Quotable (#82)¶
This is simply superb:
“Logic is a very elegant tool,” [Bateson] said, “and we’ve got a
lot of mileage out of it for two thousand years or so. The trouble
is, you know, when you apply it to crabs and porpoises, and
butterflies and habit formation” – his voice trailed off, and he
added after a pause, looking out over the ocean – “you know, to all
those pretty things” – and now, looking straight at me [Capra] –
“logic won’t quite do.”
“No?”
“it won’t quite do,” he continued animatedly, “because that whole
fabric of living things is not put together by logic. you see, when
you get circular trains of causation, as you always do in the living
world, the use of logic will make you walk into paradoxes. Just take
the thermostat, a simple sense organ, yes?”
He looked at me, questioning whether I followed and, seeing that I
did, he continued.
“If it’s on, it’s off; if it’s off, it’s on. If yes, then no; if no,
then yes.”
With that he stopped to let me puzzle about what he had said. His
last sentence reminded me of the classical paradoxes of Aristotelian
logic, which was, of course, intended. So I risked a jump.
“You mean, do thermostats lie?”
Bateson’s eyes lit up: “Yes-no-yes-no-yes-no. You see, the
cybernetic equivalent of logic is oscillation.”
[Minor spelling amendment made.]