The core theme is the necessity of shifting from a reductionist, mechanistic view of the world to an "ecology of mind" that recognizes the interconnectedness and relational nature of all things, using "warm data" to understand and navigate complex systems.
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If we don't practice perceiving and
responding to a world that's actually alive,
alive,
how will our responses
support and nourish the living world?
We're doing good cuz we are recycling
bottle caps. Like, oh, come on. In a
complex moving system, you cannot simply
replace the parts because the problem
isn't in the parts. It's in the
relationship between the parts.
>> Nora Bateson is a filmmaker, author, and
director of the Bateson Institute that
guards the legacy of her father, Gregory
Bateson. It was through his cybernetic
way of thinking that Bateson argued that
we have to think of reality not
quantitatively as one big spreadsheet of
inert matter. Instead, to truly
understand nature, we need a totally new
conception of information. what Nora
Bateson calls warm data.
>> We're used to thinking of information as
something you can grab, measure, state,
define, and what we're talking about
with warm data is something that's in
constant relational responsiveness.
If you're in this other way of thinking,
the reductionist way of thinking, the
possibility is edited out of the
perception. And I don't think we can
afford to do that right now. Yeah,
>> there are times when I catch myself
believing that there is such a thing as
something which is separate from
something else.
Complex systems thinking and cybernetics
eventually led Bateson to the logical
conclusion that we have to study nature
as an ecology of mind.
We usually think about minds as having
boundaries. So I'm sitting here with my mind,
mind,
>> you're sitting there with your mind.
You're saying we cannot basically draw
these boundaries so easily. Is that so?
>> That's so there's mind in a meadow.
There's mind in a forest. There's mind
in a culture. It's not just an inert
world we're walking around in.
>> So the thing that gives me hope is to go
to the place where it looks like there's
none and to see the creative process
>> Very warm welcome Nora in Leiden. Nice
to meet you here. Thank you.
>> Um, in thinking about this conversation,
you to me are a very special guest for
for a couple of reasons. You carry the
lineage of course of of your father's
thinking, Gregory Bateson.
Um it is good to mention I think for
people who do not know him I think most
people will have heard of him but he was
an important philosopher in the 20th
century anthropologist so social
scientist linguist cyberneticist
and he made contributions to many fields
um and you um now are president of the
basin institute and you build basically
on your father's work right with also
terms you
introduced and and scientific work
you're working on like warm data
sematasy things I'd love to touch upon
um your presentation today was on the
ecology of mind the essential foundation
is all about metaphysics and um
basically it maps oneonone on what our
foundation is about that all is mind all
is consciousness
>> and that ecology of mind then to me is
if that is so if that If we take that
metaphysic as the most plausible thing
then the ecology of mind of Gregory
Bateson and of Norah Bateson what you
are working on seems to me sort of like
the practice of how how to then go about
>> and that's what fascinates me. So in in
talking to you here
>> and uh in reading combining
>> um there are many ways in which we could
start this conversation maybe nice to
start with an image the image you
started your presentation with of two
moths with the eyes of an owl on their wings.
wings. >> Mhm.
>> Mhm.
>> We have it here in the book right I'll
show it on the screen.
Could you maybe touch upon what ecology
of mind is with that image in mind and
maybe refer to that image? Can we bring
those two together?
>> So yeah, first let's address the sort of
multiplicity of the the phrase ecology
of mind.
Um so on the one hand
uh what we're referring to is
the way in which
uh our minds okay our epistemological
ways of knowing our ways of perceiving
the world are
um forming and shifting and responding
to an ecology of different sorts of
experiences. Some are in your
microbiome, some are cultural, some are
historical, some are technological, some
are coming from the education system.
This question of how do you know what
you know? How do you perceive what you
perceive? And what are the many
combining ever combining
filtrations? and and and not just that
but also what's flavoring or um or
shaping those ways in which you and I
can perceive.
Uh and I think so that's one piece is is
to look at the way that our own perception
perception
is within an ecology
>> of perception and filters. Okay. Another
way of looking at that is to
uh look at the notion of mind. Okay,
which for my father was not about the
brain and your head. Okay, the notion of
mind is actually a notion of life. And
he's calling it mind because there is a
a a very um
a a push back against something
um being um of a mental abstraction and
something being of life. So the mind and
body for example being separated and the
sort of cartisian split. So to look then
at at mind as an ecological process. So
both of those things are happening. Um
so that there's mind in a meadow,
there's mind in a forest, there's mind
in a culture in so much as all of the
elements, the participants, the
organisms, the entities are responding,
communicating, learning. Um it's not
just an inert world we're walking around in.
in.
Life itself is responsive. So,
So,
>> and it's not your father and you you
don't are not talking metaphorically
here, right? It it's it's it's so that
because we usually think about minds as
having boundaries. So, I'm sitting here
with my mind,
>> you're sitting there with your mind
>> maybe and that would be already for a
lot of people pretty woo to say that
trees might have a form of cognition
perhaps consciousness. I know in bio
semiotics that's we're open to questions
like these but then these are still
there there are boundaries around these
minds but you were saying when I hear
you talk that we cannot basically draw
these boundaries so easily is that so
>> that's so
>> where's the edge of the tree right when
we say does the tree have a mind where's
the edge of the tree is it the bark is
it the root system is it the bacteria
and the the nutrition system that's
coming through the soil. Is it the way
the mycelial organisms underground are
transferring nourishment between the
trees? Is it the squirrels and the
insects? Is it the what?
When we say this is a tree,
how did that happen? How many hundreds
of thousands of years and how many
millions of organisms in relationship
have come to be
become that tree.
So you're not just looking at a tree.
And I think if you just take a snapshot
of a tree and you say this is called a tree,
tree,
what's obscured there is all of those
incredible interdependent processes that have
have
>> allowed that seed, that acorn, if it's
an oak tree, to become an oak tree.
But how did that happen?
And um it's really holding the
contextual and transcontextual
relationships and communication as part
of whatever it is we're calling an entity.
entity.
>> It it'd be better if we call it a a treeing.
treeing.
>> I was just thinking about that. That was
sort of what Alan Watts it came to to me
via Alan Watts that we should talk in
verbs, right? It's treeing and exactly
within sort of reductionism. So say we
we do not see the tree as treeing but we
see it as this is a tree which we can
reduce to to to on a cellular level to
biochemical processes which we can
predict and reduce that's a classical
materialistic way of thinking. Then
already in the 20th century in the sort
of mid 20th century we noticed that you
cannot look like systems. That's not a
way to predict the behavior of systems
or even to you cannot control them like
that. And the movement that studies that
sort of that that way of how you then
can can sort of understand systems
better their feedback loops and and and
how they behave. It's called the study
of cybernetics which influenced of
course computing and AI and your father
was a pioneer in that field. Could you
tell a little bit about sort of his
because he did not he had sort of a sort
of strange position among vonoman and
Weiner and then we had Gregory Bateson
and he had a sort of different take
right on the whole cybernetics.
>> Yeah. I mean to begin with I think the um
um
the thing about my father was that he
was doing
this cybernetic systemic work before the
Macy conferences happened. Mhm.
>> So if you look at his early work um
Novin and and some of the early papers
that he wrote before the Macy
conferences ever happened in the 50s,
there was a series of conferences in
which uh a group of people from lots of
different disciplines got together and
they were trying to have these
conversations that were funded by the
Macy's Foundation um to sort of figure
out how different aspects of a system
come together to do things. Okay? And if
it was possible to control them. Is it
what's the nature of this way in which
different aspects of a system
communicate with each other, shape each
other, shift each other? Because what
people were noticing was that when
you're working with any kind of systemic
thing, whether it's a culture or a
school or a family or um even a
computer, that very often if you make a
any sort of a a prompt, if you if you
think you're going to create a cause and
effect that's a linear cause and effect
and you push it here, that something
happens in some other way and the
results of that prompt come out in a
completely surprising and seemingly
uh non-correlative way.
And so many of the problems that are are
facing humanity especially today
uh are of existential level. And yet the
urgency to respond to these questions,
whether they're economic crisis or
climate crisis or um various kinds of
cultural or technological crisis that
are happening, political crisis,
uh is to try to address them
as though they were inside of a a pretty
basic car engine, right? where okay
here's the there's something wrong with
the timing we change the timing belt
there's something wrong with the
distribution of the we change the
distributor there's something wrong with
the this your transmission we change the
transmission in a living system in a in
a complex moving system you cannot
simply replace the parts because the
problem isn't in the parts it's in the
relationship between the parts
>> and those relationships are in motion
They're not static relationships.
So, how then do you have do you create
something that you might call an action
or a strategy?
Um, so this has been something that I
think uh the the Macy's group
found and found a new word for. Okay,
this is where the word cybernetics came
to be. Um and
uh and then cybernetics entered a lot of
different disciplines. So it entered
family therapy, it entered computer
science, it entered information theory,
it entered all sorts of technological
stuff, it entered in in many directions.
>> There was um well because it came from
many directions, right? If you have a a
transdisciplinary group and everybody in
the group takes it back to their
discipline, then it's going to enter the
world in multiple ways.
So the difference though is
that um first of all, like I said, my
dad was already doing that. It that it
there just wasn't a name for it yet. And
I think he really enjoyed the
collaboration of that group. M
>> um he used to say that it gave him hope
>> where he he felt no hope after the World
War I and World War II. I read in your
book how he sort of um
>> he had to sort of sabotage >> communication
>> communication
>> of the enemy, right? of the and and that
it sort of
really uh drove him to sort of sort of
made him made him really depressed
because it his work was all about sort
of the communication and sort of really
open communication that he had to do
this for the good and he so that I just
sort of found touching to read sort of
that it it was such a hard thing for for
him to do um but um
>> let's talk about that for a second
because I think it's a really good
example. So in Navvin
um which was my father's book about uh
his time in New Guinea, he brings in the
term schismogenesis.
>> Now schismogenesis
is a big fat juicy word but it's also
it's so important right now to be
thinking about this concept. So schismo
is to break to like a schism right and
genesis is to create.
>> So schismogenesis is the study it's it's
it's an understanding of a way of naming
particular kinds of relational patterns
that lead to the breaking of the relationship.
relationship.
>> Okay. So when we think about life
making life
>> Yeah. you what you're talking about is
all the organisms that make a tree have
been in relationship that made
relationship that made relationship that
right that's lifeing okay
>> uh and when you think about
schismogenesis it's relationship that
breaks relationship
>> so the he talked about three different
two two different types of
schismogenesis and then there's a third
one that a Finnish group brought in
um and in this moment I think this work
is critical because we're dealing with
so much polarization
uh alongside uh a general runaway.
runaway. Okay.
Okay.
>> Yeah. It's also good to unpack that term
by the way.
>> Yeah. A runaway where you get you know
something comes unraveled and it leads
to something else coming unraveled and
it leads to something else coming
unraveled and you get a runaway. So, you
know, when you get sick
and first you might uh feel like, oh, I
don't feel so good and then my throat
hurts a little bit and then a raging
fever comes. But then if you're not
careful, you could get dehydrated.
And if you get dehydrated, then your
body starts to go into a kind of a
runaway. Um, you're sick. You don't
really have what you take to fight back.
You can't hold food down, but you you
need the nutrients. Your organs start to
shut down. Things start to go wrong. >> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> Okay. That's an example of runaway in a
living system. The living system being
your body. Yeah. Now, if you can
extrapolate that into broader systems,
societies, cultures, jungles, right?
What happens when you enter a rodent
pesticide into a system and you think
you're just going to kill the mice, but
you don't just kill the mice because the
owls eat the mice and the vos get into
it and the caterpillars get into it and
the basically all the organisms
um in the ecosystem
start to get broken relationships. the
things that the that eat that eat the
owls, the things that ate the lizards,
the things that and so then they don't
have any food and eventually you get
into a runaway.
>> What fascinates me around runaway that
term thinking about it also in terms of
of cybernetics um if you have feedback I
mean feedback is a very important
concept in cyber system get feedback
loops etc. We know that term. And could
you say that a runaway is also sort of
an absence of certain feedbacks or or
are sort of not paying attention to
those feedbacks um of nature? I mean
because there there's not something
directly telling us when the moment we
do that sort of we think um in in sort
of after second world war when we
started sort of genetically engineering
and um coming up with pesticides that at
first seem to sort of solve sort of the
food crisis worldwide. So feedback says
good for the system and then it and but
then in the end we see how detrimental
it is to our planet. Is it so that there
were feedbacks we just didn't pay
attention to or how should we think
about that? I mean, I think this is the
whole issue is that essentially
if you've been trained to think in the
school systems as they exist right now
and you've lived in the world for a
while in the way that it is right now
and you're coming not from a culture uh
where the language is reiterating the
nature of the interdependency of life or
the spiritual um practices. is are about
the interdependency of life. But from a
culture where the economic system, the
the positioning of your identity, um,
etc. are are what's valuable,
then it becomes very difficult. It's as
though we have a an atrophied muscle of
perception where you can't see anymore
>> those relationships because you're not
living in them. You don't have words for
them. We don't have honor for them.
>> It's not part of our lives. So the the
last few hundred years of reductionist
science and of industrial modernity has
actually obscured
those interreational processes. So it's
not like there's some sort of mystery.
It's not like they don't exist. It's
just that um anybody who's been trained
to perceive the world and to communicate
in and to succeed in a world of of
these institutions
has been trained out of perceiving.
>> Train out of perceiving. I I think yeah
an example that that during your
presentation you you talked about how
that plays out in language for instance
you said we now say
I'm going to school to learn
um a language or I'm going to the to the
grocery store to get some yogurt and
that that that word to is very telling.
Could you sort of recount what you
explained because I find that sort of
very insightful. Yeah, it really
illustrates, doesn't it, this idea that
prior to the factory
>> um now the factory is a is a
reductionist assembly line,
>> right? Where everything's broken into parts,
parts,
>> Henry Ford, right?
>> Right. And it's broken into parts to produce
produce
>> and to create production of products,
right? So the factory is going to do
better if they can create more products. >> Yeah.
>> Yeah. >> Faster.
>> Faster. >> Fact.
>> Fact.
>> Okay. This is not how a meadow works.
This is definitively not how a meadow
works. So the the difference is an
ecological difference and it's a whole
world of perception. So prior to the factory,
factory,
people lived in a world in which
that like I was saying the relationships
are obscured now. They weren't obscured.
Um there were other things that were
obscuring them but not to the extent
that they are now. So so you had the
factory come in and then the school
system came in and it was actually they
were modeled after each other, right?
And people were going to school to
essentially become factory workers to
become able to produce things. >> So
>> So
people used to say,
"I'm going to market and
buying yogurt." They probably weren't
buying yogurt because you probably made that.
that. >> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> But and buying grain. And when you say
that, then there's a world of things
that can happen. I'm going to market.
And what will happen?
And I'm gonna get some grains. I wonder
what grains will be there. What will
happen there? That's a whole world of
things. And if you come back with no
grains, no big deal. There's a story. >> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> Right. But if you go to market two,
buy grain and you come back with no
grain, you failed,
>> right? And then also if you go to market
two, the question is how long did it
take? How much did you get? Immediately
you get into all of the um
I hate this word but the value systems
>> of modernity
>> of optimization efficiency maximization
>> right profitization commercialization
I'm going to school and I'm learning to read
read
>> I'm going to school and that's an adventure
adventure
>> and I'm learning to read is different
than I'm going to school to learn to
read. And if you don't learn to read,
you failed. Which especially in that you
can feel the pain of the little child
>> who's wondering why he can't or she
can't they can't read, >> right?
>> right?
>> Yeah. That's that's touching. I'm a
parent. And the moment you say that
stuff like not to say this is a tree,
but to be more accurate, this is what we
call a tree or say it is treeing. I'm
I'm really trying to do that more with
my kids because I think I've already
>> even though I work for a foundation that
promotes analytic idism philosophically
like I'm also sort of just programmed
with language still full of sort of a
different that that that just echoes a
different metaphysics namely one of
reductionism and materialism and I I'm
and and your work makes that sort of
acutely aware in me so that that's that
and so I'm sitting down here with you
and we're doing an interview and that
already to me changes something. Um,
>> it's so creepy, isn't it?
>> How it gets into the intergenerational communication.
communication.
I mean, I know with my own kids
>> and growing up, you you said I'm holding
this lineage, which is a really
interesting thing to do, by the way. um
um
and to pass on,
right? What were the ways in which I
grew up in a household where there were
a different sort of collection of
intrinsic tacit assumptions
um about life
where the the tacit assumption was that
the world is already interconnected and
it's all in motion and it's this is a
system that cannot be controlled, right?
that systems are squishy and wiggly and
you can't control them. So, this was a
basis of our household and it wasn't
like people were running around all the
time saying those words, but that those
notions and those perceptions came
through everything. How we do breakfast,
how we take a walk, how you do anything.
So then when I had kids, I suddenly
realized because um their dad wasn't
really um he hadn't grown up in the same
kind of household. So he had a different
set of programming and boy is it ever
programming of like what you say to your kids.
kids.
>> Yeah. Um, and even I would find myself
even in these in these grammatical traps
where if you don't stop doing that and
then I would realize
I was I I was in a trap because the next
thing I'm going to have to say is then
if you don't stop then I will what what
am I going to do?
>> Right? I didn't mean that. What I meant
was, I really want you to stop doing
that and based on our relationship, I
want you to hear me. Not if you don't
stop doing that, you're going to be
grounded or I'm going to take away your
dessert tonight or you won't get any
this or you know the sort of punishment
and reward and the just all the
programming that we live within. And it
really comes out in the intergenerational
intergenerational
work um of just being a parent
>> and also of being someone's kid.
>> And I think was it sort of a safe
childhood for you in a sense because I
associate wrongly perhaps
>> that that you want to give as a parent
your children sort of clarity. This is
how the world works. And this is going
to touch on upon upon a poem in your
book which which really touched me
>> is so I'm already having difficulty
having left sort of a Christian
upbringing and that whole sort of system
of thinking that I cannot give my two
children that clear metaphysical
mythological stories that I was brought
up with that at that time felt like safe
to me or just nice to have these stories
and sometimes feels like I'm giving them
an unstory I'm I'm telling what it is
not or that I'm still myself in search.
I'm now coming to grips with that and I
see beauty in it.
>> But that to you you were your dad was
like when you writing your book it it
was like you didn't he didn't buy in
into any frames societal frame. So that
as a kid must have also been difficult
at times wasn't it?
>> Oh yeah for sure. >> Yeah.
>> Yeah. >> Um
>> and disappointing. I think it's more
disappointing. I think I was so sad
>> that when I went to school that I
couldn't actually have conversations
with my teachers
when they wanted me to write papers.
They wanted me to write papers about the
things that they already said. Why would
I write that paper? Why would I not
write a paper about something new I was
thinking about? I still don't really
understand why teachers want you to
write the paper that's already the stuff
that's already been said. >> Um
>> Um
so I was it felt really dead. It felt
like all the magic in the world was
drained out. Um where when I was home
I the world that was at home was a world of
of
uh of
really awe inspiring
um complexity and relational process and
it's fascinating I mean how did the fish
come to look like that what is the what
is the context in which the fish learned
to be like that or what's what's
happening with the weather tonight? And
I remember, you know, staying out all
night with my dad in the rainstorm and
talking about lightning and seasons and
um and life was just through his description.
description.
It came with the difficulties and the beauty
beauty >> of
>> of
what ecology really is.
and and the the deep communicational
relational interdependencies were right
there. Mhm.
>> So it was sort of you know it was sad
and then trying to you know do things go
to the doctor and the doctor is going to
identify a symptom and treat the symptom
but even as a small child I knew that
the symptom was just an expression of
something some other contextual
processes and there were probably
multiple causations not one and so what
a strange thing to take this pill for that
that
>> symptom. What else is it going to do?
>> Yeah, because your father was all about
connecting the patterns. What? Yeah.
Different beautiful ways of saying that,
right? But what what connects
everything? And also he he he
popularized a quote its you pronounced
that correctly that philosopher the map
is not the territory which is so close
of course also to sort of um idealism
that we confuse our models of the world
with the world. But you state in your
book and in your film about your father
also nothing was what it was right the
what we see the thing is not the thing
>> the thing is not the thing yeah the name
is not the thing named
uh so so it was disappointing as a child
to see that the rest of the world
>> wasn't really up but on the other side
we did a lot of traveling
and so that was a really incredible
opportunity to see that in other
cultures people
did things differently.
Um, and so for me, I think that was
probably the saving grace
>> is that it wasn't as though I was only
living in two worlds.
One in which there was interdependency
and one in which there was reductionism.
There were multiple versions and and
different cultures had different ways of
of talking about of perceiving of of of
dealing with the basics, you know, life,
money, love, death.
So these things are are not just
perceivable in one way.
>> And so learning that from an early age
was an incredible opportunity for me.
Could you explain a very important
notion a theory your father uh worked up
and worked on and what he's famous for
also uh which is called double bind.
What is it and how are we sort of
trapped in it? >> Mhm.
>> Mhm.
>> So the double bind okay not the double
blind okay so that's there's sometimes
some confusion there. Um, the double
bind theory
uh is a a theory that it was popularized
and and first written up by my father
and some colleagues at the Mental
Research Institute in PaloAlto. And it
was uh originally written up in
relationship to schizophrenia.
I'm I'm saying this because actually
that's not the origin of any of this,
but it it's what is the known origin.
Um and the double bind theory is
essentially this that through uh
through various contexts
um you can get stuck.
So the beginning piece is to recognize
that all living organisms are living in
multiple contexts simultaneously.
Okay? So you're in a context of
relationship with me right now, but you
also have a context of communication
with your microbiome in which very
different kind of communication is
taking place. Okay? You have a context
with your family and you have different
communication and relationships there
than you have with the tax man for
example or uh when you go to the
>> I don't know the the the driver's
>> department. Okay? Or when you when you
enter an airport or Right. So you have
the capacity to be in multiple contexts
simultaneously. You're alive in a your
body, but you're also alive in a culture.
culture. >> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> Okay. You are alive in a body and alive
in a culture, but you're also alive in
the in a biology, in the world of of
living organisms. So these different
contexts that we navigate seamlessly I
might add um through our day I mean if
you tell any story in your life any
story like how you came to choose the
shoes you're wearing today that story
will have in it multiple contexts of
life culture economics family health you
know ecology all sorts of things so we
live in multiple contexts as do all the organisms.
organisms.
They they don't have institutional
context but other ones.
These contexts can produce conflict.
conflict.
Okay? So you can get trapped in a way
that you want to fix something that's
happening with your body. Let's say that
you're feeling sick, but in order to
really tend to your body, you need to
take a break and stay home and rest, but
you can't stay home and rest because in
another context, you have to be part of
an economic system. So, you have to go
to work, right? So, if you don't heal
your body, you can't go to work. But if
you go if you do heal your body, you
could lose your work. >> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> Right. you go to work,
>> you could really destroy your body and
make it so you can't go to work. Okay,
so that's an example of a double bind
where you have two contexts where when
you try to address one, you get a
failure in the other one. Um, you can
have a double bind in more than doubles,
too, by the way. But the the issue is
that in order to essentially find a
solution to one situation, you send
something else into existential crisis.
Um, so that's sort of how you describe a
double bind. You I could add that
another piece of this is that generally
speaking, you can't speak to it.
there's no department that you can
complain, right? Yeah, but but I you
know that's a piece of the puzzle that
>> there's been a lot of work on double
binds that's gotten into
metaccommunication that's really based
in human communication systems. And I
just have to say for the record the
double bind was never ever meant to be
according to my father um solely
a a theory for human communication. It
was meant to be an evolutionary.
>> I get it. I get it. Right. And so this
was a a shift because basically every
organism as it is learning to be in its
world, every organism that's in an
interdependent system, say you're a
mouse and you're living in a meadow, the
meadow is going to change. All the
organisms are changing.
>> The day is going to come when the mouse
is going to have to change. when all the
things the mouse used to do to survive
it can't do anymore
>> because it's its context has changed.
All right, but that's the only thing the
mouse knows to do.
>> And so the mouse can't do what it did or
it dies and it doesn't know what else to
do because it just doesn't know. Okay.
So it's that's a double bind too. And
one that touched me Norah was one in
your book you write it and maybe we can
if I may ask you to read the poem on on
motherhood in these days because you
write in your book >> um
>> um
let me uh look at I have to quote here um
um
on the one hand to survive we must feed
our children breakfast on the other to
feed our children it is necessary to
participate in inherently inherently
deadly systems. So I'm buying food which
is to keep my children alive. I am
killing I'm killing an ecosystem because
the fruit I want to feed my people of my
my my my my children uh have pesticides
on them. And I think in modernity in in
our modern society, we are trapped on a
daily basis. If if we would be it's just
incredible the amount of double binds
like these like >> right
>> right
>> sitting here doing this interview the
equipment I the stuff we buy to just be
able to do something good for the world.
I have to buy equipment that might ah
that that one was then I realized that
double bind concept it's like all around
us. We're so in it. We're so in it.
Yeah. And um Yeah. So, I wrote I think
you want me to read the poem?
>> Yeah, please do. Yeah. Well,
>> you know, I have kids
>> and um
and bringing children into the world is
a responsibility.
It's an honor. It's a it's a it's an act
of creativity. And
And
we need to be able to give our kids the possibility
possibility
of having kids.
I don't know about you, but my kids are
coming close to this age
>> of having kids, and they're looking
around saying, "I don't want to bring
any kids into this world." M um
um
is it is it possible to express
sort of existential pain around that? I
don't know.
And and how what what are my kids
looking forward to? What is what's
there? what's a horizon.
So, um I'm not alone. There's a there's
a whole lot of people out there whose
kids are in this. And and so I I wrote
this poem.
Um and it's in combining. It's called
Mama Now, but you could read it as Papa
now or auntie now.
>> I read I read as Papa now. Then I sent
it to my wife for Mama Now.
>> Uncle Now, auntie now, grandma now. Um,
Um,
I'll read it to you.
Mama now.
It's for my children. What it's like to
Your eyes will see the derailing of assumptions.
assumptions.
Your hands will hold the crumble of the
old matrix.
I do not have any authority to lean
into. I have empty pockets where parents
used to advise their children. I do not
have any maps, myths, or mother wisdom
for you. I can fix your breakfast, but
not the culture. And when you ask how to
be a good person,
I cannot lie to you.
Everything you touch in a day is in some
way bloodied.
You have been born into an edgeless violence.
violence.
But I will not judge or measure you
against a bygone metric. I'm here too,
ready to learn with you,
unsure how to be or who to be.
I can only read fragments of your worry
as the future is a horizon of confusion.
I cannot protect you and yet it is my
only job.
Aching as I witnessed from this side of
the hourglass other generations of
parents knew the outlines.
school, career,
family and retirement.
But your life will be another shape entirely
entirely
forming in the fractures.
And when you say you need a goal,
I offer you an expired ticket.
Superficial memes roll off the tongue
right into your detector.
Success in the existing system is not
going to do you much good.
Your integrity
is your rage
and I will nourish it.
Your dignity is your curiosity
and I am tiny beside it.
Your courage is your pain and I will
sing to it with you.
We will riot together.
We will notice the nuance of small
graces in the day. We will wash the grit
of loss for each other.
I am your mama
and your future is the story of a storm.
I am your cabin, your boots, your rrook sack.
Yeah, it's it's just beautiful. And um
where to start? I I read this. So, like
I said, I sent it to my wife and I say,
"Yeah, this is about it." And in a sense,
sense,
that's also painful to say that there's
nothing new that what you you just you
it's just the finger of the Zeta PL the
finger on the sore point. this is what I
I sort of know. But then you make it
explicit in this beautiful poem.
>> And but it's also liberating to just be
honest about it.
>> Do you understand what I'm saying? To be
honest, I don't know what we're in. I do
not have an answer. And this system is
>> don't want to use curse words. It's just
messed up. And we have to find a way.
And what I loved in reading your book
and maybe this will bring us to warm
data. The cold approach to this would be
to redirectionistically
materialistically think okay pol crisis
let's map the poli crisis let's see
where we can fix it what interventions
we can come come up with you you showed
the sustainable development goals of the
UN all those logos and stands health the
good gender equality and systems
thinking and and
we know that that is the way of thinking
that got us here so you say stuff in
your book that today's solutions are yet
or today's um yesterday's solutions are
today's problems. We know that if we go
about it like that, we'll just create
new problems.
>> But you have a hopeful answer. Something
I think is hopeful is when you say that
we have to meet this and not match it. Mhm.
Mhm.
>> Could you sort of explain on on how to
meet what you just told this story of
motherhood, how to meet that
>> and not to match it and and what you
mean of course by meeting and matching? >> Mhm.
>> Mhm.
Yep. Okay. Meet not match.
Uh this was a big opening for me I think
in my own work of what uh what does a
systemic response look like?
How do we
think about
making an action
um when we're trying to deal with a symptom?
symptom?
But that's not a direct response because
if you make a direct response, then
you're just treating the symptom.
So what is that response that looks indirect
indirect
that doesn't exactly fix exactly what
you wanted to you know lay out as the
the the issues but addresses
the underlying conditions or the shifts
the whole system in a way that it can learn
learn
to be in the world in another way. So to
match a problem
So in the Mama Now poem, for example,
how do you be a good person? Well,
you're in a world full of things where
you get on the bus and that's the bus is
made of plastics and metals that have
been mined and it's running on petroleum
or it's running on electric, but the
electric is produced in ways that no
matter what you do, no matter what you
had for breakfast, no matter what
clothes you're wearing or who sewed them
or who made them, you're you're we're
drenched in the blood of
>> of the last
>> uh few hundred years of
reductionism and and uh exploitation. So,
So,
you could look at that and you could
say, "Okay, well, let's fix it. Okay,
we're going to make fair trade
everything. We're going to, you know,
get off- grid. We're going to live in
this other way."
And that would be matching.
Okay? Because to match the problem is
the same thinking that got us into it,
right? And to meet the problem
looks very different. To meet the
problem looks like
helping your kids come into the world
knowing what the situation is and how to
nourish the people that they are around
in every circumstance. How to nourish
themselves. how to be able to undermine
the very isolationist, individualistic, exploitative
exploitative
concepts that have been driving
these institutional systems. So the poem
ends for example with this phrase,
I am your cabin, your boots, your rucks sack.
sack.
>> Yeah, rucks. I like that. And it's this
is how do you deal with a double bind?
Okay. So if you want to deal with a
double bind, if you want to have some
sort of success of getting out of a
double bind,
the way you do it is not to fix the
problem. The way you do it is to reach
from another context.
>> Okay? So if you if the the contexts here
are the exploitation of the world and
the need to bring up your children and
if if you bring them up in a way that
they're numb to the exploitation of the
world so they're happy about being in it
then you have the problem of the that
they're numb to the exploitation of the
world. You don't want that. >> No.
>> No.
>> Um so but if you bring them up so that
they're sensitive to the exploitation in
the world, they're going to be in great pain
pain
>> for everything that they have to partake
in. And you don't want that. >> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> So, how do we meet this not match it?
So, what I'm doing even in the poem is
to reached from another context, right?
I am your cabin, your boots, your rook sack,
sack,
which is,
you know, I'm an 80s kid, right? So, I
have a punk rock background. And that's
probably one of the most punk rock
things that I could say
>> because as you know
growing up in any kind of you know
society in the world in which these
We have been taught not to be our
children's cabins.
We have been taught not to be their
rrook sack, not to be their boots. If
you want to have a successful individualistic
individualistic
adult, you've got to cut them free.
You've got to make them feel the pain so
they go out in the world and they have
So that line, >> yeah,
>> yeah,
>> I'll be your cabin,
your boots, your rrook sack. I'm going
to be here. You can take shelter.
I I'll be your boots. You can walk on me.
me.
>> Right. I'll be your rook sack. >> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> I'll carry for you. >> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> I'll be your cabin. >> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> And that's not the way we are taught to parent.
parent.
And it's like this incredible radical
question like what would you how would
you raise your children differently
That's
>> all the difference in communication like
what just doing the dishes, making your
bed, learning to do your laundry,
participating in the family chores, right?
right? >> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> Right now, there's an implicit
>> Mhm. messaging that says you need to
learn to do these things because one day
you're going to have your own house and
you have to know how to do them when
you're an individuated >> Yeah.
>> Yeah. >> person.
>> person. >> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> And so
the cost
is very likely the relationship.
I mean, how many times do I have to ask
you to do these dishes? This is the
fourth day in a row you haven't done
these dishes. You need to learn how to
keep your room clean. What kind of a
person leaves their room like this?
Seriously, this is disgusting. >> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> Right. When was the last time you did
your laundry?
>> Okay. Now, if you knew that your child
wasn't going to leave home, which in
most parts of the world, they actually don't.
don't.
>> What would that look like? How would the
the discussion be different?
>> And it it might look like, hey,
I'm super tired.
>> Is not working for me. Yeah.
>> Can you do the dishes today
instead of you have to learn how to do,
you Yeah. Yeah. And there's there speaks
fear behind it. It's it you need to be
neat because otherwise things won't be
okay. It's it's
>> as opposed to this is how you nourish
the relationships. >> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> Of the house you live within. >> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
So, you know, you can give your kids a
chore wheel and they can you can say
they got to do it on you got to mow the
lawn on Wednesday and do the dishes on
Thursday and
>> clean up the dog mess on Friday. >> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> But pretty soon they learn to look at
the chart and they are sick that night
or they have a friend over or they find
a way to wiggle out of it. Yeah. Because
what you've taught them to do is to look
at the chart, not look at the room,
right? And if you look at the room, you
look at the relationships at the table
and you know, I did the dishes last
night, but look, that person's not
feeling well, and this person's been on
their feet all day, and
>> well, actually, I'm I'm not doing
anything. I'll do the dishes. >> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> Right. which is in response to the relationships
relationships
which is that's the thing you know when
we were talking earlier we this we've obscured
obscured
this relational perception muscle
it's it's atrophied because we look to
the chart and not to the table
>> right to meet not to match
>> and the cost is so high that I can't
even tell you how many families I know
that have really sad relationships with
their kids because in order to get them
to pass math,
they humiliated their kids
>> because that's what we were taught to do.
do.
and and that the cost of creating an
individualized being that would succeed
in an individualistic society
is relationships to the past and the future.
future.
How are we going to do ecology when this
is what we're doing at home?
>> And this this is what you call like I
guess warm data, right? This is the data
we need to work with the the the the
data that touches upon the fact that
everything has to do with transconext
textuality. It's multiple contexts we're
operating in. We're in constant
relationships that we cannot even
describe. I mean the second 5 minutes
down this conversation will be a
different conversation will be
different. And and with that warm data,
we have to work to fix the problems we
are in at the world. Is that a way to
put it? And and whereas cold data would
be measure everything and sort of put it
in in in our our smartest AIs that will
fix our problems for us.
>> Mhm. If we just have a big enough
spreadsheet, we can put all of the
contexts in there and then we can figure
out how to control them.
>> Yeah. No, I mean that's just not how
life works. >> So
>> So
I guess you know the thing with warm
data some people feel feel like warm
data is like the the soft stuff, the
woo, the kind of touchyfey, the
emotional aspects.
No, no, no, no, no, no. It's much more
rigorous than that. It's it's what is
happening in the combining of information.
information.
Okay? So, you know, you could pipe in,
let's say you have a kid that's struggling,
struggling,
>> all right? Uh, and they're in whatever,
fifth grade or something. All right? So,
you could pipe in information about that
kid's family,
>> about their economics. You could pipe in
something from the doctors. You could
pipe in their education
>> information. You could pipe in any kind
of legal questions that are going on
with them. You could pipe in historical
questions, their technological
time online, all these streams of
information you could get. Okay? But
that doesn't really tell you anything
about the ch child
because what we're looking for is the
way that all of these different contexts
are combining.
How does the technological the screen
time come into relationship with the
family history? You know, when you say
to your kid, "When I was a kid, we
played till after dark outside." And and
what you're saying isn't really about
technology. It's about history. >> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> Right. How does the child, you know,
what's happening in education conflict
with family? Well, you're getting an
education that's nothing like the one I
had, just as an example. >> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> Right. or culture.
>> Yeah. or um I mean what happened with
the pandemic is a fantastic example of
all of us had to go to these schools all
the time and every semester counted and
duh these kids they had a pandemic and
suddenly it was like well you can't go
to school and now there's a lot of
people having trouble figuring out how
to talk the kids into believing that
they have to go to school
>> or people that have to go get back to offices
offices
>> the the broken one big global sort of
example of cold cold data treatment of
the pandemic which sort of made us sort
of aware that that that just doesn't
work anymore. And another example that
just brings to mind is the fact that
when a company now would ask me uh if I'm happy about their service. Sometimes
I'm happy about their service. Sometimes I'm happy about the service. I just had
I'm happy about the service. I just had an agent on the phone. We call it
an agent on the phone. We call it agents, people who help me, right?
agents, people who help me, right? That's already weird. And I'm happy
That's already weird. And I'm happy about the service. And may I ask you to
about the service. And may I ask you to rank this service on a score from
rank this service on a score from >> 0 to 10?
>> 0 to 10? >> Then I say you just asking this just
>> Then I say you just asking this just reduce that number because I'm now now I
reduce that number because I'm now now I feel like I'm in transaction and and you
feel like I'm in transaction and and you you did this for this score
you did this for this score >> and that's how messed up we are. We
>> and that's how messed up we are. We don't even see that this cold data
don't even see that this cold data approach on a warm data level is messing
approach on a warm data level is messing things up,
things up, >> right? And um from a more scientific
>> right? And um from a more scientific physics perspective, I'd say this is
physics perspective, I'd say this is metaphorically speaking of course is
metaphorically speaking of course is that the measurement of course the act
that the measurement of course the act of measurement influences the
of measurement influences the measurement, right? Or is it observer
measurement, right? Or is it observer observer effect and we still think that
observer effect and we still think that we can go about and measure
we can go about and measure >> and it's going to be objective.
>> and it's going to be objective. >> Exactly.
>> Exactly. >> Fantastic. It's fantastic.
>> Fantastic. It's fantastic. >> Yeah.
>> Yeah. >> So so yeah. So the warm data is all
>> So so yeah. So the warm data is all these things that are combining.
these things that are combining. >> Yeah. And and that's why it's tricky
>> Yeah. And and that's why it's tricky because we are not used to thinking of
because we are not used to thinking of information like that. We're used to
information like that. We're used to thinking of information as something you
thinking of information as something you can grab,
can grab, plop down, measure, state, define,
plop down, measure, state, define, research. And what we're talking about
research. And what we're talking about with warm data is something that's in
with warm data is something that's in constant relational responsiveness.
constant relational responsiveness. And so I I sometimes describe it as
And so I I sometimes describe it as another species of information.
another species of information. >> Just don't even think about it in the
>> Just don't even think about it in the same way because
>> if we don't practice perceiving and responding to a world that's actually
responding to a world that's actually alive,
alive, how will our responses
how will our responses support and nourish the living world?
support and nourish the living world? >> Yeah. And you do this work with warm
>> Yeah. And you do this work with warm data in warm data labs, right? I'm just
data in warm data labs, right? I'm just super curious how that works in a lab.
super curious how that works in a lab. So you experiment with this or you let
So you experiment with this or you let make people aware of what warm data is
make people aware of what warm data is and let them sort of work on problems
and let them sort of work on problems with this warm data concept. To give an
with this warm data concept. To give an example, what does it look like to start
example, what does it look like to start working with warm data?
working with warm data? >> So first of all,
>> So first of all, it's
it's it's holding at two different levels at
it's holding at two different levels at least. Okay. So, uh, from the outside
least. Okay. So, uh, from the outside looking in, what you might see is that
looking in, what you might see is that there's a group of people and they're
there's a group of people and they're they're in little groups of three or
they're in little groups of three or four and, um, they've been given a
four and, um, they've been given a question. So, let's say the question is
question. So, let's say the question is something it's going to be something
something it's going to be something that's going to hold a lot of complexity
that's going to hold a lot of complexity like what is home in a changing world?
like what is home in a changing world? What is home? Yeah.
What is home? Yeah. >> Okay. So, just think about that for a
>> Okay. So, just think about that for a second. All right. And then each little
second. All right. And then each little group is going to have a context. So
group is going to have a context. So economy, family, history, culture,
