Hidden Variables

 

Quantum physics are a bit over my head (say no more), but this short presentation by Sabrine Hossenfelder gave me *some* kind of inkling of the differences between Bohm and the Copenhagen Interpretation. Hossenfelder prefers the Copenhagen Interpretation since something called "quantum field theory" can be derived from it (presumably there is some practical application at CERN), but otherwise, I get the impression that Bohm tried to be more rational and commonsensical than the Copenhagen people, whose speculations opened the door to all kinds of quasi-occult mystification... 

The esoteric Krishnamurti

I don´t remember where I read this...

Exoterically, Krishnamurti had a message many people associated with Advaita Vedanta or some form of Buddhist modernism. However, K also had an esoteric message. He believed in...the shakti. If so, what he calls "Love" in his public speeches is really Shakti. However, K refused to teach kundalini yoga to Westerners, since it was too dangerous (probably a true observation, all things considered). 

This is why David Bohm became interested in K´s message. Bohm regarded the shakti as a very real energy field "beyond" or "behind" the cosmos. It could be accessed through our minds, if we could only find the right technique to do so. Bohm was a former Marxist who had given up on radical societal change through material means. However, he still believed in the necessity of a world-wide transformation, and wondered whether access to this energy could change man - all men (and women) - for the better. In other words, he never gave up the global collectivist vision of Marxism. 

But as I said, I don´t know where I read all of the above (in two different places, I think).

Another thing also struck me. Why didn´t Bohm establish contacts with Sri Aurobindo instead? Perhaps he simply never met him. After all, Aurobindo lived in Pondicherry and wasn´t easily available, not even to world famous quantum physicists!

With that, I leave you for now. 

Why compare?

Somebody else entirely 

"Can Humanity Change? J. Krishnamurti in Dialogue with Buddhists" is a book containing the transcripts of several discussions between Jiddu Krishnamurti and a Buddhist scholar from Sri Lanka, Walpola Rahula. A few other people, most notably David Bohm, also participate in the exchanges, which took place in 1978-79 at Brockwood Park in England. The conservations are also available free of charge on the YouTube channel of the Krishnamurti Foundation ("J. Krishnamurti - Official Channel"). The videos contain funny details obviously not seen in the book, such as the presence of teenage girls or bearded hippies in the audience! It´s also fun to watch the often bewildered expressions of Rahula and Bohm as they try to follow the meandering expositions of Krishnamurti. 

It seems Rahula had sort-of-challenged Krishnamurti to a debate on Buddhism, since both the Lankan scholar and other Buddhists had noted strong similarities between K´s message and that attributed to the Buddha. I think Rahula was right in this. Krishnamurti´s message could indeed be seen as a modernized version of Buddhism, Zen Buddhism in particular. Radical Buddhism could be another way of putting it. Or Zen without motorcycle maintenance? Of course, the anti-guru Krishnamurti refuses to be pidgeon-holed liked this, and retorts to the suggestion that he has a Buddhist-sounding message with the question "Why compare?". To which Rahula has no real answer. Krishnamurti also shrewdly asks the scholar why Buddhist rituals, techniques and dogmas aren´t "conditioned", if everything else in samsara is conditioned? Indeed, Rahula is often forced to concede that Krishnamurti may be right, making the entire "debate" feel somewhat pointless...

Still, there probably is a genuine disagreement in there somewhere. To Krishnamurti, enlightenment must be spontaneous and instantaneous, otherwise it is nothing. No "process", thinking or evolution in time can be involved. Every theory *about* enlightenment leads away from it, by conditioning the mind and erecting further barriers between it and the goal. Indeed, even the idea that enlightenment is a goal, something to be sought or attained, is in itself a step away from it! Obviously, rituals or dogmas are obstacles to liberation. Rahula (and Bohm) finds this hard to accept, or even comprehend. To Rahula, there is an evolution from conditioned existence towards the enlightened state of the arhat, at least within our "relative time" or "relative truth" (he often sounds "Mahayanish" despite presumably being a Theravadin). 

His favorite simile is that the Buddha´s teaching is like a boat taking somebody across a river (the river being samsara). The boat can be destroyed only after the passenger has safely reached the other shore. Krishnamurti questions this - to coin a simile of mine own, it´s as if he wants us to jump across the river in one gigantic stride! But perhaps K would have preferred a different simile: we are already at the other side of the river, but don´t realize it since we have our eyes closed. The only thing we have to do is open them... A simile he does use is that of seeing a snake and instantly realizing that its dangerous, recoiling from it. In the same way, but positively, enlightenment must be an instant realization of a *fact*, not some pretty theory or dogma about some or the other. 

What´s less clear is what method (if any) Krishnamurti proposed to reach this goal (or not-reach the non-goal). Perhaps his meandering "inquiries" *are* the method? Clearly, the World Teacher wasn´t very succesful! This is most obvious in the section "Life After Death", where K goes on and on for over an hour, arguing points everyone really seems to agree with, and which could have been dispensed with in under 15 minutes. He also seems to deliberately create confusion by contradicting himself, use familiar words in a strange way, and so on. It´s almost as if he goes out of his way to sound special (despite constantly claiming the opposite), rather than just being another basic Buddhist. 

Even if we assume that the Buddha originally had a message like Krishnamurti, Buddha (or his disciples) must have realized that it´s essentially impossible to impart to ordinary mortals, and hence developed new "processes" (and dogmas) to bring people closer to the goal. You could also question K in a much more radical way: what if his non-goal isn´t just impossible, but also undesirable? The answer to the question "Can Humanity Change?" would then be "Probably not" followed by a "Thank goodness"!  

The hard porn of Quantum Mechanics

This is an interesting documentary about David Bohm, who developed a controversial new theory about quantum mechanics, still mostly rejected by the scientific community. Bohm also had creative discussions with Jiddu Krishnamurti, a spiritual teacher originally associated with the Theosophical Society. 

While Bohm was a scientist, he clearly wanted to bridge the gap between science and spirituality. The makers of this documentary want to use Bohm´s ideas to promote some kind of vague "holistic" notions. Bohm´s concept of the "implicate order" has obvious similarities with the Hindu notion of Brahman, but perhaps also with the more esoteric idea of Shakti, since the implicate order is active and creative rather than passive. There are also similarities to Whitehead´s process philosophy. Bohm was originally a leftist, perhaps even a Communist, but later developed a more "idealist" and spiritual understanding of human transformation.  

Some episodes in Bohm's life are rather absurd. Bohm couldn´t get a security clearence to Los Alamos due to suspicion that he was a Communist. Yet, it was his supervisor Robert Oppenheimer who spied for the Russians! This fact is not mentioned in the documentary, though. At the hight of the Cold War, Bohm had to leave the United States for Brazil and the UK, since he refused to testify before the HUAC. Meanwhile, other quantum physicist, including his erstwhile mentor Oppenheimer, decided to simply ignore him after having failed to disprove his alternative version of quantum mechanics. A problem with "Infinite Potential" is that you already need to have a working knowledge of Bohm, Krishnamurti and the basics of quantum physics in order to really appreciate it. 

And yes, the title of my review is a reference to a claim made in the documentary. Apparently, Bohm´s theory became jokingly known as "the hard porn of physics", presumably because his theory was considered "X-rated"... 

Quantum physics is a pathless land

David Bohm's "Wholeness and the Implicate Order" is a curious book. Modern quantum physics meet Henri Bergson, Advaita Vedanta and presumably Jiddu Krishnamurti. Some sections of the book are so technical than I don't understand them. Others sound like new agey flim flam. Bohm was a world-renown scientist, but he also had a longstanding friendship with Krishnamurti, self-defrocked Theosophist and spiritual teacher in the Hindu-Buddhist vein. What Bohm calls "the implicate order" or the "holomovement", a Hindu would presumably call Brahman. In Bohm's more Bergsonian version, the holomovement is constantly evolving, implying that somehow humanity can evolve further, too. (Note the Theosophical antecedents for this idea.)

To Bohm, both matter, life and consciousness arise from the holomovement, which is itself neither. Curiously, Bohm's speculations are on some points more "rational" than official quantum physics (the Copenhagen interpretation), since he attempts to explain various bizarre quantum phenomena by deriving them from a higher order of reality, which is open to scientific exploration, at least up to a certain point. The seemingly "occult" behaviour of atoms and particles in standard quantum physics could thus be explained as caused by the implicate order. Mystery solved. On the web, I found some "sceptics", read atheists or agnostics, who are interested in Bohm precisely for this reason, since they consider the Copenhagen interpretation to be down-right irrational. It's therefore ironic that Bohm himself was looking for Brahman!

Bohm's metaphysics could be regarded as pantheist, panpsychist or perhaps panentheist. "Our" reality is an abstraction or holographic projection of the implicate order. It looks dualist or fragmented, but on a deeper level, we are all part of a seamless Whole. Bohm speculates that the implicate order might itself be a sub-set of an even deeper order of which we can say nothing. Of course, in Hinduism such a statement implies mysticism, and Bohm often uses terms I associate with meditation (right attention, etc). By expanding our consciousness, we could overcome our fragmentation and create a peaceful world community in harmony with Nature. Or so Bohm believes. These themes are only hinted at, however, since the book is supposed to be a scientific treatise.

When I read "Wholeness and the Implicate Order", I was struck by the fact that my own opinions have been roughly similar to those of Bohm for as long as I can remember - and yet, I regarded myself as a materialist until a few years ago! My "materialism" was in reality an implicit (implicate?) evolutionary panpsychism. Amen. However, I can also sense some problems with Bohm's position. How is "abstraction" and fragmentation possible at all, if reality is a seamless whole? The Eastern philosophies can't explain this jump from monism to pluralism either, except by suggesting that Maya is indeed inscrutable. Presumably, we'll all stop asking awkward questions once we get the mystical Insight.

Still, it's interesting that Bohm believed that at least part of the non-materialist, implicate order can be proved by modern science.

Not really about Goethe

Henri Bortoft is a former student of renown quantum physicist David Bohm. He may also be an Anthroposophist. At the very least, he is some kind of "fellow traveller", since his book is published by an Anthroposophical press. Anthroposophy is a spiritual or religious movement, founded about a century ago by Rudolf Steiner. While Bortoft's mentor Bohm wasn't a follower of Steiner, it's nevertheless interesting to note that he did have spiritual interests. Bohm had contacts with Jiddu Krishnamurti. On a funnier note, I suspect that the character Kenneth Flume in Owen Barfield's "Unancestral voice" might be based on Bortoft. Barfield, of course, was an Anthroposophist of long standing.

"The Wholeness of Nature: Goethe's Way of Science" is a difficult book dealing with epistemology, ontology and the philosophy of science. It contains few direct references to Rudolf Steiner. Instead, Bortoft attempts to prove his case by way of Gadamer, Heidegger, Husserl, Cassirer and Bergson. However, many of the lesser known authors quoted are probably Anthroposophists. And yes, he mentions both Bohm and Barfield.

Nominally, the book is an analysis of Goethe's view of science. However, I'm not sure if Bortoft's exegesis of the famous German polymath stand up to closer scrutiny. Indeed, Bortoft admits at several points that his interpretation is unusual. My guess is that the author sees Goethe through the interpretive lens of Steiner, in effect turning the poet into a kind of early Anthroposophist. For instance, it seems that "Goethean science" is really a meditation technique which makes it possible to see the One in the many, something Bortoft dubs "multiplicity in unity". This entirely new way of seeing phenomena is possible only if a special organ of perception is developed within our minds, which once again suggests meditation or even mysticism of some kind.

I admit that I found the book hard to follow. It's not hard to read, quite the contrary. However, the ideas are so unusual and strange that "The Wholeness of Nature" becomes difficult anyway. A large part of the book sounds like a defence of quasi-sollipsist postmodernism, where no objective truths "out there" exists and everything is a matter of perspective. I admit that I find this kind of philosophy extremely annoying! Despite the "pomo" angle, the author does seem to regard a ever-changing, dynamic pantheist world-soul as an objective reality, independent of our perceptions. However, the phenomena of the objective world need to be perceived by a human consciousness to become fully themselves. The phenomena of the natural world are in some sense incomplete without a human participatory consciousness which blends subject and object in the act of perceiving them.

This does sound weirdly anthropocentric. While its true that colours or sounds need a consciousness to be perceived, which raises all kinds of intriguing questions if you believe in God or the World-Soul, why do phenomena need a specifically *human* consciousness to be fulfilled? Why not a bat? Or an angel or elemental, since Steiner believed in such? Of course, this question would be meaningless to orthodox Anthroposophists, who apparently regard a kind of spiritualized human as the progenitor of all living organisms.

"The Wholeness of Nature" also discusses archetypes, Platonic forms and universals. There is an extensive footnote criticizing Darwinian evolution. The author rejects Platonizing or proto-Darwinist interpretations of Goethe's ideas about archetypal plants or leafs. His own interpretation is difficult to follow, but apparently there is no reality "behind" the phenomena. Rather, the world-soul necessarily appears as a multiplicity. Only with the aid of participatory consciousness can we realize that every single phenomenon is wholly an expression of the One, in the same way as every single piece of a hologram contains the entire hologram.

Bortoft discusses the plant archetype at some length, claiming that every species of plant is an expression of a primordial plant, which is "its own explanation" and "cannot be otherwise". This suggests some kind of immutability (at least on the spiritual level). It obviously goes against the grain of Darwinian evolution, which explains all plants "mechanically", by way of mutation and natural selection. The Anthroposophical explanations are bound to be much more esoteric and nebulous, and one sometimes get the impression that there really isn't an explanation at all. The spirit bloweth where it listeth...and creates buttercups and water lilies as it goes along. There seems to be a tension in Bortoft's reasoning between a creative evolution of the spirit, and a more static perspective where preordained organisms simply pop up into existence according to never-changing archetypal patterns. (He does admit that "mechanical" causes enter as secondary causes once the plants have manifested themselves.)

It's not clear to me how many archetypes there really are. Goethe's Urpflänze is the One in relation to all plants. There are also mammalian, reptilian or human archetypes. Finally, there seems to be a One that is universal. Is there a hierarchical pattern within the One? If so, how static is the hierarchy? How can it be creative evolution if there is a cosmic pattern into which all organisms on our little planet fall rather neatly?

Somehow, I never understood the *real*point of "The Wholeness of Nature". It obviously isn't a simple discussion about some forgotten aspect of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Weltanschauung (or herbarium). Perhaps it could be seen as a preparatio evangelica Anthroposophica? Although its quasi-pomo perspectivism really irritated me (not to mention the constant references to Gadamer's hermeneutics - how I hate that little word!), I admit that this is a strangely interesting tome, after a fashion.

For that reason, I give it four stars. I can only hope that you may understand it better than I did...