David Bohm Mind and Matter
Quotes from the webpage Lifework of David Bohm.
“Indeed, even mind and matter are united: ‘In this flow, mind and matter are not separate substances. Rather they are different aspects of one whole and unbroken movement.”
“The ability of form to be active is the most characteristic feature of mind, and we have something that is mindlike already with the electron. Thus, matter does not exist independently from so-called empty space; matter and space are each part of the wholeness.”
“However, for Bohm, precisely the opposite is the case: the implicate order is the fundamental and primary reality, albeit invisible”.
“”Space and matter are intimately interconnected. Indeed, calculations of the quantity known as the zero-point energy suggest that a single cubic centimetre of empty space contains more energy than all of the matter in the known universe!”
“In this understanding, quantum mechanics provides nothing more or less than a set of statistical rules for connecting observable phenomena.”
“In this model, the electron is viewed as an ordinary particle, with one key difference: the electron has access to information about its environment.”
“Bohm effectively partitioned this equation into two parts, or terms: a classical term that essentially reproduces Newtonian physics, and a nonclassical term that he calls the quantum potential.
the nonclassical quantum potential is a wave-like term that provides information to the electron, linking it to the rest of the universe.”
“The radio waves do not and cannot provide the energy required to change course; rather they provide active information to which the airliner responds by changing course under its own power. The electron responds in an analogous manner to the quantum potential.”
“The quantum potential differs in that it has no known physical source, which is one reason that physicists object to it. Even more unacceptable, the action of the quantum potential depends only on its form and not on its intensity, which means that its effect does not diminish with increasing separation in space or time. The form of the quantum potential gives information that is communicated instantaneously, which appears to violate Einstein’s Limit of the speed of light for travel of signals.”
“Quantum mechanics requires reality to be discontinuous, noncausal, and nonlocal, whereas relativity theory requires reality to be continuous, causal, and local.
undivided wholeness.”
“Bohm proposed that through our perceptions of similarities and differences, we create categories that are the precursors to order.
randomness depends on context”
“Randomness depends on context”
“What is randomness in one context may reveal itself as simple orders of necessity in another broader context”.
“When scientists describe the behavior of a natural system as random, this label may not describe the natural system at all, but rather their degree of understanding of that system–which could be complete ignorance.”
“Bohm refined dialogue to a creative art,”
“Dialogue differs from ordinary conversation, where people generally hold a point of view that they feel compelled to defend.”
“In dialogue, participants give serious consideration to views that may differ substantially from their own, and they are willing to hold many conflicting possibilities in their minds simultaneously and to accept what is, however uncomfortable.”
“Came to believe that meaning is a fundamental element of existence.”
“questioning the primary epistemological engine for all scientific inquiry: human thought itself. He stressed that thought creates structures and then pretends they are objective realities independent of thought. Thus our “objective reality” is largely a construct of thought, and not recognizing this leads us to endless circles of self-deception–in science as well as in life in general”
“But thought forms a world of its own in which it is everything”
“Therefore thought will now take the words, “the nonmanifest” and form the idea of the nonmanifest; and therefore, thought thinks the manifest plus the nonmanifest together make up the whole, and that this whole thought is now a step beyond thought, you see. But in fact, it isn’t”
“He placed increasing emphasis on the importance of meaning, and he came to regard matter, energy, and meaning as three major constituents of our existence”
“So quite generally, energy enfolds matter and meaning, while matter enfolds energy and meaning. . . But also meaning enfolds both matter and energy. . . So each of these basic notions enfolds the other two. . . . “This implies, in contrast to the usual view, that meaning is an inherent and essential part of our overall reality, and is not merely a purely abstract and ethereal quality having its existence only in the mind. Or to put it differently, in human life, quite generally, meaning is being.”
“Do mind and body correspond to the implicate and explicate orders? Can consciousness tap directly into the implicate order?”
“Later, Bohm came to believe that material and informational processes are inextricably intertwined together in all things, and he used the term soma-significance to refer to this intrinsic interpenetration.”
“Consciousness is much more of the implicate order than is matter. . . Yet at a deeper level [matter and consciousness] are actually inseparable and interwoven”
“In this view, mind and matter are two aspects of one whole and no more separable than are form and content. Deep down the consciousness of mankind is one.
[In] idealism form is primary.”
“This form is carried out as meaning and energy. If you read a printed page, which is a form, the meaning gives rise to an energy from which you act.”
“Not attempt to reduce one to the other any more than one would attempt to reduce form to content. . . Every content is a form and every form is at the same time a content.”
“What is needed today is a new surge that is similar to the energy generated during the Renaissance but even deeper and more extensive;. . . the essential need is for a “loosening” of rigidly held intellectual content in the tacit infrastructure of consciousness, along with a “melting” of the “hardness of the heart” on the side of feeling. The “melting” on the emotional side could perhaps be called the beginning of genuine love, while the “loosening” of thought is the beginning of awakening of creative intelligence. The two necessarily go together.”
Other Theories:
Carl Jung: Individuation Process
Jean Carteret: Language and Psyche
Leonard Bernstein: Metaphorical Language
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