There has been overlap in my subscription to the Laws of Form mail list and a (David) Bohm list. With the difference, I unsubscribed from the latter, in an effort to focus. The work of Bohm is still very much on the radar and book shelves (well, boxes currently). Continuing to clear books, I've been reading through some relevant sections and quote here at length from:
Wilber, K. (Ed.), (1982) The holographic paradigm and other paradoxes. Boulder, CO: Shambhala.
The Enfolding-Unfolding Universe: A conversation with David Bohm (pp.44-104)
"WEBER: You've spoken of clarity often today and in the past: therefore, isn't it necessary at this point to consider consciousness and the knower, the one who is or isn't clear?
BOHM: Yes, we could come to that. The point is that consciousness is confused. Confusion is nonclarity. And if you say, a person is not clear, you mean he's confused, although it is more polite to say he's not clear. And confusion means "melting together." Things that are different are seen as one and things that are one are seen as broken up into many. So confusion clearly causes chaos." p.61.
"BOHM: Well, yes, we can consider that maybe that is what is, but, at the same time we have to be very careful to say that thought cannot grasp it, so at some stage thought has to put this question aside as to what is, you see. Thought cannot grasp that which is. And any attempt to grasp that which is engages us in serious self-deception which confuses everything. So that thought has to learn or somehow come to a state of discipline, or whatever you want to call it, spontaneous discipline, its own discipline.
WEBER: Order?
BOHM: Yes, order, in which it does not attempt to grasp the questions which are beyond it, such as the question of that which is. It can grasp any relative question which is conditioned, or in some way, conditional. So even the nonmanifest consciousness of the nonmanifest matter, which is highly subtle, is still within the possible area of thought." p.64.
"WEBER: Deeply. So you're saying that prior to this current awareness of the centrality of consciousness, what we've been trying to do is hopeless because we've addressed small social problems all in the wrong domain, so to speak.
BOHM: Yes. Well, really not going to their source at all." p.80.
"WEBER: Which was the old Cartesian or dualistic model.
BOHM: Right. It also leads to infinite regress, unless you end it by God or somewhere.
Now I think we come to a point where we're raising a question which was similar to what was raised in yesterday's discussion. How long can we go on trying to talk about what is beyond thought by making an intellectual construction? You see, because when we make such an intellectual construction we have a content and we have implied that the one who is constructing it is also supposed to be beyond that content. So he evades the very thing we attempt to include him in and in that very attempt he gets out. And so it seems that there is some limit to how far you can go in that process, in that approach. Therefore it's best to say that in this approach in which we attempt to make a map, or a sketch of some kind of what reality is, that we are really dealing with something limited. Korzybski used to say: "Whatever we say it is, it isn't."
WEBER: The map is not the territory. . . .
BOHM: That's right. Yes. And therefore what we are doing is making maps, making sketches, making concepts. And see, that's why I said the other night that science, for example, theoretical science, is not primarily concerned with observing things but with observing ideas. ..." p.84
The Tao of Physics Revisited (pp.215-248)
"CAPRA: Yes, they would look at genetics, individual parts and so on.
WEBER: They have the Cartesian view, whereas you're saying that this is the new vision, emphasizing interdependence, interconnectedness, the dynamics of the whole.
CAPRA: But I should say that both reductionism and holism are necessary.
WEBER: I understand. You are not suggesting that we abolish the other. You are saying we should supplement one with the other.
CAPRA: If you want to get the full story, then you need both views. Because either one gives you only half of the story. This is what I see as the future of science, and I see a future science as no longer distinguishing between disciplines.
WEBER: That's a very radical view.
CAPRA: Yes, and by the way Heinsenberg already said that years ago. In one of his books, The Part and the Whole, he ends with his view of future science, and I agree very much with that. I have come to believe that in the future we will apply a network of models, and we will use different languages to describe different phenomena at different levels. We will not worry any longer whether we are doing biology or psychology or physics or anthropology or whatever; we won't be worried about these classifications." p.241.
See also:
https://kfoundation.org/krishnamurti-and-david-bohm/
orcid.org/0000-0002-0192-8965
