Events

It has recently been shown that the Bohm approach outlined in his 1952 work is not a new type of ‘mechanics’ but is unitarily equivalent, i.e. mathematically equivalent, to the Schrödinger approach, dealing directly with canonical coordinates (x, p) rather than through the intermediary ‘wave functions’.  This fits in with the Stone-von Neumann theorem which explains why we already have the Schrödinger ‘picture’, the Heisenberg ‘picture’, the interaction ‘picture’ etc.  We have called it the Dirac-Bohm ‘picture’ based on a non-commutative algebra: it is from this picture that Bohm’s ’52 approach emerges.  The word ‘picture’ is here used in a technical sense, but can be taken as providing a different physical intuition with which to understand quantum phenomena.

David Bohm was concerned with providing a description of reality – at the quantum level, and more generally, a unified description of matter, life, and consciousness, all adding up to a general concept of reality or a metaphysical theory. Such synthetic ontological projects were not popular in much of 20thcentury philosophy and thus Bohm’s philosophical work has been often ignored by professional philosophers. However, it is important to realize that although he was clearly more concerned with describing a mind-independent reality than many other 20th-century physicists or philosophers, this concern did not mean that he ignored the role of the mind (language, perception, etc.) in his attempts to describe reality.

The concluding panel of Part One of the Beyond Bohm event will examine work in progress in various areas related to Bohm’s thought.

The session will start with the panelists describing which developments of Bohm’s thought they consider most important for their work, for their life and for philosophy in general.

David Bohm’s writing on creativity was not directed exclusively at art works, instead it sought to outline a more foundational capacity in any one of us – or in any human discipline – for new orders of perception and understanding. First and foremost, he explained, we need to awaken the necessary ‘creative mind state’ which is supressed by the unrecognized “boss reality” of Western thought, language and the associated entrapment of the self-image. Bohm’s is a dynamic model of creativity open to entanglements of mind, body, language, conceptual abstraction, non-human matter and infinity, the nature of which is to be continually unfolding, to be generative. His expanded notion of what constitutes an ‘artform’ is radical and speaks to contemporary, speculative approaches towards ever opening up an animate world of which we are a participant.

For those who have surveyed David Bohm’s version of dialogue and the larger theoretical context from which it emerged, a trove of concepts and definitions will be familiar: participatory thought, literal thought, thought of type “A” and type “B”, representations, collective representations.

Reaching back through recorded history, into the multivalent worlds of oral tradition, Indigenous people have long indicated knowledge of how the world comes into being, and how humans can live in accord with this perpetual ”coming into being.” This knowledge is expressed through origin stories, ceremonial activity, ritual enactment and renewal, paradoxical language play, and trickster humor – it permeates all aspects of daily life in traditional cultures.

Human consciousness is a shared space. As individuals, we are born into an inherited socio-cultural matrix from which almost all of what we think and do derives.  As Bohm points out, thought is a material process which pervades and dominates us.

We need to realise that we are participants.  We must make a basic shift: from literal thought to participatory thought, a process in which we partake of consciousness. This can then become a kind of “food” which, in our times, we so desperately need.

Dip with Beth Macy into her research archives of the lineage of Bohm’s dialogue.  Pursue with her core aspects of each lineage member’s own early lifetime wounding as well as later cultural and professional alienation, and the impact of these dynamics on lineage members’ resulting contributions to Bohm’s ideas of “participation” in dialogue.  And then, explore the meaning as it flows through the whole of the lineage and those to whom dialogue’s participative spiral of meaning unfolds, transforms and re-enfolds.

It may be “auspicious coincidence” – or otherwise – but the first five of the sessions in Beyond Bohm 2 are in one way or another related to participatory consciousness. This overlap occurred without any intention on the part of the individuals who put together each of the sessions. It is likely then, that this topic will figure into our final summary session, though any of the topics addressed in the preceding weeks may come to the fore – especially in the extended discussion and Q &A with those attending this final segment of Beyond Bohm. And in the spirit of dialogue, something completely new may emerge, unforeseen by any plan or agenda.