Re: Books please...

From: TJ Olney (market@cc.wwu.edu)
Date: Thu Sep 06 2001 - 20:25:49 BST

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    From: TJ Olney <market@cc.wwu.edu>
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    Subject: Re: Books please...
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    I'd echo Scott on Bateson, but suggest instead two more accessible and
    deliberate books: "Mind and Nature" and the Post Humous book co-written by
    his daughter Catherine Bateson "Where Angels Fear." The original "Steps .."
    is very obscure. The second volume of steps "Sacred Unity: Further Steps
    toward an Ecology of Mind" is another collection of essays, some obscure,
    some not so.

    I'd imagine that most people participating in this list are well grounded in
    the concepts of systems, but if not, then a good read for that is Kenneth
    Boulding, "The World as a Total System."

    Then of course there are the novels written by great writers with a firm
    grasp of the spread of ideas. To wit: "The Foundation" series by Isaac
    Asimov, Dune by Frank Herbert, Ender's Game and its sequels by Orson Scott
    Card. A few of Robert Heinlein's books, notably "Stranger in a Strange Land".
    Most of Larry Niven's work. These are all in the science fiction category,
    because that has kept my interest, other genres have their great
    communicators as well. The point is that a good work of fiction by a smart
    author can have a profound effect on the way one thinks about a field.

    -- 
    -- TJ Olney  market@cc.wwu.edu  Not all those who wander are lost.
    -- http://mp3.musicmatch.com/artists/artists.cgi?id=113&display=1
    

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