Bateson's Unpredictability of Wild Variables in Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity

by Corry Shores
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Bateson's Unpredictability of Wild Variables

Gregory Bateson

Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity

Ch. II: Every Schoolboy Knows . . .

6. Divergent Sequences are Unpredictable

According to the popular image of science, everything is, in principle, predictable and controllable; and if some event or process is not predictable and controllable in the present state of our knowledge, a little more knowledge and, especially, a little more know-how will enable us to predict and control the wild variables.

This view is wrong, not merely in detail, but in principle. It is even possible to define large classes of phenomena where prediction and control are simply impossible for very basic but quite understandable reasons. Perhaps the most familiar example of this class of phenomena is the breaking of any superficially homogeneous material, such as glass. The Brownian movement of molecules in liquids and gasses is similarly unpredictable. (49-50, emphasis mine)

Bateson, Gregory. Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity. London: Fontana, 1979.