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" Rather, for all objects and experiences, there is a quantity that has optimum value. Above that quantity, the variable becomes toxic. To fall below that value is to be deprived. "

Gregory Bateson

Above

Quantity

Fall

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Gregory Bateson

Subjective

Experience

" Synaptic summation is the technical term used in neurophysiology for those instances in which some neuron C is fired only by a combination of neurons A and B. "

" Science, like art, religion, commerce, warfare, and even sleep, is based on presuppositions. "

Gregory Bateson

Sleep

Religion

" A major difficulty is that the answer to the Riddle of the Sphinx is partly a product of the answers that we already have given to the riddle in its various forms. "

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" It is impossible, in principle, to explain any pattern by invoking a single quantity. "

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" It is, I claim, nonsense to say that it does not matter which individual man acted as the nucleus for the change. It is precisely this that makes history unpredictable into the future. "

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" Number is different from quantity. "

" Language commonly stresses only one side of any interaction. "

" Every move we make in fear of the next war in fact hastens it. "

Gregory Bateson

War

Fear

" There is a strong tendency in explanatory prose to invoke quantities of tension, energy, and whatnot to explain the genesis of pattern. I believe that all such explanations are inappropriate or wrong. "