when logic won't quite do

   

.

“Logic is a very elegant tool,” he [Gregory Bateson] said, “and we’ve got a lot of mileage out of it for two thousand years or so. The trouble is, you know, when you apply it to crabs and porpoises, and butterflies and habit formation” – his voice trailed off, and he added after a pause, looking out over the ocean – “you know, to all those pretty things” – and now, looking straight at me [Capra] – “logic won’t quite do … because that whole fabric of living things is not put together by logic. You see when you get circular trains of causation, as you always do in the living world, the use of logic will make you walk into paradoxes.” 

... He stopped again, and at that moment I suddenly had an insight, making a connection to something I had been interested in for a long time. I got very excited and said with a provocative smile: “Heraclitus knew that! … And so did Lao Tzu.”

“Yes, indeed; and so do the trees over there. Logic won’t do for them.”

“So what do they use instead?”

“Metaphor.”

“Metaphor?”

“Yes, metaphor. That’s how the whole fabric of mental interconnections holds together. Metaphor is right at the bottom of being alive.”

—Fritjof Capra

Uncommon Wisdom: Conversations with remarkable people

.