Infinite Potential: The Life and Times of David Bohm is a well-written book by F. David Peat. David Bohm was a unique and very creative person who had an exceptional mind. He was able to pursue abstract thought to a far greater degree than most other people. But it’s difficult to live in high abstraction without loosing one’s grounding. David Bohm’s wife, Saral, was his anchor in life. Saral gave David stability and, to the extent that it was possible, a normal life. Saral also tried to support David during his recurring periods of depression which, without her, could have cost him his life.
Below are some quotes (in italics) from the book:
… the ground of the cosmos is … pure process, a flowing movement of the whole.
… information, like matter and energy, is one of the basic principles of nature …
… for David Bohm, understanding always involved probing deeper and deeper into underlying assumptions.
David Bohm … used feelings, sensations, and inner movements to gain a direct apprehension of what lay beyond ordinary logic.
That ability to touch preverbal processes at the muscular, sensory level remained with him all his life.
… quantum concepts imply that the world acts more like a single indivisible unit …
A smooth flow causes each idea to lead to another … I come out with conclusions which I would never have expected at the beginning.
I feel a need for a sympathetic person to listen to me … and to criticize weaknesses in my arguments without attacking …
… my way of thinking is not step by step, but rather through the inter-connection of various aspects to the whole.
I never write down any formula before I am already sure of the result on qualitative grounds.
I like the method of ceaselessly feeling out various aspects of the problem, seeing how things fit together …
… always he expressed joy and excitement at the possibility of going beyond, of discovering coherence and wholeness.
The act of observing a thought in detail changes the nature of that thought.
… the thought and the thinker can never be separate …
For Bohm … the nature of reality could be directly apprehended within one’s being …
The universe is composed of an infinity of reflections, and of reflections of reflections.
The key to order, and to information, is … collections of different similarities and similar differences.
Any two things are … different and each example of difference is different from every other.
Arguing with people assertively is not profitable.
… quantum theory … speaks of process and transformation rather than object and interaction.
Western society thinks, perceives and communicates in a way that does not cohere with the actuality of the world.
A change of meaning is a change of being.
Thought is neither exclusively subjective nor exclusively objective.
Misinformation is “pollution”
Dialogue … opens the possibility of a collective “flow of meaning” within a group that transcends the limits of individual thought.
Related book reviews:
Book Review: Science, Order, and Creativity
Book Review: Synchronicity
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