The Lesser Number: On Action and Geoengineering Agustín Mercado-Reyes Abstract: The current crises put before us alternatives of action that require decision; for example, the decision of whether to deploy or investigate SRM geoengineering to counter global warming, which is here taken as the cen- tral example. Attending to the ontological richness of value in the elements of the world, of which scientifc models and thought are a very particular and limited kind, can cast a diferent light into the decision process, which otherwise would almost unavoidably devolve into “infernal alternatives,” as Isabelle Stengers calls them: impossible choices between two evils. 1. A fer her father died in 1980, Mary Catherine Bateson put together his last book out of his loose hand-drawn diagrams, unpublished manuscripts, conference notes and her own words. In that book, the shade of Gregory Bateson strives to explain the existence of holes and gaps in the pattern of our very existence (Bateson and Bateson 2005, 59). Tere are gaps between our perception and the real thing: gaps between measurement and the precise state of the object, between the model and the object modeled, and so on. Tese gaps are bridged by mind, which to Bateson is a component of being that permeates everything in the guise of structure or information. Bateson thus tries to think about the myths and superstitions of the modern age, which are not populated by angels and demons but by “deep un- conscious philosophies,” our default ways of bridging the gaps. Some of these superstitions lead us to profoundly material positions, centered in quantity; © Environmental Philosophy All rights reserved. ISSN: 1718-0918 doi: Online First: Agustín Mercado-Reyes, Centro de Investigaciones Interdisciplinarias en Ciencias y Humanidades, UNAM E-mail: agustin_mr@ciencias.unam.mx