Quantum Implications

Essays in Honour of David Bohm

Edited By Basil Hiley, F. David Peat

David Bohm is one of the foremost scientific thinkers of today and one of the most distinguished scientists of
his generation. His challenge to the conventional understanding of quantum theory has led scientists to
reexamine what it is they are going and his ideas have been an inspiration across a wide range of
disciplines. Quantum Implications is a collection of original contributions by many of the world’s leading
scholars and is dedicated to David Bohm, his work and the issues raised by his ideas.
The contributors range across physics, philosophy, biology, art, psychology, and include some of the most
distinguished scientists of the day. There is an excellent introduction by the editors, putting Bohm's work in
context and setting right some of the misconceptions that have persisted about the work of David Bohm

Chapter 1: General introduction: The development of David Bohm's ideas from the plasma to the
implicate order: B. J. Hiley and F. David Peat
David Bohm was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, in 1917. His father ran a successful furniture business,
making his way to the USA from what was then Austria-Hungary. There appears to be no physics whatsoever
in the family background. Bohm, himself, became interested in science at an early age, being urged on by a
fascination of finding out how things worked. By the age of eight he had already been introduced to science
fiction. This fired his imagination and generated in him a deep interest in real science. But it was the nature of
the real world that fascinated him most. He recalls the profound effect that a book on astronomy had on him
in those formative years. He was struck by the vast order and regularity of the universe. This impressed him
so much that he began to devote a great deal of time to science.

Chapter 2: Hidden variables and the implicate order: David Bohm

I have been asked to explain how my ideas of hidden variables tie up with those on the implicate order, and to
bring out in some detail how both these two notions are related. In doing this, it would perhaps be best to begin
with an account of how I came to these ideas in the first place.

Chapter 3: Collective variables in elementary quantum mechanics: Eugene P.Gross

In the present article I discuss some features of the use of collective coordinates in two systems with a small
number of degrees of freedom. In both cases the utility of collective coordinates is connected with the validity
of an adiabatic approximation. The two examples are pedagogical in nature, but are perhaps appropriate in a
volume honoring David Bohm, who has made major contributions to the theory of collective coordinates. First,
however, I present some personal reminiscences of the days when I was a student of David Bohm.
Chapter 4: The collective description of particle interactions: from plasmas to the helium liquids: David
Pines
A plasma, for the physicist, is not a jelly-like substance. It is a gas containing a very high density of electrons
and ions. The name 'plasma' for such a gas was coined by the late Irving Langmuir in the course of his
theoretical and experimental investigations of gas discharges at General Electric Research Laboratories during
the 1920s. In a gaseous discharge, such as one finds in a fluorescent light, only a minute fraction of the atoms
present are ionized, that is disassociated into positive ions and electrons; none the less a study of the motion
of the ions and electrons shows that many new and interesting phenomena can take place. In most highly-
ionized gases, such as one finds in the ionosphere (the layer of free ions and electrons present toward the top
of our atmosphere), the motion of the electrons and ions is, in fact, organized to a remarkable extent. The
organization takes two forms, neither of which is characteristic of ordinary dilute gases made up of neutral
atoms. First, a given particle, ion or electron, does not move independently of its neighbors. Rather, such a
particle is always accompanied by a cloud of other particles, which move along with it in such a way as to
screen out the electric field produced by its charge. Second, the electrons carry out long-wavelength, high-
frequency oscillations, which involve the coherent motion of many thousands of particles. Langmuir's studies
of the possibilities for organized behavior in such a system led him to believe that here was a new state of
matter - neither solid, liquid or gas. He called it plasma.

Chapter 5: Reflections on the quantum measurement paradox: A. J. Leggett

Consideration of the classic measurement paradox of quantum mechanics raises the question: What is the
relationship between acceptable theories of the physical world at different levels? It is suggested that it is
similar to the relationship between maps of different types and that, while theories at different levels need not
be derivable from one another, they must at least be mutually consistent in their predictions. The relationship
between quantum mechanics, in its standard interpretation, and classical physics fails this test. Existing
attempts to resolve the measurement paradox are briefly reviewed, and it is suggested that one avenue has been
insufficiently explored; namely, the possibility that the complexity of a physical system may itself be a relevant
variable which may introduce new physical principles. Possible reasons for this lacuna are discussed, and it is
pointed out that some of the relevant questions are now within the reach of an experimental test.

Chapter 6: Quantum physics and conscious thought: Roger Penrose

There can be few physicists who have delved as deeply into the philosophical implications of their subject as
has David Bohm. It is therefore with some trepidation that I am paying my respects to him on the occasion of
his retirement with an attempt of my own to relate questions of philosophy to those of the foundations of
physics. The viewpoint that I am putting forward here attempts to relate questions that have been two of Bohm's
major interests over the years; namely, a possible breakdown of quantum mechanics on a macroscopic scale
and the physical basis of conscious thought. It must be evident to the reader that in both these topics I am
venturing into dangerously speculative territory. Moreover others more expert that I (such as Wigner 1, as well
as Bohm 2 himself) have put forward strongly-reasoned views which relate these topics. Yet I do feel that my
own viewpoint is both well worth describing and sufficiently different from these others that the reader may
find something of value here. But my account must necessarily be somewhat truncated, for reasons of space
and of time. It is my intention to expand these thoughts at much greater length elsewhere.
Chapter 7: Macroscopic quantum objects: T. D.Clark
I first met David Bohm in the early spring of 1976. At the time I had the idea that, given suitable experimental
conditions, certain kinds of superconducting circuits should display manifestly quantum mechanical behaviour
over macroscopic length scales. I hoped that such circuits would provide a new experimental vehicle for
investigating quantum mechanics. David Bohm was, and is, one of the great authorities on the foundations of
quantum mechanics so it seemed natural that I should seek his advice. I found him very approachable and he
listened with great patience to my attempts to explain my still rather rudimentary physical views of these
circuits. His encouragement then was a great morale booster for our group at Sussex. Eventually we were able
to justify that encouragement. We now have superconducting circuits roughly a centimetre across which
behave as single quantum objects. I would like to think that in due course these circuits will be of use in testing
some of David Bahm's remarkable ideas concerning the nature of quantum mechanics.

Chapter 8: Meaning and being in contemporary physics: Bernard d'Espagnat

Anybody who intends to ponder on the foundations of contemporary physics and who feels a need for a starting
point should read in parallel two remarkable recent articles by Wheeler 1 and Bell 2. No experience can show
more clearly than this the fact that the foundation problem does not simply merge into what we normally call
physics. For, in this latter field, we never get the impression that two mutually incompatible standpoints are
both valid, whereas this is just the queer feeling that can easily emerge from the experience in question. Indeed,
although the contents of these two articles are mutually exclusive, the articles themselves are so persuasive
that we must think hard before we find an acceptable way not to take up unreservedly - at the same time - the
views expressed by both of them.

Chapter 9: Causal particle trajectories and the interpretation of quantum mechanics: J.-P. Vigier, C.
Dewdney, P. R. Holland and A. Kyprianidis
In relation to this debate perhaps the greatest significance and contribution of Bohm's causal interpretation of
quantum mechanics 3 is that it not only exposes the arbitrary philosophical assumptions underlying the claims
of the Copenhagen interpretation but also brings into relief the essentially new content of quantum mechanics,
which is reflected in different ways in Bohr's interpretation. Indeed the claim that the quantum formalism itself
requires us not only to abandon the quest for explanation of quantum phenomena but also the concepts of
causality, continuity and the objective reality of individual micro-objects, is shown to be false. However the
existence of the single counter-interpretation proposed by Bohm constitutes sufficient grounds for rejecting
the absolute and final necessity of complementary description and indeterminacy, along with the inherent
unanalysable and closed nature of quantum phenomena.

Chapter 10: Irreversibility, stochasticity and non-locality in classical dynamics: Ilya Prigogine and Yves
Elskens
It is a privilege to contribute to this volume honouring David Bohm. There is no need to enumerate his basic
contributions to modern theoretical physics; these are well known to the scientific community. What IS
however unique about David Bohm is his deep involvement in epistemological problems. In this perspective,
there is probably no single concept more fundamental than time in its connection with cosmology. As Karl
Popper beautifully writes 1: 'There is at least one philosophic problem in which all thinking men are interested.
It is the problem of cosmology: the problem of understanding the world - including ourselves, and our
knowledge, as part of the world.'
Chapter 11: The issue of retrodiction in Bohm's theory: Y. Aharonov and D. Albert
Bohm's pathbreaking hidden variable theory of 1952 1 is often accused of artificiality and inelegance, and
doubtless it is guilty of both. But to make such accusations, and to leave it at that, is to entirely miss the point.
What Bohm was after in his theory was not elegance and not naturalness; Bohm's intentions were simply to
produce a theory which, whatever its other characteristics, had logically clear foundations. It is for that clarity
which Bohm's theory is highly and rightly praised.

Chapter 12: Beables for quantum field theory: J.S.Bell

Professional theoretical physicists ought to be able to do better. Bohm has shown us a way.
It will be seen that all the essential results of ordinary quantum field theory are recovered. But it will be seen
also that the very sharpness of the reformulation brings into focus some awkward questions. The construction
of the scheme is not at all unique. And Lorentz invariance plays a strange, perhaps incredible, role.

Chapter 13: Negative probability: Richard P. Feynman

Some twenty years ago one problem we theoretical physicists had was that if we combined the principles of
quantum mechanics and those of relativity plus certain tacit assumptions, we seemed only able to produce
theories (the quantum field theories) which gave infinity for the answer to certain questions. These infinities
are kept in abeyance (and now possibly eliminated altogether) by the awkward process of renormalization. In
an attempt to understand all this better, and perhaps to make a theory which would give only finite answers
from the start, I looked into the 'tacit assumptions' to see if they could be altered.

Chapter 14: Gentle quantum events as the source of explicate order: G.F.Chew
Bohm 1 has introduced a notion of 'implicate order' to complement the classical Newtonian-Cartesian real-
world view of separable objects moving through a space-time continuum. In the present note this classical
view will be characterized as 'explicate order.' Quantum-mechanical and relativistic considerations preclude a
satisfactory overall world picture based on explicate order; at the same time explicate order is for many
purposes accurate and useful - being the underpinning of hard science. What is the source of such accuracy?
We propose in this note that explicate order together with space-time is an approximation emerging from
complex but coherent collections of 'gentle' quantum events - the emission and absorption of soft photons.

Chapter 15: Light as foundation of being: Henry P. Stapp

According to Niels Bohr quantum theory must be interpreted, not as a description of nature itself, but merely
as a tool for making predictions about observations appearing under conditions described by classical physics:
Strictly speaking, the mathematical formalism of quantum theory ... merely offers rules of calculation for the
deduction of expectations about observations obtained under well-defined conditions specified by classical
physical concepts. 1
There can be no question of any unambiguous interpretation of the symbols of quantum mechanics other than
that embodied by the well-known rules which allow to predict the results to be obtained by a given
experimental arrangement described in a totally classical way. 2
This necessity of discriminating in each experimental arrangement between those parts of the physical system
considered which are treated as measuring instruments and those which constitute the object under
investigation may indeed be said to form a principal distinction bet»"een classical and quantum description
ofphysical phenomena. 2
Indispensable use of classical concepts ... even though classical physical theories do not suffice. 2
This indispensable use of the invalidated classical concepts is a troublesome point. So is the intrusion into the
theory of the scientist himself; the scientist must make a somewhat arbitrary division of a single unified
physical system into two separate parts, and describe them according to mutually incompatible physical
theories.

Chapter 16: The automorphism group of C4: C. W. Kilmister

One of the most pressing mathematical problems thrown up by the highly original work of David Bohm 1 is
to construct numerous detailed examples that will help in the understanding of the important concepts of
implicate and explicate order. Recently Bohm and Hiley2 have themselves stressed the important role played
by the Clifford algebras Cn here, since the automorphisms of the (even) Clifford algebras C2r are all inner and
'any theory based on an algebra can always be put in an implicate order by an inner automorphism of the
algebra'3. To make the notation precise, I am using Cn for the algebra generated by n anticommuting elements,
which I usually denote by Ei(i = 1 ... n), but in the case of quaternions, C2 , I use e 1, e2 , and set e3 = e 1e2 •
Thus Cn has a basis of2n elements, including the unit, which I call 1. Unless explicitly stated otherwise, the
algebra is over the field of reals, R.

Chapter 17: Some spinor implications unfolded: F. A. M. Frescura and B. J. Hiley

The question of spin is particularly puzzling since it arises most naturally in the Clifford algebra, a geometric
algebra constructed from space-time itself. Yet spin is most easily handled through the spin bundle which, of
course, treats spin as an internal variable, independent of the local space-time structure itself. Although we do
not deny the fruitfulness of this approach, we feel that it is worth investigating another which arises essentially
from an algebraic study of spin.

Chapter 18: All is flux: David Finkelstein

The description David Bohm gives of physics in the appendix to his Relativity makes physics nearly
coextensive with humanity. For him, science is a mode of perception before it is a mode of obtaining
knowledge of the laws of nature.

Chapter 19: Anholonomic deformations in the ether: a significance for the electrodynamic potentials:
P. R. Holland and C. Philippidis
It is now generally accepted that the Aharonov-Bohm (AB) effect 1 demonstrates that in quantum mechanics
the electromagnetic potentials All playa much more significant role than the one they occupy in classical
physics. Wu and Yang 2 have emphasized this by pointing out that while the field strengths Fill' underdescribe
electrodynamic processes (quantum mechanical), the phase factors exp (ieSAlldxll ) give a more complete
description.

Chapter 20: Can biology accommodate laws beyond physics? H. Fröhlich

We assume that the laws of physics are never broken in biology. Basic statements beyond physics can,
therefore, be made only in situations in which physics does not offer a definite answer. Such situations can
arise in systems that are far from thermal equilibrium, as is the case in active biological systems.

Chapter 21: Some epistemological issues in physics and biology: Robert Rosen
I am very pleased to have been invited to contribute to this Festschrift in honor of David Bohm. Although I
have never personally met or corresponded with Dr Bohm, his writings were well known to me since I was a
graduate student. Moreover, the epistemological struggles into which he has been drawn as a theoretical
physicist have their counterpart in epistemological struggles into which I have been drawn as a theoretical
biologist. I would like to address some of these latter in the considerations which follow, especially as they
bear on the material basis of biological processes.

Chapter 22: A science of qualities: B. C. Goodwin

One of the more curious aspects of the history of Western science is that the dominant scientific world-view
of the sixteenth century assumed a deep unity between nature and gnosis (knowledge), hidden but accessible
to imaginative thought and feeling; whereas what emerged in the seventeenth century was a science based
upon a profound division between mind and the nature it contemplates, so that an "ontological gulf exists
between consciousness and its object such that the real is, for the mind that relates to it cognitively, truly an
object, that which stands over against the thinking mind, appearing to it but not in it' 1. This dramatic change
of perception emerged from a fierce and fateful struggle for legitimacy and power between the members of
groups championing radically different programmes of development and reform in Europe at the end of the
sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century. Francis Yates identified the monk Mersenne as a key
figure in the demise of what he saw as a threatening, reforming and transforming Renaissance conception of
the cosmos:
'Mersenne attacks and discards the old Renaissance world; his Universal Harmony will have nothing to do
with Francesco Giorgi, of whom he strongly disapproves' 2. Giorgi, the Franciscan friar whose De harmonica
mundi of 1525 had incorporated the unifying themes of the thirteenth-century philosopher and mystic, Ramon
Lull, was one of the major figures in developing and articulating the tradition of Renaissance nature
philosophy. Within this tradition, 'all of reality was a single co-ordinated domain, every region of which was
intrinsically related to every other region, so that to know the region called nature entailed knowing the whole
sphere of Being within which nature was embedded' 1. Furthermore, this union of the knower and the known
had the consequence that a change in one resulted in a coordinated change in the other, mind and nature
therefore undergoing a co-operative transformation. But to achieve this knowledge and insight, the seeker had
to make a commitment to spiritual enlightenment so as to experience gnosis, knowledge that transforms both
self and other, mind and nature then simultaneously changing to states of greater harmony and unity. In
alchemy, this dual transformation was described as golden illumination for the mind (or soul) of the practitioner
of the art; while gold emerged in the crucible, nature undergoing simultaneous transmutation with spiritual
illumination. Neither could occur without the other.
Chapter 23: Complementarity and the union of opposites: M. H. F. Wilkins
The main tradition of thinking in the West has concentrated attention on distinct things of fixed nature which
are separable from each other. From this, basic science has grown. But there has been a less wellrecognised
philosophical tradition which has concentrated on the relations between things, and how these relations
produce changes in things and in their relations. Thus Heraclitus in ancient Greece and, at about the same time,
philosophers in China saw the essence of reality in change and renewal.
Opposition was the relation which produced change. Thus opposite principles such as yin and yang pervaded
everything, and change came about by opposed things forming a unity. As Pan Ku said in the first century AD
'Things that oppose each other also complement each other.' In the West these ideas were kept alive by thinkers
like Nicholas de Cusa (who saw God as the coincidence of opposites), Giordano Bruno, the mystic Jacob
Boehme, and also the alchemists who saw in chemical reactions the union of opposites giving rise to new
substances. These ideas were developed into a philosophical system by Hegel. He argued that if one thought
about opposed concepts, for example being and notbeing, one was led to think of their unity in the concept of
becoming. To define being one has to refer to not-being, and vice-versa; logically the two concepts are
interdependent, inseparable and, in many respects, the same. But to say that being and not-being are the same
is a contradiction. To avoid this, thought makes a leap and resolves the contradiction by thinking of the higher-
order concept of becoming, which contains and unites both being and not-being. This type of argument - thesis,
antithesis and then synthesis -- is reasonable enough, but Hegel went further. As an idealist, he saw ideas as
the primary reality which gave rise to all phenomena.
He therefore extended the idea of the unity of opposites from the world of thought to all aspects of the natural
world and of human life, especially history. Thinkers today are more doubtful about this extension, especially
to the natural world; and the fact that Hegel was obscure adds to the uncertainties. In any case, I shall make
use of a very simplified 1 view of Hegel.

Chapter 24: Category theory and family resemblances: Alan Ford

The particular aim of this paper is to draw attention to the epistemological importance of a well-established
but sadly neglected principle of semantics which finds its origin in the thinking of Ludwig Wittgenstein 1. The
principle, which I will henceforth refer to as the ~family resemblance principle' because of the example chosen
by Wittgenstein to illustrate its existence, can be stated as follows.

Chapter 25: The implicate brain: K. H. Pribram

The second impasse had to do with perception. Evidence was accumulating to show that the nerve cells of the
part of the cerebral cortex connected to the retina responded to a transform of the retinal image, a transform
which yielded what Fergus Campbell and John Robson of Cambridge University 1 called 'spatial frequency.'
Since the same transformation also occurred in the formation of the retinal image by the pupil and lens of the
eye, the question arose as to whether the 'spatial frequency' domain also characterized the physics of the visual
world which we perceive.
Chapter 26: Three holonomic approaches to the brain: Gordon G. Globus
The relation between technology and thought has been penetratingly discussed by Bolter 1. Technology shapes
thought. Pottery, for example, was a 'defining technology' for the Greek philosophers. The potter holds an ideal
image of the pot to be produced - the eidos - and molds the clay accordingly to produce an imperfect
approximation of the ideal. Plato's doctrine that ideal a priori forms are the true reality, which the manifest
things of the world but imperfectly realize, reflects this technology. The clock was a defining technology for
pre-twentieth century physics. Thus Laplace conceived of the entire universe as a mechanistic clockwork
following completely deterministic Newtonian laws. Descartes thought of animals and La Mettrie included
man as clock-like. The contemporary 'Turing's man,' as Bolter calls us, takes the computer as defining
technology and even conceives man in the image of the computer. Similarly, the technological achievement of
holographic image production, based on Gabor's Nobel-Prize-winning work in microscopy (reprinted in Stroke
2), has played the role of defining technology for late-twentieth century holistic thinkers.

Chapter 27: Wholeness and dreaming: Montague Ullman

It is a decade since my first encounter with David Bohm and his way of thinking about reality. My concern
then, as now, is with the nature of our dreaming experience. His views set up a certain resonance that subtly,
but insistently, helped me move to a new way of looking at dreams. I say new because it departs radically from
the views I held as someone brought up in the psychoanalytic tradition. To mention one such radical departure,
to which I will come back later, I no longer look upon dreaming primarily as an individual matter. Rather, I
see it as an adaptation concerned with the survival of the species and only secondarily with the individual. I
refer to this as the speciesconnectedness aspect of dreaming. In this presentation I will try to relate two aspects
of Bohm's thought to dreaming; namely, the notion of unbroken wholeness and his concept of the implicate
order.

Chapter 28: Vortices of thought in the implicate order and their release in meditation and dialogue:
David Shainberg
According to Bohm 1 there is an underlying order in the universe which he calls the 'implicate order.' The
universe is filled with energy and light and electromagnetic waves travel throughout the whole of it. These
waves are constantly crossing and interrelating with each other. As these waves each· encode information,
their interweaving creates contrasts and connections that generate further information. Matter is also energy,
encoded waves; it is the 'same' as the energy and it reflects it. All forms of matter-energy affect each other
through their participation in the whole. The implicate order is articulated in the movement of this energy
which unfolds and enfolds information. The explicate order is what we see as form. Thus the flowing unfolds
into the explicate order which expresses the implicate which has unfolded what was enfolded in it.

Chapter 29: Reflectaphors: the (implicate) universe as a work of art: John Briggs
A number of years ago I was quite surprised to discover an uncanny resemblance between an approach I was
pursuing into the underlying structure of works of art and David Bohm's visions into the underlying
construction of matter. The coincidence between these two ideas continues to surprise me, but Bohm himself
added an even stranger twist one afternoon some years later when I had the opportunity of interviewing him
for a radio show. The show focused on the possible relationships between the arts and science and, in the
course of the interview, Bohm offered that he didn't see why great works of art couldn't also have something
important to teach us about the laws of nature.
Chapter 30: Meaning as being in the implicate order philosophy of David Bohm: a conversation: Renée
Weber
Weber You are more and more interested in meaning, so can we explore what meaning is; not the definitive
essence of it, but why are you interested in it? Bohnl I am interested in meaning because it is the essential
feature of consciousness, because meaning is being as far as the mind is concerned. Weber is meaning being?
Bohm Yes. A change of meaning is a change of being. If we say consciousness is its content, therefore
consciousness is meaning. We could widen this to a more general kind of meaning that may be the essence of
all matter as meaning. Weber We understand the idea of meaning in the human world, but how can it apply to
the non-human world? Bohm There are several ways of looking at it. Let's take the notion of a cause. Now we
know that Aristotle had four notions of causation; of these, the material and the efficient cause are still
recognized by modern science. The other two, the formal and the final cause, are not. But if we could bring in
this notion of the formal and the final cause, we might say that the form that a thing has is its cause and also
its aim, its goal, its end. The two go together. If we think of the dynamics of the establishment of form, it
requires some sort of end in view, so the formal and final cause must go together. This is also the basic essence
of Rupert Sheldrake's idea of the formative cause [ed. in Sheldrake's A New Science of Life: The Hypothesis
of Formative Causation]. The formative cause is basically very similar to meaning. Meaning operates in a
human being as a formative cause: it provides an end toward which he is moving; it permeates his attention
and gives form to his activities so as to tend to realize that end.