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Steps to an Ecology of Mind

Gregory Bateson’s 1972 collection of essays on cybernetics, communication, and the extended circuit of mind.

  • Authors: Gregory Bateson
  • Date: 1972
  • Last checked: 2026-10-19
  • Access: Available in print through libraries and booksellers.
  • Consult a library or print edition.

Bateson’s essays, especially “Form, Substance, and Difference,” introduced a generation of thinkers to the idea that mind is immanent in the whole circuit of body, tool, and environment rather than locked inside the cranium. His famous example of the blind man’s cane is the direct inspiration for Plate III in our book and for our teaching on The Self in Relationship.