The pervasiveness of thought
Thought as a system
“We’re not really aware of what is happening in this system which I’ve called ‘thought’. We don’t know how it works. We hardly know it is a system; it’s not part of our culture even to admit that it is a single system.”
“We started out saying the trouble is that the world is in chaos, but I think we end up by saying that thought is in chaos. That’s each one of us. And that is the cause of the world being in chaos. Then the chaos of the world comes back and adds to the chaos of thought.”
“The reason we don’t see the source of our problems is that the means by which we try to solve them are the source. That may seem strange to somebody who hears it for the first time, because our whole culture prides itself on thought as its highest achievement. I’m not suggesting that the achievements of thought are negligible; there are very great achievements in technology, in culture and in various other ways. But there is another side to it which is leading to our destruction, and we have to look at that.”
from “Thought as a System”, David Bohm, Routledge, 01992
In his later years David Bohm was very involved in the exploration of consciousness, hereby uncovering the problems of thought. He saw the intricate enmeshment of what he called “thought as a system” throughout the world (mentally and physically), looking at the human being, reality, culture, …
thought and non-thought
thinking vs thought
assumptions
sustained incoherence
the source of nearly all problems on this planet is in thought
Bohm saw a way out of the spiral of thought’s perpetuating illusion by the proposal of ‘proprioception of thought’:
“If you go to a place like Reno, Nevada, or Las Vegas, and we turn on all these electric lights, then you don’t see the stars, and you say that all these electric lights are the main thing, and there is no universe. (laughter) That’s the way obviously feel at that place, right? (laughter) And they blot out the universe. So when you turn off the electric lights, then the universe comes through. At first it seems something very faint, but that faint thing may represent something immense, whereas the very powerful bright thing may represent nothing much.”
from “Unfolding Meaning – A Weekend of Dialogue” – David Bohm, Routledge, 01985
Degrees of thought-infiltration & calcification
As indicated, it is impossible to separate thought from non-thought. However, by further examining this Bohmian point of view, we can discern different levels of “thought-infiltration”, i.e. there are different degrees of thought’s impact and influence on a process.
For example, we could consider a tree in a forest planted by humans. Its context is definitely influenced to a large degree by thought (both during the planting and during its lifetime, the soil it is in, its neighboring trees, the air and water it processes, … ) However, we can say that in essence its *treeness* is much more prominent than the influences of thought. Of course, it can get chopped down tomorrow!
Nevertheless, by becoming more aware of this spectrum of the impact of thought we are able to find breaks from habitual thought and the consensus trance reality we recreate collectively. We can find these breaks in nature, in interoception, in the playfulness of children,… Over time these glimpses of unfiltered holoflux can affect our outlook on life and the world.
A free booklet about this very subject with some practical proposals on how to loosen the grip of thought: Entering Bohm’s Holoflux by Lee Nichol (Pari Publishing)
Frequently Asked Questions
Is it possible to attain some form of proprioception of thought?
Recommended reading
“Thought as a System”- David Bohm, Routledge
Niels Bohr Library & Archives > Oral History >David Bohm – Session XII
Bohmian Psychology: The Undiscovered Continent of David Bohm’s Worldview – David Moody