"On Dialogue” by David Bohm

I recently read a book — "On Dialogue” by David Bohm published by Routledge.  It is a quick read a mere 109 pages — it is not a book about Stoicism, the word is never mentioned but I think its content is relevant for those of us interested in Stoicism.  

David Bohm was a American born Theoretical Physicists that died in 1992.  Bohm made significant contributions to Quantum Mechanics in the late 1940’s and  the 1950’s.  When he was very young, he toyed with communist ideology  and therefore was of interest to the House Un-American Activities Committee. Ironically he was arrested and tried for invoking his constitutional right to not testify against himself.  After being acquitted he left the Country and eventually became a citizen of the UK. Later in life he became interested in the Philosophy of the Mind.  In particular,  he became interested in “Thought” and its problems and wrote on the subject.  "On Dialogue” was published posthumously in 1996.

In “On Dialogue” Bohm discusses the process of Dialogue groups that he intended to be exercises in collective thought.  While an interesting idea, I am not aware that these groups had much impact or life after his own death.  I think “On Dialogue” is of interest to Stoics because of his analysis of thought.  Bohm pointed out that we humans spend a great deal of time analyzing and reacting to the content of thought, but not very much effort on understanding the process of thought.  He was not talking about about the “microscopic” level but at the macroscopic level.  Bohm points out that thought requires our constant attention, if it is going to be kept from going astray in numerous ways. 

One significant way that thought most often goes astray, is its tendency towards fragmentation.  Bohm notes that thought naturally divides things up and that these divisions take on great importance.  More often than not these divisions are for the sake of convenience and others times they are completely arbitrary and not necessarily useful.  In Bohm's view the world is most accurately described as “shades merging into one”.  But for Bohm the real problem in thought is not just the artificial distinctions generated by thought, but the fact that thought divides the world without us really noticing it.  We think our thought is simply telling us the way things are, but in reality it is filtering reality.  It limits and defines our experience making it difficult for see the whole as anything but an abstraction.

According to Bohm a primary reason we have so much difficulty with thought is that it lacks proprioception.  Proprioception is the sense of the relative position and connection between body parts and the strength of effort needed to move them. Bohm tells the brief story of women that has a stroke in her sleep and awakes in the dark to what she perceives as a physical attack, but when the lights are turned on she is alone.  The stroke damaged the part of her brain responsible for proprioception while leaving her motor skills in place.  She did not or could not know in the dark that she was hitting herself. The results was the automatic assumption that something else was attacking her.  Because thought lacks this proprioception, this tacit understanding that we are generating thought -- just like we wiggle our elbow -- our thoughts and feelings take on a greater importance then they should.  Our feelings can take on a sense of reality just like an object in the world. So for Bohm the purpose of paying attention to thought, is to give it a sense of proprioception --to understand that whatever you are thinking or feeling -- you are doing it.  For example, if you are angry or fearful, you can with practice suspend the process of becoming angry or fearful and become aware of the process itself. Once you understand that you are responsible for your thoughts, you can begin to change them.