“There is a territory of communication, relationships and daily living that allows for a total change—it is within reach, but not in the solutions currently being reached for.”
— Nora Bateson
Warm Data Theory & Practice Training
Now more than ever our lives are divided and polarized.
The possibilities for people to respond to events of this era depend upon their ability to improvise and learn together within their complexity. One way to tend to this ability to commune is through the Warm Data Practices.
Too often, attempts to solve these complex issues are unwittingly perpetuating the very same problems. The quest for solutions, despite our best intentions, is inherently informed by the same patterns of thought that are creating the illusions of separation.
This course offers a deep dive into the Warm Data theory and practice toward a shift in perception. Through storytelling, archival documents, poetry, multitudes of texts spanning from ancient wisdom to modern complexity theory, a multiple description of the movement, rhythm, and resonances of life comes into study. This is both a felt sensorial inquiry and one of intellectual rigor.
Diving deeply into Warm Data practices, we are more likely to perceive the possibilities of ‘readying’ for change to meet the brokenness of the existing structures and systems. Possible actions are shifted with a change in perception.
Whatever your occupation, whatever you do in life, whoever you are, engaging with Warm Data practices offers the possibility of acting, feeling, thinking, and knowing differently.
Mama Now
Your eyes will see the derailing of assumptions
Your hands will hold the crumble of the old matrix.
I do not have any authority to lean into,
I have empty pockets where parents used to advise their children,
I do not have any maps, myths, or mother-wisdom for you.
I can fix your breakfast, but not the culture,
And when you ask about how to be a good person,
I cannot lie to you.
Everything you touch in a day is in some way bloodied.
You have been born into an edgeless violence.
But I will not judge or measure you against a bygone metric.
I am here, too, ready to learn with you.
Unsure how to be or who to be.
I can only read fragments of your worry,
As the future is a horizon of confusion.
I cannot protect you. And yet it is my only job.
Aching as I witness from this side of the hourglass.
Other generations of parents knew the outlines,
School, career, family, and retirement.
But your life will be another shape entirely.
Forming in the fractures.
When you say you need a goal, I offer you an expired ticket.
Superficial memes roll off the tongue right into your bullshit detector.
Success in the existing system is not going to do you much good.
Your integrity is your rage, and I will nourish it.
Your dignity is your curiosity, and I am tiny beside it.
Your courage is your pain, and I will sing to it with you.
We will riot together.
We will notice the nuance of small graces in the day.
We will wash the grit of loss for each other.
I am your mama, and your future is the story of a storm.
I am your cabin, your boots, your rucksack.
The theories that will be discussed and explored include:
Abductive Process (C.S. Peirce)Aphanipoiesis (N. Bateson)Differences of Abstraction (A. Korzybski / B. Russell)Epistemological Frames (G. Bateson)Complexity TheoryConscious Purpose (G. Bateson)Double Bind (G. Bateson)Interdependency and Change in Complex Systems, Mind (G. Bateson)Multiple Description (G. Bateson)Nth Order Agency (Transcontextual Anticipation) (N. Bateson)Patterns that Connect (G. Bateson)Requisite Variety (R. Ashby)Schismogenesis (G. Bateson)Side-by-Siding (N. Bateson)Simultaneously Implicating (N. Bateson)Symmathesy (N. Bateson)Transcontextual Process (G. Bateson)
Participation in this course also includes:
Joining an international network of Warm Data hosts.Gaining access to an online Warm Data platform to share insights.Meeting online monthly with other Warm Data hosts from around the world for practice sessions, organizing projects, contributing and having an open invitation to attend regular theory booster session, reading salons on Bateson and other materials.Completion of this course comes with an open invitation to join this course again and again, free of training fees (in-person trainings still have modest venue fees).
“The most important task of this moment is to generate a base of people who are eager to practice perceiving the complexity and interdependency in every aspect of our lives.”
Upcoming In-Person Trainings
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Europe
7 - 14 February 2026
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
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North America
23 - 30 June 2026
Montreal, Canada
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Europe
4 - 11 August 2026
Espoo, Finland
Upcoming Global Educators Online Training
10 April - 3 May 2026
Warm Data in a Time of AI
What is learning in a changing world?
This online course is offered to educators, students, parents, and those interested in nourishing the necessary realms of learning that are beyond the reach of AI, and vital to the living human mind, body and soul. This course will cover the spectrum of theory and practices to provide Warm Data experiences.
AI and machine intelligence are rapidly emerging in exciting and confusing ways. While the nature of cognition and learning have been deeply researched, there is still much that is unknown about the delicate cognitive processes of living human beings. Already it has been established that use of AI can damage people’s, especially young people’s, ability to connect, communicate and make sense of their relations ‘in real life.’
Out of concern for the known as well as unknown harms that AI can produce, Warm Data and the Warm Data Lab/People Need People (Online) practices have been suggested to re-attune to the invisible but vital processes of human-to-human communication… through mutual learning.