List, I thought I'd continue for a moment my monologue arguing for a possible Peirce-Bohm connection, a spiritual dimension in philosophy as one of the branches of a scientific metaphysic. I'll quote some passages in the David Bohm interview earlier commented on. Allow me to preface these passages with my comment off-list to a member of the CG list and reposted as part of a message in the New Elements part 3 discussion to suggest again why I consider this to be a significant moment: GR: I recently commented off the CG-list:Some selected, brief excerpts from "Art, Dialogue, and the Implicate Order: David Bohm interviewed by Louwrien Wijers," Chapter 5 in David Bohm: On Creativity edited by Lee Nichol, Routledge, London, 1996. Q [Wijers]What was reality for you, then? BOHM Well, reality would mean something that would have some existence independently of being known. It might be that we would know it, but it didn't require that we would know it in order to exists. . . . . Q Was it your belief that there were destructive powers in the then prevailing mechanistic views in science? BOHM I was certainly dissatisfied with mechanism. I felt that mechanism and reductionism were destructive, as you say, that they would lead to a narrowing down of human thought, to focusing on some small thing, making it very rigid. Trying to contain life and mind and society and everything within this mechanism I think would have a bad effect. I don't think Bohr was actually a mechanist, but I felt that if we did not have some view of reality, it was unclear what we were talking about at all. I felt also that Bohr's view could lead to a certain kind of dogmatism, in which all these questions were just simply dismissed as having no significance. [127] ************ Q Is it true that the scientific spirit comes close to a kind of religious awareness? BOHM Yes, I would like to say that I read along ago, in some ancient saying, that there were three basic attitudes of spirit: the scientific, the artistic, and the religious. [GR: Peirce's trichotomy is somewhat different: the scientific, 3ns, the religious-artistic, 1ns, the politico-economic-practical, 2ns] They have certain things in common and certain differences. I think this is essential. One of the most essential points of the scientific spirit is to acknowledge the fact, or the interpretation of the fact, whether you like it or not. This means not to engage in wishful thinking , and not to reject something just because you don't like it. This is not a common attitude in life generally, and scientists have been at great pains in the struggle to establish this spirit. This is obviously necessary for the artist too. . . The religious spirit requires the same thing, otherwise it will get lost in self-deception, as happens so easily. . . . . [O]ne needs to understand the reality of the process. [128] ************ [re: quantum theory and the implicate order] Now, I tried to get some idea what might be the process implied by the mathematics of the quantum theory, and this process is what I call enfoldment. The mathematics itself suggests a movement in which everything, any particular element of space, may have a field which unfolds into the whole and the whole enfold in it. An example of that would be a hologram. . . The suggestion is that if you look at the mathematics of the quantum theory it describes a movement of just this nature, a movement of waves that unfold and enfold throughout the whole of space. You could therefore say that everything is enfolded in this whole, or even in each part, and that it then unfolds. I call this the implicate order, the enfolded order, and this unfolds into the explicate order, in which everything is separated. . . . . . The best analogy to illustrate the implicate order is the hologram, as I said. I contrast this to a photograph. Every part of the hologram contains some information about the object, which is enfolded. . . . . . In the implicate order everything is thus internally related to everything, everything contains everything, and only in the explicate order are things separate and relatively independent. [129] ************ . . . . . Everybody has many experiences of this implicate order. The most obvious one is ordinary consciousness, in which consciousness enfolds everything that you know or see. It doesn't merely enfold the universe, but you act according to that context as well. Therefore you are internally related to the whole in the sense that you act according to the consciousness of the whole. The enfolded order is a vast range of potentiality, which can be unfolded. The way it is unfolded depends on many factors. The way we think and so on is among those factors. The implicate order implies mutual participation of everything with everything. No thing is complete in itself, and its full being is realized only in that participation. [130] ************ Q Does a creator God also exist in your implicate order? BOHM The issue is not raised. I have an idea of an implicate order and beyond that a super-implicate order, and so on, to orders that are more and more subtle. I say there are many more subtle levels. . . I think there is an intelligence that is implicit there. A kind of intelligence unfolds. The source of intelligence is not necessarily in the brain. The ultimate source of intelligence is much more enfolded into the whole. Now, as far as the question whether you want to call that "God," this depends on what you mean by the word, because taking it as a personal God might restrict it in some way. The suggestion is that there is something like life and mind enfolded in everything. If you carry that to the ultimate, then that might be what some of the religious people mean by the world "god." But the word "god" means many different things to different people, and it becomes hard to know exactly what is implied. The implicate order does not rule out God, nor does it say there is a God. But it would suggest that there is a creative intelligence underlying the whole, which might have as one of the essentials that which was meant by the word "god." . . . . . [A]s you say more about the unlimited you begin to limit it. If you say "The unlimited is God, and by God I mean this and this and this," then you begin to limit it. I think it is essential not to limit God, if you believe in God." [131] I think that perhaps that's enough for now to suggest that there might be--at least in places--a correspondence of Bohm's and Peirce's understanding concerning "a creative intelligence underlying the whole." Gary Gary Richmond wrote: --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com |
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