David Bohm-Wholeness

I have been reading about David Bohm and his theories off late. David Bohm was a theoretical physicist who also had a long association with Krishnamurti. He had come up with lot of interesting theories or looked at existing theories and gave some out of the box takes on them.

Some of it has been heavy reading as one needs some basic knowledge of physics to make sense of it all which I don’t have. but once you can look through and beyond some of the technical scientific words used you do come upon some profound stuff.

He talked about wholeness in the universe and beyond. Everything  is connected or has a relationship with everything else. While we talk about this as a philosophical concept it just looks words to us in this increasingly fragmented world. But to have a man of science explain this concept of wholeness as a scientific concept was a new experience for me and probably gives it more legitimacy in my mind  .

My rudimentary explanation ( taking some liberties with the science )would be that everything is made up of matter. Matter in turn is made up of particles and when you study the movement of particles you see a few patterns:

a.       Particles move discontinuously i.e the tend to jump from point A to point B rather than a continuous movement. this movement of the particle without leaving a trace suggest that they have some relationship to the particles nearby and to the overall eco system in which they are operating. There seems to be an indivisibility in that relationship  which allows these particles join together and take form

b.       Particles( or the sub parts;atoms and electrons)  also respond to the environment that they are in. they break up and again take up some shape based on changes applied to them.There again is a relationship between them which allows them to act interdependently.

Electrons which influence each other non-locally must both be regarded as  in Bohms words as “projections of a higher dimensional reality:” i.e., these particles do not simply interact between themselves but rather are projections of the same higher dimensions. There seems to be an order in this relationship in which particles function and Bohm calls this relationship as the implicate order.

The movement of the particles is based on the theory of relativity and the Quantum theory which Bohm then develops  into this concept of wholeness.

Bohm basically says in this theory that everything is enfolded into everything else and everything unfolds to take shape of things that we see with our eyes. There is no separation due to this enfolding.

He then goes on to suggest this particle movement properties also is how our thoughts work. we have one thought and then we have other thoughts. Sometimes one thought leads to another thought but most times we seem to jump from one thought to a completely unrelated thought. Because our mind works at a very fast speed we feel its been a discrete movement i.e one thought leading to another inter connected thought. While that may happen at times ,it does not happen at other times. The thought process is capable of or is designed in way where it jumps from one thought to the other.

This is were probably understanding of Bohm and his theory of wholeness and implicate order can help us.It could be laying a good explanation for how our thought process works. we probably need to understand the process and observe the process rather than spend so much time trying to control our mind or thoughts. The thought process is not designed to be controlled. It moves discontinuously . This is where Krishnaji and Bohm meet in their  theories /philosophy also. Instead of trying to control our mind we need to observe it. In that observation we will get to a quiet mind.. or atleast a quieter mind.

Defintely food for thought.We don’t have to agree with Bohm or Krishnaji.but enough there to try and test out.There is a lot more of Bohm which I will touch upon later.