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Selected Correspondence Peter David Bohm
RESPONDENT: Historically, it has been used to rationalize that the earth is the centre of the solar system, the earth is flat, etc. By extrapolation, how is your common sense more accurate? PETER: We have also been down this path before and I’ll repost my reply as it is equally pertinent to your current question –
RESPONDENT: No 45 quoted David Bohm recently:
You may argue David Bohm’s ‘spiritual’ bent, but I maintain his statement is valid. We can’t see UV for instance, so how do we know that there is not important information being presented to us at those wavelengths? PETER: I find it telling that those who propose such statements as ‘95% of the phenomena are invisible and not perceived from our senses’ most often resort to the example of electromagnetic radiation, as though this specific case provides proof of the existence of invisible and unperceivable phenomena. Whilst it is a fact that we cannot see electromagnetic radiation in the ultraviolet spectrum with our eyes – the spectrum of wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation thus far detected ranges from 103 HZ to 1022 HZ and the unaided human eye is only capable of detecting the visible light portion within the 1014 HZ to 1015 HZ range – we are nevertheless able to sensately perceive UV as warmth on our skin and we are able to detect it and measure it with instruments that are mechanical extensions of our senses. In short, we know by sensory observation that UV exists as a fact, that it is a thing in itself, that it is physical in nature. Similarly, anyone who has stood near an infrared lamp can sense infrared electromagnetic radiation, anyone who has eaten food cooked in a microwave oven can see and taste the effects of microwave electromagnetic radiation. Anyone who has listened to radio or watched television can sensately experience the results of encoded information being sent via the longer wave frequencies of electromagnetic radiation. Anyone who has had an X-ray in a hospital can not only see and touch the machine that produces the electromagnetic radiation but they can also see and touch the resultant picture produced by the X ray electromagnetic waves. Perhaps you could offer another example other than the spectrum of electromagnetic radiation in support your stance that David Bohm’s statement is valid. RESPONDENT: I’m not sure why it’s ‘telling’ that this example gets trotted out. PETER: Because it seems to be the only example of that people can think of in order to justify the claim ‘that 95% of the phenomena are invisible and not perceived from our senses’. That you have avoided my invitation to offer another example is but further evidence that the claim lacks credibility. RESPONDENT: So, yes, you’re right about the different ways we sensately experience UV radiation. Does that imply that is the sum total of the characteristics of the radiation? No, it’s only what we are sensing. Humans’ experience of UV is defined by and limited by the nature of our senses. To suggest that there aren’t other ways of experiencing UV, ways that are off-limits to us, is short-sighted. PETER: Okay, seeing I lack the benefit of long-sightedness, what are the other characteristics of electromagnetic radiation that we are not sensing? What other ways are there to experience, measure or detect electromagnetic radiation? Given that you are making these claims, it is up to you to substantiate them. RESPONDENT: And, Bohm’s statement is validated by the historical record. Time after time, something has been decided to be a ‘fact’, only to be refuted when additional information becomes available. Why is now any different? PETER: A good deal of the electromagnetic spectrum has always been able to be detected by the unaided human senses – even a Neanderthal man could see the sun and sensately experience its UV radiation as heat on his skin. The invention of instruments that extend the range of human sensory perception, particularly in the last hundred years, has revealed a good deal more of the extent and range of electromagnetic radiation. During this same period of rapid scientific growth we have made similar leaps in our ability to perceive, observe, quantify and understand both the extent and range of the physical matter and physical energy that make up the physical universe. Apart from discoveries that have expanded the extent and range of that which we know exists by way of our senses, perhaps you could offer some examples of new discoveries of new phenomena to support your claim that Mr. Bohm’s alleged statement that ‘that 95% of the phenomena are invisible and not perceived from our senses’ is validated by historical record. * PETER: Perhaps you could offer another example other than the spectrum of electromagnetic radiation in support your stance that David Bohm’s statement is valid. In doing so, you may well find that Mr. Bohm is using the word phenomena in the philosophical sense –
– in which case he is talking of objects of perception that have neither substance nor physical existence – in other words, he is talking of phenomena that are meta-physical, as in –
While you say ‘you may argue David Bohm’s ‘spiritual’ bent’, there is
no need for me to do so because his spiritual bent is a matter of fact – well-publicized, well-known and readily verifiable. ( RESPONDENT: So, making absolute statements about the nature of the universe is presumptuous and smacks of a belief system. PETER: And yet, earlier in this same post, you have maintained that Mr. Bohm’s absolute statement about the nature of the universe – ‘that 95% of the phenomena are invisible and not perceived from our senses’ – is valid. I take it from this that you do not regard his statement as being presumptuous nor do you regard it as smacking of a belief system. RESPONDENT: It is most decidedly not a belief system... quite the opposite – a rejection of all belief systems. To be sure of the nature of the universe is a belief system. PETER: Am I missing your point here? I take it that when Mr. Bohm says ‘95% of the phenomena are invisible and not perceived from our senses’, he makes this statement because he is sure of the nature of the universe. I also know from your previous comments that you are also sure that his claim is valid –
Just to make things clear, in a conversation about the nature of the universe you maintain that our perception of the nature of the universe ‘may be constrained by our sensory apparatus to only those detectable inputs’. If you are sure about this, and you seem to be arguing strongly that this is so, then by your own principle – ‘to be sure of the nature of the universe is a belief system’ – you are supporting a belief-system. However, in order to be faithful to your agnostic stance you would have to be sure that you are not sure, i.e. you would have to maintain that everything was a belief, including Mr. Bohm’s alleged statement. It must be a tough business having to reject everything on principle.
PETER: It’s pertinent to point out that ancient Eastern spirituality teaches that the illusionary identity (‘I’ as ego only) is borne exclusively of the process of conditioning … whereas actualism establishes by observation and experimentation that the social/ instinctual identity (both ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul) is borne of the genetically- encoded instinctual passions. RESPONDENT: Big deal about nothing – instinctual passions are still conditioning. Evolutionary conditioning, in fact. There are others who say much the same thing. Read writings by David Bohm, for example. PETER: A quote will reveal what David Bohm saw as being the root cause of human malice and sorrow –
And another quote reveals the apparent source of this conviction – <snip> I cannot find anywhere that David Bohm has mentioned the words ‘evolutionary conditioning’ or anything like these words let alone where he indicates that the instinctual passions are the root cause of human malice and sorrow – all I could find made it patently clear that he lays the blame for the ills of humankind on thinking and not feelings. Given that you have made the claim, perhaps you could provide the evidence that any of the spiritual teachings mention ‘evolutionary conditioning’ … or did you just coin the term on the fly, as it were? RESPONDENT: Actually he doesn’t separate thinking and feeling. In his book ‘Thought As A System’ he considers thought to be one aspect of a larger system that not only includes feelings in the body but the all the myriad of connections with the body and world at large. Put aside regular conceptual boundaries placed in the word thought (ie the idea that thought is only internal and ephemeral ‘whispers in the mind’) and consider it to be part of a larger whole. PETER: What you appear to be suggesting here is that if I ‘put aside regular conceptual boundaries placed in the word thought’ then I could consider it to ‘be part of a lager whole’, which presumably means that it includes the genetically-encoded instinctual passions. Therefore when David Bohm says that ‘the ultimate source of all these problems is in thought itself’, I am to assume he is saying that ‘the ultimate source of all these problems is in the genetically-encoded instinctual passions’? Are you for real? RESPONDENT: You can see that the movement of thought influences the brain, the body and the environment at large (buildings, roads, pollution, cultural influence, government etc) and that feedback returns into our bodies through the senses to make us feel and act in certain ways. PETER: The ‘larger whole’ – the ‘we all live in one big thought-system’ theory – still lays the blame for the ills of humankind at the feet of thinking and conditioning, not feelings borne of the instinctual passions. RESPONDENT: He considers the effect that evolution has had as well. PETER: Simply repeating a claim over and over does not make it a fact. Could you perchance provide some evidence where he David Bohm indicates that the genetically-encoded instinctual passions are the root cause of human malice and sorrow and not that thought is the root cause? RESPONDENT: And please note that just because I quote or paraphrase someone does not mean that I endorse all they do and say. David Bohm spent far too much time and energy with the reprehensible J Krishnamurti. PETER: If I may point out, it was you who made the comment –
When I provided quotes that clearly indicated that Mr. Bohm specifically said that the
ultimate source of all the problems that plague humanity is thought itself, you then offer a disclaimer that you are not prepared
to endorse all that Mr. Bohm said. That puts an end to the possibility of any sensible discussion, hey?
PETER: It’s pertinent to point out that ancient Eastern spirituality teaches that the illusionary identity (‘I’ as ego only) is borne exclusively of the process of conditioning … whereas actualism establishes by observation and experimentation that the social/ instinctual identity (both ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul) is borne of the genetically- encoded instinctual passions. RESPONDENT: Big deal about nothing – instinctual passions are still conditioning. Evolutionary conditioning, in fact. There are others who say much the same thing. Read writings by David Bohm, for example. PETER: A quote will reveal what David Bohm saw as being the root cause of human malice and sorrow –
And another quote reveals the apparent source of this conviction –
I cannot find anywhere that David Bohm has mentioned the words ‘evolutionary conditioning’ or anything like these words let alone where he indicates that the instinctual passions are the root cause of human malice and sorrow – all I could find made it patently clear that he lays the blame for the ills of humankind on thinking and not feelings. Given that you have made the claim, perhaps you could provide the evidence that any of the spiritual teachings mention ‘evolutionary conditioning’ … or did you just coin the term on the fly, as it were? RESPONDENT: That’s my term but and I fail to see why a teaching has to match the terminology exactly before equivalence can be seen. In a fair-minded person this is not a problem. PETER: So if someone says that thought is the root cause of human sorrow and misery and someone else says that the genetically-encoded instinctual passions are the root cause of human malice and sorrow you, being ‘a fair-minded person’, claim that the statements mean the same thing, i.e. they are equivalent. By your logic, thought and feeling are different terminology that describe the same thing. I wonder if this is your experience as it is certainly not mine and it is certainly not the experience of others. Just last night I was watching a TV documentary in which a soldier in the GW1 was talking about his first experience in combat. He described the first time he killed an enemy soldier and he said there was an immediate rush of exhilaration, which was followed a half second later by a feeling of shame. He was most specific about the half second as he repeated it with hand gestures to indicate that these were distinctly separate reactions, one immediately following the other. I could relate to what he was saying as I have also experienced the primal rush of the instinctual passions – including the thrill of killing although I have never killed – as well as the split second later feeling-fed thoughts, the socially-conditioned response. Real-life anecdotes evidence such as this one confirm that instinctual reactions and their associated passions are primary and that thought-related reactions and their associated socially-conditioned feelings are secondary and that sensible thought doesn’t even get a leg in, as it were. This is yet again evidence that the instinctual passions are the root cause of human malice and sorrow and not thought, as Eastern spirituality would have it. RESPONDENT: No 30 has kindly supplied an interesting quote from David Bohm. I’ll reproduce it here so that the fair-minded amongst us can see some equivalence to your preferred actualistic cliché:
PETER: Again the quote says that thought and human conditioning is the problem – not the genetically-encoded instinctual passions and the human condition itself. * RESPONDENT: Actually he [Bohm] doesn’t separate thinking and feeling. In his book ‘Thought As A System’ he considers thought to be one aspect of a larger system that not only includes feelings in the body but the all the myriad of connections with the body and world at large. Put aside regular conceptual boundaries placed in the word thought (ie the idea that thought is only internal and ephemeral ‘whispers in the mind’) and consider it to be part of a larger whole. PETER: What you appear to be suggesting here is that if I ‘put aside regular conceptual boundaries placed in the word thought’ then I could consider it to ‘be part of a lager whole’, which presumably means that it includes the genetically-encoded instinctual passions. Therefore when David Bohm says that ‘the ultimate source of all these problems is in thought itself’, I am to assume he is saying that ‘the ultimate source of all these problems is in the genetically-encoded instinctual passions’? Are you for real? RESPONDENT: Yes, I am for real. You actualists have a real problem with deviations to your preferred lingusitic patternings. You took the logical step and then got all incredulous. PETER: What you are saying in support of your long-running case that spiritualism is saying the same thing as actualism is the word ‘thought’ means the same thing as the words’ instinctual passions’ because I should consider them to ‘be part of a larger whole’. To me that is nonsense because words do have meanings and the reason we use words is so that we can accurately communicate meaning to others. As an example, as I sit here at the computer I am typing these words on a keyboard and watching the words appear on the CRT screen – both are part of a larger whole called a computer but each are distinct and different components. You might have noticed that when I used the word ‘keyboard’, the word accurately describes something that anyone familiar with computers would know, i.e. they would not assume that I was talking about a CRT screen or a printer. Now if I can move this discussion from the intellectual to the experiential – what I am saying is that there is a distinct difference between thought and the deep-seated feelings of malice and sorrow that are the product of the instinctual passions. If, in your experience, you cannot make such a distinction, then you will fail to understand that what actualism is saying is distinctly different to what the Eastern spiritualists have been saying for millennia. RESPONDENT: I would have said ‘the ultimate source of all these problems is in thought which is both informed by and feeds back into the genetically-encoded instinctual passions’. PETER: Well, the soldier who experienced the rush of the instinctual passions a half-second before feeling-fed thought kicked in would not agree with you and nor can I because I have experienced the fact that the instinctual passions are the primary reaction and thinking or rational thought only has a chance to feed back later. And not only that but the brain’s circuitry is such that the feedback loop is biased in that the instinctual reactions and subsequent emotional responses are seemingly stronger and quicker circuitry than those that carry the cognitive reaction and subsequent reasoned response. Whilst you say ‘the ultimate source of all these problems is in thought which is both informed by and feeds back into the genetically-encoded instinctual passions’ actualism says, and LeDoux amongst others confirms, that ‘the ultimate source of all these problems is in genetically-encoded instinctual passions which are not only primary ‘quick and dirty’ reactions but they also feed back into thinking such that reasoned responses, sensibility, sensitivity and clear thinking have little if any chance to operate’. If you think that you and I are talking about the same thing, I can only suggest getting in touch with your feelings and observe them in operation because that’s how I came to experientially understand the difference between thinking and feeling. * RESPONDENT: You can see that the movement of thought influences the brain, the body and the environment at large (buildings, roads, pollution, cultural influence, government etc) and that feedback returns into our bodies through the senses to make us feel and act in certain ways. PETER: The ‘larger whole’ – the ‘we all live in one big thought-system’ theory – still lays the blame for the ills of humankind at the feet of thinking and conditioning, not feelings borne of the instinctual passions. RESPONDENT: Come on, you’re not playing fair. If you wish to critique the ‘we all live in one big thought-system’ theory then you must respect the internal logic, even if you believe the assumptions to be flawed. PETER: Why must I respect the internal logic – I gave up believing Eastern spiritualism years ago. The internal ‘logic’ of spiritualism is a crock and an utterly ‘self’-centred crock at that. James Randy amongst others offered substantial prize money to anyone who can demonstrate paranormal feats – including the claims that thought can influence matter – and no-one has thus far succeeded. As someone who has worked in the building industry for years I have yet to hear of anyone who has evidence that ‘the movement of thought influences … buildings’. I have had people tell me that a house should be sited on a certain position on a block of land because of an imaginary ‘energy line’ that runs under the ground and that a particular internal arrangements of the house will bring either good or bad ‘Chi’ if that’s what you mean by thought influencing matter, but I don’t believe in superstition. RESPONDENT: You’re not playing fair when you conclude that the ‘we all live in one big thought-system’ theory ‘still lays the blame for the ills of humankind at the feet of thinking and conditioning, not feelings borne of the instinctual passions’. PETER: You keep coming up with these spiritual theories and then, when I don’t agree with them, you accuse me of not playing fair. I take it that a fair game to you is one in which I would sit here saying ‘Yes, No 59 … yes No 59… oh yes No 59’. If this is your idea of a fair game I can only suggest you stop playing it with me and start playing it in front of the mirror – that way you would not only have a captive audience but no doubt an admiring one as well. RESPONDENT: The theory does not say that. In this theory you can’t separate the feelings borne of instinctual passions from the larger system of thought. PETER: This theory only appeals to those who are either incapable of, or are not interested, in making a distinction between feeling and thought … whereas I, along with others, can and do make a distinction. RESPONDENT: The instinctual passions are an important part of the larger whole, being drivers and reactors to other elaborately interconnected parts of the thought system. PETER: From what I understand of the brain’s operation – both intellectually through reading LeDoux and others and experientially by being attentive as to how this brain and other brains operate – there are no ‘elaborately interconnected parts of the thought system’, it’s all very simple really. As I said above – ‘the ultimate source … is in genetically-encoded instinctual passions which are not only primary ‘quick and dirty’ reactions but they also feed back into thinking such that reasoned responses, sensibility, sensitivity and clear thinking have little if any chance to operate’. Once I understood this intellectually I then ditched the ‘‘we all live in one big thought-system’ theory’ and all other spiritual concepts and started to find out for myself the experiential evidence that this is so. In short, I started to get in touch with my own feelings and passions and began to observe them in action – something that men, in particular, have been conditioned not to do. * RESPONDENT: He [Bohm] considers the effect that evolution has had as well. PETER: Simply repeating a claim over and over does not make it a fact. Could you perchance provide some evidence where he David Bohm indicates that the genetically-encoded instinctual passions are the root cause of human malice and sorrow and not that thought is the root cause? RESPONDENT: I see that you are looking for something that I’m not asking of Dr Bohm. You are demanding that Dr Bohm use your terminology before you will recognise any equivalence. I’ve not claimed that there would be a one-to-one relationship to actualism. I’ve suggested that other people have been thinking along similar lines. PETER: Okay. You have again posted a quote in this post that supposedly demonstrate equivalence –
And yet it is clear that the instinctual passions are genetically-encoded in every normal healthy brain, i.e. people with undamaged brain cells feel fear, aggression, nurture and desire. There is no equivalence here – one is a myth, the other is a fact, a fact that has been the subject of historical denial but one that is gradually being confirmed by more and more empirical evidence. RESPONDENT: I’ve agreed that Actualism does a good job in asserting the importance of inherited instinctual conditioning but that the notion is not original to actualism. Here’s another quote:
PETER: I assume the reason you have posted this quote is because the author mentions the words ‘physical heredity’ – even though he doesn’t make plain what he means by the term. Nevertheless, as I read the relevant part of this quote the author says ‘our physical heredity ... bear(s) the stamp of false values’. If I go along with your assumption that ‘physical heredity’ means genetically-encoded instinctual passions then what you assume he is saying is ‘the genetically-encoded instinctual passions bear the stamp of false values’. So if fear, aggression, nurture and desire are ‘false values’ then ‘fundamental transformation’ would presumably occur when those false values were replaced by authentic or true values – which in the spiritual traditions means fear is replaced by the feeling of omnipotence, aggression is replaced by the ideal of pacifism, nurture is aggrandized into a feeling of Divine or unconditional love and desire is disguised as Divine gratitude or humility. All you have posted is yet another recipe for self-righteousness and this bears no equivalence at all with what is on offer hereabouts. RESPONDENT: Here’s a source that DOES use your preferred terminology. You won’t like their conclusions (nor do I) and you will dismiss then as ‘spiritual’ but it shows that others are thinking along actualist lines:
Wow. Look at that. They talk about the human condition AND instinctive self! PETER: No equivalence at all. When the author says ‘the intellect evolved to the level where it could take control from the instincts’ he has got it completely wrong. How does he explain the fact that the ‘evolutionary development’ that produced homo sapiens (literally ‘man the wise’) occurred at least 100,000 years ago and possibly even 400,000 years ago and yet war, murder, rape, torture, child abuse, domestic violence, suicide, depression, corruption, superstition and the likes are still endemic within the human condition – so much for the intellect taking ‘control from the instincts’. A lot of people write a lot of things about the instincts – but none say that it is possible, let alone even desirable, to eliminate the instinctual passions … in fact human beings are mightily proud of being ‘passionate beings’. * RESPONDENT: And please note that just because I quote or paraphrase someone does not mean that I endorse all they do and say. David Bohm spent far too much time and energy with the reprehensible J Krishnamurti. PETER: If I may point out, it was you who made the comment –
When I provided quotes that clearly indicated that Mr. Bohm specifically said that the ultimate source of all the problems that plague humanity is thought itself, you then offer a disclaimer that you are not prepared to endorse all that Mr. Bohm said. That puts an end to the possibility of any sensible discussion, hey? RESPONDENT: You put pay to discussion with feeble conclusions like that. PETER: It was your failure to stand by the evidence you are offering in order to prove your point that actualism is nothing other than re-branded spiritualism, i.e. that it is not new, which led me to this conclusion. If you stop providing evidence that you are not prepared to stand by, and start to provide some that you are prepared to stand by, then we can have a sensible discussion. In other words, it’s high time you stopped bluffing and started to play your trump cards – if you had any, that is. RESPONDENT: In a previous point I said that Bohm would regard instinctual passions to be a part of the whole system of thought, so if Bohm sheets home the blame to thought you can be sure he includes a very wide section of experience including instinctual passions. PETER: Why should I assume that he said something when he didn’t say it? Or more to the point, why do you assume that he said something when he didn’t say it? RESPONDENT: That’s not something I ‘disclaim away’ from. My disclaimer was in defence of your previous propensity to attribute my complete agreement with my quotes and misunderstanding the purpose of my quotations. I am demonstrating that other people are thinking in the same direction as actualists. You are trying to suggest that unless people use the same terminology as expressed in actualist clichés then they can’t even be remotely thinking along actualist lines. It seems that you actualists hate being anything but totally unique and you’re prepared to argue at great length to be so. Why is that so? PETER: If I may point out, you are the one who has subscribed to this mailing list and you are the one who says that being free of the human condition is not unique and that actualism is nothing but re-branded spiritualism. All I have done is respond to your objections and take a clear look at the evidence you have provided in support of your claims. Why did I respond to your post at some length? Because I was once in your position and Richard took the time and made the effort to explain to me the difference between an actual freedom from the human condition and the altered states of consciousness that are revered in the spiritual world as well as sharing his expertise as to how he became free of the human condition. And it wasn’t a quick thing to do. It took a lot of time and effort on my part to get the gist of what he was saying – that an actual freedom from the human condition is unique – and the only way I could understand that it was unique was to throw out my spiritual beliefs, exactly as I had to throw out my drawing board before I could really get to grips with using a computer to draw, instead of a pen with ink in it. And whilst you have indicated in this post as well as in a post you sent one minute after this post that you are ‘done on this list’ I have nevertheless replied because what I write may also be of use to others on the list as well as to you. RESPONDENT: I’d say that your little uniqueness sensitivity points to an underlying insecurity. PETER: The marvellous thing about being virtually free of malice and sorrow is that I am no longer plagued by the insecurities others tell me they suffer from. Neither am I plagued by insecurity or doubt when I respond to posts on the list because I can stand by what I write because I write from my own experience, I don’t rely on the borrowed wisdom of others. RESPONDENT: Must be hard being in a tiny minority, holding all the answers with so few people listening and being so misunderstood. PETER: I have always been a minority in that I have always been on my own presumably from the time I was led by the hand to the school yard for the first time, although I have no memory of the day. It’s taken me a long time to come to acknowledge the fact and to be comfortable with the fact to the point of thoroughly enjoying my own company as it were. As for holding all the answers, I don’t pretend to, nor am I interested in, nor could I possibly do so. But when it comes to how to become happy and harmless I am an expert on the subject and I am only too happy to respond to those who write to me telling me they think and feel this is neither desirable nor possible. RESPONDENT: Looking at the website I can see great ideas floating in a vast sea of effusive, wordy turbulence. PETER: If that’s the case then it’s clear why you keep saying that you are ‘done on this list’. RESPONDENT: I see this is an expression of wonder and enthusiasm but I also see a counter current of wordcraft designed to allow no deviation. Linguistic excess as a bulwark against insecurity perhaps. The actualist path may be wondrous but it’s not wide. PETER: The actualism path is wide for those who fully launch themselves upon it;
it’s just that everybody else has written a sign ‘Do not enter here’ over the entrance … and there are plenty of
spiritualists milling around waving red warning flags at the start of the path so as to warn the ‘fool-hardy’ from taking the
plunge. Peter’s Text ©The
Actual Freedom Trust: 1997-. All Rights Reserved.
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