[paulojreis]

I always wanted to ask you this: what's your opinion on Gregory Bateson's work on the intersection of anthropology, psychiatry, cybernetics and communication in general? Since this discussion is focusing on books, have you read "Steps to an Ecology of Mind"?

I hope it goes without saying: thank you very much for your contribution to the world, generally.

[alankay]

Another of many books I probably should have put on the list (but that's the problem with lists of "good books" in a world that has thousands of them). I knew Gregory slightly, and his daughter Mary Catherine more so. (And there are others from this circle that should be included: Gordon Pask, Heinz von Forester, etc.)

One way to think about this in the larger sense is that "an interesting person is one who is interesting whether you agree with them or not". This also goes for books. (This is the "it's about perspectives, not about relevance" point of view.)

It's worth it to try to understand what "interesting people" have thought -- it provides context for one's own thinking.

[paulojreis]

> It's worth it to try to understand what "interesting people" have thought -- it provides context for one's own thinking.

This is eventually the main reason why I mentioned Bateson's work in particular (besides the depth and orthogonality of his ideas).

I've read Watzlawick's work on interaction and pragmatics of communication before I've read Bateson's. I found Watzlawick's ideas easier to grasp (at least, I'm under that illusion), clearly presented with e.g. axioms. Then I read Bateson's work, and got this strange feeling of dwelling around the same underlying concepts, but without a clear understanding of his main argument.

I've read "Steps to an Ecology of Mind" quite a few times (I still re-read some chapters every once in a while) and always felt that a) I'm reading new material; and b) I'm not getting it all. Yet, I always get something new, and this is an extremely interesting insight on how my own perception changes over time.

Of course, this happens with other books and authors. Still, personally, I have a clear feeling that not to the same extent as it happens with Bateson's ideas. It's my own mirror, so to speak.

[alankay1]

Well, Gregory missed some important ideas in that book (partly from his background I think, and partly from his personality). You might get some perspective from looking at his last book "Mind and Nature". And, in many ways, much more powerful looks at "mind" are Minsky's "Society of Mind" and "The Emotion Machine". There is also Kahneman's "Thinking: Fast and Slow" more recently ...

[jseliger]

The Vital Question: Energy, Evolution, and the Origins of Complex Life by Nick Lane is not really about the mind, but it is about the things that lead up to the contemporary mind and is consistently fascinating, even for me who has no biology / biochemistry background. I learned about it from the Bill Gates blog: https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/The-Vital-Question.

[alankay1]

I don't want to ding this book, if only because the topic is well chosen and important. I was quite surprised that I didn't warm to it.

[paulojreis]

Would you have a place in your list for António Damásio's work on consciousness and, generally, the embodied mind?

[alankay1]

I don't know whether I would include this book on the list for the Anderson Consulting people. It's worth reading for the context, perhaps not so much for the specific content.

[paulojreis]

I forgot to consider your list as aimed towards the Anderson Consulting people.

Having that audience in mind, wouldn't Manuel Castells' work (mostly, the "The Information Age" trilogy) be a good reference? Probably a little too vast.

[igravious]

Would you also consider then:

_The Laws of Form_ by George Spencer Brown,

Anything about logic by Gotthard Günther :) (He's a rare bird.)

_Autopoiesis and Cognition: the Realization of the Living_ by Maturana and Varela

Anything by Niklass Luhmann about social systems: the economy, mass media, art, functional differentiation, … He was a student of Talcott Parsons

Norbert Wiener, _Cybernetics: Or Control And Communication in the Animal and the Machine_ and _The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society_

_An Introduction to Cybernetics_ by W. Ross Ashby

McCullogh and Pitts (You mention Minsky but not these dudes.) _A Logical Calculus of the Ideas Immanent in Nervous Activity_

Basically, most of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberneticist

? :)

[alankay1]

Sure. Just to remind that the list was for people in business -- they were quite intelligent, had college degrees, but were not well read or "broad". They were very goal-oriented, and I think they did not use school or college for "general education". I tried to pick books that would be assessable and useful for them.

A lot of the books you mention were listed in the Whole Earth Catalog, and were favorites at PARC.

Especially "Laws of Form".

And some of the other "Cybernetics" circle books (Bateson et al was part of the Macy Conferences on Cybernetics, etc.) Both Maturana and Varela were around in those times as well.

Minsky was a huge fan of Warren McCullogh and Walter Pitts.