Hi Todd, Your post resonated with something Bateson wrote a long time ago, and I re-read just last night : "(1) The Receipt of a Signal: I am working at my desk on which there is a paper bag, containing my lunch. I hear the hospital whistle and from this I know that it is twelve o’clock. I reach out and take my lunch. The whistle may be regarded as an answer to a question laid out by my mind by previous learning of the second order, but the single event ~ the receiving of this piece on information ~ is a piece of learning and is demonstrated to be so by the fact that having received it, I am changed and respond in a special way to the paper bag. (2) The Learnings Which are Changes In (1) ~ These are exemplified by the classical learning experiments of various kinds. Pavlovian, instrumental reward, instrumental avoidance, rote and so on. (3) Those Learnings Which Constitute Changes in Second Order Learning ~ I have in the past called these phenomena “deutero-learning’ and have translated this as ‘learning to learn.’ It would have been more correct to coin the word trito-learning and translate it into ‘learning how to learn how to receive signals.’ These are the . . . changes whereby the individual expects his world to be structured in one way rather than another. (4) Changes in Those Processes of Change Referred to in (3) ~ Whether learning of this fourth order occurs in human beings is unknown . . . it is possible and certainly conceivable that some of the slow and unconscious changes may be shifts in sign of some higher derivative in the learning process. At this point it is necessary to compare three types of hierarchy with which we are faced: (a) the hierarchy of orders of learning; (b) the hierarchy of contexts of learning, and (c) hierarchies of circuit structure which we may ~ indeed, must ~ expect to find in a telencephalized brain. It is my contention that (a) and (b) are synonymous in the sense that all statements made in terms of contexts of learning could be translated (without loss or gain) into statements in terms of orders of learning, and further, that the classification or hierarchy of contexts must be isomorphic with the classification or hierarchy of orders of learning. Beyond this I believe we should look forward to a classification or hierarchy of neuropsychological structures which will be isomorphic with the other two classifications.” In other words, and to respond more directly to Martin’s questions if we delete any notion of learning at (3) when the hospital whistle blows indicating it’s Bateson’s lunch-time ~ then a cause/effect (Pavlovian) relationship may be considered to exist between the whistle and his reaching for his sandwiches. But, such a concept is in itself a distortion, (which as Carmen and John indicate in WITW is a subclass of deletion, as indeed is the generalization to which you Todd refer in your post). It therefore seems to be more sound both ecologically and epistemologically to focus not on establishing an argument for gross-cause/effect relationships. (The whistle caused Bateson to eat his lunch), but rather to concentrate on the range of possible alternative choices to eating the unfortunate lunch that Bateson, (and his followers) might follow, without starving themselves ;-)) Stephen Bateson, G. (1960) Minimal Requirements for a Theory of Schizophrenia. Archives of General Psychiatry Vol. 2. pp 477-491 (and reprinted in Steps to an Ecology of Mind (1972) Chandler Publishing Company pp 248 – 250.