Quotes from David Bohm

Buddhist philosophy, notion of mutually dependent origination, everything originates together, mutually dependent. it is close to implicate order, which says that everything comes out of a good and everything is interrelated, and that underlying it there is no substance that can be defined. that also give rise to karma, but karma too becomes changeable since even our own state of mind is part of the whole, and when it changes, the whole changes, so the karma changes.

Pribram has given evidence backing up his suggestion that memories are generally recorded all over the brain in such a way that information concerning a given object or quality is not stored in a particular cell or localized part of the brain but rather that all the information is enfolded over the whole.

So, we see that the ground of intelligence must be in the undetermined and unknown flux, that is also the ground of all definable forms of matter. Intelligence is thus not deducible or explainable on the basis of any branch of knowledge (e.g. physics or biology). Its origin is deeper and more inward than any knowable order that could describe it. (Indeed, it has to comprehend the very order of definable forms of matter through which we would hope to comprehend intelligence.

We can refer to this one process as experience-knowledge (the hyphen indicating that these are two inseparable aspects of one whole movement).

The holomovement which is 'life implicit' is the ground both of 'life explicit' and of 'inanimate matter', and this ground is what is primary, self-existent and universal. Thus we do not fragment life and inanimate matter, nor do we try to reduce the former completely to nothing but an outcome of the latter.

thought with totality as its content has to be considered as an art form, like poetry, whose function is primarily to give rise to a new perception, and to action that is implicit in this perception, rather than to communicate reflective knowledge of how everything is. This implies that there can no more be an ultimate form of such thought than there could be an ultimate poem (that would make all further poems unnecessary).

I regard the essence of the notion of process as given by the statement: Not only is everything changing, but all is flux. That is to say, what is the process of becoming itself, while all objects, events, entities, conditions, structures, etc., are forms that can be abstracted from this process.

On the contrary, when one works in terms of the implicate order, one begins with the undivided wholeness of the universe, and the task of science is to derive the parts through abstraction from the whole, explaining them as approximately separable, stable and recurrent, but externally related elements making up relatively autonomous sub-totalities, which are to be described in terms of an explicate order.

i like to go into the roots of words, because they often show early insights, a fresh perception of meaning. the word 'economy' has a greek root, meaning 'household management'. we can say that there are so many households in the world and they all behave independently. in fact they are all interdependent. the earth is one household really, but we are not treating it that way. so the first step in economics is to say, the earth is one household, it is all one.

We propose instead that the basic element be a moment which, like the moment of consciousness, cannot be precisely related to measurements of space and time, but rather covers a somewhat vaguely defined region which is extended in space and has duration in time.

The thing that mostly gets in the way of dialogue," he says, "is holding to assumptions and opinions, and defending them." This instinct to judge and defend, embedded in the selfdefense mechanisms of our biological heritage, is the source of incoherence.

Yet after that, everybody seemed to know what to do, because they understood each other so well. Then they could get together in smaller groups and do something or decide things.

Si concibe la totalidad compuesta por fragmentos independientes, así es como su mente tenderá a funcionar, pero si puede incluirlo en un todo de una manera coherente y armoniosa en una totalidad general que sea indivisa, ininterrumpida y sin fronteras, su mente tenderá a moverse de una manera semejante, y de ahí fluirá una acción ordenada dentro del todo.

In a way, techniques of meditation can be looked on as measures which are taken by man to try to reach the immeasurable, i.e., a state of mind in which he ceases to sense a separation between himself and the whole of reality. But clearly, there is a contradiction in such a notion, for the immeasurable is, if anything, just that which cannot be brought within the limits determined by man's knowledge and reason.

between the 'left brain' and the 'right brain'.) This kind of overall way of thinking is not only a fertile source of new theoretical ideas: it is needed for the human mind to function in a generally harmonious way, which could in turn help to make possible an orderly and stable society. As

The most essential aspects of this philosophy seem to the author, however, to be its assumption that the great diversity of things that appear in all of our experience, every day as well as scientific, can all be reduced completely and perfectly to nothing more than consequences of the operation of an absolute and final set of purely quantitative laws determining the behaviour of a few kinds of basic entities or variables.

I warned especially against phrases, often found in the physical literature, such as 'disturbing of phenomena by observation' or 'creating physical attributes to atomic objects by measurement'. Such phrases are…apt to cause confusion,…

However, it has been found that even the elementary particles can be created, annihilated and transformed, and this indicates that not even these can be ultimate substances but, rather, that they too are relatively constant forms, abstracted from some deeper level of movement.

Irre-verration, i.e. the persistent holding to a truth beyond its proper limits, has evidently been one of the major sources of illusion and delusion throughout the whole of history and in every phase of life.

However, as indicated earlier, truth and falsity have actually, like relevance and irrelevance, to be seen from moment to moment, in an act of perception in a very high order.

Division is thus seen to be a convenient means of giving a more articulated and detailed description to this whole, rather than a fragmentation of what is.

there is instead a strong disposition to impose familiar ideas, even when there is evidence that they may be false. This, of course, creates the illusion that no fundamental change is required, when in fact the need for such a change may be crucial. If several people are involved, collusion will follow, as they mutually support one another in their false responses.

Paradigms clearly involve, in a key way, the process of taking ideas and concepts for granted, without realizing that this is in fact going on. Since this process takes place as the mind attempts to defend itself against what it believes to be a severe disturbance, a paradigm tends to interfere with that free play of the mind that is essential for creativity. Instead it encourages the process of playing false, especially in deep and subtle areas.

it must also be realized that a paradigm has the power to keep a whole community of scientists working on a more or less common area. In a sense, it could be taken as an unconscious or tacit form of consent. At first sight, the paradigm would be of obvious use to the scientific community. However, it also exacts a price in that the mind is kept within certain fixed channels that deepen with time until an individual scientist is no longer aware of his or her limited position.