Thought as a System

Bohm was alarmed by what he considered an increasing imbalance of not only 'man' and nature, but among peoples, as well as people, themselves. 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." He goes on to ask:

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. 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, it's far over 20%.

In Bohm's view:

...the general tacit assumption in thought is that it's just telling you the way things are and that it's not doing anything - that 'you' are inside there, deciding what to do with the info. 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. Thought is creating divisions out of itself and then saying that they are there naturally. This is another major feature of thought: Thought doesn't know it is doing something and then it struggles against what it is doing. It doesn't want to know that it is doing it. 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".


Bohm thus proposes in his book, Thought as a System, a pervasive, systematic nature of thought:

What I mean by "thought" is the whole thing - thought, felt, the body, the whole society sharing thoughts - it's all one process. It is essential for me not to break that up, because it's all one process; somebody else's thoughts becomes my thoughts, and vice versa. Therefore it would be wrong and misleading to break it up into my thoughts, your thoughts, my feelings, these feelings, those feelings... I would say that thought makes what is often called in modern language a system. A system means a set of connected things or parts. 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. 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. Similarly, thought is a system. That system not only includes thoughts, "felts" 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. A system is constantly engaged in a process of development, change, evolution and structure changes...although there are certain features of the system which become relatively fixed. We call this the structure.... Thought has been constantly evolving and we can't say when that structure began. But with the growth of civilization it has developed a great deal. It was probably very simple thought before civilization, and now it has become very complex and ramified and has much more incoherence than before. Now, I say that this system has a fault in it - a "systematic fault". It is not a fault here, there or here, but it is a fault that is all throughout the system. Can you picture that? It is everywhere and nowhere. You may say "I see a problem here, so I will bring my thoughts to bear on this problem". But "my" thought is part of the system. It has the same fault as the fault I'm trying to look at, or a similar fault. 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. (P. 18-19)

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David Bohm
David Bohm (1917-94) was one of the foremost theoretical physicists of his generation and one of the most influential theorists of the emerging paradigm through which the world is increasingly viewed. Bohm's challenge to the conventional understanding of quantum theory has led scientists to re-examine what it is they are doing and to question the nature of their theories and their scientific methodology. He brought together a radical view of physics, a deeply spiritual understanding and a profound humanity. In the years before his death in 1992, Bohm lectured worldwide on the meaning of physics and consciousness.

In an interview in 1989 at the Nils Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, where Bohm presented his views, Bohm spoke on his theory of wholeness and the implicate order. The conversation centered around a new worldview that is developing in part of the Western world, one that places more focus on wholeness and process than analysis of separate parts. Bohm explained the basics of the theory of relativity and its more revolutionary offspring, quantum theory. Either theory, if carried out to its extreme, violates every concept on which we base our understanding of reality. Both challenge our notions of our world and ourselves.  

He cited evidence from both theories that support a new paradigm of a more interrelated, fluid, and less absolute basis of existence, one in which mind is an active participant. "Information contributes fundamentally to the qualities of substance." He discussed forms, fields, superconductivity, wave function and electron behavior. "Wave function, which operates through form, is closer to life and mind...The electron has a mindlike quality."

In his groundbreaking theory of "wholeness and the implicate order", Bohm proposed a new model of reality that was a revolutionary challenge to physics. In this model, as in a hologram, any element contains enfolded within itself the totality of its universe. Bohm's concept of totality included both matter and mind.  

Bohm also mentioned the dangers we face as a society and the changes we will have to make in our thinking in order to have a future. He said we need a more holistic approach to the ecological problem and must find something else in life besides economic growth; if it continues unchecked, it will destroy the planet.The emerging change in consciousness is the challenge and the key: "Our future depends on whether we feel like part of this one whole or whether we feel we're separate."


Mystic Fire Online
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David Bohm was one of the world's greatest quantum mechanical physicists and philosophers and was deeply influenced by both J. Krishnamurti and Einstein.
Born in Wiles-Barre, Pennsylvania on December 20, 1917, he studied under Einstein and Oppenheimer, received his B.Sc. degree from Pennsylvania State College in 1939 and his Ph.D. in physics at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1943. He was the last graduate student to study with Oppenheimer at U.C. in the 1940s, where he remained as a research physicist after Oppenheimer left for Los Alamos to work on the atomic bomb. He worked at Berkeley on the Theory of Plasma and on the Theory of Synchroton and Syndrocyclotrons until 1947. From 1947-1951 he taught at Princeton University as an Assistant Professor and worked on Plasmas, Theory of Metals, Quantum Mechanics and Elementary Particles.

He was blacklisted by Senator Joe McCarthy's witch-hunt trials while teaching at Princeton. Rather than testifying against his colleagues, he left the U.S. Bohm subsequently became Professor at the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, the Technion of Haifa, Israel, and at Birkbeck College, University of London; Research Fellow at Bristol University; and was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1990. Bohm lived in London and died in 1992.

Bohm was a member of the Royal Academy, the originator of the causal interpretation of quantum theory, and the author of a famous text on quantum mechanics and of numerous articles and other books. The best-known recent work was Wholeness and the Implicate Order. He wrote his classic book, Quantum Theory, in an attempt to understand quantum theory from Nils Bohr's point of view. After completing the book and communicating with Einstein on it, Bohm remained unsatisfied with the theory. Bohm's challenge to the conventional understanding of quantum theory has led scientists to re-examine what it is they are doing and to question the nature of their theories and their scientific methodology.

A profoundly contemplative man, Bohm arrived intuitively at universal truths and presented them in imaginative models, in the languages of both physics and philosophy. His physics and cosmology were all-encompassing and so far ahead of his time that few people were able to appreciate them. Mainstream physicists considered them too mystical, and few mystics could follow his subtle scientific reasoning. (Krishnamurti was a notable exception.)

Bohm redefined physics. To him it was not about mere prediction and control, nor even mathematical equations. Though central to the enterprise, they are not its essence. Physics is about nature and our understanding of nature. For Bohm, its meaning and its message were creativity, the signature of an infinite universe. He saw it an undivided wholeness enfolded into an infinite background source that unfolds into the visible, material, and temporal world of our everyday lives. He said that thought can grasp the unfolded, but only something beyond thought - intuition, unmediated insight, intelligence - can EXPERIENCE the enfolded. At some point deep within the implicate order, thought and language fail us and only sacred silence can reveal truth. That silence is the language of the whole, the universe expressing itself through us in a life of integrity rather than fragmentation.

Bohm envisioned a transformation for those who grasped quantum mechanics in depth:a world of interconnection and interdependence, of direct and instantaneous communication, in which we have learned to harness the energies of compassion. Giving voice to the marvelous possibilities of a new future, he was himself an example of his ideas. Many who knew him thought of him as a sort of "secular saint." He had a visionary quality that drew others to him and inspired them. He was transported by the clarity of his vision and energized by it to such a point that he swept his listeners with him into the orbit of the possible. He believed in a world that was meaningful, clear, intelligent andspiritual, where the implicate order is expressed as a living force in our explicate lives.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS:

"Quantum Theory," New York, 1951
"Causality and Change in Modern Physics," London, 1957
"The Special Theory of Relativity," New York 1966
"Wholeness and the Implicate Order," London, 1980
"Unfolding Meaning," (record of a dialogue with David Bohm), London, 1985
"Science, Order and Creativity," New York, 1987
"Thought as a System," London, 1994

在人类集体无意识的一种过程：有这样一种东西，它们生活在思想的维度，但它们像生物一样，可以随着环境的变迁而进化、可以变异和遗传，它们彼此之间也存在优胜劣汰的竞争法则；这样由思想的生物所组成的群落，就定义了我们的集体心灵构成，也就是类似于“生物圈”的一个“思想圈（Noosphere）”。像生物圈一样，思想圈作为一个整体，在逐渐的进化中越来越复杂、越来越高级。

　　生物的核心是遗传基因，它承载了某种生物繁衍和进化的重任。相似地，思想圈的成分——价值、观念、道德等等——也可以理解成互相竞争生存空间的“思想基因（Meme）”，而人类是这个思想圈的承载工具。这个概念是英国皇家科学院的道金斯（Richard Dawkins）在其《自私的基因（The Selfish Gene）》一书中创建的，阐释心灵进化的机制，很快风靡起来。如今这个词已经被收进了《牛津英语词典》，释义是“文化的基本单位”。不妨认为，它们主要是生活在集体无意识层面，是人类集体大脑的“思想”构成。

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　　比如在人类最初从兽群中站起来的日子，首要的问题就是生存，一切为了生存。人们的一切行为，比动物高级不了多少，都是在直觉、天性的驱使下，满足身体成长的需求、种族繁衍的需求。直觉和天性，就是那个时期的思想基因。

　　随着群居生活对安全和哺育的更大保障，部落出现了，人与人之间交流信息的频率大为增加；数万年以后，在人类对于自然的敬畏和不解中，万物有灵的思想出现了，习俗、巫仪和审美等高级一些的思想基因是当时思想圈的主宰。直到数千年之前，才出现了单一的神的概念，以及围绕着这个概念建立的、越来越细化的宗教、道德、律法等体系；这个时期，单一统治者也是社会政治结构的主要特点。

　　十七世纪，科学理性主义成为思想圈的强有力的新生物。现在最新的物种，则是上个世纪出现的系统思想和整全思想。系统思想的主题是追寻群体的共同受益，而受到东方哲学启发的整全思想（Holistic）具有更宽广的视野，摈弃笛卡尔身心二元论和基督教善恶绝对论，认识到人的情感、躯体、灵性等组成的是一个复杂的整体系统，注重精神和物质的同步进化；同时，整全性意味着每个个人都是社会整体心灵的一部分。如果把机械制造理解为科学理性时代的象征，那么机器人的创造成功就是系统思想的杰作，而在整全思想的年代，在机器的世界有了灵魂。

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　　机器人会思考吗？很遗憾，可能永远也不会，因为那意味着自由意志、机器有了选择的自由，而“选择”决不是一系列物理机制的反应结果。

　　其实，机器世界的灵魂，就是互联网的出现；它联接的不只是机器，更是人的心灵。新思维把每个个人都视作“全球大脑”的一个单元，发挥我们偏重直觉、情感的阴性的右脑思维，在真善美当中形成心灵感应的交联一体。计算机、互联网的勃兴，成为集知识、智慧和意识于一体的全球大脑的催化者。英国哲学家彼得•罗素（Peter Russell）认为，我们将不再感到我们本身是孤立的个人，我们将发现自己是迅速整合的全球网络的一部分，是一个觉醒的全球大脑的精神细胞。(旧文摘选)

谢谢JL.

机器人越来越有智能，人们正研究需要给机器人输入绝对服从的指令，成为人类的永久奴隶

BOhm的论述很精彩，there are problems everywhere, when things are over complicated, it becomes chaos. This explains the corporate world operation very well, as i see chaos in big corporate everywhere.

". Now, I say that this system has a fault in it - a "systematic fault". It is not a fault here, there or here, but it is a fault that is all throughout the system. Can you picture that? It is everywhere and nowhere. You may say "I see a problem here, so I will bring my thoughts to bear on this problem". But "my" thought is part of the system. It has the same fault as the fault I'm trying to look at, or a similar fault. 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."

学习了。

很好。赞一个。

谢晨思和周宇。