“A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely
rearranging their prejudices.”
―
David Bohm
“Perhaps there is more sense in our nonsense and more nonsense in our 'sense' than we would care to believe.”
―
David Bohm
“Suppose we were able to share meanings freely without a
compulsive urge to impose our view or conform to those of others and
without distortion and self-deception. Would this not constitute a real
revolution in culture? ”
―
David Bohm
“The ability to perceive or think differently is more important than the knowledge gained.”
―
David Bohm
“There is a difficulty with only one person changing. People call
that person a great saint or a great mystic or a great leader, and they
say, 'Well, he's different from me - I could never do it.' What's wrong
with most people is that they have this block - they feel they could
never make a difference, and therefore, they never face the possibility,
because it is too disturbing, too frightening.”
―
David Bohm
“Ultimately, all moments are really one, therefore now is an eternity.”
―
David Bohm
“Universe consists of frozen light.”
―
David Bohm
“Space is not empty. It is full, a plenum as opposed to a vacuum,
and is the ground for the existence of everything, including ourselves.
The universe is not separate from this cosmic sea of energy.”
―
David Bohm
“Indeed, the attempt to live according to the notion that the
fragments are really separate is, in essence, what has led to the
growing series of extremely urgent crises that is confronting us today.”
―
David Bohm
“For both the rich and the poor, life is dominated by an ever
growing current of problems, most of which seem to have no real and
lasting solution. Clearly we have not touched the deeper causes of our
troubles. It is the main point of this book that the ultimate source of
all these problems is in thought itself, the very thing of which our
civilization is most proud, and therefore the one thing that is “hidden”
because of our failure seriously to engage with its actual working in
our own individual lives and in the life of society.”
―
David Bohm
“But what is [the] quality of originality? It is very hard to
define or specify. Indeed, to define originality would in itself be a
contradiction, since whatever action can be defined in this way must
evidently henceforth be unoriginal. Perhaps, then, it will be best to
hint at it obliquely and by indirection, rather than to try to assert
positively what it is.
One prerequisite for originality is
clearly that a person shall not be inclined to impose his preconceptions
on the fact as he sees it. Rather, he must be able to learn something
new, even if this means that the ideas and notions that are comfortable
or dear to him may be overturned.
But the ability to learn in
this way is a principle common to the whole of humanity. Thus it is well
known that a child learns to walk, to talk, and to know his way around
the world just by trying something out and seeing what happens, then
modifying what he does (or thinks) in accordance with what has actually
happened. In this way, he spends his first few years in a wonderfully
creative way, discovering all sorts of things that are new to him, and
this leads people to look back on childhood as a kind of lost paradise.
As the child grows older, however, learning takes on a narrower meaning.
In school, he learns by repetition to accumulate knowledge, so as to
please the teacher and pass examinations. At work, he learns in a
similar way, so as to make a living, or for some other utilitarian
purpose, and not mainly for the love of the action of learning itself.
So his ability to see something new and original gradually dies away.
And without it there is evidently no ground from which anything can
grow.”
―
David Bohm
“Thus, in scientific research, a great deal of our thinking is in
terms of theories. The word ‘theory’ derives from the Greek ‘theoria’,
which has the same root as ‘theatre’, in a word meaning ‘to view’ or ‘to
make a spectacle’. Thus, it might be said that a theory is primarily a
form of insight, i.e. a way of looking at the world, and not a form of
knowledge of how the world is.”
―
David Bohm
“some might say: ‘Fragmentation of cities, religions, political
systems, conflict in the form of wars, general violence, fratricide,
etc., are the reality. Wholeness is only an ideal, toward which we
should perhaps strive.’ But this is not what is being said here. Rather,
what should be said is that wholeness is what is real, and that
fragmentation is the response of this whole to man’s action, guided by
illusory perception, which is shaped by fragmentary thought.”
―
David Bohm
“All effort to bring order into disorder is disorder.”
―
David Bohm
“many individuals going beyond the ‘normal’ limits of fragmentation are classified as paranoid, schizoid, psychotic, etc.”
―
David Bohm
“The notion of a separate organism is clearly an abstraction, as
is also its boundary. Underlying all this is unbroken wholeness even
though our civilization has developed in such a way as to strongly
emphasize the separation into parts.”
―
David Bohm
“individual thought is mostly the result of collective thought and
of interaction with other people. The language is entirely collective,
and most of the thoughts in it are. Everybody does his own thing to
those thoughts – he makes a contribution. But very few change them very
much.”
―
David Bohm
“If each one of us can give full attention to what is actually
‘blocking’ communication while he is also attending properly to the
content of what is communicated, then we may be able to create something
new between us, something of very great significance for bringing to an
end the at present insoluble problems of the individual and of
society.”
―
David Bohm
“What prevents theoretical insights from going beyond existing
limitations and changing to meet new facts is just the belief that
theories give true knowledge of reality (which implies, of course, that
they need never change).”
―
David Bohm
“The notion that all these fragments are separately existent is
evidently an illusion, and this illusion cannot do other than lead to
endless conflict and confusion.”
―
David Bohm
“Indeed, the attempt to live according to the notion that the
fragments are really separate is, in essence, what has led to the
growing series of extremely urgent crises that is confronting us today.
Thus, as is now well known, this way of life has brought about
pollution, destruction of the balance of nature, over-population,
world-wide economic and political disorder, and the creation of an
overall environment that is neither physically nor mentally healthy for
most of the people who have to live in it.”
―
David Bohm
“culture – the collectively shared meaning”
―
David Bohm,
On Dialogue
“You may not even have known that you had an assumption. It was
only because he came up with the opposite one that you find out that you
have one. You may uncover other assumptions, but we are all suspending
them and looking at them all, seeing what they mean.”
―
David Bohm
“The question is how our own meanings are related to those of the
universe as a whole. We could say that our action toward the whole
universe is a result of what it means to be us.”
―
David Bohm
“[T]here is a universal flux that cannot be defined explicitly but
which can be known only implicitly, as indicated by the explicitly
definable forms and shapes, some stable and some unstable, that can be
abstracted from the universal flux. In this flow, mind and matter are
not separate substances. Rather, they are different aspects of our whole
and unbroken movement.”
―
David Bohm
“Clarity of perception and thought evidently requires that we be
generally aware of how our experience is shaped by the insight (clear or
confused) provided by the theories that are implicit or explicit in our
general ways of thinking.”
―
David Bohm,
Wholeness and the Implicate Order
“The notion that the one who thinks (the Ego) is at least in
principle completely separate from and independent of the reality that
he thinks about is of course firmly embedded in our entire tradition.”
―
David Bohm
“On the whole, you could say that if you are defending your
opinions, you are not serious. Likewise, if you are trying to avoid
something unpleasant inside of yourself, that is also not being serious.
A great deal of our whole life is not serious. And society teaches you
that. It teaches you not to be very serious – that there are all sorts
of incoherent things, and there is nothing that can be done about it,
and that you will only stir yourself up uselessly by being serious. But
in a dialogue you have to be serious. It is not a dialogue if you are
not – not in the way I’m using the word. There is a story about Freud
when he had cancer of the mouth. Somebody came up to him and wanted to
talk to him about a point in psychology. The person said, “Perhaps I’d
better not talk to you, because you’ve got this cancer which is very
serious. You may not want to talk about this.” Freud’s answer was, “This
cancer may be fatal, but it’s not serious.” And actually, of course, it
was just a lot of cells growing. I think a great deal of what goes on
in society could be described that way – that it may well be fatal, but
it’s not serious.”
―
David Bohm
“In the dialogue people should talk directly to one another, one
to one, across the circle. Then the time would come, if we got to know
each other a bit and could trust each other, when you could speak very
directly to the whole group, or to anybody in it.”
―
David Bohm
“it is widely felt that if there is to be any general world view
it should be taken as the ‘received’ and ‘final’ notion concerning the
nature of reality. But my attitude has, from the beginning, been that
our notions concerning cosmology and the general nature of reality are
in a continuous process of development, and that one may have to start
with ideas that are merely some sort of improvement over what has thus
far been available, and to go on from there to ideas that are better.”
Quotes from David Bohm
The ability to perceive or think differently
is more important than the
knowledge gained.
David Bohm
Suppose we were able to share meanings freely without a compulsive urge
to impose our view or conform to those of others and without distortion
and self-deception.
Would this not constitute a real revolution in
culture.
David Bohm
A corporation is organized as a system -
it has this department, that
department, that department... they don't have any meaning separately;
they only can function together. And also the body is a system. Society
is a system in some sense. And so on.
David Bohm
A new kind of mind thus beings to come into being which is based on the
development of a common meaning that is constantly transforming in the
process of the dialogue.
David Bohm
And thought struggles against the results, trying to avoid those
unpleasant results while keeping on with that way of thinking. That is
what I call 'sustained incoherence.
David Bohm
But the way people commonly use the word nowadays it means something all
of whose parts are mutually interdependent - not only for their mutual
action, but for their meaning and for their existence.
David Bohm
But you don't decide what to do with the info. Thought runs you.
Thought, however, gives false info that you are running it, that you are
the one who controls thought. Whereas actually thought is the one which
controls each one of us.
David Bohm
During the past few decades, modern technology, with radio, TV, air
travel, and satellites, has woven a network of communication which puts
each part of the world in to almost instant contact with all the other
parts.
David Bohm
Indeed, the attempt to live according to the notion that the fragments
are really separate is, in essence, what has led to the growing series
of extremely urgent crises that is confronting us today.
David Bohm
My suggestion is that at each state the proper order of operation of the
mind requires an overall grasp of what is generally known, not only in
formal logical, mathematical terms, but also intuitively, in images,
feelings, poetic usage of language, etc.
David Bohm
People are no longer primarily in opposition, nor can they be said to be
interacting, rather they are participating in this pool of common
meaning which is capable of constant development and change.
David Bohm
Similarly, thought is a system. That system not only includes thought
and feelings, but it includes the state of the body; it includes the
whole of society - as thought is passing back and forth between people
in a process by which thought evolved from ancient times.
David Bohm
So one begins to wonder what is going to happen to the human race.
Technology keeps on advancing with greater and greater power, either for
good or for destruction.
David Bohm
Then there is the further question of what is the relationship of thinking to reality. As careful attention shows, thought itself is in an actual process of movement. David Bohm This is another major feature of thought: Thought doesn't know it is doing something and then it struggles against it is doing. It doesn't want to know that it is doing it. David Bohm
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.
David Bohm
Thought has been constantly evolving and we can't say when that system
began.
David Bohm
Thought is constantly creating problems that way and then trying to
solve them. But as it tries to solve them it makes it worse because it
doesn't notice that it's creating them, and the more it thinks, the more
problems it creates.
David Bohm
Thought is creating divisions out of itself and then saying that they
are there naturally.
David Bohm
We havent really paid much attention to thought as a process. we have
engaged in thoughts, but we have only paid attention to the content, not
to the process.
David Bohm
What is the source of all this trouble? I'm saying that the source is
basically in thought. Many people would think that such a statement is
crazy, because thought is the one thing we have with which to solve our
problems. That's part of our tradition.
David Bohm
Yet it looks as if the thing we use to solve our problems with is the
source of our problems. It's like going to the doctor and having him
make you ill. In fact, in 20% of medical cases we do apparently have
that going on. But in the case of thought, its far over 20%.
David Bohm
Yet, in spite of this world-wide system of linkages, there is, at this
very moment, a general feeling that communication is breaking down
everywhere, on an unparalleled scale.
David Bohm
In relativity, movement is continuous, causally determinate and well
defined, while in quantum mechanics it is discontinuous, not causally
determinate and not well defined.
David Bohm
One thus sees that a new kind of theory is needed which drops these
basic commitments and at most recovers some essential features of the
older theories as abstract forms derived from a deeper reality in which
what prevails in unbroken wholeness.
David Bohm
Individuality is only possible if it unfolds from wholeness.
David Bohm
In some sense man is a microcosm of the universe; therefore what man is,
is a clue to the universe. We are enfolded in the universe.
David Bohm
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