Life And 'mind' Are Systemic Processes.

Schizophrenia --its Nature, Etiology, And The Kind Of Therapy To Use For It--remains One Of The Most Puzzling Of The Mental Illnesses. The Theory Of Schizophrenia Presented Here Is Based On Communications Analysis, And Specifically On The Theory Of Logical Types. From This Theory And From Observations Of Schizophrenic Patients Is Derived A Description, And The Necessary Conditions For, A Situation Called The "double Bind"--a Situation In Which No Matter What A Person Does, He "can't Win." It Is Hypothesized That A Person Caught In The Double Bind May Develop Schizophrenic Symptoms

It Is Of First-class Importance That Our Answer To The Riddle Of The Sphinx Should Be In Step With How We Conduct Our Civilisation, And This Should In Turn Be In Step With The Actual Workings Of Living Systems.

It Is Impossible, In Principle, To Explain Any Pattern By Invoking A Single Quantity.

Science Sometimes Improves Hypotheses And Sometimes Disproves Them. But Proof Would Be Another Matter And Perhaps Never Occurs Except In The Realms Of Totally Abstract Tautology. We Can Sometimes Say That If Such And Such Abstract Suppositions Or Postulates Are Given, Then Such And Such Abstract Suppositions Or Postulates Are Given, Then Such And Such Must Follow Absolutely. But The Truth About What Can Be Perceived Or Arrived At By Induction From Perception Is Something Else Again.

Our Initial Sensory Data Are Always "first Derivatives," Statements About Differences Which Exist Among External Objects Or Statements About Changes Which Occur Either In Them Or In Our Relationship To Them. Objects And Circumstances Which Remain Absolutely Constant Relative To The Observer, Unchanged Either By His Own Movement Or By External Events, Are In General Difficult And Perhaps Always Impossible To Perceive. What We Perceive Easily Is Difference And Change And Difference Is A Relationship.