Wholeness and the Implicate Order 

by David Bohm

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Last annotated on March 14, 2015

INTRODUCTION 

I would say that in my scientific and philosophical work, my main concern has been with understanding the nature of reality in general and of consciousness in particular as a coherent whole, which is never static or complete, but which is in an unending process of movement and unfoldment.  Read more at location 91

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.  Read more at location 98

The notion that the one who thinks (the Ego) is at least in principle completely separate from and independent of the reality that he thinks about is of course firmly embedded in our entire tradition. (This notion is clearly almost universally accepted in the West, but in the East there is a general tendency to deny it verbally and philosophically while at the same time such an approach pervades most of life and daily practice as much as it does in the West.) General experience of the sort described above, along with a great deal of modern scientific knowledge concerning the nature and function of the brain as the seat of thought, suggest very strongly that such a division cannot be maintained consistently.  Read more at location 104

It is proposed there that the widespread and pervasive distinctions between people (race, nation, family, profession, etc., etc.), which are now preventing mankind from working together for the common good, and indeed, even for survival, have one of the key factors of their origin in a kind of thought that treats things as inherently divided, disconnected, and ‘broken up’ into yet smaller constituent parts. Each part is considered to be essentially independent and self-existent.  Read more at location 122

When man thinks of himself in this way, he will inevitably tend to defend the needs of his own ‘Ego’ against those of the others; or, if he identifies with a group of people of the same kind, he will defend this group in a similar way.  Read more at location 126

****  If he thinks of the totality as constituted of independent fragments, then that is how his mind will tend to operate, but if he can include everything coherently and harmoniously in an overall whole that is undivided, unbroken, and without a border (for every border is a division or break) then his mind will tend to move in a similar way, and from this will flow an orderly action within the whole.  Read more at location 130

both in relativity theory and quantum theory, notions implying the undivided wholeness of the universe would provide a much more orderly way of considering the general nature of reality.  Read more at location 139

It is pointed out that the subject-verbobject structure of modern languages implies that all action arises in a separate subject, and acts either on a separate object, or else reflexively on itself. This pervasive structure leads in the whole of life to a function that divides the totality of existence into separate entities, which are considered to be essentially fixed and static in their nature.  Read more at location 141

both theories imply that the actual state of affairs is unbroken wholeness of the universe, rather than analysis into independent parts. Nevertheless, the two theories differ radically in their detailed notions of order. Thus, in relativity, movement is continuous, causally determinate and well defined, while in quantum mechanics it is discontinuous, not causally determinate and not well defined.  Read more at location 201

a new notion of order, that may be appropriate to a universe of unbroken wholeness. This is the implicate or enfolded order. In the enfolded order, space and time are no longer the dominant factors determining the relationships of dependence or independence of different elements. Rather, an entirely different sort of basic connection of elements is possible, from which our ordinary notions of space and time, along with those of separately existent material particles, are abstracted as forms derived from the deeper order. These ordinary notions in fact appear in what is called the explicate or unfolded order, which is a special and distinguished form contained within the general totality of all the implicate orders.  Read more at location 207

1 FRAGMENTATION AND WHOLENESS 

art, science, technology, and human work in general, are divided up into specialities, each considered to be separate in essence from the others.  Read more at location 223

society as a whole has developed in such a way that it is broken up into separate nations and different religious, political, economic, racial groups, etc. Man’s natural environment has correspondingly been seen as an aggregate of separately existent parts, to be exploited by different groups of people. Similarly, each individual human being has been fragmented into a large number of separate and conflicting compartments, according to his different desires, aims, ambitions, loyalties, psychological characteristics, etc., to such an extent that it is generally accepted that some degree of neurosis is inevitable,  Read more at location 226

the attempt to live according to the notion that the fragments are really separate is, in essence, what has led to the growing series of extremely urgent crises that is confronting us today.  Read more at location 233

******  In essence, the process of division is a way of thinking about things that is convenient and useful mainly in the domain of practical, technical and functional activities (e.g., to divide up an area of land into different fields where various crops are to be grown). However, when this mode of thought is applied more broadly to man’s notion of himself and the whole world in which he lives (i.e. to his self-world view), then man ceases to regard the resulting divisions as merely useful or convenient and begins to see and experience himself and his world as actually constituted of separately existent fragments. 

...Being guided by a fragmentary self-world view, man then acts in such a way as to try to break himself and the world up, so that all seems to correspond to his way of thinking. Man thus obtains an apparent proof of the correctness of his fragmentary self-world view though, of course, he overlooks the fact that it is he himself, acting according to his mode of thought, who has brought about the fragmentation that now seems to have an autonomous existence, independent of his will and of his desire.  Read more at location 250

It is instructive to consider that the word ‘health’ in English is based on an Anglo-Saxon word ‘hale’ meaning ‘whole’: that is, to be healthy is to be whole, which is, I think, roughly the equivalent of the Hebrew ‘shalem’. Likewise, the English ‘holy’ is based on the same root as ‘whole’. All of this indicates that man has sensed always that wholeness or integrity is an absolute necessity to make life worth living. Yet, over the ages, he has generally lived in fragmentation.  Read more at location 256

What will be emphasized, first of all in scientific research and later in a more general context, is that fragmentation is continually being brought about by the almost universal habit of taking the content of our thought for ‘a description of the world as it is’. Or we could say that, in this habit, our thought is regarded as in direct correspondence with objective reality. Since our thought is pervaded with differences and distinctions, it follows that such a habit leads us to look on these as real divisions, so that the world is then seen and experienced as actually broken up into fragments.  Read more at location 264

The word ‘theory’ derives from the Greek ‘theoria’, which has the same root as ‘theatre’, in a word meaning ‘to view’ or ‘to make a spectacle’. Thus, it might be said that a theory is primarily a form of insight, i.e. a way of looking at the world, and not a form of knowledge of how the world is.  Read more at location 270

If we supposed that theories gave true knowledge, corresponding to ‘reality as it is’, then we would have to conclude that Newtonian theory was true until around 1900, after which it suddenly became false, while relativity and quantum theory suddenly became the truth.  Read more at location 285

As is now well known, however, there can be no conclusive experimental proof of the truth or falsity of a general hypothesis which aims to cover the whole of reality. Rather, one finds (e.g., as in the case of the Ptolemaic epicycles or of the failure of Newtonian concepts just before the advent of relativity and quantum theory) that older theories become more and more unclear when one tries to use them to obtain insight into new domains.  Read more at location 290

As seems to have been first pointed out by Kant, all experience is organized according to the categories of our thought, i.e., on our ways of thinking about space, time, matter, substance, causality, contingency, necessity, universality, particularity, etc. It can be said that these categories are general forms of insight or ways of looking at everything, so that in a certain sense, they are a kind of theory  Read more at location 308

it is useful to emphasize that experience and knowledge are one process, rather than to think that our knowledge is about some sort of separate experience. We can refer to this one process as experience-knowledge  Read more at location 314

If one approaches another man with a fixed ‘theory’ about him as an ‘enemy’ against whom one must defend oneself, he will respond similarly, and thus one’s ‘theory’ will apparently be confirmed by experience. Similarly, nature will respond in accordance with the theory with which it is approached.  Read more at location 318

****  our modern way of thinking has, of course, changed a great deal relative to the ancient one, the two have had one key feature in common: i.e. they are both generally ‘blinkered’ by the notion that theories give true knowledge about ‘reality as it is’. Thus, both are led to confuse the forms and shapes induced in our perceptions by theoretical insight with a reality independent of our thought and our way of looking.  Read more at location 324

every form of theoretical insight introduces its own essential differences and distinctions (e.g., in ancient times an essential distinction was between heavenly and earthly matter, while in Newtonian theory it was essential to distinguish the centres toward which all matter was falling).  Read more at location 330

****  it is crucial that man be aware of the activity of his thought as such; i.e. as a form of insight, a way of looking, rather than as a ‘true copy of reality as it is’.  Read more at location 344

all our different ways of thinking are to be considered as different ways of looking at the one reality, each with some domain in which it is clear and adequate.  Read more at location 347

these world views that our general notions of the nature of reality and of the relationship between our thought and reality are implicity or explicitly formed. In this respect, the general theories of physics play an important part, because they are regarded as dealing with the universal nature of the matter out of which all is constituted, and the space and time in terms of which all material movement is described.  Read more at location 354

the atomic theory, which was first proposed by Democritus more than 2,000 years ago. In essence, this theory leads us to look at the world as constituted of atoms, moving in the void. The ever-changing forms and characteristics of large-scale objects are now seen as the results of changing arrangements of the moving atoms. 

...ceased to be regarded as an insight, a way of looking, and men regarded instead as an absolute truth the notion that the whole of reality is actually constituted of nothing but ‘atomic building blocks’, all working together more or less mechanically. Of course, to take any physical theory as an absolute truth must tend to fix the general forms of thought in physics and thus to contribute to fragmentation. Beyond this, however, the particular content of the atomic theory was such as to be especially conducive to fragmentation, for it was implicit in this content that the entire world of nature, along with the human being, including his brain, his nervous system, his mind, etc., could in principle be understood completely in terms of structures and functions of aggregates of separately existent atoms.  Read more at location 362

the experimental confirmation of the atomic point of view is limited. Indeed, in the domains covered by quantum theory and relativity, the notion of atomism leads to confused questions, which indicate the need for new forms of insight,  Read more at location 371

****  The notion of an atomic path has only a limited domain of applicability. In a more detailed description the atom is, in many ways, seen to behave as much like a wave as a particle. It can perhaps best be regarded as a poorly defined cloud, dependent for its particular form on the whole environment, including the observing instrument. Thus, one can no longer maintain the division between the observer and observed (which is implicit in the atomistic view that regards each of these as separate aggregates of atoms). Rather, both observer and observed are merging and interpenetrating aspects of one whole reality, which is indivisible and unanalysable.  Read more at location 375

in the classical atomic theory, for in this theory the ultimate constituents of the universe have to be small indivisible objects, and this is possible only if each part of such an object is bound rigidly to all other parts. What is needed in a relativistic theory is to give up altogether the notion that the world is constituted of basic objects or ‘building blocks’. Rather, one has to view the world in terms of universal flux of events and processes.  Read more at location 382

********  relativity and quantum theory agree, in that they both imply the need to look on the world as an undivided whole, in which all parts of the universe, including the observer and his instruments, merge and unite in one totality. In this totality, the atomistic form of insight is a simplification and an abstraction, valid only in some limited context. The new form of insight can perhaps best be called Undivided Wholeness in Flowing Movement. This view implies that flow is, in some sense, prior to that of the ‘things’ that can be seen to form and dissolve in this flow. One can perhaps illustrate what is meant here by considering the ‘stream of consciousness’.  Read more at location 397

it is evidently prior to the definable forms of thoughts and ideas which can be seen to form and dissolve in the flux, like ripples, waves and vortices in a flowing stream. As happens with such patterns of movement in a stream some thoughts recur and persist in a more or less stable way, while others are evanescent.  Read more at location 402

********  there is a universal flux that cannot be defined explicitly but which can be known only implicitly, as indicated by the explicitly definable forms and shapes, some stable and some unstable, that can be abstracted from the universal flux. In this flow, mind and matter are not separate substances. Rather, they are different aspects of one whole and unbroken movement.  Read more at location 405

The point of view discussed above is similar, in certain key ways, to that held by some of the Ancient Greeks. This similarity can be brought out by considering Aristotle’s notion of causality. Aristotle distinguished four kinds of causes: Material Efficient Formal Final 

...The material cause is then just the matter in which all the other causes operate and out of which the thing is constituted. 

...The efficient cause is some action, external to the thing under discussion, which allows the whole process to get under way. 

...what is indicated by the term ‘formal cause’ is the whole inner movement 

...In more modern language, it would be better to describe this as formative cause, to emphasize that what is involved is not a mere form imposed from without, but rather an ordered and structured inner movement that is essential to what things are. Any such formative cause must evidently have an end or product which is at least implicit. 

...Of course, we also know final cause as design, 

...Design is, however, only a special case of final cause. For example, men often aim toward certain ends in their thoughts but what actually emerges from their actions is generally something different from what was in their design, something that was, however, implicit in what they were doing, though not consciously perceived by those who took part.  Read more at location 436

Aristotle considered the universe as a single organism in which each part grows and develops in its relationship to the whole and in which it has its proper place and function.  Read more at location 440

acts of perception cannot properly be given a detailed analysis or description. Rather, they are to be considered as aspects of the forming activity of the mind. A particular structure of concepts is then the product of this activity, and these products are what are linked by the series of efficient causes that operate in ordinary associative thinking  Read more at location 450

****  When it comes to the informal language and mode of thought in physics, which infuses the imagination and provokes the sense of what is real and substantial, most physicists still speak and think, with an utter conviction of truth, in terms of the traditional atomistic notion that the universe is constituted of elementary particles which are ‘basic building blocks’ out of which everything is made. In other sciences, such as biology, the strength of this conviction is even greater, because among workers in these fields there is little awareness of the revolutionary character of development in modern physics. For example, modern molecular biologists generally believe that the whole of life and mind can ultimately be understood in more or less mechanical terms, through some kind of extension of the work that has been done on the structure and function of DNA molecules.  Read more at location 468

****  the prevailing tendency in science to think and perceive in terms of a fragmentary self-world view is part of a larger movement that has been developing over the ages and that pervades almost the whole of our society today: but, in turn, such a way of thinking and looking in scientific research tends very strongly to re-enforce the general fragmentary approach because it gives men a picture of the whole world as constituted of nothing but an aggregate of separately existent ‘atomic building blocks’, and provides experimental evidence from which is drawn the conclusion that this view is necessary and inevitable. In this way, people are led to feel that fragmentation is nothing but an expression of ‘the way everything really is’ and that anything else is impossible. So there is very little disposition to look for evidence to the contrary. Indeed, as has already been pointed out, even when such evidence does arise, as in modern physics, the general tendency is to minimize its significance or even to ignore it altogether.  Read more at location 477

Whenever men divide themselves from the whole of society and attempt to unite by identification within a group, it is clear that the group must eventually develop internal strife, which leads to a breakdown of its unity. Likewise when men try to separate some aspect of nature in their practical, technical work, a similar state of contradiction and disunity will develop. The same sort of thing will happen to the individual when he tries to separate himself from society. True unity in the individual and between man and nature, as well as between man and man, can arise only in a form of action that does not attempt to fragment the whole of reality.  Read more at location 493

So fragmentation is in essence a confusion around the question of difference and sameness (or one-ness), but the clear perception of these categories is necessary in every phase of life. To be confused about what is different and what is not, is to be confused about everything.  Read more at location 502

We have thus to be alert to give careful attention and serious consideration to the fact that our theories are not ‘descriptions of reality as it is’ but, rather, ever-changing forms of insight, which can point to or indicate a reality that is implicit and not describable or specifiable in its totality. This need for being thus watchful holds even for what is being said here in this chapter, in the sense that this is not to be regarded as ‘absolutely true knowledge of the nature of fragmentations and wholeness’. Rather, it too is a theory that gives insight into this question.  Read more at location 515

One of the most difficult and subtle points about this question is just to clarify what is to be meant by the relationship between the content of thought and the process of thinking which produces this content. A major source of fragmentation is indeed the generally accepted presupposition that the process of thought is sufficiently separate from and independent of its content, to allow us generally to carry out clear, orderly, rational thinking, which can properly judge this content as correct or incorrect, rational or irrational, fragmentary or whole, etc. Actually, as has been seen, the fragmentation involved in a self-world view is not only in the content of thought, but in the general activity of the person who is ‘doing the thinking’, and thus, it is as much in the process of thinking as it is in the content.  Read more at location 532

****  content and process are not two separately existent things, but, rather, they are two aspects of views of one whole movement.  Read more at location 538

What we have to deal with here is a one-ness of the thinking process and its content, similar in key ways to the one-ness of observer and observed;  Read more at location 539

(Note: Like chaos theory)  One might here consider the image of a turbulent mass of vortices in a stream. The structure and distribution of vortices, which constitute a sort of content of the description of the movement, are not separate from the formative activity of the flowing stream, which creates, maintains, and ultimately dissolves the totality of vortex structures. So to try to eliminate the vortices without changing the formative activity of the stream would evidently be absurd.  Read more at location 546

APPENDIX: RÉSUMÉ OF DISCUSSION ON WESTERN AND EASTERN FORMS OF INSIGHT INTO WHOLENESS 

In the very early phases of the development of civilization, man’s views were essentially of wholeness rather than of fragmentation. In the East (especially in India) such views still survive, in the sense that philosophy and religion emphasize wholeness and imply the futility of analysis of the world into parts.  Read more at location 561

Now, in the West the notion of measure has, from very early times, played a key role in determining the general self-world view and the way of life implicit in such a view. Thus among the Ancient Greeks, from whom we derive a large part of our fundamental notions (by way of the Romans), to keep everything in its right measure was regarded as one of the essentials of a good life  Read more at location 567

measure was not looked on in its modern sense as being primarily some sort of comparison of an object with an external standard or unit. Rather, this latter procedure was regarded as a kind of outward display or appearance of a deeper ‘inner measure’, which played an essential role in everything. When something went beyond its proper measure, this meant not merely that it was not conforming to some external standard of what was right but, much more, that it was inwardly out of harmony,  Read more at location 570

Thus, the Latin ‘mederi’ meaning ‘to cure’ (the root of the modern ‘medicine’) is based on a root meaning ‘to measure’. This reflects the view that physical health is to be regarded as the outcome of a state of right inward measure in all parts and processes of the body. Similarly, the word ‘moderation’, which describes one of the prime ancient notions of virtue, is based on the same root,  Read more at location 575

the word ‘meditation’, which is based on the same root, implies a kind of weighing, pondering, or measuring of the whole process of thought, which could bring the inner activities of the mind to a state of harmonious measure.  Read more at location 579

awareness of the inner measure of things was seen as the essential key to a healthy, happy, harmonious life.  Read more at location 580

******  ‘ratio’ is the Latin word from which our modern ‘reason’ is derived. In the ancient view, reason is seen as insight into a totality of ratio or proportion, regarded as relevant inwardly to the very nature of things  Read more at location 582

The essential reason or ratio of a thing is then the totality of inner proportions in its structure, and in the process in which it forms, maintains itself, and ultimately dissolves. In this view, to understand such ratio is to understand the ‘innermost being’ of that thing. It is thus implied that measure is a form of insight into the essence of everything, and that man’s perception, following on ways indicated by such insight, will be clear and will thus bring about generally orderly action and harmonious living.  Read more at location 592

measure gradually came to be taught as a sort of rule that was to be imposed from outside on the human being, who in turn imposed the corresponding measure physically, socially and mentally, in every context in which he was working. As a result, the prevailing notions of measure were no longer seen as forms of insight. Rather, they appeared to be ‘absolute truths about reality as it is’,  Read more at location 605

Protagoras said: ‘Man is the measure of all things’, thus emphasizing that measure is not a reality external to man, existing independently of him.  Read more at location 612

The general rigidification and objectification of the notion of measure continued to develop until, in modern times, the very word ‘measure’ has come to denote mainly a process of comparison of something with an external standard. While the original meaning still survives in some contexts (e.g., art and mathematics) it is generally felt as having only a secondary sort of significance.  Read more at location 617

****  measure has not played nearly so fundamental a role. Rather, in the prevailing philosophy in the Orient, the immeasurable (i.e. that which cannot be named, described, or understood through any form of reason) is regarded as the primary reality.  Read more at location 620

****  there is another word ‘maya’ obtained from the same root, which means ‘illusion’. This is an extraordinarily significant point. Whereas to Western society, as it derives from the Greeks, measure, with all that this word implies, is the very essence of reality, or at least the key to this essence, in the East measure has now come to be regarded commonly as being in some way false and deceitful. In this view the entire structure and order of forms, proportions, and ‘ratios’ that present themselves to ordinary perception and reason are regarded as a sort of veil, covering the true reality, which cannot be perceived by the senses and of which nothing can be said or thought.  Read more at location 623

Thus, in the West, society has mainly emphasized the development of science and technology (dependent on measure) while in the East, the main emphasis has gone to religion and philosophy (which are directed ultimately toward the immeasurable). If one considers this question carefully, one can see that in a certain sense the East was right to see the immeasurable as the primary reality. For, as has already been indicated, measure is an insight created by man.  Read more at location 629

when measure is identified with the very essence of reality, this is illusion. But then, when men learned this by conforming to the teachings of tradition, the meaning became largely habitual and mechanical. In the way indicated earlier, the subtlety was lost and men began to say simply: ‘measure is illusion’. Thus, both in the East and in the West, true insight may have been turned into something false and misleading by the procedure of learning mechanically through conformity to existent teachings, rather than through a creative and original grasp of the insights implicit in such teachings. It is of course impossible to go back to a state of wholeness that may have been present before the split between East and West developed  Read more at location 639

what we have to do with regard to the great wisdom from the whole of the past, both in the East and in the West, is to assimilate it and to go on to new and original perception relevant to our present condition of life.  Read more at location 651

techniques of meditation can be looked on as measures (actions ordered by knowledge and reason) which are taken by man to try to reach the immeasurable, i.e., a state of mind in which he ceases to sense a separation between himself and the whole of reality.  Read more at location 654

****   Read more at location 667

original and creative insight within the whole field of measure is the action of the immeasurable. For when such insight occurs, the source cannot be within ideas already contained in the field of measure but rather has to be in the immeasurable, which contains the essential formative cause of all that happens in the field of measure. The measurable and the immeasurable are then in harmony and indeed one sees that they are but different ways of considering the one and undivided whole. When such harmony prevails, man can then not only have insight into the meaning of wholeness but, what is much more significant, he can realize the truth of this insight in every phase and aspect of his life.  Read more at location 676

2 THE RHEOMODE – AN EXPERIMENT WITH LANGUAGE AND THOUGHT 

1 INTRODUCTION  

it has been pointed out that our thought is fragmented, mainly by our taking it for an image or model of ‘what the world is’. The divisions in thought are thus given disproportionate importance, as if they were a widespread and pervasive structure of independently existent actual breaks in ‘what is’, rather than merely convenient features of description and analysis.  Read more at location 686

what we wish to do in this chapter is to experiment with changes in the structure of the common language. In this experimentation our aim is not to produce a well-defined alternative to present language structures. Rather, it is to see what happens to the language function as we change it, and thus perhaps to make possible a certain insight into how language contributes to the general fragmentation.  Read more at location 695

2 AN INQUIRY INTO OUR LANGUAGE 

each question contains presuppositions, largely implicit. If these presuppositions are wrong or confused, then the question itself is wrong, in the sense that to try to answer it has no meaning. One has thus to inquire into the appropriateness of the question. In fact, truly original discoveries in science and in other fields have generally involved such inquiry into old questions, leading to a perception of their inappropriateness, and in this way allowing for the putting forth of new questions.  Read more at location 706

a very important feature of this kind is the subject-verb-object structure of sentences, which is common to the grammar and syntax of modern languages. This structure implies that all action arises in a separate entity, the subject, and that, in cases described by a transitive verb, this action crosses over the space between them to another separate entity, the object.  Read more at location 715

consider the sentence ‘It is raining.’ Where is the ‘It’ that would, according to the sentence, be ‘the rainer that is doing the raining’? Clearly, it is more accurate to say: ‘Rain is going on.’  Read more at location 725

in some ancient languages – for example, Hebrew – the verb was in fact taken as primary, in the sense described above. Thus, the root of almost all words in Hebrew was a certain verbal form, while adverbs, adjectives and nouns were obtained by modifying the verbal form with prefixes, suffixes, and in other ways. However, in modern Hebrew the actual usage is similar to that of English, in that the noun is in fact given a primary role in its meaning even though in the formal grammar all is still built from the verb as a root.  Read more at location 738

we will now consider a mode in which movement is to be taken as primary in our thinking and in which this notion will be incorporated into the language structure by allowing the verb rather than the noun to play a primary role. As one develops such a mode and works with it for a while, one may obtain the necessary skill in using it, so that it will also come to function whenever it is required, without the need for conscious choice. For the sake of convenience we shall give this mode a name, i.e. the rheomode (‘rheo’ is from a Greek verb, meaning ‘to flow’).  Read more at location 748

3 THE FORM OF THE RHEOMODE 

to see the relevance or irrelevance of a statement is primarily an act of perception of a very high order similar to that involved in seeing its truth or falsity. In one sense the question of relevance comes before that of truth, because to ask whether a statement is true or false presupposes that it is relevant  Read more at location 804

when relevance or irrelevance is communicated, one has to understand that this is not a hard and fast division between opposing categories but, rather, an expression of an ever-changing perception, in which it is possible, for the moment, to see a fit or non-fit between the content lifted into attention and the context to which it refers.  Read more at location 816

we first note that the verb ‘to relevate’, from which the adjective ‘relevant’ is derived, ultimately comes from the root ‘to levate’ (whose meaning is, of course, ‘to lift’). As a step in developing the rheomode, we then propose that the verb ‘to levate’ shall mean, ‘The spontaneous and unrestricted act of lifting into attention any content whatsoever, which includes the lifting into attention of the question of whether this content fits a broader context or not, as well as that of lifting into attention the very function of calling attention which is initiated by the verb itself.’ This implies an unrestricted breadth and depth of meaning, that is not fixed within static limits. We then introduce the verb ‘to re-levate’. This means: ‘To lift a certain content into attention again, for a particular context, as indicated by thought and language.’  Read more at location 826

Re-dividation is then a continuing state of seeing a certain content in the form of separation or division. Irre-dividation is a continuing state of seeing separation where, in the ordinary language, we would say that separation is irrelevant. Irre-dividation is clearly essentially the same as fragmentation.  Read more at location 887

******  ultimately, wholeness is primary, in the sense that these meanings and functions pass into each other to merge and interpenetrate. Division is thus seen to be a convenient means of giving a more articulated and detailed description to this whole, rather than a fragmentation of ‘what is’.  Read more at location 896

a ruler may be divided into inches, but this set of divisions is introduced into our thinking only as a convenient means of expressing a simple sequential order, by which we can communicate and understand something that has bearing on some whole object, which is measured with the aid of such a ruler. This simple notion of a sequential order, expressed in terms of regular divisions in a line on a scale, helps to direct us in our constructional work, our travels and movements on the surface of the Earth and in space, and in a wide range of general practical and scientific activities.  Read more at location 899

‘to ordinate’ does not primarily mean ‘to think about an order’ but, rather, to engage in the very act of ordering attention, while attention is given also to one’s thoughts about order.  Read more at location 916

once the words have been put together the prevailing tendency has been to lose sight of the fact that this has happened and to regard each word as an ‘elementary unit’, so that the origin of such words in a construction is, in effect, treated as having no bearing on its meaning. In the rheomode, however, the word construction is not fortuitous, but plays a primary role in making possible a whole new mode of language, while the activity of word construction is continually being brought to our notice because the meanings depend in an essential way on the forms of such constructions.  Read more at location 937

in the rheomode, one has begun to go further and to treat the construction of words as not essentially different from the construction of phrases, sentences, paragraphs, etc. Thus, the ‘atomistic’ attitude to words has been dropped and instead our point of view is rather similar to that of field theory in physics, in which ‘particles’ are only convenient abstractions from the whole movement. Similarly, we may say that language is an undivided field of movement, involving sound, meaning, attention-calling, emotional and muscular reflexes, etc. It is somewhat arbitrary to give the present excessive significance to the breaks between words. Actually, the relationships between parts of a word may, in general, be of much the same sort as those between different words. So the word ceases to be taken as an ‘indivisible atom of meaning’ and instead it is seen as no more than a convenient marker in the whole movement of language, neither more nor less fundamental than the clause, the sentence, the paragraph, the system of paragraphs, etc.  Read more at location 947

4 TRUTH AND FACT IN THE RHEOMODE 

(Irre-verration, i.e. the persistent holding to a truth beyond its proper limits, has evidently been one of the major sources of illusion and delusion throughout the whole of history and in every phase of life.)  Read more at location 985

5 THE RHEOMODE AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR OUR OVERALL WORLD VIEW 

one of the major defects of the ordinary mode of using language is just its general implication that it is not restricting the world view in any way at all, and that in any case questions of world view have to do only with ‘one’s own particular philosophy’, rather than with the content and function of our language, or with the way in which we tend to experience the overall reality in which we live. By thus making us believe that our world view is only a relatively unimportant matter, perhaps involving mainly one’s personal taste or choice, the ordinary mode of language leads us to fail to give attention to the actual function of the divisive world view that pervades this mode, so that the automatic and habitual operation of our thought and language is then able to project these divisions (in the manner discussed earlier) as if they were actual fragmentary breaks in the nature of ‘what is’. It is thus essential to be aware of the world view implied in each form of language, and to be watchful and alert, to be ready to see when this world view ceases to fit actual observation and experience, as these are extended beyond certain limits.  Read more at location 1057

the rheomode implies a world view quite different from that of the usual language structure. More specifically, we see that the mere act of seriously considering such a new mode of language and observing how it works can help draw our attention to the way in which our ordinary language structure puts strong and subtle pressures on us to hold to a fragmentary world view.  Read more at location 1067

3 REALITY AND KNOWLEDGE CONSIDERED AS PROCESS 

1 INTRODUCTION 

The notion that reality is to be understood as process is an ancient one, going back at least to Heraclitus, who said that everything flows. In more modern times, Whitehead1 was the first to give this notion a systematic and extensive development.  Read more at location 1074

****  I regard the essence of the notion of process as given by the statement: Not only is everything changing, but all is flux. That is to say, what is is the process of becoming itself, while all objects, events, entities, conditions, structures, etc., are forms that can be abstracted from this process.  Read more at location 1078

The best image of process is perhaps that of the flowing stream, whose substance is never the same. On this stream, one may see an ever-changing pattern of vortices, ripples, waves, splashes, etc., which evidently have no independent existence as such. Rather, they are abstracted from the flowing movement, arising and vanishing in the total process of the flow. Such transitory subsistence as may be possessed by these abstracted forms implies only a relative independence or autonomy of behaviour, rather than absolutely independent existence as ultimate substances.  Read more at location 1081

modern physics states that actual streams (e.g., of water) are composed of atoms, which are in turn composed of ‘elementary particles’, such as electrons, protons, neutrons, etc. For a long time it was thought that these latter are the ‘ultimate substance’ of the whole of reality, and that all flowing movements, such as those of streams, must reduce to forms abstracted from the motions through space of collections of interacting particles. However, it has been found that even the ‘elementary particles’ can be created, annihilated and transformed, and this indicates that not even these can be ultimate substances but, rather, that they too are relatively constant forms, abstracted from some deeper level of movement.  Read more at location 1085

****  the notion that all is flux, into which we are inquiring here, denies such a supposition. Rather, it implies that any describable event, object, entity, etc., is an abstraction from an unknown and undefinable totality of flowing movement.  Read more at location 1092

if all is flux, then every part of knowledge must have its being as an abstracted form in the process of becoming, so that there can be no absolutely invariant elements of knowledge.  Read more at location 1104

2 THOUGHT AND INTELLIGENCE 

Thought is, in essence, the active response of memory in every phase of life. We include in thought the intellectual, emotional, sensuous, muscular and physical responses of memory. These are all aspects of one indissoluble process.  Read more at location 1113

the memory of pleasure or pain, in conjunction with a visual, auditory, or olfactory image that may be evoked by an object or a situation. It is common in our culture to regard memories involving image content as separate from those involving feeling. It is clear, however, that the whole meaning of such a memory is just the conjunction of the image with its feeling,  Read more at location 1117

the response of memory, is basically mechanical in its order of operation. Either it is a repetition of some previously existent structure drawn from memory, or else it is some combination arrangement and organization of these memories into further structures of ideas and concepts, categories, etc.  Read more at location 1121

****  (Note:   difference between knowledge (memory) and insight, wisdom, or understanding)  The perception of whether or not any particular thoughts are relevant or fitting requires the operation of an energy that is not mechanical, an energy that we shall call intelligence. This latter is able to perceive a new order or a new structure, that is not just a modification of what is already known or present in memory.  Read more at location 1126

it is necessarily implied, in any statement, that the speaker is capable of talking from intelligent perception, which is in turn capable of a truth that is not merely the result of a mechanism based on meaning or skills acquired in the past. So we see that no one can avoid implying, by his mode of communication, that he accepts at least the possibility of that free, unconditioned perception that we have called intelligence.  Read more at location 1145

If intelligence is to be an unconditioned act of perception, its ground cannot be in structures such as cells, molecules, atoms, elementary particles, etc. Ultimately, anything that is determined by the laws of such structures must be in the field of what can be known, i.e. stored up in memory, and thus it will have to have the mechanical nature of anything that can be assimilated in the basically mechanical character of the process of thought. The actual operation of intelligence is thus beyond the possibility of being determined or conditioned by factors that can be included in any knowable law. So, we see that the ground of intelligence must be in the undetermined and unknown flux, that is also the ground of all definable forms of matter. Intelligence is thus not deducible or explainable on the basis of any branch of knowledge (e.g., physics or biology). Its origin is deeper and more inward than any knowable order that could describe it.  Read more at location 1152

when thought functions on its own, it is mechanical and not intelligent, because it imposes its own generally irrelevant and unsuitable order drawn from memory. Thought is, however, capable of responding, not only from memory but also to the unconditioned perception of intelligence that can see, in each case, whether or not a particular line of thought is relevant and fitting.  Read more at location 1160

One may perhaps usefully consider here the image of a radio receiver. When the output of the receiver ‘feeds back’ into the input, the receiver operates on its own, to produce mainly irrelevant and meaningless noise, but when it is sensitive to the signal on the radio wave, its own order of inner movement of electric currents (transformed into sound waves) is parallel to the order in the signal and thus the receiver serves to bring a meaningful order originating beyond the level of its own structure into movements on the level of its own structure.  Read more at location 1163

It is thought responding to intelligent perception which is capable of bringing about an overall harmony or fitting between mind and matter.  Read more at location 1172

3 THE THING AND THE THOUGHT 

it is commonly believed that the content of thought is in some kind of reflective correspondence with ‘real things’,  Read more at location 1175

Now the word ‘thing’ goes back to various old English words2 whose significance includes ‘object’, ‘action’, ‘event’, ‘condition’, ‘meeting’, and is related to words meaning ‘to determine’, ‘to settle’, and, perhaps, to ‘time’ or ‘season’. The original meaning might thus have been ‘something occurring at a given time, or under certain conditions’.  Read more at location 1183

What, then, is the origin of the word ‘reality’? This comes from the Latin ‘res’, which means ‘thing’. To be real is to be a ‘thing’. ‘Reality’ in its earlier meaning would then signify ‘thinghood in general’ or ‘the quality of being a thing’.  Read more at location 1189

****  since time immemorial he has sought to understand the origin of all things and their general order and nature, in religious thought, in philosophy, and in science. This may be called thought that has ‘the totality of all that is’ as its content (for example, the attempt to comprehend the nature of reality as a whole). What we are proposing here is that such comprehension of the totality is not a reflective correspondence between ‘thought’ and ‘reality as a whole’. Rather, it is to be considered as an art form, like poetry, which may dispose us toward order and harmony in the overall ‘dance of the mind’  Read more at location 1215

What is required here, then, is not an explanation that would give us some knowledge of the relationship of thought and thing, or of thought and ‘reality as a whole’. Rather, what is needed is an act of understanding; in which we see the totality as an actual process that, when carried out properly, tends to bring about an harmonious and orderly overall action, incorporating both  Read more at location 1220

4 THOUGHT AND NON-THOUGHT 

While it is thus clear that ultimately thought and thing cannot properly be analysed as separately existent, it is also evident that in man’s immediate experience some such analysis and separation has to be made, at least provisionally, or as a point of departure. Indeed, the distinction between what is real and what is mere thought and therefore imaginary or illusory is absolutely necessary, not only for success in practical affairs but also if we are in the long run even to maintain our sanity.  Read more at location 1224

to remain permanently confused about what is real and what is not, is a state that man must ultimately find to be intolerable, since it not only makes impossible a rational approach to practical problems but it also robs life of all meaning. It is clear, then, that sooner or later, man in his overall process of thought would engage in systematic attempts to clear up this distinction. One can see that at some stage it has to be felt in this process that it is not enough to know how to distinguish particular thoughts from particular things. Rather, it is necessary to understand the distinction universally.  Read more at location 1242

thought as a whole has to be distinguished from the whole of what is not thought. This may be put more succinctly as the distinction between thought and non-thought, and abbreviated further to T and NT. The line of reasoning implicit in such a distinction is: T is not NT (thought and non-thought are different and mutually exclusive). All is either T or NT (thought and non-thought cover the whole of what can exist).  Read more at location 1247

non-thought is commonly identified with reality, in the sense of thinghood. As indicated earlier, real things are recognized mainly by their independence of how we think of them. Further characteristic distinctions are that real things may be palpable, stable, resistant to attempts to change them, sources of independent activity throughout the whole of reality.  Read more at location 1257

thoughts may be regarded as mere ‘mental stuff’, impalpable, transient, easily changed, and not capable of initiating independent lines of activity outside of themselves, etc.  Read more at location 1260

everything in the general environment has, either naturally or through human activity, a shape, form, and mode of movement, the content of which ‘flows in’ through perception, giving rise to sense impressions which leave memory traces and thus contribute to the basis of further thought. In this whole movement, content that was originally in memory continually passes into and becomes an integral feature of the environment, whole content that was originally in the environment passes into and becomes an integral feature of memory, so that (as pointed out earlier) the two participate in a single total process, in which analysis into separate parts (e.g. thought and thing) has ultimately no meaning. Such a process, in which thought (i.e. the response of memory) and the general environment are indissolubly linked, is evidently of the nature of a cycle,  Read more at location 1267

****  at no stage can we properly say that the overall process of thought begins or ends. Rather, it has to be seen as one unbroken totality of movement, not belonging to any particular person, place, time, or group of people.  Read more at location 1276

through the consideration of the merging of these responses with the general environment in the overall cyclical process described above, we see then that thought is non-thought (T is NT).  Read more at location 1279

we can see also that non-thought is thought (NT is T). Thus, ‘reality’ actually is a word with a certain implied thought content.  Read more at location 1281

this distinction has to be made in the ever-changing flux of process in which thought passes into nonthought while non-thought passes into thought, so that it cannot be regarded as fixed. Such a non-fixed distinction evidently requires the free movement of intelligent perception, which can, on each occasion, discern what content originates in thought and what content originates in a reality that is independent of thought.  Read more at location 1291

a set of thought forms that follow the rules of Aristotelean logic will service as adequate guides in activities incorporating things only in some limited domain beyond which these things must change or behave in new ways, so that other thought forms will then be needed. When we come to consider the ‘totality of all that is’, however, our primary concern is, as we have seen, not with conditioned things but with the unconditioned totality that is the ultimate ground of all. Here, the rules enunciated by Aristotle break down, in the sense that there is not even a limited domain or set of conditions under which they could apply:  Read more at location 1305

in addition to the Aristotelean rules, we have to assert the following: T is NT NT is T All is both T and NT (i.e., the two merge and flow into each other, in a single unbroken process, in which they are ultimately one). All is neither T nor NT (i.e., the ultimate ground is unknown, and therefore not specifiable, neither as T nor NT, nor in any other way). If the above is combined with the original ‘T is not NT’ and ‘All is either T or NT’, and if we further suppose that ‘T’ and ‘NT’ are names of things, we will imply absolute self-contradiction.  Read more at location 1309

****  the primary ‘mistake’ that can be made in this field is not the positive one of wrongly assigning what originates in thought to a reality independent of thought. Rather, it is the negative one of overlooking or failing to be aware that a certain movement originates in thought, and thus implicitly treating that movement as originating in non-thought. In this way, what is actually the one single process of thought is tacitly treated as if it were split in two parts  Read more at location 1323

5 THE FIELD OF KNOWLEDGE, CONSIDERED AS PROCESS 

thought with totality as its content has to be considered as an art form, like poetry, whose function is primarily to give rise to a new perception, and to action that is implicit in this perception, rather than to communicate reflective knowledge of ‘how everything is’.  Read more at location 1347

Ultimately, the actual movement of thought embodying any particular notion of totality has to be seen as a process, with ever-changing form and content. If this process is carried out properly, with attention to and awareness of thought in its actual flux of becoming, then one will not fall into the habit of treating the content tacitly as a final and essentially static reality that would be independent of thought. Even this statement about the nature of our thinking is, however, itself only a form in the total process of becoming, a form which indicates a certain order of movement of the mind, and a certain disposition needed for the mind to engage harmoniously in such movement. So there is nothing final about it.  Read more at location 1353

It is important in this context to emphasize that permanently to identify certain views concerning the totality as belonging to Whitehead, or to someone else, is to interfere with treating knowledge consistently as an integral part of an overall process. Indeed, whoever takes up Whitehead’s views is actually taking these as a point of departure, in a further process of the becoming of knowledge.  Read more at location 1362

the key point to keep in mind is that the process has no definable aspect that is absolutely fixed. Intelligent perception is of course needed, for moment to moment, to discern those aspects that should properly change slowly and those that should properly change rapidly, as one works in the ‘art form’ of creation of ideas about ‘the totality of all that is’.  Read more at location 1367

****  the actuality of knowledge is a living process that is taking place right now (e.g. in this room). In such an actual process, we are not just talking about the movement of knowledge, as if looking at it from the outside. We are actually taking part in this movement, and are aware that this is indeed what it is happening. That is to say, it is a genuine reality for all of us, a reality which we can observe and to which we can give our attention.  Read more at location 1375

4 HIDDEN VARIABLES IN THE QUANTUM THEORY 

1 MAIN FEATURES OF THE QUANTUM THEORY

1  The fundamental laws of the quantum theory are to be expressed with the aid of a wave function (in general, many dimensional), which satisfies a linear equation (so that solutions can be superposed linearly).  Read more at location 1399

2  All physical results are to be calculated with the aid of certain ‘observables’, represented by Hermitian operators, which operate linearly on the wave function.  Read more at location 1400

3  Any particular observable is definite (sharply defined) only when the wave function is an eigenfunction of the corresponding operator.  Read more at location 1402

4  When the wave function is not an eigenfunction of this operator, then the result of a measurement of the corresponding observable cannot be determined beforehand. The results of a series of measurements on an ensemble of systems represented by the same wave function will fluctuate at random (lawlessly) from one case to the next, over the various possibilities.  Read more at location 1403

5  If the wave function is given by where ψn is the eigenfunction of the operator in question corresponding to the nth eigenvalue, the probability of obtaining the nth eigenvalue in a large ensemble of measurements will be given by Pn = | Cn |2.  Read more at location 1406

6  Because of the non-commutation of many operators (such as p and x) which correspond to variables that must be defined together in classical mechanics, it follows that no wave functions can exist which are simultaneous eigenfunctions of all the operators that are significant for a given physical problem. This means that not all physically significant observables can be determined together, and even more important, that those which are not determined will fluctuate lawlessly (at random) in a series of measurements on an ensemble represented by the same wave function.  Read more at location 1410

2 LIMITATIONS ON DETERMINISM IMPLIED BY THE QUANTUM THEORY 

there exists a certain limitation on the degree to which the results of individual measurements are determined according to the quantum theory. This limitation applies to any measurement that depends appreciably on the quantum properties of matter.  Read more at location 1416

if we begin with an ensemble of undisintegrated nuclei, represented by the same wave function, each individual nucleus will decay at an unpredictable time. This time will vary from one nucleus to another in a lawless way, while only the mean fraction that decays in a given interval of time can be predicted approximately from the wave function. When such predictions are compared with experiment, it is indeed discovered that there is a random distribution of clicks of the Geiger counter, together with a regular mean distribution that obeys the probability laws implied by the quantum theory.  Read more at location 1421

3 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF INDETERMINISM IN THE QUANTUM THEORY 

the indeterministic features of quantum mechanics are in some way a reflection of the real behaviour of matter in the atomic and nuclear domains, but here the question arises as to just how to interpret this indeterminism.  Read more at location 1427

****  (Note:  bohm too seeks a solution involving more complex determinism rather than fundamental indeterminism)  lawlessness of individual behaviour in the context of a given statistical law is, in general, consistent with the notion of more detailed individual laws applying in a broader context.  Read more at location 1443

on the face of the question, we ought to be free to consider the hypothesis that results of individual quantum-mechanical measurements are determined by a multitude of new kinds of factors, outside the context of what can enter into the quantum theory. These factors would be represented mathematically by a further set of variables, describing the states of new kinds of entities existing in a deeper, sub-quantum-mechanical level and obeying qualitatively new types of individual laws. Such entities and their laws would then constitute a new side of nature, a side that is, for the present ‘hidden’.  Read more at location 1445

4 ARGUMENTS IN FAVOUR OF THE INTERPRETATION OF QUANTUM-MECHANICAL INDETERMINISM AS IRREDUCIBLE LAWLESSNESS 

4.1 Heisenberg’s indeterminacy principle 

Heisenberg’s indeterminacy principle. He showed that even if one supposes that the physically significant variables actually existed with sharply defined values (as is demanded by classical mechanics) then we could never measure all of them simultaneously, for the interaction between the observing apparatus and what is observed always involves an exchange of one or more indivisible and uncontrollably fluctuating quanta.  Read more at location 1465

the particle is disturbed in such a way that the maximum accuracy for the simultaneous determination of both is given by the wellknown relation ∆p∆x ≥ h. As a result, even if there were deeper sub-quantum laws determining the precise behaviour of an individual electron, there would be no way for us to verify by any conceivable kind of measurement that these laws were really operating. It is therefore concluded that the notion of a subquantum level would be ‘metaphysical’, or empty of real experimental content.  Read more at location 1469

4.2 Von Neumann’s arguments against hidden variables 

From postulates (4), (5) and (6) of section 1, it follows that no wave function can describe a state in which all physically significant quantities are ‘dispersionless’ (i.e., sharply defined and free from statistical fluctuation). Thus, if a given variable (say p) is fairly well defined, the conjugate variable (x) must fluctuate over a broad range.  Read more at location 1477

he concluded that nothing (not even hypothetical hidden variables) can be consistently supposed to determine beforehand the results of an individual measurement in more detail than is possible according to the quantum theory.  Read more at location 1500

4.3 The paradox of Einstein, Rosen and Podolsky 

the two spins are correlated and this permits us to know the spin of atom B when we measure that of A. However, in the quantum theory we have the additional fact that only one component of the spin can be sharply defined at one time, while the other two are then subject to random fluctuations. If we wish to interpret the fluctuations as nothing but the result of disturbances due to the measuring apparatus, we can do this for atom A, which is directly observed, but how does atom B, which interacts in no way either with atom A or with the observing apparatus, ‘know’ in what direction it ought to allow its spin to fluctuate at random? The problem is made even more difficult if we consider that, while the atoms are still in flight, we are free to re-orientate the observing apparatus arbitrarily, and in this way to measure the spin of atom A in some other direction. This change is somehow transmitted immediately to atom B, which responds accordingly. Thus, we are led to contradict one of the basic principles of the theory of relativity, which states that no physical influences can be propagated faster than light. The behaviour described above not only shows the untenability of the notion that the indeterminacy principle represents in essence only the effects of a disturbance due to the measuring apparatus; it also presents us with certain real difficulties if we wish to understand the quantum-mechanical behaviour of matter in terms of the notion of a deeper level of individual law operating in the context of a set of hidden variables.  Read more at location 1515

5 BOHR’S RESOLUTION OF THE PARADOX OF EINSTEIN, ROSEN AND PODOLSKY – THE INDIVISIBILITY OF ALL MATERIAL PROCESSES 

The paradox of Einstein, Rosen and Podolsky was resolved by Niels Bohr in a way that retained the notion of indeterminism in quantum theory as a kind of irreducible lawlessness in nature.7 To do this he used the indivisibility of a quantum as his basis. He argued that in the quantum domain the procedure by which we analyse classical systems into interacting parts breaks down, for whenever two entities combine to form a single system (even if only for a limited period of time) the process by which they do this is not divisible. We are therefore faced with a breakdown of our customary ideas about the indefinite analysability of each process into various parts, located in definite regions of space and time.  Read more at location 1534

****  In the quantum domain, however, such an analysis can no longer be correctly carried out. Consequently, one must regard what has previously been called the ‘combined system’ as a single, indivisible, overall experimental situation. The result of the operation of the whole experimental set-up does not tell us about the system that we wish to observe but, rather, only about itself as a whole. The above discussion of the meaning of a measurement then leads directly to an interpretation of the indeterminacy relationships of Heisenberg.  Read more at location 1550

If there is no definite concept of matter in the quantum domain, what then is the meaning of the quantum theory? In Bohr’s point of view it is just a ‘generalization’ of classical mechanics. Instead of relating to observable classical phenomena by Newton’s equations, which are a completely deterministic and indefinitely analysable set of laws, we relate these same phenomena by the quantum theory, which provides a probabilistic set of laws that does not permit analysis of the phenomena in indefinite detail. The same concepts (e.g., position and momentum) appear in both classical and quantum theories. In both theories, all concepts obtain their experimental content in essentially the same way, i.e., by their being related to a specific experimental set-up involving observable large-scale phenomena. The only difference between classical and quantum theories is that they involve the use of different kinds of laws to relate the concepts. It is evident that according to Bohr’s interpretation nothing is measured in the quantum domain. Indeed, in his point of view, there can be nothing to measure there, because all ‘unambiguous’ concepts that could be used to describe, define, and think about the meaning of the results of such a measurement belong to the classical domain only. Hence, there can be no talk about the ‘disturbance’ due to a measurement, since there is no meaning to the supposition that there was something there to be disturbed in the first place.  Read more at location 1566

the paradox of Einstein, Rosen and Podolsky will not arise, because the notion of some kind of actually existing molecule, which was originally combined, and which later ‘disintegrated’, and which was ‘disturbed’ by the ‘spinmeasuring’ device, has no meaning either. Such ideas should be regarded as nothing more than picturesque terms that it is convenient to use in describing the whole experimental set-up by which we observe certain correlated pairs of classical events (e.g., two parallel ‘spin-measuring’ devices that are on opposite sides of the ‘molecule’ will always register opposite results).  Read more at location 1576

Bohr’s point of view necessarily leads us to interpret the indeterministic features of the quantum theory as representing irreducible lawlessness; for, because of the indivisibility of the experimental arrangement as a whole, there is no room in the conceptual scheme for an ascription of causal factors which is more precise and detailed than that permitted by the Heisenberg relations.  Read more at location 1584

Bohr’s rejection of hidden variables is therefore based on a very radical revision of the notion of what a physical theory is supposed to mean, a revision that in turn follows from the fundamental role which he assigns to the indivisibility of the quantum.  Read more at location 1588

6 PRELIMINARY INTERPRETATION OF QUANTUM THEORY IN TERMS OF HIDDEN VARIABLES 

In this section, we shall sketch the general outlines of certain proposals toward a specific new interpretation of the quantum theory, involving hidden variables.  Read more at location 1591

1  The wave function, ψ, is assumed to represent an objectively real field and not just a mathematical symbol.  Read more at location 1601

2  We suppose that there is, beside the field, a particle represented mathematically by a set of coordinates, which are always well defined and which vary in a definite way.  Read more at location 1602

3  We assume that the velocity of this particle is given by where m is the mass of the particle, and S is a phase function, obtained by writing the wave function as ψ = ReiS/, with R and S real.  Read more at location 1604

4  We suppose that the particle is acted on not only by the classical potential V (x) but also by an additional ‘quantum potential’,  Read more at location 1607

5  Finally, we assume that the field ψ is actually in a state of very rapid random and chaotic fluctuation, such that the values of ψ used in the quantum theory are a kind of average over a characteristic interval of time, τ. (This time interval must be long compared with the mean periods of the fluctuations described above but short compared with those of quantummechanical processes.) The fluctuations of the ψ-field can be regarded as coming from a deeper sub-quantum-mechanical level, in much the same way that the fluctuations in the Brownian motion of a microscopic liquid droplet come from a deeper atomic level. Then, just as Newton’s laws determine the mean behaviour of such a droplet, so Schrödinger’s equation will determine the mean behaviour of the ψ-field.  Read more at location 1609

It is our belief, however, that this process can be analysed with the aid of a new conceptual model. This model is based, as we have seen, on the supposition that there is a particle following a definite but randomly fluctuating track, the behaviour of which is strongly dependent on an objectively real and randomly fluctuating ψ-field, satisfying Schrödinger’s equation in the mean. When the ψ-field passes through the grating, it diffracts in much the same way as other fields would (e.g., the electromagnetic). As a result, there will be an interference pattern in the later intensity of the ψ-field, an interference pattern that reflects the structure of the grating. But the behaviour of the ψ-field also reflects the hidden variables in the sub-quantum level, which determine the details of its fluctuations around the mean value, obtained by solving Schrödinger’s equation.  Read more at location 1634

To summarize, we need not restrict ourselves to von Neumann’s assumptions that sub-ensembles are to be classified only in terms of the values of quantum-mechanical ‘observables’. Rather, such a classification must also involve further inner properties, at present ‘hidden’, which can later influence the directly observable behaviour of the system (as in the example we have discussed).  Read more at location 1662

7 CRITICISMS OF OUR PRELIMINARY INTERPRETATION OF QUANTUM THEORY IN TERMS OF HIDDEN VARIABLES  

The interpretation of the quantum theory discussed in the previous section is subject to a number of serious criticisms. First of all, it must be admitted that the notion of the ‘quantum potential’ is not entirely a satisfactory one, for not only is the proposed form,  Read more at location 1670

the present relativistic quantum field theory meets severe difficulties which raise serious doubts as to its internal self-consistency. There are the difficulties arising in connection with the divergences (infinite results) obtained in calculations of the effects of interactions of various kinds of particles and fields. It is true that for the special case of electromagnetic interactions such divergences can be avoided to a certain extent by means of the so-called ‘renormalization’ techniques. It is by no means clear, however, that these techniques can be placed on a secure logical mathematical basis.  Read more at location 1723

Niels Bohr, who expressed especially strong doubts19 that such a theory could treat all significant aspects of the problem of the indivisibility of the quantum of action  Read more at location 1750

8 STEPS TOWARD A MORE DETAILED THEORY OF HIDDEN VARIABLES 

Our basic starting point will be to try to provide a more concrete physical theory leading to ideas resembling those discussed in connection with our preliminary interpretation (section 6). In doing this, we must first recall that we have been regarding indeterminism as a real and objective property of matter, but one associated with a given limited context (in this case that of the variables of the quantum-mechanical level). We are supposing that in a deeper sub-quantum level, there are further variables which determine in more detail the fluctuations of the results of individual quantum-mechanical measurements.  Read more at location 1760

According to the principles of the current theory, it is essential that every field operator, Φµ, be a function of a sharply defined point,x, and that all interactions shall be between fields at the same point. This leads us to formulate our theories in terms of a non-denumerable infinity of field variables.  Read more at location 1766

Even in the usual quantum theory, the problem of a nondenumerable infinity of field variables presents several as yet unsolved basic mathematical difficulties.  Read more at location 1774

These new states cannot be reached from the original ‘vacuum’ state by any canonical transformation20. Hence they lead to theories that are, in general, different in physical content from those obtained with the original starting point.  Read more at location 1779

the principles of such a reorganization will then be equivalent to basic assumptions about the corresponding new laws of nature.  Read more at location 1783

9 TREATMENT OF QUANTUM FLUCTUATIONS 

suppose the following properties. 1  There is a set of field equations which completely determines the changes of the field with time. 2  These equations are sufficiently non-linear to guarantee a significant coupling between all wave components, so that (except perhaps in some approximation) solutions cannot be linearly superposed. 3  Even in the ‘vacuum’ the field is so highly excited that the mean field in each region, however small, fluctuates significantly, with a kind of turbulent motion that leads to a high degree of randomness in the fluctuations. This excitation guarantees the discontinuity of the fields in the smallest regions. 4  What we usually call ‘particles’ are relatively stable and conserved excitations on top of this vacuum. Such particles will be registered at the large-scale level, where all apparatus is sensitive only to those features of the field that will last a long time, but not to those features that fluctuate rapidly.  Read more at location 1795

10 HEISENBERG’S INDETERMINACY PRINCIPLE 

divergences of the current quantum field theory may come from the extrapolation of the basic principles of this theory to excessively short intervals of time and space.  Read more at location 1888

11 THE INDIVISIBILITY OF QUANTUM PROCESSES 

Now, in the many-body problem, one deals with large-scale behaviour by working with collective coordinates,23 which are an approximately self-determining set of symmetrical functions of the particle variables, representing certain overall aspects of the motions (e.g., oscillations). The collective motions are determined (within their characteristic domains of random fluctuation) by approximate constants of the motion.  Read more at location 1897

we shall sum up and develop in a systematic way the main physical ideas to which we have thus far been led. 1.  We abstract from the non-denumerable infinity of variables a set of ‘collective’ constants of the motion, Jn and their canonically conjugate quantities, Qn. 2.  The Jn can be consistently restricted to discrete integral multiples of h. Thus, action can be quantized. 3.  If this set of coordinates determined itself completely, the Qn would (as happens in typical classical theories) increase linearly with time. However, because of fluctuations due to the variables left out of the theory, the Qn will fluctuate at random over the range accessible to them. 4.  This fluctuation will imply a certain probability distribution of the Qn having a dimensionality equal to 1 per degree of freedom (and not 2, as is the case for typical classical statistical distributions in phase space). When this distribution is transformed to the configuration space of the qk there will be a corresponding probability function, p(q1 … qk …), which also has a dimensionality of 1 per degree of freedom (the momenta, pk being always determined in terms of qk by Eq. (12)). 5.  We then interpret the wave function ψ = Reis/ℏ, by setting p(q1 … qk …) = R2(q1 … qk …) and by letting S be the transformation function that defines the constants of the motion of the system. It is clear that we have in this way given the wave function a meaning quite different from the one that was suggested in the preliminary interpretation of section 5, even though the two interpretations stand in a fairly definite relation to each other. 6.  Because of the effects of the neglected lower-level field variables, the quantities In will, in general, remain constant only for some limited period of time. Indeed, as the wave function changes, the integral around a given circuit, Σk ∮c pk δqk = δSc will change abruptly, whenever a singularity of S (and therefore a zero of ψ) crosses the circuit, C. Hence discrete changes, by some multiple of h will occur in the action variables for non-stationary states.  Read more at location 1968

12 EXPLANATION OF QUANTIZATION OF ACTION 

Our basic problem evidently is to propose some direct physical interpretation of the function, S which appears in the phase of the wave function (as ψ = Reis/ℏ) and which is, according to our theory, also the transformation function defining the basic constants of the motion (see Eq. (15)); for if we are to explain why the change of S around a circuit is restricted to discrete multiples of h we must evidently assume that S is somehow related to some physical system, in such a way that eis/ℏ cannot be other than single-valued.  Read more at location 1998

(Note: this seems in keeping with time in closed quantum systems)  This periodic process would determine a kind of inner time for each region of space, and it would therefore effectively constitute a kind of local ‘clock’. Now every localized periodic process has, by definition, some Lorentz frame in which it remains at rest, at least for some time (i.e., in which it does not significantly change its mean position during this time). We shall further assume that, in this frame, neighbouring clocks of the same level of size will tend to be nearly at rest. Such an assumption is equivalent to the requirement that, in every level of size, the division of a given region into small regions, each containing its effective clock, has a certain regularity and permanence, at least for some time. If these clocks are considered in another frame (e.g., that of the laboratory), every effective clock will then have a certain velocity, which can be represented by a continuous function v(x, t). It is now quite natural to suppose: (1) that in its own rest frame each clock oscillates with a uniform angular frequency, which is the same for all clocks, and (2), that all clocks in the same neighbourhood are, on the average, in phase with each other.  Read more at location 2008

To a first approximation the quantities of each level can be treated as collective coordinates of the next lower level set of variables; but this treatment cannot in general be completely exact because each level will to some extent be influenced directly by all the other levels, in a way that cannot fully be expressed in terms of their effects on the next lower level quantities alone. Thus, while each level is strongly correlated to the mean behaviour of the next lower level, it has some degree of independence.  Read more at location 2055

(Note: many formulas that are greek to me)  We introduce an action function, S, which depends on all the variables, xli, of the infinity of clocks within clocks.  Read more at location 2063

Each of these constants of the motion is now built up out of circuit integrals involving pi δxi, but as we saw, each one of these clocks must satisfy the phase condition ∮pµ δxµ = 2nπℏ around any circuit. Hence the sum satisfies such a condition, which in turn must be satisfied not only in real circuits actually traversed by the clocks but also in any virtual circuit that is consistent with a given set of values for the constants of the motion. Because of fluctuations coming from lower levels, there is always the possibility that any clock may move on any one of the circuits in question; and unless the constants of the motion are determined such that δSc = 2nπℏ, clocks that reach the same position after having followed different randomly fluctuating paths will not, in general, agree with each other in their phases. Thus, the agreement of the phases of all clocks that reach the same point in space and time is equivalent to the quantum condition. The self-consistency of the above treatment can now be verified in a further analysis, which also eliminates the need to introduce the special assumption that m0c2/ω0 is universally constant and equal to ℏ for all clocks. Each clock is now regarded as a composite system made up of smaller clocks. Indeed, to an adequate degree of approximation, each clock phase can be treated as a collective variable associated with the space coordinates of the smaller clocks (which then represent the inner structure of the clock in question).  Read more at location 2068

each variable fluctuates because it depends on the lower-level quantities (of which it is a collective coordinate). The lower-level quantities can change their action variables only by discrete multiples of h. It is therefore not implausible that the domain of fluctuation of a given variable would be closely related to the size of the possible discrete changes in its constituent lower-level variables.  Read more at location 2105

an infinity of lower-level variables satisfying the conditions that Jn is discrete and equal to the same constant, h, for all the variables, will yield a long-run pattern of motions that reproduces certain essential features of a random Brownian-type fluctuation. We have thus completed our task of proposing a general physical model that explains the quantization rules along with the Heisenberg indeterminacy relations. But now, it can easily be seen that our basic physical model, involving an infinity of clocks within clocks, leaves room for fundamental changes, which would go outside the scope of the current quantum theory.  Read more at location 2172

13 DISCUSSION OF EXPERIMENTS TO PROBE SUB-QUANTUM LEVEL 

****  (Note:  how does this account for difference in action unobserved vs observed? (twin slit exp))  to suppose that Heisenberg’s principle has a universal validity is, in the last analysis, the same as to suppose that the general laws of the quantum theory are universally valid. But this supposition is now expressed in terms of the external relations of the particle to a measuring apparatus, and not in terms of the inner characteristics of the particle itself. In our point of view, Heisenberg’s principle should not be regarded as primarily an external relation, expressing the impossibility of making measurements of unlimited precision in the quantum domain. Rather, it should be regarded as basically an expression of the incomplete degree of self-determination characteristic of all entities that can be defined in the quantummechanical level.  Read more at location 2202

how the variables of a given level depend to some extent on all the lower-level variables. Thus if πli and Qli represent the classical level, then they would, in general, be determined mainly by the pli and qli of the quantum level; but there would be some effects due to sub-quantum levels. Usually these would be quite small. However, in special cases (e.g., with special arrangements of apparatus) the πli and Qli might depend significantly on the pli and qli of a sub-quantum level. Of course, this would mean the coupling of some new kind of subquantum process (as yet unknown, but perhaps to be discovered later) to the observable large-scale classical phenomena. Such a process would presumably involve high frequencies and therefore high energies, but in a new way. Even when the effects of the sub-quantum level on πli and Qli are small, they are not identically zero. Thus, room is created for testing for such effects by doing old kinds of experiments with extremely high precision.  Read more at location 2226

there are no valid arguments justifying the conclusion of Bohr that the concept of the detailed behaviour of matter as a unique and self-determining process must be restricted to the classical level only (where one can observe fairly directly the behaviour of the large-scale phenomena). Indeed we are also able to apply such notions in a sub-quantum level, whose relations with the classical level are relatively indirect, and yet capable, in principle, of revealing the existence and the properties of the lower level through its effects on the classical level.  Read more at location 2251

14 CONCLUSION 

the theory does answer the basic criticisms of those who regarded such a theory as impossible, or who felt that it could never concern itself with any real experimental problems. At the very least, it does seem to have promise of being able to throw some light on a number of such experimental problems, as well as on those arising in connection with the lack of internal consistency of the current theory. For the reasons described above, it seems that some consideration of theories involving hidden variables is at present needed to help us to avoid dogmatic preconceptions.  Read more at location 2289

5 QUANTUM THEORY AS AN INDICATION OF A NEW ORDER IN PHYSICS 

Part A: The Development of New Orders as Shown Through the History of Physics

1 INTRODUCTION 

In ancient times, there was only a vague qualitative notion of order in nature. With the development of mathematics, notably arithmetic and geometry, the possibility arose for defining forms and ratios more precisely, so that, for example, one could describe the detailed orbits of planets, etc. However, such detailed mathematical descriptions of the motions of the planets and other heavenly bodies implied certain general notions of order.  Read more at location 2307

Physics as a whole was understood in terms of notions of order closely related to those described above. Thus, Aristotle compared the universe to a living organism, in which each part had its proper place and function, so that all worked together to make a single whole. Within this whole, an object could move only if there was a force acting on it. Force was thus thought of as a cause of motion. So the order of movement was determined by the order of causes, which in turn depended on the place and function of each part in the whole.  Read more at location 2315

eventually, a new spirit arose in scientific research, which led to the questioning of the relevance of the old order, notably by Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo. What emerged from such questioning was in essence the proposal that the difference between earthly and celestial matter is not actually very significant.  Read more at location 2328

From this it followed that the key difference between celestial and earthly matter was not in its degree of perfection but rather in that celestial matter generally moves without friction in a vacuum, whereas terrestrial matter moves with friction in a viscous medium. Evidently, such notions were not generally compatible with the idea that the universe is to be regarded as a single living organism. Rather, in a fundamental description, the universe now had to be regarded as analysable into separately existing parts or objects (e.g. planets, atoms, etc.) each moving in a void or vacuum. These parts could work together in interaction more or less as do the parts of a machine, but could not grow, develop, and function in response to ends determined by an ‘organism as a whole’. The basic order for description of movement of the parts of this ‘machine’ was taken to be that of successive positions of each constituent object at successive moments of time. Thus, a new order became relevant, and a new usage of language had to be developed for the description of this new order.  Read more at location 2333

Coordinates are evidently not to be regarded as natural objects. Rather, they are merely convenient forms of description set up by us. As such, they have a great deal of arbitrariness or conventionality (e.g., in orientation, scale, orthogonality, etc., of coordinate frames). Despite this kind of arbitrariness, however, it is possible, as is now well known, to have a non-arbitrary general law expressed in terms of coordinates. This is possible if the law takes the form of a relationship that remains invariant under changes in the arbitrary features of the descriptive order.  Read more at location 2345

Within this new Cartesian order of perception and thinking that had grown up after the Renaissance, Newton was able to discover a very general law. It may be stated thus: ‘As with the order of movement in the fall of an apple, so with that of the Moon, and so with all.’ This was a new perception of law, i.e., universal harmony in the order of nature, as described in detail through the use of coordinates.  Read more at location 2353

****  the root of the word ‘poetry’ is the Greek ‘poiein’, meaning ‘to make’ or ‘to create’. Thus, in its most original aspects, science takes on a quality of poetic communication of creative perception of new order.  Read more at location 2357

****  we take ratio in its broadest meaning (e.g., in its original Latin sense) which includes all of reason. Science thus aims to discover universal ratio or reason, which includes not only numerical ratio or proportion (A/B = C/D), but also general qualitative similarity. Rational law is not restricted to an expression of causality. Evidently, reason, in the sense that is meant here, goes far beyond causality, which latter is a special case of reason.  Read more at location 2362

the basic form of causality is: ‘I do a certain action X and cause something to happen.’ A causal law then takes the form: ‘As with such causal actions of mine, so with certain processes that can be observed in nature.’ Thus, a causal law provides a certain limited kind of reason. But, more generally, a rational explanation takes the form: ‘As things are related in a certain idea or concept, so they are related in fact.’ It is clear from the preceding discussion that in finding a new structure of reason or rationality, it is crucial first to discern relevant differences. To try to find a rational connection between irrelevant differences leads to arbitrariness, confusion, and general sterility  Read more at location 2365

2 WHAT IS ORDER? 

in the development of classical physics the perception of a new order was seen to involve the discrimination of new relevant differences (positions of objects at successive moments of time) along with new similarities that are to be found in the differences (similarity of ‘ratios’ in these differences). It is being suggested here that this is the seed or nucleus of a very general way of perceiving order, i.e., to give attention to similar differences and different similarities.  Read more at location 2383

This expression of ‘ratio’ or ‘reason’ may be said to define a curve of first class, i.e., a curve having only one independent difference. Next, we consider a circle, as illustrated in Figure 5.2. Here, the difference between A and B is in direction as well as in position. Thus, we have a curve with two independent differences – which is therefore one of second class. However, we still have a single ‘ratio’ in the differences, A:B:B:C. Figure 5.2 Now we come to a helix. Here, the angle between lines can turn in a third dimension. Thus, we have a curve of third class. It, too, is determined by a single ratio,  Read more at location 2393

We can now consider the difference of successive similarities (S1, S2, S3, …) as a second degree of difference. From this, we can develop a second degree of similarity in these differences. S1:S2:S2:S3. By thus introducing what is in effect the beginning of a hierarchy of similarities and differences, we can go on to curves of arbitrarily high degrees of order.  Read more at location 2412

****  we are led to make an important change in the general language of description. We no longer use the term ‘disorder’ but instead we distinguish between different degrees of order (so that, for example, there is an unbroken gradation of curves, beginning with those of first degree, and going on step by step to those that have generally been called ‘random’). It is important to add here that order is not to be identified with predictability. Predictability is a property of a special kind of order such that a few steps determine the whole order (i.e., as in curves of low degree) – but there can be complex and subtle orders which are not in essence related to predictability (e.g. a good painting is highly ordered, and yet this order does not permit one part to be predicted from another).  Read more at location 2421

3 MEASURE 

It is significant to note here that in ancient times the most basic meaning of the word ‘measure’ was ‘limit’ or ‘boundary’. In this sense of the word, each thing could be said to have its appropriate measure. For example, it was thought that when human behaviour went beyond its proper bounds (or measure) the result would have to be tragedy (as was brought out very forcefully in Greek dramas). Measure was indeed considered to be essential to the understanding of the good. Thus, the origin of the word ‘medicine’ is the Latin ‘mederi’, which means ‘to cure’ and which was derived from a root meaning ‘measure’. This implied that to be healthy was to have everything in a right measure, in body and mind. Similarly, wisdom was equated with moderation and modesty (whose common root is also derived from measure), thus suggesting that the wise man is the one who keeps everything in the right measure.  Read more at location 2430

****  to set up a scale (e.g., of length) one must establish divisions which are in effect limits or boundaries of ordered segments.  Read more at location 2445

4 STRUCTURE AS A DEVELOPMENT FROM ORDER AND MEASURE 

The consideration of the working together of order and measure in ever-broader and more complex contexts leads to the notion of structure. As the Latin root ‘struere’ indicates, the essential meaning of the notion of structure is to build, to grow, to evolve. This word is now treated as a noun, but the Latin suffix ‘ura’ originally meant ‘the action of doing something’. To emphasize that we are not referring mainly to a ‘finished product’ or to an ultimate result, we may introduce a new verb, to structate, meaning ‘to create and dissolve what are now called structures’.  Read more at location 2454

Structation thus implies a harmoniously organized totality of order and measures, which is both hierarchic (i.e., built on many levels) and extensive (i.e., ‘spreading out’ on each level).  Read more at location 2462

****  this principle of structure is universal. For example, living beings are in a continual movement of growth and evolution of structure, which is highly organized (e.g., molecules work together to make cells, cells work together to make organs, organs to make the individual living being, individual living beings a society, etc). Similarly, in physics, we describe matter as constituted of moving particles (e.g. atoms) which work together to make solids, liquids, or gaseous structures, which similarly make larger structures, going on up to planets, stars, galaxies, galaxies of galaxies, etc. Here, it is important to emphasize the essentially dynamic nature of structation, in inanimate nature, in living beings, in society, in human communication, etc. (e.g., consider the structure of a language, which is an organized totality of ever-flowing movement).  Read more at location 2465

5 ORDER, MEASURE AND STRUCTURE IN CLASSICAL PHYSICS 

The laws of physics, then, express the reason or ratio in the movements of all the parts, in the sense that the law relates the movement of each part to the configuration of all the other parts. This law is deterministic in form, in that the only contingent features of a system are the initial positions and velocities of all its parts. It is also causal, in that any external disturbance can be treated as a cause, which produces a specifiable effect that can in principle be propagated to every part of the system. With the discovery of Brownian motion, one obtained phenomena that at first sight seemed to call the whole classical scheme of order and measure into question, for movements were discovered which were what have been called here ‘order of unlimited degree’, not determined by a few steps (e.g., initial positions and velocities).  Read more at location 2483

6 THE THEORY OF RELATIVITY 

Relativity introduces new notions concerning the order and measure of time. These are no longer absolute, as was the case in Newtonian theory. Rather, they are now relative to the speed of a coordinate frame. This relativity of time is one of the radically new features of Einstein’s theory. A very significant change of language is involved in the expression of the new order and measure of time plied by relativistic theory. The speed of light is taken not as a possible speed of an object, but rather as the maximum speed of propagation of a signal.  Read more at location 2518

The word ‘signal’ contains the word ‘sign’, which means ‘to point to something’ as well as ‘to have significance’. A signal is indeed a kind of communication. So in a certain way, significance, meaning, and communication became relevant in the expression of the general descriptive order of physics (as  Read more at location 2524

****  relativity implies that neither the point particles nor the quasi-rigid body can be taken as primary concepts. Rather, these have to be expressed in terms of events and processes.  Read more at location 2533

****  the classical idea of the separability of the world into distinct but interacting parts is no longer valid or relevant. Rather, we have to regard the universe as an undivided and unbroken whole. Division into particles, or into particles and fields, is only a crude abstraction and approximation. Thus, we come to an order that is radically different from that of Galileo and Newton – the order of undivided wholeness.  Read more at location 2548

Einstein was able to relate this curvilinear order and measure to the gravitational field. This relationship implied the need for non-linear equations, i.e., equations whose solution cannot simply be added together to yield new solutions. This non-linear feature of the equations was of crucial significance  Read more at location 2558

The words ‘analysis’ and ‘synthesis’ have, however, come to refer not merely to actual physical or chemical operations with things, but also to similar operations carried out in thought. Thus, it may be said that classical physics is expressed in terms of a conceptual analysis of the world into constituent parts (such as atoms or elementary particles) which are then conceptually put back together to ‘synthesize’ a total system, by considering the interactions of these parts. Such parts may be separate in space (as are the atoms), but they may also involve more abstract notions that do not imply separation in space.  Read more at location 2565

in 1905 Einstein wrote three very fundamental papers, one on relativity, one on the quantum of light (photoelectric effects) and one on Brownian motion. A detailed study of these papers shows that they are intimately related in a number of ways, and this suggests that in Einstein’s early thinking he was at least tacitly regarding these three subjects as aspects of one broader unity. However, with the development of general relativity there came a very heavy emphasis on the continuity of fields. The other two subjects (Brownian motion and the quantum properties of light) which involved some kind of discontinuity that was not in harmony with the notion of a continuous field, tended to fall into the background, and eventually, to be more or less dropped from consideration, at least within the context of general relativity.  Read more at location 2594

Brownian motion cannot in general be the carrier of a signal, for a signal is some ordered modulation of a ‘carrier’. This order is not separable from the meaning of the signal (i.e., to change the order is to change the meaning). Thus, one can properly speak of propagation of a signal only in a context in which the movement of the ‘carrier’ is so regular and continuous that the order is not mixed up. With Brownian motion, however, the order is of such a high degree (i.e., ‘random’ in the usual sense of the word) that the meaning of a signal would no longer be left unaltered in its propagation. Therefore, there is no reason why a Brownian curve of infinite order cannot be taken as part of a primary description of movement, as long as its average speed is not greater than that of light. In this way, it is possible for relativity theory to emerge as relevant to the average speed of a Brownian curve  Read more at location 2602

7 QUANTUM THEORY

7.1 Indivisibility of the quantum of action 

7.2 Wave-particle duality of the properties of matter 

7.3 Properties of matter as statistically revealed potentialities 

7.4 Non-causal correlations (the paradox of Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen) 

It is an inference from the quantum theory that events that are separated in space and that are without possibility of connection through interaction are correlated, in a way that can be shown to be incapable of a detailed causal explanation, through the propagation of effects at speeds not greater than that of light.5 Thus, the quantum theory is not compatible with Einstein’s basic approach to relativity, in which it is essential that such correlations be explainable by signals propagated at speeds not faster than that of light. All of these evidently imply a breakdown of the general order of description that had prevailed before the advent of quantum theory.  Read more at location 2636

The limits of this ‘pre-quantum’ order are indeed brought out very clearly in terms of the uncertainty relations which are commonly illustrated in terms of Heisenberg’s famous microscope experiment.  Read more at location 2641

the ‘wave function’ of the ‘observed object’ cannot be specified apart from a specification of the wave function of the ‘link electron’, which in turn requires a description of the overall experimental conditions (so that the relationship between the object and the observed result is actually an example of the correlations of the type indicated by Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen, which cannot be explained in terms of the propagation of signals as chains of causal influence). This means that the description of the experimental conditions does not drop out as a mere intermediary link of inference, but remains inseparable from the description of what is called the observed object.  Read more at location 2704

****  What is meant here by wholeness could be indicated metaphorically by calling attention to a pattern (e.g., in a carpet). In so far as what is relevant is the pattern, it has no meaning to say that different parts of such a pattern (e.g., various flowers and trees that are to be seen in the carpet) are separate objects in interaction. Similarly, in the quantum context, one can regard terms like ‘observed object’, ‘observing instrument’, ‘link electron’, ‘experimental results’, etc., as aspects of a single overall ‘pattern’ that are in effect abstracted or ‘pointed out’ by our mode of description. Thus, to speak of the interaction of ‘observing instrument’ and ‘observed object’ has no meaning. A centrally relevant change in descriptive order required in the quantum theory is thus the dropping of the notion of analysis of the world into relatively autonomous parts, separately existent but in interaction. Rather, the primary emphasis is now on undivided wholeness, in which the observing instrument is not separable from what is observed. Though quantum theory is very different from relativity, yet in some deep sense they have in common this implication of undivided wholeness.  Read more at location 2711

in spite of this deep similarity, it has not proved possible to unite relativity and quantum theory in a coherent way. One of the main reasons is that there is no consistent means of introducing extended structure in relativity, so that particles have to be treated as extensionless points. This has led to infinite results in quantum field-theoretical calculations.  Read more at location 2725

To bring the point out in more detail, we can write the matrix element Ψij (x, t). However, as soon as we impose relativistic invariance, we deduce ‘infinite fluctuations’, i.e., Ψij (x, t) is in general infinite and discontinuous because of ‘zero-point’ quantum fluctuations. This contradicts the original assumption of continuity of all functions required in any relativistic theory.  Read more at location 2737

It is just this kind of abstract analysis that does not cohere with the underlying basic descriptive order of relativity theory, for, as has been seen, relativity theory is not compatible with such an analysis of the world into separate components. Rather, it ultimately implies that such ‘objects’ have to be understood as merging with each other (as field singularities do) to make one indivisible whole. Similarly, one may consider the notion that through a thoroughgoing non-linearity, or in some other way, quantum theory may be allowed to change, so that the resulting new theory will also imply undivided wholeness, not merely at the level of actual individual phenomena, but also at the level of potentialities treated in terms of statistical aggregates.  Read more at location 2795

6 QUANTUM THEORY AS AN INDICATION OF A NEW ORDER IN PHYSICS 

Part B: Implicate and Explicate Order in Physical Law 

1 INTRODUCTION 

A general feature of the development of this subject has been a tendency to regard certain basic notions of order as permanent and unchangeable. The task of physics was then taken to be to accommodate new observations by means of adaptations within these basic notions of order, so as to fit the new facts. This kind of adaptation began with the Ptolemaic epicycles, which continued from ancient times until the advent of the work of Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton. As soon as the basic notions of order in classical physics had been fairly clearly expressed, it was supposed that further work in physics would consist of adaptation within this order to accommodate new facts. This continued until the appearance of relativity and the quantum theory.  Read more at location 2817

It is pertinent to this subject to consider Piaget’s2 description of all intelligent perception in terms of two complementary movements, accommodation and assimilation. From the roots ‘mod’, meaning ‘measure’, and ‘com’, meaning ‘together’, one sees that to accommodate means ‘to establish a common measure’ (see chapter 5 for a discussion of the broader sense of the notions of measure that are relevant in this context). Examples of accommodation are fitting, cutting to a pattern, adapting, imitating, conforming to rules, etc. On the other hand, ‘to assimilate’ is ‘to digest’ or to make into a comprehensive and inseparable whole (which includes oneself). Thus, to assimilate means ‘to understand’.  Read more at location 2827

it is necessary in more general contexts to give serious attention to the possibility that the old orders of thought may cease to be relevant, so that they can no longer coherently be adapted to fit the new fact.  Read more at location 2836

****  understanding the fact by assimilating it into new orders can become what could perhaps be called the normal way of doing scientific research. To work in this way is evidently to give primary emphasis to something similar to artistic perception. Such perception begins by observing the whole fact in its full individuality, and then by degree articulates the order that is proper to the assimilation of this fact. It does not begin with abstract preconceptions as to what the order has to be, which are then adapted to the order that is observed. What, then, is the proper role of accommodation of facts within known theoretical orders, measures and structures? Here, it is important to note that facts are not to be considered as if they were independently existent objects that we might find or pick up in the laboratory. Rather, as the Latin root of the word ‘facere’ indicates, the fact is ‘what has been made’ (e.g., as in ‘manufacture’). Thus, in a certain sense, we ‘make’ the fact.  Read more at location 2843

changes of order and measures in the theory ultimately lead to new ways of doing experiments and to new kinds of instruments, which in turn lead to the ‘making’ of correspondingly ordered and measured facts of new kinds. In this development, the experimental fact serves in the first instance as a test for theoretical notions.  Read more at location 2856

****  (Note:  relates to subject-object perception, automatic intuitive understanding of language, shape, color, etc...)  relativity and quantum theory have shown that it has no meaning to divide the observing apparatus from what is observed, so the considerations discussed here indicate that it has no meaning to separate the observed fact (along with the instruments used to observe it) from the theoretical notions of order that help to give ‘shape’ to this fact.  Read more at location 2870

what is called for in this context is very broadly to assimilate the whole of the fact in physics into the new theoretical notions of order.  Read more at location 2874

****  Fact and theory are thus seen to be different aspects of one whole in which analysis into separate but interacting parts is not relevant. That is to say, not only is undivided wholeness implied in the content of physics (notably relativity and quantum theory) but also in the manner of working in physics.  Read more at location 2877

2 UNDIVIDED WHOLENESS – THE LENS AND THE HOLOGRAM

An example of the very close relationship between instrumentation and theory can be seen by considering the lens, which was indeed one of the key features behind the development of modern scientific thought. The essential feature of a lens is, as indicated in Figure 6.1, that it forms an image in which a given point P in the object corresponds (in a high degree of approximation) to a point Q in the image. By thus bringing the correspondence of specified features of object and image into such sharp relief, the lens greatly strengthened man’s awareness of the various parts of the object and of the relationship between these parts. In this way, it furthered the tendency to think in terms of analysis and synthesis. Moreover, it made possible an enormous extension of the classical order of analysis and synthesis to objects that were too far away, too big, too small, or too rapidly moving to be thus ordered by means of unaided vision. As a result, scientists were encouraged to extrapolate their ideas and to think that such an approach would be relevant and valid no matter how far they went,  Read more at location 2889

Is there an instrument that can help give a certain immediate perceptual insight into what can be meant by undivided wholeness, as the lens did for what can be meant by analysis of a system into parts? It is suggested here that one can obtain such insight by considering hologram.  Read more at location 2900

Part of the beam goes on directly to a photographic plate, while another part is reflected so that it illuminates a certain whole structure. The light reflected from this whole structure also reaches the plate, where it interferes with that arriving there by a direct path. The resulting interference pattern which is recorded on the plate is not only very complex but also usually so fine that it is not even visible to the naked eye. Yet, it is somehow relevant to the whole illuminated structure, though only in a highly implicit way.  Read more at location 2905

a wavefront is then created which is very similar in form to that coming off the original illuminated structure. By placing the eye in this way, one in effect sees the whole of the original structure, in three dimensions, and from a range of possible points of view (as if one were looking at it through a window). If we then illuminate only a small region R of the plate, we still see the whole structure, but in somewhat less sharply defined detail and from a decreased range of possible points of view (as if we were looking through a smaller window).  Read more at location 2911

3 IMPLICATE AND EXPLICATE ORDER 

(Note: fractals. clusters within voids)  There is the germ of a new notion of order here. This order is not to be understood solely in terms of a regular arrangement of objects (e.g., in rows) or as a regular arrangement of events (e.g. in a series). Rather, a total order is contained, in some implicit sense, in each region of space and time. Now, the word ‘implicit’ is based on the verb ‘to implicate’. This means ‘to fold inward’ (as multiplication means ‘folding many times’). So we may be led to explore the notion that in some sense each region contains a total structure ‘enfolded’ within it. It will be useful in such an exploration to consider some further examples of enfolded or implicate order.  Read more at location 2959

in a television broadcast, the visual image is translated into a time order, which is ‘carried’ by the radio wave. Points that are near each other in the visual image are not necessarily ‘near’ in the order of the radio signal. Thus, the radio wave carries the visual image in an implicate order. The function of the receiver is then to explicate this order, i.e., to ‘unfold’ it in the form of a new visual image.  Read more at location 2965

Generally speaking, the laws of physics have thus far referred mainly to the explicate order. Indeed, it may be said that the principle function of Cartesian coordinates is just to give a clear and precise description of explicate order. Now, we are proposing that in the formulation of the laws of physics, primary relevance is to be given to the implicate order, while the explicate order is to have a secondary kind of significance  Read more at location 2984

4 THE HOLOMOVEMENT AND ITS ASPECTS 

****  (Note:  akin to godel, which says every non-trivial math proof must look outside itself)  More generally, such order and measure can be ‘enfolded’ and ‘carried’ not only in electromagnetic waves but also in other ways (by electron beams, sound, and in other countless forms of movement). To generalize so as to emphasize undivided wholeness, we shall say that what ‘carries’ an implicate order is the holomovement, which is an unbroken and undivided totality. In certain cases, we can abstract particular aspects of the holomovement (e.g., light, electrons, sound, etc.), but more generally, all forms of the holomovement merge and are inseparable. Thus, in its totality, the holomovement is not limited in any specifiable way at all. It is not required to conform to any particular order, or to be bounded by any particular measure. Thus, the holomovement is undefinable and immeasurable. To give primary significance to the undefinable and immeasurable holomovement implies that it has no meaning to talk of a fundamental theory, on which all of physics could find a permanent basis, or to which all the phenomena of physics could ultimately be reduced. Rather, each theory will abstract a certain aspect that is relevant only in some limited context, which is indicated by some appropriate measure.  Read more at location 2996

It may then be said that the content relevated in immediate perception (i.e., the ‘moving object’) is a kind of intersection between two orders. One of these is the order of movement that brings about the possibility of a direct perceptual contact (in this case, that of the light and the response of the nervous system to this light), and the other is an order of movement that determines the detailed content that is perceived (in this case, the order of movement of the dye in the fluid). Such a description in terms of intersection of orders is evidently very generally applicable.  Read more at location 3032

the need to describe movement discontinuously in terms of ‘quantum jumps’ implies that the notion of a well-defined orbit of a particle that connects the visible marks constituting the track cannot have any meaning. In any case, the wave-particle properties of matter show that the overall movement depends on the total experimental arrangement in a way that is not consistent with the idea of autonomous motion of localized particles; and, of course, the discussion of the Heisenberg microscope experiment indicates the relevance of a new order of undivided wholeness in which it has no meaning to talk about an observed object as if it were separate from the entire experimental situation in which observation takes place. So the use of the descriptive term ‘particle’ in this ‘quantum’ context is very misleading.  Read more at location 3074

****  Thus, the word ‘electron’ should be regarded as no more than a name by which we call attention to a certain aspect of the holomovement, an aspect that can be discussed only by taking into account the entire experimental situation and that cannot be specified in terms of localized objects moving autonomously through space. And, of course, every kind of ‘particle’ which in current physics is said to be a basic constituent of matter will have to be discussed in the same sort of terms (so that such ‘particles’ are no longer considered as autonomous and separately existent). Thus, we come to a new general physical description in which ‘everything implicates everything’ in an order of undivided wholeness.  Read more at location 3085

5 LAW IN THE HOLOMOVEMENT 

each relatively autonomous thing (e.g., a particle) is limited by other such relatively autonomous things. Such a limitation is currently described in terms of interaction. However, we shall introduce here the word ‘heteronomy’ to call attention to a law in which many relatively autonomous things are related in this way, i.e., externally and more or less mechanically. Now, what is characteristic of heteronomy is the applicability of analytic descriptions.  Read more at location 3099

in sufficiently broad contexts such analytic descriptions cease to be adequate. What is then called for is holonomy, i.e., the law of the whole. Holonomy does not totally deny the relevance of analysis in the sense discussed above. Indeed, ‘the law of the whole’ will generally include the possibility of describing the ‘loosening’ of aspects from each other, so that they will be relatively autonomous in limited contexts (as well as the possibility of describing the interactions of these aspects in a system of heteronomy). However, any form of relative autonomy (and heteronomy) is ultimately limited by holonomy, so that in a broad enough context such forms are seen to be merely aspects, relevated in the holomovement, rather than disjoint and separately existent things in interaction.  Read more at location 3106

(Note: fractal universe (I think I tend to agree))  the general tendency until now has been to fix on this ‘new whole’ as a finally valid general order that is henceforth to be adapted (in the manner discussed in section 1) to fit any further facts that may be observed or discovered. It is implied here, however, that even such a ‘new whole’ will itself be revealed as an aspect in yet another new whole. Thus, holonomy is not to be regarded as a fixed and final goal of scientific research, but rather as a movement in which ‘new wholes’ are continually emerging. And of course this further implies that the total law of the undefinable and immeasurable holomovement could never be known or specified or put into words. Rather, such a law has necessarily to be regarded as implicit.  Read more at location 3115

APPENDIX: IMPLICATE AND EXPLICATE ORDER IN PHYSICAL LAW 

A.1 Introduction 

In this appendix, the notions of implicate and explicate order that have been introduced earlier will be put into a more mathematical form. It is important to emphasize, however, that mathematics and physics are not being regarded here as separate but mutually related structures (so that, for example, one could be said to apply mathematics to physics as paint is applied to wood). Rather, it is being suggested that mathematics and physics are to be considered as aspects of a single undivided whole.  Read more at location 3123

We may then be said to mathematize this language, i.e. to articulate or define it in more detail so that it allows statements of greater precision from which a broad range of significant inferences may be drawn in a clear and coherent way.  Read more at location 3128

A.2 Euclidean systems of order and measure 

in physics, explicate order generally reveals itself in the sensibly observable results of functioning of an instrument.  Read more at location 3139

A.3 Transformation and metamorphosis 

****  Implicate order is generally to be described not in terms of simple geometric transformations, such as translations, rotations, and dilations, but rather in terms of a different kind of operation. In the interests of clarity, we shall therefore reserve the word transformation to describe a simple geometric change within a given explicate order. What happens in the broader context of implicate order we shall then call a metamorphosis. This word indicates that the change is much more radical than the change of position of orientation of a rigid body, and that it is in certain ways more like the changes from caterpillar to butterfly (in which everything alters in a thorough going manner while some subtle and highly implicit features remain invariant).  Read more at location 3169

A.4 Mathematization of the description of implicate order 

each mathematical symbol corresponds to an operation (transformation and/or metamorphosis). There is a meaning to adding operations, to multiplying the result by a number C, and to multiplying operations by each other. If we further introduce a unit operation (one which leaves all operations unaltered in multiplication) and a zero operation (one which leaves all operations unaltered when added), we will have satisfied all the conditions needed for an algebra. We see, then, that an algebra contains key features which are similar to the key features of structures built on implicate orders. Such an algebra thus makes possible a relevant mathematization that can be coherently related to the general language for discussing implicate orders.  Read more at location 3229

in the quantum theory, the algebraic terms are interpreted as standing for ‘physical observables’ to which they correspond. However, in the approach that is being suggested here, such terms are not to be regarded as standing for anything in particular. Rather, they are to be considered as extensions of the general language. A single algebraic symbol is thus similar to a word, in the sense that its implicit meaning comes out fully only in the way in which the language as a whole is used.  Read more at location 3237

one can start with what are called undefinable symbols. The meaning of such a symbol is never directly relevant. Rather, only relationships and operations in which these symbols take part are relevant. What we are proposing here is that as we mathematize language in the way indicated above, there will arise orders, measures, and structures within the language which are similar to (but also different from) orders, measures, and structures that are to be perceived in common experience and in experience with the functioning of scientific instruments.  Read more at location 3242

A.5 Algebra and the holomovement 

In the context of classical physics, for example, it is possible to abstract a sub-algebra corresponding to a set of Euclidean operations E. However, in a ‘quantum’ context,  Read more at location 3279

A.6 Extension of principle of relativity to implicate orders 

What this similarity means is that if any two elements, say E1 and E2, are related in a certain way in the description of a specified structure, then there is a set of elements E1′ and E2′ describing non-local ‘enfolded’ transformations that are related in a similar way.  Read more at location 3291

So, ‘simplex’ means ‘onefold’ and ‘complex’ means ‘folded together’, but in the sense of many separate objects that are joined to each other. To describe the enfolding of an unlimited set of Euclidean systems of orders and measures into each other, we may then introduce the word multiplex (which is new in this context). This means ‘many complexes all folded together’. Literally, this is also what is meant by ‘manifold’.  Read more at location 3313

Thus far, space has generally been considered as a continuum that can be covered by a complex (which is evidently a form of explicate ordering of the space). Such a complex can be discussed in terms of coordinate systems. Thus, each simplex can be described with the aid of a locally Euclidean frame, and the whole space can then be treated through the use of a very large number of overlapping coordinate ‘patches’. Or, alternatively, one may find a single set of curvilinear coordinates that is applicable over the entire space. The principle of relativity then states that all such coordinate systems furnish equivalent frames of description (i.e. equivalent for the expression of ratio, or reason, or law). We can now go on to consider similar sets of operations E and E′ which are implicate relative to each other. As pointed out above, we are extending the principle of relativity by supposing that the orders defined through any two operations E and E′ are equivalent in the sense that the ‘law of the whole’ is such that similar structures can be built on each order. To help make clear what is meant here, we note that the orders of movement that are directly perceivable to the senses are generally regarded as explicate, while other orders (such as, for example, those appropriate to the description of ‘an electron’ in a quantum context), are taken to be implicate. However, according to the extended principle of relativity, one can equally well take the ‘electron’ order as explicate and our sensual order as implicate. This is to put ourselves (metaphorically) in the situation of ‘the electron’ and then to understand the latter by assimilating oneself to it and it to oneself.  Read more at location 3318

****  ‘All implicates all’, even to the extent that ‘we ourselves’ are implicated together with ‘all that we see and think about’. So we are present everywhere and at all times, though only implicately (that is, implicitly).  Read more at location 3331

The same is true of every ‘object’. It is only in certain special orders of description that such objects appear as explicate. The general law, i.e., holonomy, has to be expressed in all orders, in which all objects and all times are ‘folded together’.  Read more at location 3333

A.7 Some preliminary suggestions concerning law in a multiplex

the general law is invariant to arbitrary ‘gauge transformations’ of the frames in each region, Em′ = RmEmR−2m. The meaning of these transformations can be seen by considering several neighbouring regions, each containing a localized structure, i.e., one which has a negligible connection with neighbouring structures (so that one may appropriately regard the space between them as empty, or approximately so). The significance of gauge invariance is then that the laws are such that any two structures can be transformed independently of each other, at least within certain limits (e.g., as long as there is sufficient ‘empty space’ between them). An example of such relative autonomy of structures is that objects that are not too close can be turned and translated relative to each other. Evidently, it is this particular feature of ‘law of the whole’ (i.e., gauge invariance) which allows for relative autonomy of the kind described above. As we go on to a quantum context, the ‘law of the whole’ (i.e., the generalization of what is meant by ‘holonomy group’ in Rieman geometry) will involve metamorphosis M as well as transformations T. This will bring us to the multiplex, in which new kinds of order and measure will be relevant. It is important, however, to emphasize that the ‘law of the whole’ will not just be a transcription of current quantum theory to a new language. Rather, the entire context of physics (classical and quantum) will have to be assimilated in a different structure, in which space, time, matter, and movement are described in new ways. Such assimilation will then lead on to new avenues to be explored, which cannot even be thought about in terms of current theories.  Read more at location 3358

Instead of regarding classical and quantum languages as separate but related by some sort of correspondence (as is generally done in current theories), one can, along the lines already indicated in this appendix, inquire into the possibility of abstracting these as limiting cases of languages mathematized in terms of broader algebras. To do this could evidently lead to different theories, having a new content, going beyond those of both classical and quantum theories.  Read more at location 3410

7 THE ENFOLDING-UNFOLDING UNIVERSE AND CONSCIOUSNESS 

1 INTRODUCTION

In this chapter we shall give a non-technical presentation of the main features of the implicate order, first as it arises in physics, and then as it may be extended to the field of consciousness, to indicate certain general lines along which it is possible to comprehend both cosmos and consciousness as a single unbroken totality of movement.  Read more at location 3423

2 RÉSUMÉ, CONTRASTING MECHANISTIC ORDER IN PHYSICS WITH IMPLICATE ORDER 

Let us first consider the mechanistic order. As indicated in chapters 1 and 5, the principal feature of this order is that the world is regarded as constituted of entities which are outside of each other, in the sense that they exist independently in different regions of space (and time) and interact through forces that do not bring about any changes in their essential natures.  Read more at location 3429

physics has become almost totally committed to the notion that the order of the universe is basically mechanistic. The most common form of this notion is that the world is assumed to be constituted of a set of separately existent, indivisible and unchangeable ‘elementary particles’, which are the fundamental ‘building blocks’ of the entire universe.  Read more at location 3436

The theory of relativity was the first significant indication in physics of the need to question the mechanistic order. As explained in chapter 5, it implied that no coherent concept of an independently existent particle is possible, neither one in which the particle would be an extended body, nor one in which it would be a dimensionless point. Thus, a basic assumption underlying the generally accepted form of mechanism in physics has been shown to be untenable. To meet this fundamental challenge, Einstein proposed that the particle concept no longer be taken as primary, and that instead reality be regarded from the very beginning as constituted of fields, obeying laws that are consistent with the requirements of the theory of relativity. A key new idea of this ‘unified field theory’ of Einstein is that the field equations be nonlinear. As stated in chapter 5, these equations could have solutions in the form of localized pulses, consisting of a region of intense field that could move through space stably as a whole, and that could thus provide a model of the ‘particle’. Such pulses do not end abruptly but spread out to arbitrarily large distances with decreasing intensity. Thus the field structures associated with two pulses will merge and flow together in one unbroken whole.  Read more at location 3443

The quantum theory presents, however, a much more serious challenge to this mechanistic order, going far beyond that provided by the theory of relativity. As seen in chapter 5, the key features of the quantum theory that challenge mechanism are: 1  Movement is in general discontinuous, in the sense that action is constituted of indivisible quanta (implying also that an electron, for example, can go from one state to another, without passing through any states in between). 2  Entities, such as electrons, can show different properties (e.g., particle-like, wavelike, or something in between), depending on the environmental context within which they exist and are subject to observation. 3  Two entities, such as electrons, which initially combine to form a molecule and then separate, show a peculiar non-local relationship, which can best be described as a non-causal connection of elements that are far apart3 (as demonstrated in the experiment of Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen4). It should be added of course that the laws of quantum mechanics are statistical and do not determine individual future events uniquely and precisely.  Read more at location 3467

relativity theory requires continuity, strict causality (or determinism) and locality. On the other hand, quantum theory requires noncontinuity, non-causality and non-locality. So the basic concepts of relativity and quantum theory directly contradict each other. It is therefore hardly surprising that these two theories have never been unified in a consistent way. Rather, it seems most likely that such a unification is not actually possible. What is very probably needed instead is a qualitatively new theory, from which both relativity and quantum theory are to be derived as abstractions, approximations and limiting cases. The basic notions of this new theory evidently cannot be found by beginning with those features in which relativity and quantum theory stand in direct contradition. The best place to begin is with what they have basically in common. This is undivided wholeness. Though each comes to such wholeness in a different way, it is clear that it is this to which they are both fundamentally pointing. To begin with undivided wholeness means, however, that we must drop the mechanistic order.  Read more at location 3489

Though physics has changed radically in many ways, the Cartesian grid (with minor modifications, such as the use of curvilinear coordinates) has remained the one key feature that has not changed. Evidently, it is not easy to change this, because our notions of order are pervasive, for not only do they involve our thinking but also our senses, our feelings, our intuitions, our physical movement, our relationships with other people and with society as a whole and, indeed, every phase of our lives. It is thus difficult to ‘step back’ from our old notions of order sufficiently to be able seriously to consider new notions of order.  Read more at location 3499

We proposed that a new notion of order is involved here, which we called the implicate order (from a Latin root meaning ‘to enfold’ or ‘to fold inward’). In terms of the implicate order one may say that everything is enfolded into everything. This contrasts with the explicate order now dominant in physics in which things are unfolded in the sense that each thing lies only in its own particular region of space (and time) and outside the regions belonging to other things.  Read more at location 3517

What distinguishes the explicate order is that what is thus derived is a set of recurrent and relatively stable elements that are outside of each other. This set of elements (e.g., fields and particles) then provides the explanation of that domain of experience in which the mechanistic order yields an adequate treatment. In the prevailing mechanistic approach, however, these elements, assumed to be separately and independently existent, are taken as constituting the basic reality. The task of science is then to start from such parts and to derive all wholes through abstraction, explaining them as the results of interactions of the parts. On the contrary, when one works in terms of the implicate order, one begins with the undivided wholeness of the universe, and the task of science is to derive the parts through abstraction from the whole, explaining them as approximately separable, stable and recurrent, but externally related elements making up relatively autonomous sub-totalities, which are to be described in terms of an explicate order.  Read more at location 3543

3 THE IMPLICATE ORDER AND THE GENERAL STRUCTURE OF MATTER 

ensembles of elements which intermingle or inter-penetrate in space can nevertheless be distinguished, but only in the context of certain total situations in which the members of each ensemble are related through the force of an overall necessity, inherent in these situations, that can bring them together in a specifiable way. Now that we have established a new kind of distinction of ensembles that are enfolded together in space, we can go on to put these distinctions into an order. The simplest notion of order is that of a sequence or succession.  Read more at location 3597

What is essential to this new model is that the electron is instead to be understood through a total set of enfolded ensembles, which are generally not localized in space. At any given moment one of these may be unfolded and therefore localized, but in the next moment, this one enfolds to be replaced by the one that follows. The notion of continuity of existence is approximated by that of very rapid recurrence of similar forms, changing in a simple and regular way (rather as a rapidly spinning bicycle wheel gives the impression of a solid disc, rather than of a sequence of rotating spokes). Of course, more fundamentally, the particle is only an abstraction that is manifest to our senses. What is is always a totality of ensembles, all present together, in an orderly series of stages of enfoldment and unfoldment, which intermingle and inter-penetrate each other in principle throughout the whole of space.  Read more at location 3640

All that is primary, independently existent, and universal is thought to be expressible in an explicate order, in terms of elements that are externally related (and these are usually thought to be particles, or fields, or some combination of the two). Whenever enfoldment and unfoldment are found actually to take place, it is therefore assumed that these can ultimately be explained in terms of an underlying explicate order through a deeper mechanical analysis (as, indeed, does happen with the ink-droplet device). Our proposal to start with the implicate order as basic, then, means that what is primary, independently existent, and universal has to be expressed in terms of the implicate order. So we are suggesting that it is the implicate order that is autonomously active while, as indicated earlier, the explicate order flows out of a law of the implicate order, so that it is secondary, derivative, and appropriate only in certain limited contexts.  Read more at location 3669

What, then, is the meaning of the appearance of the apparently independent and self-existent ‘manifest world’ in the explicate order? The answer to this question is indicated by the root of the word ‘manifest’, which comes from the Latin ‘manus’, meaning ‘hand’. Essentially, what is manifest is what can be held with the hand – something solid, tangible and visibly stable.  Read more at location 3678

4 QUANTUM THEORY AS AN INDICATION OF A MULTIDIMENSIONAL IMPLICATE ORDER 

through a study of the implications of the quantum theory, that the analysis of a total system into a set of independently existent but interacting particles breaks down in a radically new way. One discovers, instead, both from consideration of the meaning of the mathematical equations and from the results of the actual experiments, that the various particles have to be taken literally as projections of a higherdimensional reality which cannot be accounted for in terms of any force of interaction between them.  Read more at location 3697

Let us begin with a rectangular tank full of water, with transparent walls (see Figure 7.1). Suppose further that there are two television cameras, A and B, directed at what is going on in the water (e.g., fish swimming around) as seen through the two walls at right angles to each other. Now let the corresponding television images be made visible on screens A and B in another room. What we will see there is a certain relationship between the images appearing on the two screens. For example, on screen A we may see an image of a fish, and on screen B we will see another such image. At any given moment each image will generally look different from the other.  Read more at location 3702

****  we know that the two images do not refer to independently existent though interacting actualities (in which, for example, one image could be said to ‘cause’ related changes in the other). Rather, they refer to a single actuality, which is the common ground of both (and this explains the correlation of images without the assumption that they causally affect each other). This actuality is of higher dimensionality than are the separate images on the screens; or, to put it differently, the images on the screens are two-dimensional projections (or facets) of a three-dimensional reality. In some sense this threedimensional reality holds these two-dimensional projections within it. Yet, since these projections exist only as abstractions, the three-dimensional reality is neither of these, but rather it is something else, something of a nature beyond both. What we are proposing here is that the quantum property of a non-local, non-causal relationship of distant elements may be understood through an extension of the notion described above. That is to say, we may regard each of the ‘particles’ constituting a system as a projection of a ‘higher-dimensional’ reality, rather than as a separate particle, existing together with all the others in a common three-dimensional space.  Read more at location 3712

Under certain conditions,8 the two three-dimensional projections corresponding to the two atoms may have a relative independence of behaviour. When these conditions are satisfied it will be a good approximation to treat both atoms as relatively independent but interacting particles, both in the same threedimensional space. More generally, however, the two atoms will show the typical non-local correlation of behaviour which implies that, more deeply, they are only three-dimensional projections of the kind described above. A system constituted of N ‘particles’ is then a 3N-dimensional reality, of which each ‘particle’ is a three-dimensional projection. Under the ordinary conditions of our experience, these projections will be close enough to independence so that it will be a good approximation to treat them in the way that we usually do, as a set of separately existing particles all in the same threedimensional space. Under other conditions this approximation will not be adequate. For example, at low temperatures an aggregate of electrons shows a new property of superconductivity, in which electrical resistance vanishes, so that electric current can flow indefinitely. This is explained by showing that the electrons enter a different kind of state, in which they are no longer relatively independent. Rather, each electron acts as a projection of a single higher-dimensional reality and all these projections share a non-local, non-causal correlation, which is such that they go round obstacles ‘co-operatively’ without being scattered or diffused, and therefore without resistance.  Read more at location 3727

****  What follows from all this is that basically the implicate order has to be considered as a process of enfoldment and unfoldment in a higher-dimensional space. Only under certain conditions can this be simplified as a process of enfoldment and unfoldment in three dimensions.  Read more at location 3740

the electromagnetic field, which is the ground of the holographic image, obeys the laws of the quantum theory, and when these are properly applied to the field it is found that this, too, is actually a multidimensional reality which can only under certain conditions be simplified as a three-dimensional reality. Quite generally, then, the implicate order has to be extended into a multidimensional reality. In principle this reality is one unbroken whole, including the entire universe with all its ‘fields’ and ‘particles’. Thus we have to say that the holomovement enfolds and unfolds in a multidimensional order, the dimensionality of which is effectively infinite. However, as we have already seen, relatively independent sub-totalities can generally be abstracted, which may be approximated as autonomous. Thus the principle of relative autonomy of sub-totalities which we introduced earlier as basic to the holomovement is now seen to extend to the multidimensional order of reality.  Read more at location 3744

5 COSMOLOGY AND THE IMPLICATE ORDER 

if one considers the electromagnetic field in empty space, for example, one finds from the quantum theory that each such ‘wave-particle’ mode of excitation of the field has what is called a ‘zero-point’ energy, below which it cannot go, even when its energy falls to the minimum that is possible.  Read more at location 3757

if one applies the rules of quantum theory to the currently accepted general theory of relativity, one finds that the gravitational field is also constituted of such ‘wave-particle’ modes, each having a minimum ‘zero-point’ energy. As a result the gravitational field, and therefore the definition of what is to be meant by distance, cease to be completely defined. As we keep on adding excitations corresponding to shorter and shorter wavelengths to the gravitational field, we come to a certain length at which the measurement of space and time becomes totally undefinable. Beyond this, the whole notion of space and time as we know it would fade out, into something that is at present unspecifiable. So it would be reasonable to suppose, at least provisionally, that this is the shortest wavelength that should be considered as contributing to the ‘zero-point’ energy of space. When this length is estimated it turns out to be about 10−33cm. This is much shorter than anything thus far probed in physical experiments (which have got down to about 10−17 cm or so). If one computes the amount of energy that would be in one cubic centimetre of space, with this shortest possible wavelength, it turns out to be very far beyond the total energy of all the matter in the known universe.  Read more at location 3763

****  What is implied by this proposal is that what we call empty space contains an immense background of energy, and that matter as we know it is a small, ‘quantized’ wavelike excitation on top of this background, rather like a tiny ripple on a vast sea.  Read more at location 3773

****  In this connection it may be said that space, which has so much energy, is full rather than empty. The two opposing notions of space as empty and space as full have indeed continually alternated with each other in the development of philosophical and physical ideas. Thus, in Ancient Greece, the School of Parmenides and Zeno held that space is a plenum. This view was opposed by Democritus, who was perhaps the first seriously to propose a world view that conceived of space as emptiness (i.e., the void) in which material particles (e.g., atoms) are free to move.  Read more at location 3779

****  It is being suggested here, then, that what we perceive through the senses as empty space is actually the plenum, which is the ground for the existence of everything, including ourselves. The things that appear to our senses are derivative forms and their true meaning can be seen only when we consider the plenum, in which they are generated and sustained, and into which they must ultimately vanish. This plenum is, however, no longer to be conceived through the idea of a simple material medium, such as an ether, which would be regarded as existing and moving only in a threedimensional space. Rather, one is to begin with the holomovement, in which there is the immense ‘sea’ of energy described earlier. This sea is to be understood in terms of a multidimensional implicate order, along the lines sketched in section 4, while the entire universe of matter as we generally observe it is to be treated as a comparatively small pattern of excitation. This excitation pattern is relatively autonomous and gives rise to approximately recurrent, stable and separable projections into a three-dimensional explicate order of manifestation, which is more or less equivalent to that of space as we commonly experience it.  Read more at location 3790

it is clear that we may assume that the principle of relative autonomy of sub-totalities continues to be valid. Any sub-totality, including those which we have thus far considered, may up to a point be studied in its own right. Thus, without assuming that we have already arrived even at an outline of absolute and final truth, we may at least for a time put aside the need to consider what may be beyond the immense energies of empty space, and go on to bring out the further implications of the sub-totality of order that has revealed itself thus far.  Read more at location 3818

6 THE IMPLICATE ORDER, LIFE AND THE FORCE OF OVERALL NECESSITY 

****  Let us begin by considering the growth of a living plant. This growth starts from a seed, but the seed contributes little or nothing to the actual material substance of the plant or to the energy needed to make it grow. This latter comes almost entirely from the soil, the water, the air and the sunlight. According to modern theories the seed contains information, in the form of DNA, and this information somehow ‘directs’ the environment to form a corresponding plant. In terms of the implicate order, we may say that even inanimate matter maintains itself in a continual process similar to the growth of plants.  Read more at location 3825

****  We may compare this to a forest, constituted of trees that are continually dying and being replaced by new ones. If it is considered on a long time-scale, this forest may be regarded likewise as a continuously existent but slowly-changing entity. So when understood through the implicate order, inanimate matter and living beings are seen to be, in certain key respects, basically similar to their modes of existence. When inanimate matter is left to itself the above-described process of enfoldment and unfoldment just reproduces a similar form of inanimate matter, but when this is further ‘informed’ by the seed, it begins to produce a living plant instead.  Read more at location 3832

at which point can we say that there is a sharp distinction between what is alive and what is not? Clearly, a molecule of carbon dioxide that crosses a cell boundary into a leaf does not suddenly ‘come alive’ nor does a molecule of oxygen suddenly ‘die’ when it is released to the atmosphere. Rather, life itself has to be regarded as belonging in some sense to a totality, including plant and environment. It may indeed be said that life is enfolded in the totality and that, even when it is not manifest, it is somehow ‘implicit’ in what we generally call a situation in which there is no life. We can illustrate this by considering the ensemble of all the atoms that are now in the environment but that are eventually going to constitute a plant that will grow from a certain seed.  Read more at location 3838

****  (Note:  his "holomovement" is basically "God", especially as existentially conceived)  Inanimate matter is then to be regarded as a relatively autonomous sub-totality in which, at least as far as we now know, life does not significantly manifest. That is to say, inanimate matter is a secondary, derivative, and particular abstraction from the holomovement (as would also be the notion of a ‘life force’ entirely independent of matter). Indeed, the holomovement which is ‘life implicit’ is the ground both of ‘life explicit’ and of ‘inanimate matter’, and this ground is what is primary, self-existent and universal. Thus we do not fragment life and inanimate matter, nor do we try to reduce the former completely to nothing but an outcome of the latter.  Read more at location 3850

This operation will in general have these three key features: 1  A set of implicate orders. 2  A special distinguished case of the above set, which constitutes an explicate order of manifestation. 3  A general relationship (or law) expressing a force of necessity which binds together a certain set of the elements of the implicate order in such a way that they contribute to a common explicate end (different from that to which another set of inter-penetrating and intermingling elements will contribute).  Read more at location 3858

(Note: "form of law" may be akin to logos)  we are proposing that this form of the law of a relatively autonomous sub-totality, which is a consistent generalization of all the forms that we have studied thus far, is to be considered as universal; and that in our subsequent work we shall explore the implicates of such a notion, at least tentatively and provisionally.  Read more at location 3867

7 CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE IMPLICATE ORDER 

We begin by proposing that in some sense, consciousness (which we take to include thought, feeling, desire, will, etc.) is to be comprehended in terms of the implicate order, along with reality as a whole. That is to say, we are suggesting that the implicate order applies both to matter (living and non-living) and to consciousness, and that it can therefore make possible an understanding of the general relationship of these two, from which we may be able to come to some notion of a common ground of both  Read more at location 3873

the relationship of matter and consciousness has, however, thus far proved to be extremely difficult, and this difficulty has its root in the very great difference in their basic qualities as they present themselves in our experience. This difference has been expressed with particularly great clarity by Descartes, who described matter as ‘extended substance’ and consciousness as ‘thinking substance’.  Read more at location 3878

when we start, as Descartes did, with extension and separation in space as primary for matter, then we can see nothing in this notion that can serve as a basis for a relationship between matter and consciousness, whose orders are so different. Descartes clearly understood this difficulty and indeed proposed to resolve it by means of the idea that such a relationship is made possible by God, who being outside of and beyond matter and consciousness (both of which He has indeed created) is able to give the latter ‘clear and distinct notions’ that are currently applicable to the former. Since then, the idea that God takes care of this requirement has generally been abandoned, but it has not commonly been noticed that thereby the possibility of comprehending the relationship between matter and consciousness has collapsed.  Read more at location 3887

(Note: uses God to connect thinking and matter, like Descartes)  The question that arises here, then, is that of whether or not (as was in a certain sense anticipated by Descartes) the actual ‘substance’ of consciousness can be understood in terms of the notion that the implicate order is also its primary and immediate actuality. If matter and consciousness could in this way be understood together, in terms of the same general notion of order, the way would be opened to comprehending their relationship on the basis of some common ground.13 Thus we could come to the germ of a new notion of unbroken wholeness, in which consciousness is no longer to be fundamentally separated from matter.  Read more at location 3894

First, we note that matter in general is, in the first instance, the object of our consciousness. However, as we have seen throughout this chapter, various energies such as light, sound, etc., are continually enfolding information in principle concerning the entire universe of matter into each region of space. Through this process, such information may of course enter our sense organs, to go on through the nervous system to the brain. More deeply, all the matter in our bodies, from the very first, enfolds the universe in some way. Is this enfolded structure, both of information and of matter (e.g., in the brain and nervous system), that which primarily enters consciousness?  Read more at location 3900

Pribram has given evidence backing up his suggestion that memories are generally recorded all over the brain in such a way that information concerning a given object or quality is not stored in a particular cell or localized part of the brain but rather that all the information is enfolded over the whole. This storage resembles a hologram in its function, but its actual structure is much more complex.  Read more at location 3907

In addition, if sensory data is also being attended to at the same time, the whole of this response from memory will, in general, fuse with the nervous excitation coming from the senses to give rise to an overall experience in which memory, logic, and sensory activity combine into a single unanalysable whole.  Read more at location 3913

(Note: sounding a bit like Bergson)  Consider, for example, what takes place when one is listening to music. At a given moment a certain note is being played but a number of the previous notes are still ‘reverberating’ in consciousness. Close attention will show that it is the simultaneous presence and activity of all these reverberations that is responsible for the direct and immediately felt sense of movement, flow and continuity. To hear a set of notes so far apart in time that there is no such reverberation will destroy altogether the sense of a whole unbroken, living movement that gives meaning and force to what is heard. It is clear from the above that one does not experience the actuality of this whole movement by ‘holding on’ to the past, with the aid of a memory of the sequence of notes, and comparing this past with the present. Rather, as one can discover by further attention, the ‘reverberations’ that make such an experience possible are not memories but are rather active transformations of what came earlier, in which are to be found not only a generally diffused sense of the original sounds, with an intensity that falls off, according to the time elapsed since they were picked up by the ear, but also various emotional responses, bodily sensations, incipient muscular movements, and the evocation of a wide range of yet further meanings, often of great subtlety. One can thus obtain a direct sense of how a sequence of notes is enfolding into many levels of consciousness, and of how at any given moment, the transformations flowing out of many such enfolded notes inter-penetrate and intermingle to give rise to an immediate and primary feeling of movement.  Read more at location 3920

****  for our model of the electron an enfolded order is grasped in thought, as the presence together of many different but interrelated degrees of transformations of ensembles, while for the music, it is sensed immediately as the presence together of many different but interrelated degrees of transformations of tones and sounds. In the latter, there is a feeling of both tension and harmony between the various co-present transformations, and this feeling is indeed what is primary in the apprehension of the music in its undivided state of flowing movement. In listening to music, one is therefore directly perceiving an implicate order. Evidently this order is active in the sense that it continually flows into emotional, physical, and other responses, that are inseparable from the transformations out of which it is essentially constituted. A similar notion can be seen to be applicable for vision.  Read more at location 3939

The main difference between music and visual images, in this regard, is that the latter may arrive so close together in time that they cannot be resolved in consciousness. Nevertheless, it is clear that visual images must also undergo active transformation as they ‘enfold’ into the brain and nervous system (e.g., they give rise to emotional, physical and other more subtle responses of which one may be only dimly conscious as well as to ‘after images’ that are in certain ways similar to the reverberations in musical notes).  Read more at location 3961

there is a basic similarity between the order of our immediate experience of movement and the implicate order as expressed in terms of our thought. We have in this way been brought to the possibility of a coherent mode of understanding the immediate experience of motion in terms of our thought (in effect thus resolving Zeno’s paradox concerning motion).  Read more at location 3967

****  Our actual experience is, however, that when a given moment, say t2, is present and actual, an earlier moment, such as t1, is past. That is to say, it is gone, non-existent, never to return. So if we say that the velocity of a particular now (at t2) is (x2 − x1)/(t2 − t1) we are trying to relate what is (i.e., x2 and t2) to what is not (i.e., x1 and t1). We can of course do this abstractly and symbolically (as is, indeed, the common practice in science and mathematics), but the further fact, not comprehended in this abstract symbolism, is that the velocity now is active now (e.g., it determines how a particle will act from now on, in itself, and in relation to other particles). How are we to understand the present activity of a position (x1) that is now non-existent and gone for ever?  Read more at location 3980

****  (Note:  impermanence of form)  we are now able to understand in a new and more consistent way our proposed notion concerning the general nature of reality, that what is is movement. Actually, what tends to make it difficult for us to work in terms of this notion is that we usually think of movement in the traditional way as an active relationship of what is to what is not. Our traditional notion concerning the general nature of reality would then amount to saying that what is is an active relationship of what is to what is not.  Read more at location 4013

****  The continuation of the above process gives an account of how change takes place from one moment to another. In principle, the change in any moment may be a fundamental and radical transformation. However, experience shows that in thought (as in matter in general) there is usually a great deal of recurrence and stability leading to the possibility of relatively independent sub-totalities. In any such sub-totality, there is the possibility of the continuation of a certain line of thought that enfolds in a fairly regularly changing way.  Read more at location 4045

As in our discussion of matter in general, it is now necessary to go into the question of how in consciousness the explicate order is what is manifest. As observation and attention show (keeping in mind that the word ‘manifest’ means that which is recurrent, stable and separable) the manifest content of consciousness is based essentially on memory, which is what allows such content to be held in a fairly constant form. Of course, to make possible such constancy it is also necessary that this content be organized, not only through relatively fixed associations but also with the aid of the rules of logic, and of our basic categories of space, time, causality, universality, etc. In this way an overall system of concepts and mental images may be developed, which is a more or less faithful representation of the ‘manifest world’.  Read more at location 4053

****  One can, in fact, adduce a considerable amount of scientific evidence showing how much of our conscious experience is a construction based on memory organized through thought, in the general way described above.17 To go into this subject in detail would, however, carry us too far afield. It may nevertheless be useful here to mention that Piaget18 has made it clear that a consciousness of what to us is the familiar order of space, time, causality, etc. (which is essentially what we have been calling the explicate order) operates only to a small extent in the earliest phases of life of the human individual. Rather, as he shows from careful observations, for the most part infants learn this content first in the area of sensori-motor experience, and later as they grow older they connect such experience with its expression in language and logic. On the other hand, there seems to be an immediate awareness of movement from the very earliest.  Read more at location 4064

8 MATTER, CONSCIOUSNESS AND THEIR COMMON GROUND 

(Note: bergson's "duration" )  current relativistic theories in physics describe the whole of reality in terms of a process whose ultimate element is a point event, i.e., something happening in a relatively small region of space and time. We propose instead that the basic element be a moment which, like the moment of consciousness, cannot be precisely related to measurements of space and time, but rather covers a somewhat vaguely defined region which is extended in space and has duration in time. The extent and duration of a moment may vary from something very small to something very large, according to the context under discussion (even a particular century may be a ‘moment’ in the history of mankind). As with consciousness, each moment has a certain explicate order, and in addition it enfolds all the others, though in its own way. So the relationship of each moment in the whole to all the others is implied by its total content: the way in which it ‘holds’ all the others enfolded within it.  Read more at location 4087

the explicate and manifest order of consciousness is not ultimately distinct from that of matter in general. Fundamentally these are essentially different aspects of the one overall order. This explains a basic fact that we have pointed out earlier – that the explicate order of matter in general is also in essence the sensuous explicate order that is presented in consciousness in ordinary experience.  Read more at location 4109

We may begin by considering the individual human being as a relatively independent sub-totality, with a sufficient recurrence and stability of his total process (e.g., physical, chemical, neurological, mental, etc.) to enable him to subsist over a certain period of time. In this process we know it to be a fact that the physical state can affect the content of consciousness in many ways. (The simplest case is that we can become conscious of neural excitations as sensations.) Vice versa, we know that the content of consciousness can affect the physical state (e.g., from a conscious intention nerves may be excited, muscles may move, the heart-beat change, along with alterations of glandular activity, blood chemistry, etc.). This connection of the mind and body has commonly been called psychosomatic (from the Greek ‘psyche’, meaning ‘mind’ and ‘soma’, meaning ‘body’). This word is generally used, however, in such a way as to imply that mind and body are separately existent but connected by some sort of interaction. Such a meaning is not compatible with the implicate order. In the implicate order we have to say that mind enfolds matter in general and therefore the body in particular. Similarly, the body enfolds not only the mind but also in some sense the entire material universe.  Read more at location 4114

****  the more comprehensive, deeper, and more inward actuality is neither mind nor body but rather a yet higher-dimensional actuality, which is their common ground and which is of a nature beyond both. Each of these is then only a relatively independent sub-totality and it is implied that this relative independence derives from the higher-dimensional ground in which mind and body are ultimately one (rather as we find that the relative independence of the manifest order derives from the ground of the implicate order). In this higher-dimensional ground the implicate order prevails. Thus, within this ground, what is is movement which is represented in thought as the co-presence of many phases of the implicate order.  Read more at location 4128

So we do not say that mind and body causally affect each other, but rather that the movements of both are the outcome of related projections of a common higher-dimensional ground.  Read more at location 4136

****  In a deeper and generally more suitable way of thinking, each of these elements is a projection, in a sub-totality of yet higher ‘dimension’. So it will be ultimately misleading and indeed wrong to suppose, for example, that each human being is an independent actuality who interacts with other human beings and with nature. Rather, all these are projections of a single totality. As a human being takes part in the process of this totality, he is fundamentally changed in the very activity in which his aim is to change that reality which is the content of his consciousness.  Read more at location 4140

the easily accessible explicit content of consciousness is included within a much greater implicit (or implicate) background. This in turn evidently has to be contained in a yet greater background which may include not only neuro-physiological processes at levels of which we are not generally conscious but also a yet greater background of unknown (and indeed ultimately unknowable) depths of inwardness that may be analogous to the ‘sea’ of energy that fills the sensibly perceived ‘empty’ space.  Read more at location 4146

since the quantum theory implies that elements that are separated in space are generally non-causally and non-locally related projections of a higher-dimensional reality, it follows that moments separated in time are also such projections of this reality. Evidently, this leads to a fundamentally new notion of the meaning of time. Both in common experience and in physics, time has generally been considered to be a primary, independent and universally applicable order, perhaps the most fundamental one known to us. Now, we have been led to propose that it is secondary and that, like space (see section 5), it is to be derived from a higher-dimensional ground, as a particular order. Indeed, one can further say that many such particular interrelated time orders can be derived for different sets of sequences of moments, corresponding to material systems that travel at different speeds. However, these are all dependent on a multidimensional reality that cannot be comprehended fully in terms of any time order, or set of such orders.  Read more at location 4163

(Note: akin to jung and other universal mind ideas)  we are led to propose that this multidimensional reality may project into many orders of sequences of moments in consciousness. Not only do we have in mind here the relativity of psychological time discussed above, but also much more subtle implications. Thus, for example, people who know each other well may separate for a long time (as measured by the sequence of moments registered by a clock) and yet they are often able to ‘take up from where they left off’ as if no time had passed. What we are proposing here is that sequences of moments that ‘skip’ intervening spaces are just as allowable forms of time as those which seem continuous.21 The fundamental law, then, is that of the immense multidimensional ground; and the projections from this ground determine whatever time orders there may be. Of course, this law may be such that in certain limiting cases the order of moments corresponds approximately to what would be determined by a simple causal law.  Read more at location 4170

****  How, then, are we to consider the evolution of life as this is generally formulated in biology? First, it has to be pointed out that the very word ‘evolution’ (whose literal meaning is ‘unrolling’) is too mechanistic in its connotation to serve properly in this context. Rather, as we have already pointed out above, we should say that various successive living forms unfold creatively. Later members are not completely derivable from what came earlier, through a process in which effect arises out of cause (though in some approximation such a causal process may explain certain limited aspects of the sequence). The law of this unfoldment cannot be properly understood without considering the immense multidimensional reality of which it is a projection (except in the rough approximation in which the implications of the quantum theory and of what is beyond this theory may be neglected).  Read more at location 4186

Is this ground the absolute end of everything? In our proposed views concerning the general nature of ‘the totality of all that is’ we regard even this ground as a mere stage, in the sense that there could in principle be an infinity of further development beyond it. At any particular moment in this development each such set of views that may arise will constitute at most a proposal. It is not to be taken as an assumption about what the final truth is supposed to be, and still less as a conclusion concerning the nature of such truth.  Read more at location 4197