The dance of the mind: physique et métaphysique chez Gilles Deleuze et David Bohm = The dance of the mind: physics and metaphysics in Gilles Deleuze and David Bohm
Over and above differences in terminology and cultural background, we try to show that the quantum physicist, David Bohm (Wilkes-Barre 1917 – London 1992), and poststructuralist philosopher, Gilles Deleuze (Paris 1925 – Paris 1995), shared a common aim in thought: to replace the classical (mechanistic) image of reality, which is still dominant in our time, with a metaphysics finally in agreement with the concepts and results of relativity, quantum mechanics and contemporary biology. For these two thinkers, the world of things that are well individuated in space and time, and ordered according to mechanical relations of cause and effect, are nothing but the momentary expression of an “undivided wholeness in flowing movement” that constitutes its true ontological ground. By means of this new metaphysics, the world of daily experience and classical science appears as the explicit manifestation or development of implicate order that undivided wholeness contains virtually in itself at deeper and deeper levels of envelopment and imbrication. The explicit world (of classical science and daily experience) is the result of a process of repetition, deceleration and temporal stabilization, triggered by the interaction of our measuring instruments – technical devices, sensory organs and motors, a priori forms and categories of the understanding – with moving wholeness, the thinking and observing subject of which represents a momentary and partial reflection rather than a solitary and autonomous fragment. By criticizing the classical image of the correspondence/adequation of being and thought, Bohm and Deleuze show that the thought seeking to grasp this wholeness in flowing movement inevitably interacts with it – by modifying, recreating and accomplishing it in one direction rather than another. Thought thus resembles a dance that tries to harmonize with the universal flux that generates and carries it away in a single movement with matter
Over and above differences in terminology and cultural background, we try to show that the quantum physicist, David Bohm (Wilkes-Barre 1917 – London 1992), and poststructuralist philosopher, Gilles Deleuze (Paris 1925 – Paris 1995), shared a common aim in thought: to replace the classical (mechanistic) image of reality, which is still dominant in our time, with a metaphysics finally in agreement with the concepts and results of relativity, quantum mechanics and contemporary biology. For these two thinkers, the world of things that are well individuated in space and time, and ordered according to mechanical relations of cause and effect, are nothing but the momentary expression of an “undivided wholeness in flowing movement” that constitutes its true ontological ground. By means of this new metaphysics, the world of daily experience and classical science appears as the explicit manifestation or development of implicate order that undivided wholeness contains virtually in itself at deeper and deeper levels of envelopment and imbrication. The explicit world (of classical science and daily experience) is the result of a process of repetition, deceleration and temporal stabilization, triggered by the interaction of our measuring instruments – technical devices, sensory organs and motors, a priori forms and categories of the understanding – with moving wholeness, the thinking and observing subject of which represents a momentary and partial reflection rather than a solitary and autonomous fragment. By criticizing the classical image of the correspondence/adequation of being and thought, Bohm and Deleuze show that the thought seeking to grasp this wholeness in flowing movement inevitably interacts with it – by modifying, recreating and accomplishing it in one direction rather than another. Thought thus resembles a dance that tries to harmonize with the universal flux that generates and carries it away in a single movement with matter
Over and above differences in terminology and cultural background, we try to show that the quantum physicist, David Bohm (Wilkes-Barre 1917 – London 1992), and poststructuralist philosopher, Gilles Deleuze (Paris 1925 – Paris 1995), shared a common aim in thought: to replace the classical (mechanistic) image of reality, which is still dominant in our time, with a metaphysics finally in agreement with the concepts and results of relativity, quantum mechanics andcontemporary biology. For these two thinkers, the world of things that are well individuated in space and time, and ordered according to mechanical relations of cause and effect, are nothing but the momentary expression of an “undivided wholeness in flowing movement” that constitutes its true ontological ground. By means of this new metaphysics, the world of daily experience and classical science appears as the explicit manifestation or development of implicate order that undivided wholeness contains virtually in itself at deeper and deeper levels of envelopment and imbrication. The explicit world (of classical science and daily experience) is the result of a process of repetition, deceleration and temporal stabilization, triggered by the interaction of our measuring instruments – technical devices, sensory organs and motors, a priori forms and categories of the understanding – with moving wholeness, the thinking and observing subject of which represents a momentary and partial reflection rather than a solitaryand autonomous fragment. By criticizing the classical image of thecorrespondence/adequation of being and thought, Bohm and Deleuzeshow that the thought seeking to grasp this wholeness in flowingmovement inevitably interacts with it – by modifying, recreating andaccomplishing it in one direction rather than another. Thought thusresembles a dance that tries to harmonize with the universal flux thatgenerates and carries it away in a single movement with matter. ***************************************************************************************************************************Para além das diferenças de terminologia e de background cultural, tenta-se aqui mostrar que o físico quântico David Bohm (Wilkes-Barre 1917 – Londres 1992) e o filósofo pós-estruturalista Gilles Deleuze (Paris 1925 - Paris 1995) tiverem um objetivo comum de pensamento: substituir a imagem clássica (mecanicista) da realidade, ainda dominante em nossa época, por uma metafísica finalmente de acordo com os conceitos e resultados da relatividade, da mecânica quântica e da biologia contemporânea. Para estes dois pensadores, o mundo das coisas bem individuadas no espaço e no tempo, e ordenadas conforme as relações mecânicas de causa e efeito, não é nada outro que a expressão momentânea de uma “Totalidade indivisa em devir” que constitui seu verdadeiro fundamento ontológico. Pelo meio desta nova metafisica, o mundo da experiência cotidiana e da ciência clássica aparece como a manifestação explicita ou desenvolvida da ordem implícita que a totalidade indivisa contém virtualmente nela mesma em níveis de envolvimento e de imbricação sempre mais profundos. O mundo explícito (da ciência clássica e da experiência cotidiana) é o resultado de um processo de repetição, desaceleração e estabilização temporal, desencadeado pela interação de nossos instrumentos de medição -- aparelhos técnicos, órgãos sensoriais e motores, formas “a priori” e categorias do entendimento – com uma totalidade movente no qual o sujeito pensante e observante representa um reflexo momentâneo e parcial ao invés de um fragmento solitário e autônomo. Ao criticar a imagem clássica da correspondência/adequação entre o ser e o pensamento, Bohm e Deleuze mostram finalmente que o pensamento que intenta capturar esta Totalidade em devir interage inevitavelmente com ela, modificando-a, recriando-a e realizando-a em uma direção ao invés de outra. O pensamento se aparenta assim a uma dança que tenta se harmonizar com o flux universal que o gera e o leva em um movimento só com a matéria.Palavras-chave: Bohm; Deleuze; totalidade indivisa em devir; física quântica; pós-estruturalismo; ontologia.
David Bohm (1917-1992) was a major figure in 20th century physics and one of its most original thinkers. From the time of his classic textbook Quantum theory (1951), through Causality and chance in modern physics (1957), The special theory of relativity (1965), to Wholeness and the implicate order (1980), Bohm was concerned with deep philosophical issues, even more than Niels Bohr. Bohm’s ontological emphasis was “holonomic,” that is, ontology under the law of the whole. The Bohmian program continues to be carried forward today in physics by Basil Hiley and in philosophy by Paavo Pylkkanen.
David Bohm (1917-93) was a highly original and individual physicist. His novel ideas and profound intuition extended not only to the physical world but also to the nature of consciousness and society. Bohm regarded science as having become essentially fragmented in its approach to understanding physical reality and sought a more holistic physics based on order, transformation and flowing movement. His notion of an implicate order provides an unusual and exciting challenge for both teachers and students alike.
According to Bohm the whole scientific description of the Universe is governed by fragmentation of our perception of what reality is. Physics’ tendency of acknowledging the ultimate structure of matter in the elementary particles has caused a widespread fragmentary view of the Universe. Thus, Physics seems to be unable to conceive the “undivided wholeness of the universe” and to acknowledge in that Wholeness the common, single bed of the whole of reality. According to Bohm that single bed of nature, Implicate Order, is the single origin of both mind and matter. Inside the multidimensional Implicate Order, a universal enfoldment of everything prevails. The Implicate Order coheres deterministically to the Universe and the depths of its inwardness are totally unknown to us, since we humans are part of its wholeness too. Physics as a science provides us only with abstractive descriptions of the Universe, since science offers only abstractions from reality. These abstractive descriptions are what constitute the Explicate Order of the Universe. Thus, each belief we have that through the science of Physics we are able to arrive at an ultimate deciphering of the Universe is inherently illusive. The science of Physics can provide us with knowledge only in the fragmentary level of the Explicate, that means analyzable, Order of the Universe recognizing its cognitive limits in front of the Implicate Order. The laws that govern the Implicate Order of the Universe are unknowable and unanalyzable by man and in the depths of these laws Bohm insists that a final truth about reality cannot be fixed.
David Bohm is famous for inventing a ‘hidden variables’ interpretation of quantum mechanics, in which particles possess definite positions and momenta, but nonetheless preserve distinctively quantum phenomena perfectly in line with orthodox quantum mechanics. Bohm achieved this by interpreting the quantum wave function as a kind of universal ‘guidance wave’. But his particulate model does not represent the lesson which Bohm thought quantum mechanics was trying to teach us. Bohm had a much more radical metaphysical vision in which the world was, in some difficult to understand sense, an undivided whole. In this paper, I explore a compelling confluence of thought between William James and David Bohm. Arriving from very different starting points and proceeding in very different ways, they share a vision of a unitary world, undivided and ‘beyond’ all the categories of thought and perception. This vision is intrinsically interesting, not least because of the light it shines on the problem of consciousness. It both addresses and presents an entirely novel solution to the famous ‘hard problem of consciousness’.
This paper explores the theme “quantum approaches to consciousness” by considering the work of one of the pioneers in the field. The physicist David Bohm (1917-1992) not only made important contributions to quantum physics, but also had a long-term interest in interpreting the results of quantum physics and relativity in order to develop a general world view. His idea was further that living and mental processes could be understood in a new, scientifically and philosophically more coherent way in the context of such a new world view. This paper gives a brief overview of different – and sometimes contradictory - aspects of Bohm’s research programme, and evaluates how they can be used to give an account of topics of interest in contemporary consciousness studies, such as analogies between thought and quantum processes, the problem of mental causation, the mind-body problem and the problem of time consciousness.