Quotessence
Home / Authors / David Bohm
David Bohm

David Bohm Quotes

Physicist

Filter quotes by topic

AllMindWayWholeThinkingIfsProcessRealityScienceConsciousnessDialogue

Famous David Bohm Quotes

“Science can now help us to understand ourselves in this way by giving factual information about brain structure and function, and how the mind works. Then there is an art of self knowledge, which each person has to develop for himself. This art must lead one to be sensitive to how his basically false approach to life is always tending to generate conflict and confusion. The role of art here is therefore not to provide a symbolism, but rather to teach the artistic spirit of sensitive perception of the individual and particular phenomena of one's own psyche. This spirit is needed if one is to understand the relevance of general scientific knowledge to his own special problems, as well as to give effect to the scientific spirit of seeing the fact about one's self as it is, whether on elikes it or not, and thus helping to end conflict. Such an approach is not possible, however, unless one has the spirit that meets life wholly and totally. We still need the religious spirit, but today we no longer need the religious mythology, which is now introducing an irrelevant and confusing element into the whole question. Itwould seem, then, that in some ways the modern person must manage to create a total approach to life which accomplishes what was done in earlier days by science, art and religion, but in a new way that is appropriate to the modern conditions of life. An important part of such an action is to see what the relationshipbetween science and art now actually is, and to understand the direction in which this relationship might develop.”

MindArtInspirationScienceBrainCreativityConflictThoughtsSelf KnowledgeReligion And Philoshophy
Book:On Creativity
Create image

“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.”

InspirationalGivingStatesTransformationRemainsConstantDisappearPerpetualAbsolutely NothingWithout A Trace
Book:Causality and Chance in Modern Physics
Create image

“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.”

IfsThinkingMindStillsEnoughPainCausesActingTroublePositive ThinkingNegativeOvercomingPositive ThoughtsSomewhere ElseNegative ThoughtsIncoherence
Book:Thought as a System
Create image

“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?”

PeopleThinkingWayMindDoneFeelingsResultsClearAssumingDetermineYou Choose
Book:Thought as a System
Create image

“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.”

MayFacesFormNationsUnderstandingChallengesSpaceEconomyListeningHabitEmpathyOrganizationLaysSurfaceDialogueAssumptionOur ThoughtsRespondingHabitualBeneath The SurfaceChallenges We Face
Author:David Bohm
Create image

“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. That is to say, one can feel a sense of flow in the stream of consciousness not dissimilar to the sense of flow in the movement of matter in general. May not thought itself thus be a part of reality as a whole? But then, what could it mean for one part of reality to 'know' another, and to what extent would this be possible?”

ThinkingKnowsFeelsMayMeanMatterWholeShowsRealityProcessAttentionConsciousnessMovementFlowCarefulStreamsStream Of Consciousness
Author:David Bohm
Create image

“If each one of us can give full attention to what is actually ‘blocking’ communication while he is also attending properly to the content of what is communicated, then we may be able to create something new between us, something of very great significance for bringing to an end the at present insoluble problems of the individual and of society.”

IfsGivingMayEndsProblemAbleIndividualAttentionCommunicationBlockSignificanceSomething NewAttending
Book:On Dialogue
Create image

“Dialogue is really aimed at going into the whole thought process and changing the way the thought process occurs collectively. We haven't 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.”

IfsWayDoeWholeProcessAttentionBreakMachinesPaidDialoguePay AttentionRanEngagedOur ThoughtsBreaking DownThought Process
Author:David Bohm
Create image

“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.”

IfsWayKindLongWholeWould BeAbleLastsDeathCertainIndividualProcessViewsMembersSpeciesPoint Of View
Book:Thought as a System
Create image

“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.”

ThinkingMindSaidIdeasDifferentFeelingsProblemBodySpiritualEmotionNotionAbstractDividesFragmentation
Author:David Bohm
Create image

“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.”

WellsMayHardWholeMightHappensFormProduceEvidenceBuiltStructurePatternsStuckImpulseVery StrongInterfereReflexesEndorphins
Author:David Bohm
Create image

“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.”

IfsKindWholeRealityConsciousnessAttitudeTakenApproachDetermineRelatedInternalsWholeness
Author:David Bohm
Create image

“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.”

WayHumansWellsMayIdeasWholeTodayFacesFormTurnsCultureConsciousnessCreativityHuman NatureInformationCrisisFundamentalsDialogueDestructiveTransformingRelevanceLiberatedMisinformationInvestigating
Book:Science, Order, and Creativity
Create image

“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.”

WayDoeScienceCertainPrinciplesTheoryAbsolutesFinalsProofFeaturesAssumptionTreatmentQuantumUnlimitedMechanicArbitraryRestrictionQuantum MechanicsValidityQuantum TheoryScientific Theory
Book:Causality and Chance in Modern Physics
Create image

“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.”

LongRealReasonMightCertainKnownPrinciplesExampleObjectsElementsResearchAssumingReason WhyNo ReasonPermitBeing RealHypothesisAvoidedProceduresScientific Research
Author:David Bohm
Create image

“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.”

WorldWholeRealityFormUniverseParticularIndependentFundamentalsNotionVariousUsualQuantumArrangementsInseparableInterconnectedness
Author:David Bohm
Create image