Gregory Bateson?

[Naldaramjo]

Having recently completed Runaway: Gregory Bateson, the Double Bind, and the Rise of Ecological Consciousness, by Anthony Chaney, I am thinking that I will really appreciate Gregory Bateson's ideas directly. Has anyone else read any of his work?

For example, 

• Steps to an Ecology of Mind
• Mind and Nature
• Angels Fear: Towards an Epistemology of the Sacred 

Interested in hearing others' perspectives. 

[jaja]

Hi! I'm reading now “Steps to an Ecology of Mind”. I don't have much time to read stuff, lately, but I'll try to keep you updated.

After reading the introduction, I'm struck with some unexpected parallelism between this book and GEB (another one that I've yet to finish reading). I can also sense some connection with N.N Taleb's thesis. It's like the old saying: “great minds, think alike”.

[Naldaramjo]

GEB is Godel, Escher, Bach? A neat coincidence that you're reading Steps... because I also have a copy on my Kindle that I'm intending to read. However, it's in PDF form, and I am unable to zoom in on the text...makes for some pretty long and challenging pages. I might persevere, though...

[jaja]

15 hours ago, Naldaramjo said:

GEB is Godel, Escher, Bach?

Yes, exactly that. The most dense boom I’ve ever encountered.

[Kit_L]

Steps to an Ecology of Mind was formative to me in my Master's research. Gregory is a true polymath.

[Rik]

@jaja can you elaborate on the connection you observe between Taleb's work and GEB? I am quite familiar with both but to me they're not very alike.

P.S. I think GEB isn't so much a dense book (in the sense of high amount of information per word) as well as a viscous book (in the sense of being slow to get through).

[jaja]

@Rik Difficult to answer. Not because it's difficult to articulate my thoughts, but because currently I'm fasting from reading, so I put those books down and I can't quite remember what exactly prompted me to write that sentence. I was talking about parallelisms between Taleb and Bateson, however. If I wanted to find something that could connect all three of the authors, I'd say the theme of complexity and the influence of Wittgenstein in their worldview.