the continuing ____meaning of Being____

[Guest guest]

good day

 

tks werner, iknowyou put me on ignore, but i'll cover the bases

while the rest are taking a break.

interesting guy, looses himself in the mechanics of it all, but what

do you expect from the quantum physics 'melee'.

 

did you read this?

 

this falls more into where i'm coming from and going, except the

reason is slightly different and more realized, since it's allready

written and it's just a matter of time, my friends.

 

 

 

 

 

Omni: Descartes held mind and external reality together with God.

You're holding the two with meaning.

 

Bohm: I say meaning is being! So any transformation of society must

result in a profound change of meaning. Any change of meaning for the

individual would change the whole because all individuals are so

similar that it can be communicated.

 

Omni: What do you think might convince the next generation of

physicists, who seem very skeptical, that the implicate order is

worth investigating?

 

Bohm: The most convincing thing would be to develop the theory

mathematically and make some predictions. A few years ago The New

York Times noted that some physicists were critical of grand

unification theory, saying that not much had been achieved. Defenders

of grand unification theories said it would take about twenty years

to see results.

 

It seems that people are ready to wait twenty years for results if

you've got formulas. If there are no formulas, they don't want to

consider it. Formulas are means of talking utter nonsense until you

understand what they mean. Every page of formulas usually contains

six or seven arbitrary assumptions that take weeks of hard study to

penetrate.

 

Younger physicists usually appreciate the implicate order because it

makes quantum mechanics easier to grasp. By the time they're through

graduate school, they've become dubious about it because they've

heard that hidden variables are of no use because they've been

refuted. Of course, nobody has really refuted them.

 

At this point, I think that the major issue is mathematics. In

supersymmetry theory an interesting piece of mathematics will attract

attention, even without any experimental confirmation.

 

Omni: If scientists could accept your theory, would it change the

meaning of nature for them? Would it change the meaning of science in

general?

 

Bohm: We have become a scientific society. This society has produced

all sorts of discoveries and technology, but if it leads to

destruction, either through war or through devastation of natural

resources, then it will have been the least successful society that

ever existed. We are now in danger of that.

 

Where we are going depends on the programs of four thousand five

hundred million people, all somewhat different, most of them opposed

to one another. Every moment these programs are changing in detail.

Who can say where they are going to lead us? All we can do is start a

movement among those few people who are interested in changing the

meaning.

 

Omni: You've suggested that it may be possible to develop " group

minds. " Could they serve as a potential avenue for this change of

meaning?

 

Bohm: They could: If we don't establish these absolute boundaries

between minds, then I think it's possible they could in some way

unite as one mind. If there were a genuine understanding of and

feeling for wholeness in this group mind, it might be enough to

change things--though as the external circumstances gain momentum it

becomes harder. This is important, especially if there is a

catastrophe, so that the notion of group minds might remain in the

consciousness of survivors.

 

Omni: All that seems to imply a radical change in the concept of

being human.

 

Bohm: Yes. The notion of permanent identity would go by the wayside.

This would be terrifying at first. The present mind, identified as it

is with the personality, would react to protect the sense of

personal " self " against that terror.

 

Omni: That seems to fit in well with your thoughts about death.

 

Bohm: Death must be connected with questions of time and identity.

When you die, everything on which your identity depends is going. All

things in your memory will go. Your whole definition of what you are

will go. The whole sense of being separate from anything will go

because that's part of your identity. Your whole sense of time must

go. Is there anything that will exist beyond death? That is the

question everybody has always asked. It doesn't make sense to say

something goes on in time. Rather I would say everything sinks into

the implicate order, where there is no time. But suppose we say that

right now, when I'm alive, the same thing is happening. The implicate

order is unfolding to be me again and again each moment. And the past

me is gone.

 

Omni: The past you, then, has been snatched back into the implicate

order.

 

Bohm: That's right. Anything I know about " me " is in the past. The

present " me " is the unknown. We say there is only one implicate

order, only one present. But it projects itself as a whole series of

moments. Ultimately, all moments are really one. Therefore now is

eternity.

 

In one sense, everything, including me, is dying every moment into

eternity and being born again, so all that will happen at death is

that from a certain moment certain features will not be born again.

But our whole thought process causes us to confront this with great

fear in an attempt to preserve identity. One of my interests at this

stage of life is looking at that fear.

 

See also

Bohm Biederman Correspondence

David Bohm