Abstract. David Bohm's thinking has become widely publicized since the 1982 performance of a form of the Einstein‐Podolsky‐ Rosen (EPR) experiment. Bohm's holomovement theory, in particular, tries to explain the nonlocality that the experiment supports. Moreover, his theories are close to his metaphysical and religious thinking. Fritjof Capra's writings try something similar: supporting a theory (the bootstrap theory) because it is close to his religious beliefs. Both Bohm and Capra appear to use their religious ideas in their physics. Religion, their source for physical hypotheses, provides the motivation to develop and uphold them.
Abstract. David Bohm's thinking has become widely publicized since the 1982 performance of a form of the Einstein‐Podolsky‐ Rosen (EPR) experiment. Bohm's holomovement theory, in particular, tries to explain the nonlocality that the experiment supports. Moreover, his theories are close to his metaphysical and religious thinking. Fritjof Capra's writings try something similar: supporting a theory (the bootstrap theory) because it is close to his religious beliefs. Both Bohm and Capra appear to use their religious ideas in their physics. Religion, their source for physical hypotheses, provides the motivation to develop and uphold them.
On several levels, there is now a debate whether the concept of God can be made compatible with modern science. In an attempt to elucidate this debate, I give an account of my own experiences from writing a book on the foundation of quantum mechanics. In my opinion, one can give two independent arguments for the existence of God by taking as departure an epistemic (knowledge-based) interpretation of quantum theory. However, I also argue that any religious belief should be the result of an existential choice governed by each person’s own context (history and culture). In particular, I give my account of Christianity as a religion connected to our western culture, how one as a scientist can relate to the relevant dogmas.
By 1935, the Copenhagen interpretation had become the orthodoxy. Einstein needed to find a situation in which it is possible in principle to acquire knowledge of the state of a quantum system without disturbing it in any way. Working with two young theorists, Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen, Einstein devised an extraordinarily cunning challenge based on entangled particles. We can discover the state of one particle with certainty by making measurements on its entangled partner. All we have to assume is that the particles are local: any measurement we make on one in no way affects or disturbs the other. Through the work of David Bohm and John Bell, the challenge posed by EPR became accessible to experiment, and Bell devised a simple test for all locally realistic theories. All the experiments performed to date suggest that the standard quantum formalism is correct: in any realistic interpretation, quantum particles are non-local.
Abstract. The purpose of this paper is to analyze David Bohm's work in terms of physics, philosophy, and theology. First, I discuss the development of Bohm's thought since 1951. Then, using the methodology of Imre Lakatos, I evaluate the scientific status of his research program. Next, I explore the philosophical dimensions of Bohm's views in which realist and idealist, monist and dualist, contingent and determinist outlooks occur in creative tension. Finally, I suggest ways in which Bohm's ideas are relevant to theology through concepts of God and cosmos, beauty and purpose, grace and free will, church, self and evil. The entire universe is basically a single, indivisible…but flexible and ever changing, unit (Bohm 1951, 140).
Although David Bohm's interpretation of quantum mechanics is sometimes thought to be a kind of regression towards classical thinking, it is in fact an extremely radical metaphysics of nature. The view goes far beyond the familiar but perennially peculiar non-locality and entanglement of quantum systems. In this paper, a philosophical exploration, I examine three core features of Bohm's metaphysical views, which have been both supported by features of quantum mechanics and integrated into a comprehensive system. These are the holistic nature of the world, the role of a unique kind of information as the ontological basis of the world, and the integration of mentality into this basis as an essential and irreducible aspect of it.
In this paper, I intend to explore apparent parallels between concepts of modem physics and East-Asian philosophical and religious ideas. I am focusing on the perception of matter and energy from a scientific viewpoint and the physical vs. spiritual in religious thinking and how they seem to depict the same underlying essence of all things. Specifically I will look at East-Asian monist-idealist schools of thought and concepts of modem science such as Bohm's holographic universe, zero-point energy and probability waves. I will not attempt to prove a strong connection between religious and scientific discoveries, but the scope of this paper will be to point out similarities, address problems regarding the acceptance of new worldviews, and to clarify some misconceptions of previous attempts to "prove" a strong connection between quantum physics and East-Asian philosophical thought.
OUR EDITOR caught up with physicist David Bohm for a few days at Bailey Farm, a “think-tank” for lawyers in New York state. Autumn was crisp in the air with golden leaves and agreeable conversation as they walked together through the local woods. Bohm was in the middle of writing several books simultaneously with a number of his colleagues on the brood implications of his view of quantum physics for current ideas in psychology, sociology, and philosophy. In this wide-ranging interview, Bohm talks for the first time about his early scientific development, his relations with Robert Oppenheimer and Albert Einstein, and his idealistic struggles to actualize heightened states of being within a creative community. He also talks about imagery, stress, and the difficult evolutionary struggle in which we are currently engaged to free our minds from the negative conditioning of the past and the conceptual blind alleys of the present. David Bohm takes us on a journey into the post-modern world, a cultural step beyond relativity and quantum theory.