Lifework of David Bohm - River of Truth Will Keepin, Ph.D. Contents: Lifework of David Bohm - River of Truth ------------------------------------------------------------------------2 Bohm's Quest For Knowledge ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------2 Bohm's Early Life -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------2 Holomovement and the Implicate Order ----------------------------------------------------------------------3 Thoughts about Thinking---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------3 Wholeness and the Holomovement--------------------------------------------------------------------------4 The Implicate Order----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------6 Fullness of Empty Space ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------7 Causal Interpretation of Quantum Theory-----------------------------------------------------------------7 Order and Randomness --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------9 Evolution of Bohm's Thinking---------------------------------------------------------------------------------9 Topology of Order ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 10 Randomness Dependent on Context ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 10 Order in Science ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11 Dialogues with Krishnamurti ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11 Truth Beyond Reality ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 12 On Dialogue ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 12 Superimplicate Order and Beyond ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 14 Superquantum Potential -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 15 Superimplicate Order------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 15 Eternal Order----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 16 Thought and Meaning ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 16 Critique of Thought -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 16 Ontology of Meaning ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 17 Impact and Implications of Bohm's Work ------------------------------------------------------------------- 17 Cool Reception in Physics---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 17 Penchant for Parsimony--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 18 Matter and Consciousness --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 18 Materialism and Idealism------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 19 Applications of Holographic Model ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 19 Science and Spirit--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 19 Buddhism and Physics ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 20 Bohm's Legacy ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 20 Acknowledgments ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 21 Notes --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 21 References--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 22 About the Author ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 22 Lifework of David Bohm.doc Page 1 of 22 Lifework of David Bohm: River of Truth William Keepin, Ph.D. In autumn of 1992, one of the world's greatest contemporary physicists passed away. David Bohm, whose work inspired many people all over the world, died in London. Although he had been recovering from a heart attack suffered the previous summer, he was feeling much better at the time, and on October 27 he felt well enough to go to work. Thus, Bohm spent the last day of his life at Birkbeck College, faithfully working with his colleague Basil Hiley, putting the finishing touches on their book that reinterprets the quantum field theory called Undivided Universe (soon to be published by Routledge, Kegan, and Paul). As he arrived home from work that day, Bohm had another heart attack and died. David Bohm's contributions to science and philosophy are profound, and they have yet to be fully recognized and integrated on the grand scale that they deserve. This review attempts to summarize the fascinating contributions that emerged from Bohm's passionate quest for truth and to outline their growing impact on other fields. In what follows, it is not necessary to have a background in physics, although a basic familiarity with science will be helpful. It goes almost without saying that a brief review such as this cannot begin to do justice to the depth, richness, and rigor of Bohm's thinking. Nevertheless, the essence, beauty, and importance of Bohm's ideas can be conveyed, which is the intent of this review. Bohm's Quest For Knowledge Bohm's Early Life David Bohm was born on December 20, 1917, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, a small Polish and Irish mining town. His father was a Jewish furniture dealer, and David's earliest intimations about science came from reading science fiction books as a young boy. No other information about science was available to him in Wilkes-Barre, and young David was fascinated by the dazzling concepts of cosmic forces and vast expanses of space that lie beyond our understanding. He later went to college at Pennsylvania State University, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1939, and then began graduate work in physics at the California Institute of Technology. Later he transferred to the University of California at Berkeley, in order to work with J. Robert Oppenheimer. He completed his doctorate in physics there in 1943. While still a graduate student in Berkeley, Bohm did pioneering work on plasmas at the Lawrence Berkeley Radiation Laboratory. He discovered that, in a high temperature gas (known as a plasma), electrons that have been stripped away from atoms do not behave as separate individual particles but rather as part of a larger, organized whole. Vast numbers of electrons would produce effects that were highly organized, as if some organic process were orchestrating their collective behavior. Bohm later reflected that these collective movements, which today are called Bohm-diffusion, gave him the impression that the sea of electrons was somehow "alive." This was Bohm's first important discovery in physics, and it hints at the deeper themes of wholeness and interconnectedness that characterize his life's work. Bohm took a position as assistant professor at Princeton University in 1947. While teaching quantum theory over the subsequent few years, he wrote a textbook entitled Quantum Theory (1951), which remains to this day a classic in the field. Upon completing this work, Bohm became acquainted with Albert Einstein, who was also at Princeton at the time. Einstein told Bohm that he had never seen quantum theory presented so clearly as in Bohm's new book, and the two scientists entered into a series of intensive conversations.(1) During the course of this dialogue, Bohm and Einstein discovered much common ground in their mutual appreciation of quantum mechanics, and together they probed deeply into the theoretical interpretation and Lifework of David Bohm.doc Page 2 of 22 ontological significance of quantum theory. These discussions led Bohm to seriously question the prevailing interpretation of quantum mechanics set forth by Danish physicist Neils Bohr and others. Inspired with confidence from this association with Einstein, Bohm embarked upon his own inquiry into the foundations of quantum theory, which led to his unique formulations of it and eventually blossomed into his lifelong quest to understand and describe all of reality. Around this same time, Bohm demonstrated another important aspect of his character. He had worked with J. Robert Oppenheimer at Berkeley in the early 1940s, and when Oppenheimer and others came under the scrutiny of the ominous McCarthy Committee on Un-American Activities, Bohm was called to testify in 1949. Bohm refused, pleading the Fifth Amendment, and Princeton University informed Bohm that he was never to set foot on campus again. Bohm was arrested and charged with contempt of Congress, went to trial, and was acquitted. Bohm's colleagues sought to have his position at Princeton reinstated, and Einstein reportedly wanted Bohm to serve as his assistant, but Bohm's contract with the university was not renewed. He never again taught in the United States. Bohm moved to Brazil, where he was professor at the University of Sao Paulo until 1955.