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Abstract:
Gregory Bateson's work on play led him to conclude that paradox is the ground of propositions and denotation. Working through the concepts of analog and digital communication, logical typing problems, and various dimensions of "framing" and meta-discourse, I broadly illustrate how what Bateson came to call "the paradoxes of abstraction" inevitably arise within denotative utterances. In addressing the root paradoxes of framing and denotation which Bateson's work on play identified and sought to elucidate, this manuscript outlines and advances some of Bateson's main contributions to communication theory.
I. Setting the Stage1
In his essay "A Theory of Play and Fantasy", Gregory Bateson (1955 [1972]) argues that an important evolutionary event occurred when some creatures, specifically humans, became able to take their signs "as signs." His point is that humans talk about talk, and in doing so, can call it into question. In fuller bloom this implies that we can advance formulated propositions (or even gainsay propositions) about what is or what is not. Bateson notes that such denotative utterances always operate on"many levels of abstraction" (Bateson, 1955 [1972]: 179). The levels he refers to range from "metacommunicative" references (for example, "I am telling you the truth" or "You are taking me too seriously") to "metalinguistic" references (for example, "The word cat' does not have whiskers" or "2+2=4 is a true statement"). Even more broadly characterized, Bateson's essay on play and fantasy intends to "illustrate a stage of evolution-the drama precipitated when organisms, having eaten from the Tree of Knowledge, discover that their signals are signals" (Bateson, 1955 [1972]: 179). Bateson elsewhere echoes this underlying orientation where he states,
I became interested in the whole problem of play through realizing that there must have been an extraordinary step in the evolution of communication. . . . It seemed to me that when the human species ate of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, it discovered that automatic signs could be turned into signals and emitted with conscious or unconscious purpose. With that discovery, of course, also came the possibility of deceit, and all sorts of other possibilities. (1956: 157-158)
Obviously, then, Bateson suggests that denotative messages, messages which bear prepositional content, are unique to human language and are an evolutionary achievement. They are...