Gregory BATESON MIND AND NATURE |
pg 9 ...The underlying notion of a dividing line between the world of the living (where distinctions are drawn and difference can be a cause) and the world of nonliving billiard balls and galaxies (where forces and impacts are the causes of events). These are the two worlds that Jung following the Gnostics calls creatura (the living) and pleroma (the nonliving). (C.G. JUNG: Septem Sermones ad Mortuos) I was asking: What is the difference between the physical world of pleroma, where forces and impacts provide sufficient basis of explanation, and the creatura, where nothing can be understood until differences and distinctions are invoked? In my life, I have put the descriptions of sticks and stones and billiard balls and galaxies in one box, the pleroma, and have left them alone. In the other box, I put living things: crabs, people, problems of beauty, and problems of difference. The contents of the second box are the subject of this book. I was griping recently about the shortcomings of occidental education. It was in a letter to my fellow regents of the University of California, and the following phrase crept into my letter: "Break the pattern which connects the items of learning and you necessarily destroy all quality. I offer you the phrase: "The pattern which connects" as a synonym, another possible title for this book. ... Natürlich war die Frage, die ich den Psychiatern gestellt hatte,
die gleiche wie die für die Künstler: Gibt es eine biologische
Spezies der Entropie? Beide Fragen betrafen die tiefer liegende Vorstellung
einer Grenzlinie zwischen der Welt des Lebendigen (wo Unterscheidungen
getroffen werden und Untetschiede Ursachen sein können) und der Welt
unbelebter Billardkugeln und Galaxien (wo Kräfte und Wirkungen die
»Ursachen« von Ereignissen sind).
|
|