7/6/2023 0 Comments Bateson ecology![]() ![]() ![]() Bateson encouraged his readers to think bigger, deeper and more collectively – to think in terms of complex systems and dynamic networks, to see beyond the ‘short arcs’ so as not to be surprised by the consequences of actions taken based on simplistic, short-sighted thinking.Ī recent article in The Washington Post demonstrates the tragic consequences of seeing only the short arcs of bigger, complex circuits: Cheap Fix: Heroin’s resurgence This was Gregory Bateson*, the great anthropologist, cybernetician and towering intellect, writing in Steps to an Ecology of Mind in 1972. We lose access to the total integrated network” ( emphasis added) What is most serious about our assumption is that it makes us cut through the complete mental circuits and perceive (and then rely on) only short arcs of these, which we see as straight line linear causality. More probably, you will kill off the birds in the first round when they eat the poisoned insects. You will then have to use more DDT than before to kill the insects which the birds no longer eat. If you use DDT to kill insects, you may succeed in reducing the insect population so far that the insectivores will starve. Seeing only arcs of circuits, the individual is continually surprised and necessarily angered when his hardheaded policies return to plague the inventor. “Life depends upon interlocking circuits of contingency, while consciousness can see only such short arcs of such circuits as human purpose may direct. ![]()
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