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Selected David Bohm Quotes
Selected David Bohm Quotes
Selected David Bohm Quotes
http://www.david-bohm.net/quotes.html
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quotes
http://www.david-bohm.net/quotes.html
D. Bohm, _Unfolding Meaning_, p. 175 "Indeed, 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." D. Bohm & Mark Edwards, _Changing Consciousness_, p. x "If [man] thinks of the totality as constituted of independent fragments, then that is how his mind will tend to operate, but if he can include everything coherently and harmoniously in an overall whole that is undivided, unbroken, and without a border then his mind will tend to move in a similar way, and from this will flow an orderly action within the whole." D. Bohm, _Wholeness and the Implicate Order_, p. xi "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. (Perhaps we could say that this is what is involved in harmony between the 'left brain' and the 'right brain'). 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." D. Bohm, _Wholeness and the Implicate Order_, p.xiv "Suppose you have two religions. Thought defines religion - the thought about the nature of God and various questions like that. Such thought is very important because it is about God, who is supposed to be supreme. The thought about what is of supreme value must have the highest force. So if you disagree about that, the emotional impact can be very great, and you will then have no way to settle it. Two different beliefs about God will thus produce intense fragmentation - similarly with thoughts about the nature of society, which is also very important, or with ideologies such as communism and capitalism, or with different beliefs about your family or about your money. Whatever it is that is very important to you, fragmentation in your thought about it is going to be very powerful in its effects."
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D. Bohm & Mark Edwards, _Changing Consciousness_, p. 11 "Difference exist because thought develops like a stream that happens to go one way here and another way there. Once it develops it produces real physical results that people are looking at, but they don't see where these results are coming from - that's one of the basic features of fragmentation. When they have produced these divisions they see that real things have happened, to they'll start with these real things as if they just suddenly got there by themselves, or evolved in nature by themselves. That's [a] mistake that thought makes. It produces a result, and then it says, I didn't do it; it's there by itself, and I must correct it. But if thought is constantly making this result and then saying, 'I've got to stop it', this is absurd. Because thought is caught up in this absurdity, it is producing all sorts of negative consequences, then treating them as independent and saying, I must stop them." D. Bohm & Mark Edwards, _Changing Consciousness_, p. 14 "[Thought] seems to have some inertia, a tendency to continue. It seems to have a necessity that we keep on doing it. However ... we often find that we cannot easily give up the tendency to hold rigidly to patterns of thought built up over a long time. We are then caught up in what may be called absolute necessity. This kind of thought leaves no room at all intellectually for any other possibility, while emotionally and physically, it means we take a stance in our feelings, in our bodies, and indeed, in our whole culture, of holding back or resisting. This stance implies that under no circumstances whatsoever can we allow ourselves to give up certain things or change them." D. Bohm & Mark Edwards, _Changing Consciousness_, p. 15 "If I am right in saying that thought is the ultimate origin or source, it follows that if we don't do anything about thought, we won't get anywhere. We may momentarily relieve the population problem, the ecological problem, and so on, but they will come back in another way." D. Bohm & Mark Edwards, _Changing Consciousness, p. 25 "Of course, one of the main legitimate functions of thought has always been to help provide security, guaranteeing shelter and food for instance. However, this function went wrong when the principle source of insecurity came to be the operation of thought itself." D. Bohm & Mark Edwards, _Changing Consciousness_, p. 84
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quotes
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"...it is proposed that a form of free dialogue may well be one of the most effective ways of investigating the crisis which faces society, and indeed the whole of human nature and consciousness today. Moreover, it may turn out that such a form of free exchange of ideas and information is of fundamental relevance for transforming culture and freeing it of destructive misinformation, so that creativity can be liberated." David Bohm & David Peat, _Science Order, and Creativity_, p 240 "A key difference between a dialogue and an ordinary discussion is that, within the latter people usually hold relatively fixed positions and argue in favor of their views as they try to convince others to change. At best this may produce agreement or compromise, but it does not give rise to anything creative." David Bohm & David Peat, _Science Order, and Creativity_, p. 241 "What is essential here is the presence of the spirit of dialogue, which is in short, the ability to hold many points of view in suspension, along with a primary interest in the creation of common meaning." David Bohm & David Peat, _Science Order, and Creativity_, p.247 This web page was created by William van den Heuvel: heuvel@muc.de
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