Bohm Quotes & Sayings

Dialogue is really aimed at going into the whole thought process and changing the way the thought process occurs collectively. we havent really paid much attention to thought as a process. We have ENGAGED in thoughts, put we have only paid attention to the content, not to the process. Why does thought require attention? Everything requires attention, really. If we ran machines without paying attention to them, they would break down. Our thought, too, is a process, and it requires attention, otherwise its going to go wrong. — David Bohm

Universe consists of frozen light. — David Bohm

We are internally related to everything, not [just] externally related. Consciousness is an internal relationship to the whole, we take in the whole, and we act toward the whole. Whatever we have taken in determines basically what we are. Wholeness is a kind of attitude or approach to the whole of life. If we can have a coherent approach to reality then reality will respond coherently to us. — David Bohm

The hallmark of successful small talk is when people take turns to speak and to listen. Turn-taking is a social communication skill because it involves taking turns to speak and to listen. — Betty Bohm

Thought is constantly creating problems that way and then trying to solve them. But as it tries to solve them it makes it worse because it doesn't notice that it's creating them, and the more it thinks, the more problems it creates. — David Bohm

From the outset, however, this whole controversy has been plagued by tacit assumptions, very often of a philosophical rather than a physical character ... — David Bohm

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

Similarly, thought is a system. That system not only includes thought and feelings, but it includes the state of the body; it includes the whole of society - as thought is passing back and forth between people in a process by which thought evolved from ancient times. — David Bohm

Ultimately, the entire universe ... has to be understood as a single undivided whole ... — David Bohm

The ability to perceive or think differently is more important than the knowledge gained. — David Bohm

Deep down the consciousness of mankind is one. This is a virtual certainty because even in the vacuum matter is one; and if we don't see this, it's because we are blinding ourselves to it. — David Bohm

Streamlined time details are especially important, because by having to take a close look, we discover new things. Because of this, details will remain part of the building in the mind's eye — Gottfried Bohm

Architecture must make connections — Gottfried Bohm

In nature nothing remains constant. Everything is in a perpetual state of transformation, motion, and change. However, we discover that nothing simply surges up out of nothing without having antecedents that existed before. Likewise, nothing ever disappears without a trace, in the sense that it gives rise to absolutely nothing existing in later times. — David Bohm

The treatment of the indeterminacy principle as absolute and final can then be criticized as constituting an arbitrary restriction on scientific theories, since it does not follow from the quantum theory as such, but rather from the assumption of the unlimited validity of certain of its features, an assumption that can in no way ever be subjected to experimental proof. — David Bohm

Bohm's interpretation of quantum physics indicated that at the subquantum level, the level in which the quantum potential operated, location ceased to exist. All points in space became equal to all other points in space, and it was meaningless to speak of anything as being separate from anything else. Physicists call this property 'nonlocality.' — Chuck Missler

A building is a human being's space and the background for his dignity and its exterior should reflect its contents and function — Gottfried Bohm

New buildings should fit naturally into their surroundings, both architecturally and historically, without denying or prettifying the concerns of our time — Gottfried Bohm

Dialogue is a space where we may see the assumptions which lay beneath the surface of our thoughts, assumptions which drive us, assumptions around which we build organizations, create economies, form nations and religions. These assumptions become habitual, mental habits that drive us, confuse us and prevent our responding intelligently to the challenges we face every day. — David Bohm

the subtle but crucial role of our general forms of thinking in sustaining fragmentation and in defeating our deepest urges toward wholeness or integrity. — David Bohm

And thought struggles against the results, trying to avoid those unpleasant results while keeping on with that way of thinking. That is what I call 'sustained incoherence. — David Bohm

Yet, in spite of this world-wide system of linkages, there is, at this very moment, a general feeling that communication is breaking down everywhere, on an unparalleled scale. — David Bohm

Can we learn to become more learning-oriented individually and collectively, rather than 'I know' oriented? — David Bohm

The photograph fulfills my deep need to stop things from disappearing. — Dorothy Bohm

What is the source of all this trouble? I'm saying that the source is basically in thought. Many people would think that such a statement is crazy, because thought is the one thing we have with which to solve our problems. That's part of our tradition. — David Bohm

Real dialogue is where two or more people become willing to suspend their certainty in each other's presence. — David Bohm

I think the future of architecture does not lie so much in continuing to fill up the landscape, as in bringing back life and order to our cities and towns. — Gottfried Bohm

In some sense man is a microcosm of the universe; therefore what man is, is a clue to the universe. We are enfolded in the universe. — David Bohm

When you are thinking something, you have the feeling that the thoughts do nothing except inform you the way things are and then you choose to do something and you do it. That's what people generally assume. But actually, the way you think determines the way you're going to do things. Then you don't notice a result comes back, or you don't see it as a result of what you've done, or even less do you see it as a result of how you were thinking. Is that clear? — David Bohm

We have the idea that after we have been thinking something, it just evaporates. But thinking doesn't disappear. It goes somehow into the brain and leaves something-a trace-which becomes thought. And thought then acts automatically. — David Bohm

So one begins to wonder what is going to happen to the human race. Technology keeps on advancing with greater and greater power, either for good or for destruction. — David Bohm

We can't simply take the way things seem and just work on that, because that would be another kind of mistake thought makes-taking the surface and calling it the reality. — David Bohm

But you don't decide what to do with the info. Thought runs you. Thought, however, gives false info that you are running it, that you are the one who controls thought. Whereas actually thought is the one which controls each one of us. — David Bohm

Ultimately, all moments are really one, therefore now is an eternity. — David Bohm

This is another major feature of thought: Thought doesn't know it is doing something and then it struggles against it is doing. It doesn't want to know that it is doing it. — David Bohm

There is no reason why an extraphysical general principle is necessarily to be avoided, since such principles could conceivably serve as useful working hypotheses. For the history of scientific research is full of examples in which it was very fruitful indeed to assume that certain objects or elements might be real, long before any procedures were known which would permit them to be observed directly. — David Bohm

Thought reflexes get conditioned very strongly, and they are very hard to change. And the also interfere. A reflex may connect to the endorphins and produce an impulse to hold that whole pattern forther. In other words, it produces a defensive reflex. Not merely is it stuck because it's chemically so well built up, but also there is a defensive reflex which defends against evidence which might weaken it. Thus it all happens, one reflex after another after another. It's just a vast system of reflexes. And they form a 'structure' as they get more rigid. — David Bohm

You cannot just quote from history and above all you cannot take it out of context, in however humorous a fashion . On the contrary history has a natural continuity which must be respected — Gottfried Bohm

Individuality is only possible if it unfolds from wholeness. — David Bohm

Thought is creating divisions out of itself and then saying that they are there naturally. — David Bohm

During the past few decades, modern technology, with radio, TV, air travel, and satellites, has woven a network of communication which puts each part of the world in to almost instant contact with all the other parts. — David Bohm

Thought creates our world, and then says 'I didn't do it — David Bohm

Another problem of fragmentation is that thought divides itself from feeling and from the body. Thought is said to be the mind; we have the notion that it is something abstract or spiritual or immaterial. Then there is the body, which is very physical. And we have emotions, which are perhaps somewhere in between. The idea is that they are all different. That is, we think of them as different. And we experience them as different because we think of them as different. — David Bohm

We could say that practically all the problems of the human race are due to the fact that thought is not proprioceptive. — David Bohm

But the way people commonly use the word nowadays it means something all of whose parts are mutually interdependent - not only for their mutual action, but for their meaning and for their existence. — David Bohm

To change your reality you have to change your inner thoughts. — David Bohm

Suppose we were able to share meanings freely without a compulsive urge to impose our view or conform to those of others and without distortion and self-deception. Would this not constitute a real revolution in culture? — David Bohm

I use different kinds of materials on different kinds of projects. Today we can do things with steel and glass that we could not do before. flexible enough to change. — Gottfried Bohm

The notion of a separate organism is clearly an abstraction, as is also its boundary. Underlying all this is unbroken wholeness even though our civilization has developed in such a way as to strongly emphasize the separation into parts. — David Bohm

There is a difficulty with only one person changing. People call that person a great saint or a great mystic or a great leader, and they say, 'Well, he's different from me - I could never do it.' What's wrong with most people is that they have this block - they feel they could never make a difference, and therefore, they never face the possibility, because it is too disturbing, too frightening. — David Bohm

Perhaps there is more sense in our nonsense and more nonsense in our 'sense' than we would care to believe. — David Bohm

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. — David Bohm

Thus, in a dialogue each person does not attempt to make common certain ideas or items of information that are already known to him. Rather, it can be said that collectively they are making something in common — David Bohm

Thought has been constantly evolving and we can't say when that system began. — David Bohm

Then there is the further question of what is the relationship of thinking to reality. As careful attention shows, thought itself is in an actual process of movement. — David Bohm

A new kind of mind thus beings to come into being which is based on the development of a common meaning that is constantly transforming in the process of the dialogue. — David Bohm

We are all linked by a fabric of unseen connections. This fabric is constantly changing and evolving. This field is directly structured and influenced by our behavior and by our understanding. — David Bohm

The question of relevance comes before that of truth, because to ask whether a statement is true or false presupposes that it is relevant (so that to try to assert the truth or falsity of an irrelevant statement is a form of confusion) ... — David Bohm

Space is not empty. It is full, a plenum as opposed to a vacuum, and is the ground for the existence of everything, including ourselves. The universe is not separate from this cosmic sea of energy. — David Bohm

We havent really paid much attention to thought as a process. we have engaged in thoughts, but we have only paid attention to the content, not to the process. — David Bohm

In relativity, movement is continuous, causally determinate and well defined, while in quantum mechanics it is discontinuous, not causally determinate and not well defined. — David Bohm

Both observer and observed are merging and interpenetrating aspects of one whole reality, which is indivisible and unanalysable. — David Bohm

The system [of thought] doesn't stay with the difficult problem that produces unpleasant feelings. It's conditioned somehow to move as fast as it can toward more pleasant feelings, without actually facing the thing that's making the unpleasant feeling. — David Bohm

Yet it looks as if the thing we use to solve our problems with is the source of our problems. It's like going to the doctor and having him make you ill. In fact, in 20% of medical cases we do apparently have that going on. But in the case of thought, its far over 20%. — David Bohm

Anybody can use science and technology without fundamentally altering his own frame of mind which governs how they are used. — David Bohm

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. — David Bohm

Consciousness is much more of the implicate order than is matter ... Yet at a deeper level [matter and consciousness] are actually inseparable and interwoven , just as in the computer game the player and the screen are united by participation. — David Bohm

People are no longer primarily in opposition, nor can they be said to be interacting, rather they are participating in this pool of common meaning which is capable of constant development and change. — David Bohm

From the point of view of the species, death is part of this whole process. You could say that species have evolved in such a way that individual members last a certain time. Perhaps a certain kind of species would be better able to survive if the individuals didn't last too long. Other kinds could last longer. — David Bohm

Indeed, the attempt to live according to the notion that the fragments are really separate is, in essence, what has led to the growing series of extremely urgent crises that is confronting us today. — David Bohm

If we can be cheered up by positive images we can be depressed by negative ones. As long as we accept images as realities we are in that trap, because you can't control the images. — David Bohm

We have reversed the usual classical notion that the independent "elementary parts" of the world are the fundamental reality, and that the various systems are merely particular contingent forms and arrangements of these parts. Rather, we say that inseparable quantum interconnectedness of the whole universe is the fundamental reality, and that relatively independent behaving parts are merely particular and contingent forms within this whole. — David Bohm

A corporation is organized as a system - it has this department, that department, that department ... they don't have any meaning separately; they only can function together. And also the body is a system. Society is a system in some sense. And so on. — David Bohm

One thus sees that a new kind of theory is needed which drops these basic commitments and at most recovers some essential features of the older theories as abstract forms derived from a deeper reality in which what prevails in unbroken wholeness. — David Bohm

If you engage in positive thinking to overcome negative thoughts, the negative thoughts are still there acting. That's still incoherence. It's not enough just to engage in positive thoughts when you have negative thoughts registered, because they keep on working and will cause trouble somewhere else. — David Bohm

At any particular stage in the development of science, our concepts concerning the causal relationships will then be true only relative to a certain approximation and to certain conditions. — David Bohm

Ego-centeredness is not individuality at all. — David Bohm