative; or, one may misidentify the context and thus choose from a wrong set of alternatives.34
If now we accept the overall notion that all learning (other than zero learning) is in some degree stochastic . . . it follows that an ordering of the process of learning can be built upon an hierarchic classification of the types of error which are to be corrected in the various learning process. Zero learning will then be the label for the immediate base of all those acts (simple and complex) which are not subject of correction by trial and error. Learning I will be an appropriate label for the revision of choice within and unchanged set of alternatives; and Learning II will be the label for the revision of the set from which the choice is to be made; and so on.35
Learning I: In common, nontechnical parlance this level of learning is generally what we mean by the term “learning.” It is often referred to as trial-and-error learning, instrumental learning, or conditioning. “These are cases where an entity gives at time two a different response from what it gave at time one.”36 This level of learning covers a broad range of phenomena, including rote learning, a rat learning which turn to make in a maze, and a person learning to play a Bach fugue. In essence, Learning I may be recognized when, with repeated practice, new responses occur.
Here, it is important to note that without the assumption of repeatable contexts there can be no learning of this sort . . . “we may regard ‘context’ as a collective term for all those events which tell the organism among what set of alternatives he must make his next choice.”37
Without the assumption of repeatable context (and the hypothesis that for the organisms which we study the sequence of experience is really somehow punctuated in this manner), it would follow that all “learning” would be of one type: namely, all would be zero learning.38
If all learning were zero learning, all behavior would be genetically determined, and we would be little more than genetically programmed automatons, in which case our physical, emo-tional, and intellectual life would amount to Pavlovian responses. However, if the premise of repeatable context is correct, “the case for logical typing of the phenomena of learning necessarily stands, because the notion ‘context’ itself is subject to logical typing.” Either we reject the notion of repeatable context or we accept it, and by accepting it, we “accept the hierarchic series—stimulus, context of stimulus, context of context of stimulus, etc. This series can be spelled out in the form of a hierarchy of logical types as follows”:
a) Stimulus is an elementary signal, internal or external.
b) Context of stimulus is a metamessage which classifies the elementary signal.
c) Context of context of stimulus is a meta-metamessage which classifies the metamessage. And so on.39
Bateson insists that the concept of repeatable context—and by extension the above hierarchic series of contexts—is a necessary premise for any theory that defines learning as change. Moreover, “this notion is not a mere tool of our description but contains the implicit hypothesis that . . . the sequence of life experience, action, etc., is somehow segmented or punctuated into subsequences or ‘contexts’ which may be equated or differentiated by the organism.”40
This all raises the question as to what sort of creatures we are that we can identify a context, or further, that we can recognize a repeatable context, or a context of contexts? Since we may respond to the “same” stimulus differently in differing contexts, what is the source of information necessary for us to recognize the difference between Context A and Context B? To answer these questions, Bateson introduces the term “context markers,” and employs this term to designate the signals or labels with which humans and quite likely many other organisms classify or differentiate between two contexts.
When we enter a classroom on the day of an exam, everyone in attendance knows that on this day, for the duration of the examination, their activities will differ from those of other times in the “same” classroom. Similarly, it is reasonable to assume that when a harness or some other apparatus is placed on a dog, who has had extended experience in a psychological laboratory, the smell and feel of the equipment, as well as the setting of the laboratory, all act as signals with which the animal marks that he is about to undergo a series of not unfamiliar contexts. Such sources of information may be referred to as “context markers,” and at least for humans, there must also be “markers of contexts of contexts.”41
When we attend the performance of a play, the playbills, the stage, the curtain, and the seating arrangement, etc., act as “markers of context of context.” If a character in the play commits a crime, we do not go out and summon the police, because through these “markers of context of context” we have received information about the context of the character’s context. We know we are watching a play. In contrast, Shakespeare uses a twist of irony in Hamlet when, precisely because Claudius ignores several “markers of context of context,” the King has his conscience prodded by the play within the play.
In the complex social life of humans, a diverse set of events can be identified as “context markers.” If I pick up my keys, for whatever reason, my wife is apt to ask where I intend to go. In this instance, my keys are a “context marker” that for my wife signals my intention of leaving the house. By way of example, Bateson offers the following list:
(a) The Pope’s throne from which he makes announcements ex cathedra, which announcements are thereby endowed with a special order of validity.
(b) The placebo, by which the doctor sets the stage for a change in the patient’s subjective experience,
(c) The shining object used by some hypnotists in “inducing trance.”
(d) The air raid siren and the “all clear.”
(e) The boxers handshake before a fight.
(f) The observances of etiquette.42
The notions of repeatable context and defining “learning” as change are not foreign to the field of pedagogy. For centuries, instructors have tacitly recognized and fashioned context markers (employing visual aids, and other less obvious means), as I indicated earlier in this essay. What I find most valuable (most practical) in this theory of learning is the elegant clarity with which Bateson focuses our attention on the phenomena of context, repeatable context, and context markers as somehow central to understanding and encouraging those changes we designate as “learning.”
Learning II: The next higher level or logical type of learning entails changes in the process of Learning I, or learning about learning.43 Learning II is recognizable as “corrective change in the set of alternatives from which choice is made,” and this includes “changes in the manner in which the stream of action and experience is segmented or punctuated into contexts together with changes in the use of context markers.”44
Simply put, Learning II represents the generally unconscious phenomena wherein we learn about and classify the contexts in which learning takes place. For example, when we first learn to play a musical instrument, it usually takes a considerable amount of time to play with few errors. Yet, as we continue to play and learn new pieces, the speed with which we learn to play at the same level of performance increases. We have learned a pattern or class of behaviors, for instance “guitar playing,” and we are able to progressively transfer skills acquired in learning one member of that class, “folk guitar,” to another, “classical guitar.” For anyone who has contemplated the processes involved in this type of learning (riding a bicycle, mathematical and language skills may also be included as examples) it is evident that much of this kind of learning takes place outside of our awareness.
Bateson argues that, “an essential and necessary function of all habit formation and Learning II is an economy of the thought processes (or neural pathways) which are used for problem-solving or Learning I.”45 The phenomena of learning occur within a hierarchy of perceived and classified contexts and meta-contexts in which our percepts are continually being verified or contradicted. However, as with typing or riding a bicycle, Learning II affords us the advantage of not questioning the details of our actions. We may carry on “without thinking.”46
Some types of knowledge can conveniently be sunk to unconscious levels, but other types must be kept on the surface. Broadly, we can afford to sink those sorts of knowledge which continue to be true regardless of changes in the environment, but we must maintain in an accessible place all those controls of behavior which must be modified for every instance. The economics of the system, in fact, pushes organisms toward sinking into the unconscious those generalities of relationship which remain permanently true and toward keeping within the conscious the pragmatic of particular instances.47
Learning II amounts to habit formation, e.g., it allows generalities of relationship that remain true to settle progressively further into the unconscious, and we should note that this pattern of learning is not restricted to classifying the contexts of acquired skills, such as operational tasks. Consider the premises for what is generally referred to as “character,” or definitions of “self.” In this instance, Learning II saves us from having to continually re-examine the abstract, philosophical, aesthetic, and ethical aspects of many sequences of life. For precisely this reason, Learning II can create problems for anyone attempting to reconstruct the context of the classroom system.
. . . Learning II is a way of punctuating events. But a way of punctuating is not true or false. . . It is like a picture seen in an inkblot; it has neither correctness nor incorrectness. It is only a way of seeing the inkblot. . .
The practitioner of magic does not unlearn his magical view of events when the magic does not work. In fact, the propositions which govern punctuation have the general characteristic of being self-validating. What we term “context” includes the subject’s behavior as well as the external events. But this behavior is controlled by former Learning II and therefore it will be of such a kind as to mold the total context to fit the expected punctuation.48
In other words, patterns of learned behavior regarding our interrelationship with the milieu in which we are embedded tend to become more and more generalized and come to determine the bias of a person’s global expectations. Consequently, one may then anticipate that one’s existence is orderly and structured, or simply chaotic; mostly punishing, or mostly rewarding. These more general relational patterns develop early in life and quickly drop out of awareness, and since what is learned is a way of punctuating events, what then happens is that we tend to mold our environment to fit the expected punctuation.49
The self-validating nature of this process renders it notoriously difficult to reverse because the personality involved is unaware, and he or she will unconsciously manipulate their perception of the environment to fit their expectations, and subsequently bypasses other learning opportunities. For instance, overcoming the expectations of a “fit and proper” learning environment, whether from students, parents or administrators—expectations controlled by former Learning II, and therefore, largely unconscious—poses a difficult task for anyone attempting to reconstruct the learning contexts of the classroom system.
Still, we are called upon to “educate” our students, and a close analysis of the words we use to describe the patterns of relationship and definitions of “self “ commonly called “character” reveals that no one is dependent, liberated, or competitive, etc. in isolation—all perception and all learning are essentially interactional. It follows that if (as scholars such as Bateson and Klaus Krippendorff suggest) in the operation of our perception we are all cartographers, then our role as educators is to communicate contexts and meta-contexts wherein our students may construct, explore and reexamine some of their most fundamental reality constructs. The “context markers” we broadcast will signal meta-metamessages with which the students may choose to punctuate or classify the context of their lives. If we are successful in our task, the dialogical learning environments we fashion can offer our students an experience “like entering the cartographer on the map he or she is making.”50 Like the border on a map, our “context markers” frame the information within the dialogue, setting the stage for the emergence of self-discovery.
In such systems, involving two or more persons, where most of the important events are postures, actions, or utterances of the living creatures, we note immediately that the stream of events is commonly punctuated into contexts of learning by a tacit agreement between the persons regarding the nature of their relationship—or by context markers and tacit agreements that these context markers shall “mean” the same for both parties.51
In the above quotation, note that Bateson brings the contemplation of “contexts of learning” back to a discussion of systems, involving two or more persons, and the nature of their relationship. Although he does not plainly state his intention, we can fairly assume this reference to systems is a context marker that refers to his theories concerning mental process. Also, note the importance of “tacit agreement” and “context markers” in the operation of the stream of events that may lead to the change in punctuating events that he designates Learning II, e.g., the largely unconscious process of “learning about learning.” This suggests that in structuring the contexts of our classroom(s), we must be able to present and successfully communicate context markers in our postures, actions, and utterances—as well as in the physical layout of the learning environment—such that the students can enter into the tacit agreements that enable Learning 0, Learning I, and Learning II.
The above leads to our consideration of Learning III. This type of learning involves a radical modification or expansion of one’s set of alternatives, e.g., “Learning III is change in the process of Learning II, e.g., a corrective change in the system of sets of alternatives from which choice is made.”52 This level of learning can be identified as a radical shift in perspective, or as developing the ability to cross the “boundaries” of different learning types.
The very definition of this type of learning suggests that paradoxes and logical difficulties arise when we attempt to apprehend such phenomena in logical discourse. Yet, without claiming personal knowledge, we may suppose that at this level of learning previously constricted awareness is released and new frames of reference are accessible. Here, Bateson cautiously observes that:
Learning III is likely to be difficult and rare even in human beings. Expectably, it will also be difficult for scientists, who are only human, to imagine or describe this process. But it is claimed that something of this sort does from time to time occur in psychotherapy, religious conversion, and in other sequences in which there is profound reorganization of character.53
The profound reorganization of character that characterizes Learning III limits the usefulness of this level of learning for our discussion, but may disclose something of the nature of learning that has been left out of our previous discussion. First we should note that there can be a replacement of premises at the level of Learning II without the achievement of any Learning III. Hence, the profound reorganization of character indicative of Learning III is not a transposition of subclasses at the level of Learning II. However, such a transposition (exchanging one set of habituation for another) in and of itself must certainly be an accomplishment worth noting. Yet, the question remains, how are such transpositions achieved.
Bateson suggests that one is “driven” to level III by “contraries” generated at level II, and it is the resolving of contraries that constitutes “positive reinforcement” at level III. I would suggest that since all learning cannot be the product of rote memorization, the experience of contraries, and their subsequent resolution, is the key to understanding much of what “moves” one through each of the previously discussed levels of learning: Learning 0, Learning I, and Learning II. Therefore, we may employ Bateson’s concept of Learning III as an extreme example of all transitional experience “between” the levels of learning.
Precisely because it constitutes learning about Learning II, Learning III proposes paradox. Learning III may lead to either an increase or a limitation, and possibly a reduction of the habits acquired in Learning II. “Certainly it must lead to a greater flexibility in the premises acquired by the process of Learning II—a freedom from their bondage.”54 My point is that we may make similar observations concerning the relationship between the punctuation of experience that occurs between Learning 0 and I, or between Learning I and II.
Beyond the necessary components of rote learning and habituation, one is most likely driven, or nudged, into “higher” levels of learning through paradox and contraries. Similarly, any skill or ability that is integrated into one’s mental system through the process of resolving paradox and contraries will lead to greater flexibility in the premises that govern the “lower” levels of learning. This “resolution of contraries” will, in itself, positively reinforce one’s having learned a given “lesson.” In structuring the contexts of a classroom system, we certainly should not attempt to drive our students into a Learning III experience. However, we should be able to learn how to fashion challenging contexts, which allow for safely experiencing contraries and paradoxes. Apparently, this is the experience that is needed in order to nudge one’s “self” into “higher” levels of learning.
One final word concerning the processes involved in Learning III. In a sense this entire essay has been an invitation to the sort of “reorganization of character” that characterizes Learning III. Our brief examination of the
holistic, self-regulating, self-organizing, mutually causal (hence, dialogic), and hierarchic characteristics of cybernetic systems was intended to set the context for considering a major portion of Bateson’s work. Given the fact that it is mind that learns, the explication of the
holistic and dialogical model of mind which emerges out of Bateson’s criteria of mind—including his understanding of information, and his concept of the “world of communication”—was intended to prepare the contextual frame for considering Bateson’s learning theory. Clearly, the views thus presented invite the reader to reexamine commonly held dualistic notions concerning the “self,” as well as similar notions concerning the relationship between “self” and “other.”
Bateson’s views thus propose a radical reexamination of the principles that govern the instructor/student/classroom system. To be sure, the principles examined in this essay are not the only means of reaching the conclusions I have incrementally drawn along the way, nor do I claim that the principles here presented, and the conclusions here drawn are the only viable rationale around which we should reconstruct the classroom system. My intent has been merely to offer an alternative optic (one of many such valuable resources) through which we may view learning and pedagogy. These concluding observations are not simply standard disclaimers, offered as a means of conveniently bringing the essay to closure. It is my conviction that if the ideas presented in this essay are taken seriously, they call for a profound reorganization of the way we approach instruction and learning in the classroom. In this sense the above is an invitation to the sort of “reorganization of character” that is the hallmark of Learning III.
WORKS CITEDBateson, Gregory. Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1979.
------. Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology. San Francisco: Chandler Publishing Company, 1972.
------. “Afterword.” In About Bateson, pp. 235-247. Edited by John Brockman. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1977.
------. “The Message is Reinforcement,” in Language Behavior: A Book of Readings in Communication. Janua Linguarum: Studia Memoriae Nocolai Van Wijk Dedicata, Series Maior, no. 41, pp. 62-72. Edited by Johnnye Akin, Alvin Goldberg, Gail Myers, and Joseph Stewart. The Hague and Paris: Mouton & Co., 1971.
------. “The Cybernetics of ‘Self’: A Theory of Alcoholism.” Psychiatry, 34 (February 1971): 1-18; reprinted in Steps to an Ecology of Mind, Part III: Form and Pathology in Relationship, pp. 309-337.
------. “Form, Substance, and Difference.” General Semantics Bulletin 37: 5-13. The Nineteenth Annual Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture, delivered at New York, January 9, 1970; reprinted in Steps to an Ecology of Mind, Part V: Epistemology and Ecology, pp. 454-471.
------. “The Logical Categories of Learning and Communication.” in Steps to an Ecology of Mind, Part III: Form and Pathology in Relationship, pp. 279-308. [Expanded version of “The Logical Categories of Learning and Communication, and the Acquisition of World Views.” Paper presented at the Wenner-Gren Symposium on World Views: Their Nature and Their Role in Culture, Burg Wartenstein, Austria, August 2-11, 1968.]
------. “Style, Grace, and Information in Primitive Art,” in Steps to an Ecology of Mind, Part II: Form and Pattern in Anthropology, pp. 128-152.
------. “Minimal Requirements for a Theory of Schizophrenia.” A.M.A. Archives of General Psychiatry 2 (May 1960): 477-491; reprinted in Steps to an Ecology of Mind, Part III: Form and Pathology in Relationship, pp. 244-270.
------. Comment on “The Comparative Study of Culture and the Purposive Cultivation of Democratic Values,” by Margaret Mead, in Science Philosophy and Religion; Second Symposium, Chapter IV, pp. 81-97. Edited by Lyman Bryson and Louis Finkelstein. New York: Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion in Their Relation to the Democratic Way of Life, Inc., 1942; reprinted as, “Social Planning and the Concept of Deutero-Learning,” in Steps to an Ecology of Mind, Part III: Form and Pathology in Relationship, pp. 159-176.
Bateson, Gregory, and Bateson, Mary Catherine. Angels Fear: Towards an Epistemology of the Sacred. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1987.
Brockman, John, ed.; Bateson, M. C.; Birdwhistell, R. L.; Lipset, D.; May, R.; Mead, M.; and Schlossberg, E. About Bateson. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1977. “Afterword” by Gregory Bateson.
Krippendorff, Klaus. “The Power of Communication and the Communication of Power: Toward an Emancipatory Theory of Communication.” Communication 12 (July 1991): 175-196.
Laszlo, Ervin. Introduction to Systems Philosophy. New York: Harper Torchbook, 1973.
McCulloch, Warren S. Embodiments of Mind. Cambridge, Massachusetts: M.I.T. Press, 1965.
Vickers, Geoffrey, Sir. Value Systems and Social Process. New York: Basic Books, 1968.
Whyte, Lancelot L. “The Structural Hierarchy in Organisms.” In Unity in Diversity: A Festschrift for Ludwig Von Bertalanffy, pp. 271-285; Vol. 1 of 2 vols. Edited by William Gray and, Nicholas D. Rizzo. New York: Gordon and Breach, 1973.
Wiener, Norbert. Cybernetics—or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1948.
NOTES1 Warren S. McCulloch, Embodiments of Mind (Cambridge, Massachusetts: M.I.T. Press, 1965). McCulloch was a key member of the group that did the original work in cybernetics, and he is referred to by Bateson more often than any other modern scientist.
2 Norbert Wiener, Cybernetics—or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1948), p. 11.
3 However, following Bateson many theorists reject the use of energy and matter in this context—except in those instances where they act as information and thus have communicational value.
4 Ervin Laszlo, Introduction to Systems Philosophy, pp. 57-117; also, pp. 177-180.
5 Lancelot L. Whyte, “The Structural Hierarchy in Organisms,” in Unity in Diversity: A Festschrift for Ludwig von Bertalanffy, pp. 271-285, edited by William Gray and Nicholas D. Rizzo (New York: Gordon and Breach, 1973), p. 275.
6 Ervin Laszlo, Introduction to Systems Philosophy, p. 175.
7 Sir Geoffrey Vickers, Value Systems and Social Progress (New York: Basic Books Inc., 1968), pp. 176-209.
8 Ibid., pp. 183-184; see also, pp. xi-xxii.
9 Gregory Bateson, Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1979), p. 92.
(Hereafter — Mind & Nature)
10 Ibid., p. 92.
11 Mind & Nature, p. 92 [emphasis mine].
12 Ibid., pp. 92-94.
13 Ibid., p. 212.
14 “Glossary,” in Mind & Nature, p. 228.
15 “Form, Substance, and Difference,” in Gregory Bateson, Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology (San Francisco: Chandler Publishing Company, 1972), pp. 457-461 (Hereafter — STEPS).
16 Ibid., p. 459
17 Mind & Nature, p. 100. Qualifying the word triggered, Bateson notes that, “Firearms are a somewhat inappropriate metaphor because in most simple [nonrepeating] firearms there is only a lineal sequence of energetic dependencies. . . In biological systems, the end of the lineal sequence sets up conditions for a future repetition,” p. 101n.
18 “Afterword,” in About Bateson, Edited by John Brockman (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1977), p. 243.
19 “The Cybernetics of ‘Self ‘: A Theory of Alcoholism,” STEPS, p. 316.
20 Ibid., p. 317.
21 Gregory Bateson and Mary Catherine Bateson, Angels Fear: Towards an Epistemology of the Sacred (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1987), p. 19; this work was posthumously reconstructed, edited and co-authored by Bateson’s daughter, Mary Catherine Bateson.
22 “Minimal Requirements for a Theory of Schizophrenia,” in STEPS, p. 250.
23 Ibid.
24 Mind & Nature, p. 191.
25 Ibid., p. 94.
26 “Form, Substance, and Difference,” in STEPS, p. 464.
27 Mind & Nature, p. 86.
28 “The Logical Categories of Learning and Communication,” in STEPS, p. 282. Bateson addressed learning theory in several essays. The above, written in 1964 and given its final form in 1971, gives his definitive accounting on the topic. Also see, Gregory Bateson, Comment on “The Comparative Study of Culture and the Purposive Cultivation of Democratic Values,” by Margaret Mead, in Science Philosophy and Religion; Second Symposium, Chapter IV, pp. 81-97, edited by Lyman Bryson and Louis Finkelstein (New York: Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion in Their Relation to the Democratic Way of Life, Inc., 1942); reprinted as, “Social Planning and the Concept of Deutero-Learning,” in Steps to an Ecology of Mind, Part III: Form and Pathology in Relationship, pp. 159-176; also, “The Message is Reinforcement,” in Language Behavior: A Book of Readings in Communication, Janua Linguarum: Studia Memoriae Nocolai Van Wijk Dedicata, Series Maior, no. 41, pp. 62-72, edited by Johnnye Akin, et al. (The Hague and Paris: Mouton & Co., 1971).
29 Ibid., p. 283, n 3. Subtly maintaining his distinction between the mental and physical sciences, Bateson notes that, “the Newtonian equations which describe the motions of a ‘particle’ stop at the level of ‘acceleration.’ Change of acceleration can only happen with deformation of the moving body, but the Newtonian ‘particle’ was not made up of ‘parts’ and was therefore (logically) incapable of deformation or any other internal change. It was therefore not subject to rate of change of acceleration.”
30 “The Logical Categories of Learning and Communication,” in STEPS, p. 293. Bateson’s description of Learning IV clearly marks it as a special instance of learning: “Learning IV would be change in Learning III. [Which probably does not occur, but . . .] Evolutionary process has, however, created organisms whose ontogeny bring them to Level III. The combination of phylogenesis with ontogenesis, in fact, achieves Level IV.”
31 Ibid., p. 284.
32 Ibid., p. 293.
33 “The Logical Categories of Learning and Communication,” in STEPS, p. 284.
34 Ibid., p. 286. Bateson notes that, “There is also an interesting class of cases in which the sets of alternatives contain common members. It is then possible for the organism to be ‘right’ but for the wrong reasons. This form of error is inevitably self-reinforcing.”
35 Ibid., p. 287.
36 Ibid.
37 Ibid., p. 289.
38 “The Logical Categories of Learning and Communication,” in STEPS, p. 288.
39 Ibid., p. 289.
40 Ibid., p. 292.
41 “The Logical Categories of Learning and Communication,” in STEPS, p. 290.
42 Ibid., p. 290.
43 “The Logical Categories of Learning and Communication,” in STEPS, pp. 292-293. Bateson notes that “various terms have been proposed in the literature for various phenomena of this order. ‘Deutero-learning,’ ‘set learning,’ ‘learning to learn,’ and ‘transfer of learning’ may be mentioned.”
44 Ibid., p. 293.
45 Ibid., p. 302.
46 “Style, Grace, and Information in Primitive Art,” in STEPS, pp. 128-152; see, p. 148.
47 “Style, Grace, and Information in Primitive Art,” in STEPS, p. 142.
48 “The Logical Categories of Learning and Communication,” in STEPS, pp. 300, 301.
49 Ibid., p. 301.
50 Klaus Krippendorff, “The Power of Communication and the Communication of Power; Toward an Emancipatory Theory of Communication,” p. 192.
51 “The Logical Categories of Learning and Communication,” in STEPS, p. 298.
52 “The Logical Categories of Learning and Communication,” in STEPS, p. 293.
53 Ibid., p. 301.
54 “The Logical Categories of Learning and Communication,” in STEPS, p. 304.