Paper presented at Universities’ Forum for Human Resource Development conference, University of Tilburg, May 2006

Bateson’s Levels Of Learning: a Framework For Transformative

Learning?
Paul Tosey
University of Surrey

Abstract

This paper is principally an appreciation of Gregory Bateson’s `levels of

learning’; a reconnection with, and latest attempt to fathom, a framework
that has influenced my thinking for years. This is also part of an intellectual
project to develop a systemic understanding of learning for management
development and Higher Education contexts.

The purpose is to explore Bateson’s framework as a vehicle for indicating

multiple possibilities of learning from experience. Bateson’s framework may
also synthesise a variety of ideas about `learning to learn’, and represent an
intersection of disparate literatures of education, management learning,
organisational learning, and transformative learning.

Keywords: learning; Bateson; epistemology; transformative; cybernetics; systems.

Gregory Bateson (1904 - 1980), an `eminent biologist and

systems theorist’i, influenced diverse fields including
cybernetics, family therapy and communications studies
(Hawkins 2004:410). The son of the geneticist William
Batesonii, he married Margaret Mead, the anthropologist.
Bateson also attended Charterhouse School (in the town where I
now liveiii). For reviews of Bateson’s life and work see Harries-
Jones (1995), Levy and Rappaport (1982), and Lipset (1980) iv.

Bateson’s `Steps to an Ecology of Mind’ (1973, 2000)

would probably be my desert island book. I first came across it while working on my
doctorate, through people who also remain influenced by Bateson (Hawkins 2004;
Marshall 2004; Marshall & McLean 1985; Reason 1993).

Bateson was also a formative influence on Neuro-linguistic Programming, one

of my main research interests, (see foreword to Bandler and Grinder 1975; Bostic St.
Clair & Grinder 2002; Dilts & DeLozier 2000). For me Bateson’s work represents an
intellectual underpinning for NLP, providing important epistemological and ethical
principles. Bateson (1979:242) defines epistemology as:

`A branch of science combined with a branch of philosophy. As science,

epistemology is the study of how particular organisms or aggregates of organisms
know, think and decide. As philosophy, epistemology is the study of the necessary
limits and other characteristics of the processes of knowing, thinking and deciding.’

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 Paper presented at Universities’ Forum for Human Resource Development conference, University of Tilburg, May 2006

This paper is both an intellectual challenge

and a labour of love. I feel aesthetically and
intellectually drawn to Bateson’s emphasis on `the
pattern that connects’. But I also wonder if I am
capable of understanding what he was talking
about. Brockman notes:

`Bateson's readers often find it difficult to

grasp that his way of thinking is different from
theirs… Bateson is not clearly understood because his work is not an explanation, but
a commission, As Wittgenstein noted, "a commission tells us what we must do." In
Bateson's case, what we must do is reprogram ourselves, train our intelligence and
imagination to work according to radical configurations’. v

My desire to use Bateson’s ideas to illuminate issues of learning feels both risky
and adventurous. The paper is therefore an exploratory walk through an appealing but
deceptive landscape.

Bateson’s Levels of Learning

How does Bateson’s work relate to learning? Briefly, learning is a systemic

phenomenon (the mind does not reside in the brain); it is inherently relational,
emergent and recursive, involving multiple logical levels (Capra 1996; Hawkins
2004). `Basic to this epistemology was the differentiation of logical levels, including
the relationship between the knower and the known, ergo a recursive epistemology’vi.

In 1964 Bateson wrote `The Logical Categories of Learning and

Communication’ (1973:250–279), which merits a close reading. Bateson describes it
as an attempt to illuminate `the barriers of misunderstanding which divide the various
species of behavioural scientists… by an application of Russell’s Theory of Logical
Types to the concept of “learning”.’ (Bateson 1973:250). According to Flemons
(1991:5–6):
.
`Russell's Theory of Logical Types distinguishes between levels of
abstraction… the notion of logical types is used by Bateson as a way of charting the
classification inherent in all perceiving, thinking, learning, and communicating.

A class is a different logical type, a higher level of abstraction, than the

members it classifies: The class of "all books" is not itself a book; the name of a thing
is itself not a thing, but a classification of it... This hierarchy of types - classes, classes
of classes, classes of classes of classes, and so on - provides a convenient bridge to the
critical notion of context and the interdependence of wholes and parts. The notion of
levels makes clear that learning, for example, is a contextual affair; one not only
learns, but simultaneously learns how to learn.’ Thus:

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 Paper presented at Universities’ Forum for Human Resource Development conference, University of Tilburg, May 2006

`Lewis Carroll’s Alice asks the White Knight the name of the
song he’s going to sing for her. He says the name is called
“Haddock’s Eyes”.

Alice thought that to be an odd name for a song and the

Knight responded, “No, you don’t understand. That’s not
the name of the song, that’s what the name is called”.’
(Keeney 1983:34)

According to Bredo (1989:36), Bateson’s levels of learning are `properly

viewed as a framework and not an elaborated theory’. Bateson posits five levels (L0,
LI, LII, LIII and LIV –definitions in table 1), although he said little about LIV. Here I
consider mainly LI, LII and LIII.

Learning IV `…would be change in Learning III, but probably does not occur
in any adult living organism on this earth.’

Learning III …is change in the process of Learning II, e.g. a corrective
change in the system of sets of alternatives from which choice is
made.
Learning II …is change in the process of Learning I, e.g. a corrective change
in the set of alternatives from which choice is made, or it is a
change in how the sequence of experience is punctuated.
Learning I …is change in specificity of response by correction of errors of
choice within a set of alternatives.

Learning 0 …is characterised by specificity of response, which – right or

wrong - is not subject to correction.

Table 1: The levels of learning

As an alternative description of these levels, see Bateson’s paradigmatic story

about a dolphin in training (1979:135–137).

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 Paper presented at Universities’ Forum for Human Resource Development conference, University of Tilburg, May 2006

The Levels and Literature

This framework appears in diverse literatures: e.g. Bales (1995), Bartunek and Moch
(1994), Bloom (2004), Dilts & Epstein (1995), Keeney (1983), Peterson (1999), and
Watzlawick et al (1974). It influenced Argyris and Schön’s (1978) `single and double
loop learning’.

In Tosey (2005) I used the levels to explore organisational learning, arguing that
only a framework such as Bateson’s, which differentiates between logical types,
enables us to understand organisational learning appropriately as multi-dimensional,
paradoxical and aesthetic.

Bateson’s framework also appears in educational and management texts, often

in relation to `learning to learn’ – an imprecise term that does not necessarily denote
learning at a higher level. For example, Brockbank and McGill (1998:41) describe the
levels but portray LIII (incorrectly, in my view) as a more sophisticated form of
reflection.

While there is no direct link with Bateson to my knowledge, Mezirow’s (1991)

concept of `perspective transformation’ (which builds on the work of Habermas) is
redolent of Bateson’s LII and LIII. Tosey et al’s (2005) case study included critique
of the conceptualisation to date of transformative learning and advocated Bateson’s
`levels’ as a suitable framework. Finally, the levels seem relevant to recent work on
metalearning (Jackson 2004), the notion of `meta’ also implying multiple logical
levels.

Critique of Bateson appears limited. Appraisals tend either to reject Bateson

altogether, or to grapple appreciatively with his ideas, but rarely to critically evaluate
his stance (e.g. Midgley 2003).

Recursion

Bateson’s levels describe orders of

recursion, a hierarchy of logical types not a
hierarchy of contents (Keeney 1983;
Woodsmall [no date]). As orders of
recursion, the levels are like nested loops
or Russian dolls.

Indeed Bateson’s use of metaphors

such as `levels’, `higher’ (1973:265) and
`ladder’ (1973:278) appear to emphasise
hierarchy more than recursion. I set out in
this paper to develop Bateson’s ladder into a `climbing frame’ illustrating a variety of
emphases of LII. This metaphor, although congruent with Bateson’s, now seems
unhelpful. The issue is important, though, for reasons I address in the final section.

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 Paper presented at Universities’ Forum for Human Resource Development conference, University of Tilburg, May 2006

LIV

LIII

LII

LI

Figure 1: Stacked Loops

The levels can be represented in a variety of ways, for example as in table 1.

Alternatively, based on Hawkins (1991), they can be `loops’ stacked one on top of the
other (figure 1). Alternatively figure 2 portrays the recursive characteristic directly.
Note that:

• Contrasting with the idea that `learning to learn’ is a more sophisticated form
of learning (e.g. `Learning to learn... Will help you ultimately with everything
you need or want to learn in the future.’, Pedler et al 2001:260), higher orders
of recursion are not `superior’ to lower orders. They can be `generative’
(Senge 1990:14) in positive and negative respects, both liberating and limiting.
• Loops occur simultaneously, not sequentially: `… this multilevel approach to
change is not a stage theory moving sequentially from lower to higher levels
of learning. Rather, the different levels of learning go in parallel’ (Bredo
1989:32).
• The higher orders of recursion comprise `metacommunication’ about the way
communication is to be understood. There is reciprocal influence between
these levels.
• Mismatches between levels have real communicational and psychological
effects. `Where Russell and Whitehead’s approach to this problem, in their
theory of logical types, was to ban all such sentences by cleanly separating
statements at different logical levels, Bateson pointed out that good logic may
be bad natural science. Some of the most interesting aspects of communication

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 Paper presented at Universities’ Forum for Human Resource Development conference, University of Tilburg, May 2006

may depend upon the use of contradictory messages at different logical

levels…’ (Bredo 1989:30).

LIV

LIII

LII

LI

L0

Figure 2: Nested loops

The Experience of Learning

I will now walk through Bateson’s levels, referring to a recent learning experience of
my own, a training course I chose to attend. In my experience, Bateson’s framework
provides rich and challenging questions; it is neither straightforward to apply, nor
does it provide a simple explanation of events.

Learning 0
Learning 0 (zero) entails responding to stimuli but making no changes based on
experience or information. L0 is implied by the two mice who continue to look for
their cheese in the same place each day, even after it has disappeared, in `Who Moved
My Cheese?’ (Johnson 1998).

The training participant who seems to learn nothing is probably familiar to all,
and typically is framed as a difficulty, though it may not be so for that participant.
While I believe I experienced significant learning during my training course, I have

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 Paper presented at Universities’ Forum for Human Resource Development conference, University of Tilburg, May 2006

no doubt that I also produced automated response. For example I responded to stimuli
such as the trainer’s instructions.

Learning I
My course enabled me to learn new skills, for example a model of questioning
(Lawley and Tompkins 2000). Attending the course made the difference between
knowing the existence of these questions (I came across the book some years ago) and
having sufficient understanding to try them out. I then learnt to become more effective
through correcting errors in my use of the questions.

LI is the explicit focus of much Higher Education and management learning,

involving common notions of `learning’ as cognitive, conative and affective - changes
in knowledge, skills and attitude. It is also the focus of much learning theory.
Behavioural, cognitive and experiential perspectives are much concerned with the
acquisition of knowledge and skills. Finally, `learning to learn’ often refers to study
skills - this is LI in Bateson’s framework.

Learning II
At LII the principles of logical typing become more significant. One not only learns
but simultaneously learns how to learn. LII (and its relationship with LI) brings a
range of concepts about learning into the picture.

LII is essentially about learning the pattern of the context in which activity
takes place. The context indicates the meaning to be given to behaviour; there is
change in the way events are punctuated. This also introduces a reflexive aspect to
learning; `Instrumental conditioning tasks, for example, teach not only how to
discriminate between particular stimuli, but also about instrumentality itself’ (Bredo
1989:36).

Bateson usage of `context’ (`play’, `work’, `training’, etc.) is perceptual and

communicational. Context is influenced socially but also interpreted individually,
though there would often be consensus about it. The learnt pattern guides one’s action
in other, apparently similar contexts. Note also that: `for Bateson a context is the
particular whole which a given part helps compose, not something separate from or
abstracted from that part’ (Bredo 1989:28-29).

I have long thought that Snyder’s (1971) notion of the `hidden curriculum’ is
an example of LII – Bredo (1989:33) apparently agrees. This refers to the tacit
expectations and rules for success of formal educational contexts, of which the
teachers themselves may be unaware but which they also reinforce. `Savvy’ students
are quick to discern and orientate to the hidden curriculum.

At the start of my course, I was alert to the norms and expectations of this new
setting (e.g. about the level of personal disclosure), and how socialisation was
happening in parallel with the overt teaching of content, marking this context as
similar to and different from other settings in my experience. I experienced a
congruence between the overt, espoused intentions and the `hidden curriculum’.
Consider, though, what happens if a trainer explicitly invites feedback, but their

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 Paper presented at Universities’ Forum for Human Resource Development conference, University of Tilburg, May 2006

metacommunication discounts its value or uses put-downs. Here the `hidden

curriculum’ may be interpreted as geared to maintaining power relations between
trainer and participants. As another example, one might decide that a team awayday,
marked out formally as `play’, is more appropriately considered `appraisal’, with a
`hidden curriculum’ of (say) assessment of performance according to the boss’
expectations.

This is not to suggest that a rational, logical congruence between levels is the
goal. Metacommunication is only partly subject to our conscious influence, is often
non-verbal, and is complex because LI and LII are simultaneous and mutually
influencing. Nevertheless, people will adapt their behaviour according to such
metacommunication. As well as Bateson, Watzlawick et al (1968, 1974), give
examples.

LII involves other dynamics too. Bateson himself (1973:220, 271) identifies
the phenomenon of transference as LII about the patterning of relationship between
(say) a child and a parent. The individual unawarely imports this patterning into other
contexts later in life, where its overlay represents L0. A classic example is a
relationship with authority figures in the workplace. Thus, `this behaviour is
controlled by former Learning II and therefore it will be of such a kind as to mould
the total context to fit the expected punctuation… this self-validating characteristic…
has the effect that such learning is almost ineradicable’ (Bateson 1973:272). `New’
LII happens when the individual is enabled through (e.g.) a relationship with a
psychotherapist to differentiate between past and present contexts.

Therefore while the potential for LII is constantly present, often we simply
reproduce previously learnt patterns (L0). On my course, transference may have
influenced the way I related to the trainer; did I re-enact patterns learnt originally in
my family? This also illustrates the point that LII is not necessarily superior to or
more beneficial than LI. The transferential pattern learnt early in life is likely to be
helpful at the time (even essential for survival), but if that pattern persists in other
contexts it may become unhelpful.

This view of LII has various implications for management and organisational
learning. For example:

1. `Politics’ is integral to organisational learning, not, as is sometimes perceived,

an impediment to learning (Tosey 2005). `Politics’ could be reframed,
perhaps, as `teaching and learning about the metarules of context’; `No task
instruction can be done in a socially neutral way… It must always…
exemplify some form of social relationship…. Bateson’s theory helps show
how they are different aspects of a common process rather than different
things.’ (Bredo 1989:37).

2. The nature of (and epistemological framing of) the problem of `transfer of

training’ is challenged if the content of a learning experience is inseparable
from its context. Lave and Wenger’s (1991) `situated learning’ similarly
highlights the significance of context in learning.

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 Paper presented at Universities’ Forum for Human Resource Development conference, University of Tilburg, May 2006

3. Across LII there appears to be a varying emphasis on psychological and

critical/sociological frames: `Learning theorists tend to focus on individual
task learning independent of social context, while socialization theorists focus
on the effects of social context independent of the task.’ (Bredo 1989:27).
Often framed as oppositional, these might both be seen as varieties of LII.

Learning III
What does it mean to say `one not only learns, but simultaneously learns how to learn,
and simultaneously learns how to learn how to learn’? Bateson added the section on
LIII to his essay in 1971, saying that `the concept of “self” will no longer function as
a nodal argument in the punctuation of experience’ (1973:275); `something of the
sort does, from time to time, occur in psychotherapy, religious conversion, and in
other sequences in which there is profound reorganization of character’ (1973:273).
Bartunek & Moch (1994) draw on LIII for their `third order change’. Hawkins
(2004:414) says, `For double loop learning to be enabled there is a need for level three
or treble loop learning in organizations’.

Bateson (1973:276) refers to being `driven to level III by `contraries’

generated at level II’; `The “problem” to which third-order learning is a “solution”
consists of systematic contradictions in experience’ (Bredo 1989:35). This matches
what we have called elsewhere `dilemmas of participation’ (Tosey et al 2005).

However, Bateson also emphasised that while double binds can be triggers for
LIII, `even the attempt at LIII can be dangerous’ (1973:277), leading to psychosis
instead of enlightenment It is again the projection of a hierarchical, goal orientated
mind-set to see LIII as some kind of `holy grail’ of learning; it is not guaranteed to be
either benign or transcendent.

Was there an example of LIII in my training course? I would not claim so.
However the course’s focus on symbolic modes of knowing demonstrated the
significance of metaphor at the root of perception, and the profound potential for
learning should such metaphors changevii.

Multiple Modes of Learning?

Having struggled to clarify Bateson’s levels for myself (truly a labour of love,
with much emphasis on the labour) I arrive at a further question. This recapitulates
my initial desire to develop Bateson’s ladder into a climbing frame; but I found the
ladder flew apart when I tried to include other aspects of learning.

An example concerns processes such as critical reflection (Moon 2005) and

double-loop learning (Argyris and Schön 1974). To talk about LII necessarily entails
discourse of a different logical type; by implication this would represent LIII. Yet:
`Learning III is likely to be difficult and rare even in human beings’ (Bateson
1973:272). Bateson recognises that writing about LII implies a stance `at the side of
my ladder to discuss the structure of the ladder’ (1973:278). So, Bateson allows that
one can talk about LII without that necessarily constituting LIII. (Logically, this
applies equally to the relationship between LI and LII).

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 Paper presented at Universities’ Forum for Human Resource Development conference, University of Tilburg, May 2006

Bateson’s levels are clearly not about learning as cognitive insight alone. For
example:

1. Bateson argued for a `double involvement of primary process and conscious

thought… the emotions, those things that we are accustomed to regard as
rather amorphous and unintellectual – indeed, as interfering with the effective
pursuit of intellect – are the partial perceptions in consciousness of highly
precise and patterned forms of computation.’ (Brockman 1977:61).

2. At LIII Bateson and Bateson’s (1998) conception of the sacred becomes

important. They argued that some levels of patterning are so profoundly
ecological that they should not be analysed cognitively; to do so would make
them vulnerable to conscious thought.

3. The experience of LIII seems highly unlikely to be purely intellectual. Meyer

and Land (2005) use `liminality’ to describe the process through which
students acquire `threshold concepts’. This involves a transition that can be
troubling, with change in the learner’s identity as well as reconfiguration of
their conceptual schema. This links to our work on transformative learning
(Tosey et al 2005).

Bateson’s levels appear to involve enacted and embodied change in relation to

contexts, whereas Argyris and Schön emphasise intentional inquiry into contexts and
their `governing variables’, plus conscious agency in changing those variables. They
differentiate, in fact (1978), between double-loop learning (a process of inquiry) and
deutero-learning (synonymous in Bateson’s terminology with LII, e.g. Bateson
1979:147).

Indeed I speculate that one can trace a metamorphosis from Bateson’s original
emphasis via Argyris and Schön to ideas in the literature of learning organisations
(e.g. Pedler et al’s policy and ideas loops, 1991). This possible metamorphosis (I see
some evidence in texts, but this needs further research) is from a notion of embedded,
contextual, relational learning into intentional change through inquiry – as a mental,
cognitive activity - then later into a de-contextualised notion of managerial skill (e.g.
`strategic thinking’), where LIII even becomes identified with a level of managerial
hierarchy (e.g. Garratt 1987).

This metamorphosis:

• Recreates the error of identifying the mind with the brain (now, though, the
`organisational brain’).
• Ignores the dangers of (say) LIII, because higher levels are seen as more
desirable than, or superior to, lower.
• Separates knower from known; conscious thought from affect; and reflection
from action (i.e. a separation in time).

This seems far removed and epistemologically distinct from Bateson. By

contrast, figures such as Torbert (e.g. Fisher et al 2001) and Senge et al (2005) appear
to turn back and emphasise, for example, that thinking needs to become more holistic

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 Paper presented at Universities’ Forum for Human Resource Development conference, University of Tilburg, May 2006

and paradoxical, mirroring Bateson’s insistence (1973:265). that `…no amount of

rigorous discourse of a given logical type can `”explain” phenomena of a higher type’.

We may also reach the limits of an analytic mode through recognising the
fundamentally metaphorical, embodied nature of mind (e.g. Johnson 1987), echoing
the notion that `we are our own metaphor’ (Bateson, M. C. 1972). Bateson
emphasised the significance of the aesthetic in apprehending the patterning between
levels; `I have suggested elsewhere… that art is commonly concerned with... bridging
the gap between the more or less unconscious premises acquired by Learning II and
the more episodic content of consciousness and immediate action’ (1973:279).

Thus (Bateson and Bateson 1988:163); `…what is true of tales and words between
persons is also true of the internal organization of living things’. Consider the nuances
of `learning’ in the Sufi teaching stories of the Mullah Nasrudin, an archetypal `wise
fool’ (e.g. Shah 1973):

`Nasrudin was eating a poor man’s diet of

chickpeas and bread. His neighbour, who also
claimed to be a wise man, was living in a grand
house and dining on sumptuous meals provided
by the emperor himself.

His neighbour told Nasrudin, “if only you would

learn to flatter the emperor and be subservient
like I do, you would not have to live on
chickpeas and bread”.

Nasrudin replied, “and if only you would learn to live on chickpeas and bread, like I
do, you would not have to flatter and live subservient to the emperor”.’

Is there a pattern that acknowledges both the value and the location (relative to the
ladder) of double-loop learning, critical reflection and so on (significant in both
management learning and Higher Education), and also acknowledges the aesthetic?
My best attempt to reconcile these at the moment is to posit three interrelated `modes’
of learning (figure 3, which shows LI, LII and LII only for the sake of simplicity). In
this

• The `analytic’ mode, intentional inquiry, can lead to changes on the ladder but
does not necessarily. Analysis of changes on the ladder may be attempted
through such inquiry.
• The `embodied’ mode is Bateson’s ladder. Changes here may remain
unconscious.
• The `aesthetic’ mode synthesises and bridges `the gap between’ levels. Again,
`learning’ here may or may not lead to changes in other modes.

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 Paper presented at Universities’ Forum for Human Resource Development conference, University of Tilburg, May 2006

Analytic Embodied Aesthetic

LIII

LII

LI

Figure 3: Three modes of learning?

I confess I am not sure whether this synthesis is helpful or simply a way to park
the issues. There is much to explore both theoretically and regarding implications for
management and Higher Education contexts. Nevertheless, temporarily at least, here
is a possible `pattern that connects’.

References

Argyris, C. and Schön, D. (1974) Theory in practice: Increasing professional

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Argyris, C. and Schön, D. (1978) Organizational Learning, Reading, Mass.: Addison-

Wesley

Bales, L. S. (1995) `Gregory Bateson, Cybernetics,

and the Social/Behavioral Sciences’, Cybernetics and Human Knowing, A Journal of
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http://www.imprint.co.uk/C&HK/vol3/v3-1ind.htm, accessed 2.4.2006, page numbers
not cited; article available at
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Bandler, R. and Grinder, J. (1975) The Structure of Magic I: A Book about Language
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Bartunek, J.M. and Moch, M.K. (1994) `Third Order Organizational Change and the
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Bateson, G. (1973) Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology,

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