Chapter Five

BOHM'S METAPHYSICS

The cosmology or metaphysics Bohm holds lies under his ideas. It promotes his various excursions into physical theory. One way to describe it involves isolating his core ideas, of which there are at least three. First, there is an endless depth to reality. Second, the pieces that make up the world connect with each other. Third, the whole and any piece of reality is constantly in process, in activity, or movement. Two further ideas, which have their roots in the above three, also underlie his writings. They are perhaps more well-known than the others. He thinks the movement reality engages in at its most basic levels is creating it anew all the time. The fifth idea is that the world divides into levels arranged in systems of hierarchies.<235>

These five ideas and their possible origin and motivation from within Bohm, including from his own religious beliefs, are the subject of this chapter. Another topic will be the process philosophy of Rupert Sheldrake. I want to ask if there are similarities or differences between it and the holomovement ideas of Bohm. Finally, I will turn to the parallels drawn between mysticism and physics. Ways in which physicists' religious or mystical beliefs influence their physics are, I believe, of considerable importance.

The previous paragraphs may imply Bohm's metaphysics underlies his physics. To suppose Bohm's physical ideas arise from his metaphysics is only one approach. Another is to develop the ideas in the physics into a general world-view or metaphysics. The point is there is a connection between his metaphysics and physics. Their development is probably not a case of one preceding the other; rather, they emerge together.<236>

BOHM'S METAPHYSICAL BASE

Five Metaphysical Ideas

That reality has an endless depth is one of the core ideas in Bohm's metaphysics. What we know of reality does not exhaust it. Our scientific knowledge, based as it is on our concepts, may grasp reality's significance to a marked extent. However, its properties and qualities will always be beyond us. We cannot imagine or sense by intuition how far reality lies beyond our knowledge. Bohm writes that every object and process has infinitely many sides to it. The laws and the ideas used by science at any time only partly express the objects or processes supposedly covered.<237>

On the other hand, reality must have some stability. Otherwise, Bohm suggests, there could not even be such approximate descriptions as scientific theories. Reality must have some stability for the predictions of a theory to be right at least some of the time.

The endless depth of reality leads to several interesting ideas. One concerns the limitation of scientific theories and experimental errors. That nature has an endless depth and human concepts are the root of scientific theories mean a theory applies only where its assumptions are adequate. Each is the result of one particular set of limited insights. It is like a light shining on aspects of reality, penetrating to an extent into the open and unknown. In addition, it is possible experimental errors have real counterparts. This is because the excluded properties will also influence the behavior of the subject of the theory. The errors in the theory's predictions may be due to the elements of reality that the theory ignores.<238>

A theory is a limited insight.<239> Thus, different insights should continually develop. There should not be a steady approach toward some fixed knowledge that is what the world supposedly really is. Bohm interprets the history of science in terms of the unending creation of new forms of insight. Each form is in harmony with the real world only to a certain extent. This idea also means looking at the unclear features of a theory may not lead to clearing them up. They may not have a resolution; they may point toward new forms of insight.<240>

That the parts of reality relate to each other is another of Bohm's core ideas. He emphasizes its wholeness. Every segment selected from it connects with any other segment. The isolating of pieces from it is a mental idea which to various extents distorts its true character. One of the results of this is that Bohm deplores a rigid separation between disciplines.<241>

This emphasis on connections often appears in Bohm's physics. A thorough mechanistic approach emphasizes an objectivity of uninvolved and distant physicists. Bohm opposes this to a more person-involving subjectivity found by emphasizing relations. He thinks the former is inadequate. It can become an authoritarian faith. Rather, there needs to be an openness between the two approaches. He seeks a close relationship between the subjective and objective. Neither can stand alone; they are two partial views of the one reality.<242>

Bohm often raises his idea of connections or its opposite, fragmentation. In an article entitled "Fragmentation in Science and Society," he writes that science and technology have flaws. They have damaging results for society. This is because they reflect an important problem in society itself: fragmentation. No human act, no element of life or of environment, is an island - any more than is an individual person. People deal with these fragments as being separate. They do not think how the fragments act with each other within wholes. Bohm continues by opposing fragmentation to wholeness with its dynamic character moving in cycles. He directs us to think in wholes.<243>

The third core idea is that of movement. The whole and any piece of reality are constantly in process, in movement, in activity. "Rocks, trees, people, electrons, atoms, planets, galaxies, are...the centers or foci of vast processes, extending ultimately over the whole universe."<244> Each piece of reality is constantly changing. Each center or focus of change refers to some aspect of the total or overall process of the universe.

There are connections among the three metaphysical ideas mentioned above. For instance, the latter two support the first by suggesting two ways in which reality has a depth. Its isolated segments relate with each other and are always moving. Any freeze is artificial.

Two further ideas, which have their roots in the above three, also exist in Bohm's writings. The first is that the movement of reality is creative. Reality is always transforming itself. "There are no basic objects, entities, or substances, but...all that is [observable] comes into existence...remains relatively stable for some time, and then passes out of existence."<245> Each piece of reality continuously forms, reforms, transforms, and ceases to be.

The second additional property, the fifth in all, is that reality divides into levels. In turn the levels are in systems of hierarchies. This is one way to represent the qualitative infinity of nature, its endless depth.<246>

The kinetic theory of gases provides an example of the fifth property. It explains and describes three levels of different objects with three different sets of laws. First, the microscopic and sub-microscopic particles have a random behavior. This is the lowest level. Second, volumes of such particles obey laws of probability for their average behavior. Lastly, the kinetic theory describes the level of our everyday experience using classical mechanics. This is the highest level.

Feyerabend suggests a general form of the kinetic theory. The world contains infinitely many levels. A set of laws based perhaps on probabilities, direct causes, or both, characterizes each level. The validity of a set of laws does not have to go beyond the level to which it belongs. On leaving a particular level, different processes appear which may require new laws to describe them.<247>

These five metaphysical principles of Bohm have appeared many times as his ideas have emerged.<248> They will continue to appear as well. They also closely parallel the ideas in an organismic philosophy as outlined in the Preface above. The reasons for Bohm's adopting such a metaphysics lie, as he publicly states them, in two places. One is the quantum theory itself. The other is the need to carry its point-of-view thoroughly into physics. I suspect, however, that his motivations are wider than this.<249>

Bohm's Religious Base

Bohm's metaphysical base is incomplete as outlined so far. The above ideas lead to his holographic image of reality, but still may be more in his mind. In describing what these additional ideas are, we come to Bohm's religious ideas. They are religious in that they resemble ideas from several religions.

Bohm grew up in a Jewish household. Eastern mysticism has also influenced him. The Indian philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti, in whom Bohm first became interested in 1959, has had a special role. Bohm has always had a sense of wholeness. He has also had a drive to break free from conventional ideas, many of which he finds distorting and inappropriate. He writes: "it is far more dangerous to adhere to illusion than to face what the actual fact is." What is the point of life, he continues, if one lives in an invented world? There is none if there is no relationship to people, the world, or anything.<250> Krishnamurti's belief that breaking the world into the observed and the observer is artificial matched Bohm's view on the essence of quantum theory. This gave him a more general philosophical outlook in which to place his views on physics.<251>

I shall in this section first look briefly at Bohm's understanding of consciousness. Then I will move to the central part of his religious belief system, the existence of a spiritual beyond. This puts his metaphysical and religious ideas into a broader perspective. I ask about the influence of the spiritual beyond on us and on how we might approach it.<252>

To develop Bohm's religious ideas we need to recall his holomovement theory. The holomovement underlies the world we perceive. It is an implicate order in the sense that it contains all of reality, past, present and future. The implicate order implicates or contains reality folded within it. It unfolds into the explicate order, the world of our perceptions. This unfolding is continuous. Thus nothing is static, but at any time is a fresh unfolding of the holomovement.

The first element of Bohm's religious ideas is consciousness, all of the mental or psychic life.

It is in the implicate order; it is a material process. Bohm writes that both mind and matter have their origin in the implicate order of the holomovement. This makes them much the same. Consciousness, Bohm adds, is a more subtle aspect of the holomovement than is matter.<253>

He believes the consciousness folded into the implicate order is indivisible. The consciousness of humanity is one. Each person displays an unfolding of this consciousness of humanity.<254> A thought or idea that comes into a person's mind comes up from the deep recesses of the holomovement. It unfolds from what Bohm calls mind, a depth of the holomovement which we cannot specify.<255>

Bohm further suggests that the holomovement is the life energy. Living organisms are particular unfoldings of what the inner depths of the holomovement contain. They are in contact with what the holomovement has folded into it more directly than is inanimate matter.<256> On an organism's death, it sinks into the implicate order in which there is no time.<257>

Bohm believes, however, there is something wrong with consciousness. Its problem infects our approach to the world in which we live, and even the world itself. It shows in what Bohm calls fragmentation and chaos. The origin of the chaos around us lies in our fragmented thought, the source of the human self-deception. The cause for this in turn comes from consciousness, the common human consciousness folded into the holomovement. Bohm calls this corruption of the holomovement the "sorrow of [humankind]."<258>

The holomovement contains positive factors as well, such as what can cause orderly thought processes. For instance, the idea of the implicate order can help remove logical barriers hindering wholeness and order. It is when thought provides its own motivation, when it follows its own inclinations, that it is disorderly. It is then of the explicate order whose fruit is fragmentation and chaos.<259>

There is something more central to Bohm's religious ideas than consciousness and fragmentation. It is his awareness of a beyond. Beyond the explicate and the implicate, beyond the holomovement, there is something about which we can say nothing except that it is. We cannot in any way approach, measure, or know it. It eludes the grasp of thought, but is the source for all. For Bohm, the beyond is the domain of the sacred, the spirit, the holy, God. Compassion, intelligence, love, insight, he believes, come from this beyond.

Such a vision has implications, Bohm believes, for understanding the implicate and explicate orders. It means, for instance, that an idea such as the holomovement is itself of the holomovement. The same restriction holds for the ideas of the implicate and explicate orders. Consciousness is a feature of the holomovement and its content refers to it. The holomovement is all there can be in the universe of discourse, and our words and thinking will never move beyond it. Neither can our human world move beyond the holomovement, Bohm believes, because our ideas entirely shape our reality.

As such, these ideas can never grasp reality in all its aspects. Thought, therefore, needs disciplining so it does not think it has captured everything. It should not try to grasp questions that are beyond it.

Usual ideas are not good at dealing with reality, Bohm believes. Ideas like the holomovement may be better. This is partly because the holomovement concept contains within itself the idea of its own limitations. It says something transcends it.

There is more than this limitation. Insight from the beyond can pierce through and change brain matter. Removing the mind's fragmenting blockages, insight leaves it open to perceive reality differently. Insight produces different sorts of reasons from those that normally operate as instruments of intelligence.<260>

For Bohm, insight is the supreme intelligence.<261> To move toward relieving the chaos of fragmentation in our world requires insight to reorder people's minds. In particular, several close insight-full people need to set up a single mind from their collective individual minds.<262>

To perceive what is beyond the implicate and explicate orders and therefore beyond thought, Bohm believes, thought must go. Thinking is also of these orders. Consciousness can become a vehicle for the whole, for the holomovement and its beyond, if it empties itself of all ripples of its content. Thought cannot be there. To do this is the first step of religion; it is the aim of meditation. Meditation transforms our minds and moves them beyond the implicate order. According to Bohm, consciousness can break free of its constraints by leaving thought behind to become something altogether different and new.<263>

Movement in the Universe

I want now to pursue Bohm's metaphysical and religious beliefs in a particular direction. There are several movements through time in Bohm's universe. These movements help further develop the holomovement metaphysics into the field of cosmology.

Tucked away in their reflections on their metaphysics and physics, Bohm and Hiley hide a key. Nonlocality came first in the evolution of the universe. In the early stages after the big bang, nonlocality locked together all the particles in the universe. When it began to expand, the particles collided and caused locality. Locality and separation go hand in hand.<264>

In the explicate universe there is a movement over time. It goes from nonlocality to locality, associated with the expansion of the universe. Although related, this movement is different from the continual folding and unfolding of the explicate order into and out from the implicate. The move from nonlocality to locality has now gone so far that in the macro world there is little nonlocality. Almost everything relates in a local or classical manner. Exceptions are at the quantum level.<265>

Why should nonlocality produce locality? Hiley shows how it results from collisions between particles. Thus, it comes about from the laws of physics applied to an expanding big bang universe. Another requirement is that the movement of the universe is irreversible; the universe is going in one direction and cannot retreat to where it was earlier.<266>

The rise of locality, therefore, does not need a mystical or philosophical explanation. It is unnecessary, for instance, to invoke Bohm's idea of fragmentation as the source of locality. Embedded in the implicate order, fragmentation could unfold into the explicate to cause separation and locality.

There are two other movements in the universe besides that from nonlocality to locality.

The universe uses energy right from the initial moment of the big bang. In the language of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, entropy increases, it always increases. For instance, the appearance of locality from nonlocality produces entropy. Locality is at a lower energy level, in general, than is nonlocality because it is less organized. To start with, it does not have nonlocality.

Increasing entropy is the second movement of the universe through time. The universe is winding down and scattering its energy. The history of the universe is irreversible.

I have introduced the terms locality, nonlocality, implicate (holomovement), explicate, and entropy. They relate in various ways, some of which I discussed above. There are other terms yet to introduce, and further relations between them to examine. A picture is beginning to emerge of a pair of ideas: locality, separation and entropy are on one side, and nonlocality on the other.

The other terms balance the pairing on the nonlocality side. One of the pair of opposite arrows through time includes increasing entropy. Opposing it is increasing complexity, the increase in complexity-consciousness. The term evolution describes it. It says some parts of the world are building up rather than running down.

The work of Ilya Prigogine and Manfred Eigen is important in describing this evolutionary movement. The universe started with extremely high energy and the tendency to lose it. The universe was simple. It produced more complex objects such as suns and planets that store and spend energy but which run down. On the other hand, we see around us biological, social, even chemical and physical systems that increase in energy. Prigogine shows these systems are inevitable given physical laws. A system that uses energy, is unstable, and changes chaotically can settle at a stable point with a higher energy level. A system, that is, can become more complex. It does so, and thus satisfies the Second Law of Thermodynamics, at the expense of its environment. The environment takes on more entropy to make up for the system's energy growth and stability. So the net entropy of the system plus its environment increases.<267>

The evolution of complex systems such as Prigogine describes assumes the movement of the universe is irreversible, as described by the Second Law of Thermodynamics.<268> In this it is like the requirements Hiley lists for the development of locality from nonlocality.

The key characteristic of evolution, of the increase in complexity of a system, is internal connections. That the universe is becoming more complex means some of its parts are connecting more and more with each other. Different elements come together to form wholes or systems. Then systems come together to form supersystems. When they are in a system, the parts connect more than when they are not. Further, this is like the implicate order. Complex systems involve their parts not only in connections and movement (constant change) as in the holomovement. They also more subtly reflect these qualities in their self-regulation, life, self-maintenance, defense, and so on. Thus, the implicate holomovement makes its appearance in the explicate order.

A system is also more nonlocal than its parts. This is because the whole causes the elements to behave in special ways be they in clusters, all together, or individually. Relating over distances though not connected by immediate physical contact is a form of nonlocality. Whether it is instantaneous and of the quantum type, is a matter to explore. Thus nonlocality reemerges at the macro level, having succumbed to locality near the beginning of the universe.

There has been a development over the life of the universe in two directions. One is the increase in entropy and locality. This reflects the increase of separation between objects and the winding down of the universe. The other is evolution leading to increasing complexity and the gradual increase of internal connections. This reflects the advent and development of life and complex systems.

Several qualifications are in order. First, evolution or growing complexity may not be exactly the same as increasing nonlocality. The two movements are similar but not the same. The movement toward increasing complexity continually happens (as does the increase in entropy). It is of two types. The first is from initial unity and simplicity to more forms of matter. The second comes from Prigogine-type processes. The universe houses systems and organisms that become more numerous and complex over time. On the other hand, the increase in complexity does not parallel the increase in nonlocality. This applies especially in the first phases of the universe. In fact, nonlocality decreases once locality initially appears.

Similarly, increasing locality associated with increasing separation does not start right at the beginning of the big bang. This differs from entropy; the two are not the same.

There are two opposite and related movements of the universe. One is evolutionary toward complexity and an increasing number of connections among the parts of the universe (nonlocality). The other is toward locality and increased entropy.

I have outlined an evolutionary metaphysics and its underlying ideas of nonlocality and the holomovement. I believe it shows promise. It may provide a clear basis for developing an approach to the universe, life, and consciousness. In doing so, it speaks from and to the modern scientifically-based world. It may also speak from and to the world of traditional religions. To move in this direction merits further exploration. In particular, it has theological potential. In Chapter Seven I will focus on this, especially the relation of God to the holomovement.

THE PROCESS PHILOSOPHY OF SHELDRAKE

Above is an outline of Bohm's metaphysics, including its religious elements, and an extension of these ideas into cosmological movements. An immediate question concerns the relation between Bohm's physics and his metaphysics and religion. Process philosophy is a common and useful approach to this type of topic.<269>

The two underlying thoughts behind Bohm's holomovement idea bring process philosophy immediately to mind. The first is movement; in some places the Birkbeck writers use process as a synonym for reality's continuous change.<270> The other idea is that of the whole. Many process writers say an important property of reality is its unity. Reality is an organism. When we divide it into smaller parts we lose its full meaning. A further connection between Bohm's ideas and process philosophy has to do with nonlocality. A.N. Whitehead's process philosophy is a framework often used for understanding the nonlocality of the EPR experiment.<271>

Sheldrake is a contemporary biologist who has made use of process thinking in developing scientific theories. He is one of the few biologists who shun the mechanistic approach and opt for an organismic one. They often follow Whitehead's process philosophy.<272> Sheldrake is perhaps unique. He suggests that an organismic model can make different predictions from what mechanistic theories say. He has even tried to show his theory to be true. With this Sheldrake parallels Bohm. Bohm tried at first to show his hidden variables theories make different predictions than its accepted rivals. Like Bohm, he also raised the ire of the wider scientific community with his theory. The resistance is also parallel. While the organismic and mechanistic approaches do make different predictions, these differences are not conclusive in the mind of the establishment. It therefore prefers the existing theories.<273>

Sheldrake's theory is that when a behavior or form recurs often enough, something called a morphogenic field forms. (Morphe is the Greek meaning form and genesis, that is, coming-into-being.) The morphogenic field in turn instantaneously spreads out through time and space. It directs other members of the species in question toward the same form or behavior. The process it sets up to do this he calls morphic resonance.<274> Suppose, for instance, rats in a laboratory in London learn to cope with a particular maze. Then New York rats should solve the same maze more quickly.<275>

I will not judge Sheldrake's controversial theory. I want to use his ideas as a way of comparing Bohm's and the process approaches. There are similarities, but there also are points that are dissimilar.

John Briggs and David Peat tell of a series of meetings in which Sheldrake and Bohm explored connections between their theories. More similarities appear than emerged above. First, Sheldrake's morphogenic fields are aspects of Bohm's implicate order. The former spread over time and space, making members of a species follow particular behaviors. They are part of the all-encompassing and directing holomovement. A second similarity centers on the way in which Bohm's quantum potential guides particles nonlocally. It does this much the same as morphogenic fields guide atoms and cells to form structures that are similar to their previous forms. The quantum potential is, like the morphogenic field, a sort of memory wave.<276>

Another similarity lies in Bohm's idea of time. The present moment in Bohm's metaphysics is an unfolding into the explicate order of the whole. Thus, it reflects all of the past. It will also fold back into the whole and connect to all moments of time including the future. The present affects the future by folding back into the whole from which the future will unfold. This parallels Sheldrake's morphogenic fields. Present and past members of a species generate a morphic field which, via morphic resonance, directs future members of the species.<277>

Sheldrake and Bohm also discussed the origin of the first of a form. Only when the form's first example appears will its morphogenic field emerge to enable the creation of further examples. Since there is no morphogenetic field to help shape the prototype, what accounts for its origin? Sheldrake thinks there could be a creative principle or conscious agent that makes the first of a form. Bohm talks of "a flash of insight by the universe" in which it creates the original.

The Sheldrake and Bohm hypotheses both agree on another topic. There is a unity to human consciousness. The consciousness of each person forms its own field including memories and experiences. The morphogenic field that is the whole of consciousness gives the individual its general shape. In turn, the individual's consciousness changes the whole, thus affecting the consciousness of people in the future.

There are, however, differences between Sheldrake's and Bohm's theories. In the following quote, Sheldrake describes his underlying beliefs. It brings out the similarities and the differences between an organismic process philosophy such as Sheldrake's and the holomovement philosophy of Bohm.<278>

The organic or holistic philosophy...denies that everything in the universe can be explained from the bottom up,...in terms of the properties of atoms....Rather, it recognizes the existence of hierarchically organized systems that, at each level of complexity, possess properties that cannot be fully understood in terms of the properties exhibited by their parts in isolation from each other; at each level the whole is more than the sum of its parts. These wholes can be thought of as organisms, using this term in a deliberately wide sense to include not only animals and plants, organs, tissues and cells, but also crystals, molecules, atoms and subatomic particles.

The Birkbeck physicists and Sheldrake recognize the shortcomings of mechanistic explanations. Both aim at an image of holism and one of process or movement.

The differences come in how they try to achieve those aims: they use different models to reconstruct scientific explanations. The extent to which they shun mechanistic explanations also distinguishes them.

Sheldrake and other process thinkers take the image of an organism as central. Each thing, be it living or not, is for them an organism. From this comes the idea that each has a subjective pole. Each participates in mental or psychic activity. This compares with the Birkbeck School which takes a more basic route. For them, the unity and movement of the primary and underlying reality marks it out. They appear to have dug more deeply into their root ideas.

Other differences between process thinking and Bohm then arise. For instance, in the holomovement philosophy each object is an unfolding of the implicate order. Its existence through time is a series of related unfoldings. The process thought contained in the above quotation from Sheldrake says something else. In it, an object has an independent existence through time. This is as in the old Cartesian scheme. Unlike the Cartesian scheme, however, to understand the object fully requires looking at its relations with everything else.

This difference between Bohm and Sheldrake also arises in their sources of ideas. Sheldrake mentions that a starting point for Whitehead was the far-reaching changes in physics based on relativity theory and the idea of a field.<279> On the other hand, the Birkbeck physicists cannot accept the field idea in relativity. They feel it contradicts the wholeness in quantum theory.<280>

Further, Whitehead could not accept Einstein's relativity (especially his General Relativity). He created instead his own version based on principles upon which he later built his process philosophy. His relativity theory was for some years an alternative to Einstein's. Now it has fallen to factual investigation by predicting the wrong rate for the ebb and flow of earth tides. To the minds of most physicists, it fails.<281> More recently, Einstein's General Theory of Relativity passed an important further test for its validity. Most of its rivals failed.<282> This could mean process philosophy and contemporary physics are incompatible.

Shimony points out that the physical implications of Whitehead's philosophy only partially agree with quantum theory. Several of these differences are crucial.<283> On the other hand, others point out that a slightly changed philosophy of organism might fit with modern quantum physics. It could even preserve Whitehead's central ideas.<284>

The point is there are important differences between the process mathematics and ideas of Whitehead, and those upon which modern physics builds. This is true for relativity and for quantum theory, from which Bohm takes bases for his philosophy. In particular, there are important discrepancies between several root ideas of Whitehead - ideas used by Sheldrake - and Bohm. Process philosophy, therefore, may not be a suitable vehicle for trying to relate Bohm's physics and religion.

PHYSICS AND MYSTICISM

Sheldrake develops the religiously informed ideas of process philosophy into scientific theories open to testing. Thus, he is, like Bohm, actively pursuing a close connection between the disciplines. Perhaps he is using the metaphysical in the physical.

In their "Defense of Mystical Science," John Schumacher and Robert Anderson write of reconciling science and mysticism. They want to synthesize them to create "a new and fuller science."<285> There is interest at present in similarities between several central ideas of physics and those of Eastern mysticism. Schumacher and Anderson go further. There is also interest in developing a new science based on what some consider to be truths uncovered by Eastern mysticism.

A question arising from this interest is whether physicists can use or are using Eastern mystical ideas in their work. For instance, have Bohm's religious ideas helped shape his physics?

Earlier this century, the mysticism of various schools influenced several physicists. Arthur Stanley Eddington is one example. He was a Quaker and a Christian mystic who felt a close connection between the spiritual and the scientific fields of inquiry. The knowledge gained in each for him influenced the other.<286>

Capra stirred recent interest in the comparison of the two areas of thought with his book The Tao of Physics. His subtitle explains his work: an "exploration of the parallels between modern physics and Eastern mysticism." In it, he also appears to support a theory in particle physics called the bootstrap theory. Perhaps his reason is that it more nearly reflects Eastern mysticism than does its rival, the quark theory.<287>

The Bootstrap Theory and Capra

Capra's book has a simple aim. It examines modern physics and its theories. It examines and summarizes Eastern religions and their mystical traditions. Then it draws parallels between the physics and the mysticism.<288> Capra ties them together with two main themes: the unity of and connections between everything, and the dynamic nature of the universe.<289>

The main force of Capra's book for some reviewers is that developments in modern physics require a new view of reality. The universe is a dynamic whole whose parts interact with each other. This replaces the Newtonian view which reduces the world to very small physical parts. According to Robert Gussner, modern physics can help remove "any materialism or mechanism infecting one's thinking. It tries to exorcise these from the culture at large."<290> Perhaps Eastern mysticism may provide a world-view more compatible with modern physics than can its competitors. Perhaps it may also help in solving certain standard puzzles in quantum theory.<291>

Carl Haskins is enthusiastic over what he thinks are similar reactions to the environment. Eastern mysticism and physics are facing the same problems. They are both trying to grasp the nature and meaning of the universe. On the other hand, they are doing so in two different cultural modes which have evolved separately over many centuries.<292>

Several criticisms of Capra's book center on his presentation of mysticism. He stresses its similarities with Western physics and does not pay enough attention to where it is dissimilar. He overlooks the difference between the Eastern orientation toward the inner subject and the outer-oriented materialistic attitude of physics.<293> Capra has also ignored or misrepresented the Christian mystical and theological traditions.<294> Further, some critics do not see Capra's parallels between Eastern mysticism and modern physics. They feel the two do not represent similar views on the world.<295> One wonders if there are parallels between Eastern mysticism and the physics of a hundred years ago or of a hundred years hence. Ancient mystical world-views are far more permanent.<296>

Thus, there are strongly negative and strongly positive reactions to Capra's work. There is one aspect of Capra's work most critics appear to have overlooked. He is intending something more than pointing out the parallels: Eastern mysticism may help in solving certain puzzles in quantum theory. In particular, Capra wants the bootstrap theory to be more than an example of a parallel. He wants to set it up as a physical theory.

Capra suggests the bootstrap theory is a vision, a metaphysics. It sees the universe as a dynamic web of related events with no basic parts or properties, be they laws, equations or principles. Any property of a part of the universe follows from the properties of all the other parts. So bootstrappers understand a particle in relation to all other particles and their interactions. The particles' interactions are basic. The harmony of all the relations between the parts determines the structure of the entire web.

Using a few general ideas such as this, bootstrappers hope to understand the nature of subatomic matter and all particulars of the universe.<297> They thereby hope to explain the universe's properties by its properties. "Each particle helps to generate other particles which in turn generate it." In so doing they have the universe pulling itself up by its own bootstraps.<298> Such a program is not just a metaphysics; for bootstrappers it is a serious physical theory.

Perhaps Capra puts forward the bootstrap ideas because they are close to what he sees Eastern mysticism to be. The latter is, after all, an experience of considerable meaning and importance to him. I say this because Capra's way of presenting the theory suggests physics does accept it. This is not true; it is a theory now out of vogue and full of difficulties.<299> The quark competitor - which says there exists a most elementary part to matter that explains the others - appears much more successful and acceptable. Even Capra admits there are considerable problems in setting up and confirming the bootstrap theory.<300>

Capra appears to prefer the bootstrap theory because it is similar to the ideas of Eastern mysticism. To say this is not to devalue the theory's potential usefulness or truthfulness as a theory for physics. It is to suggest that part of Capra's drive for suggesting and upholding it lies in his belief in its truthfulness. Some of the energy Capra has for trying to show it is more adequate and truthful than its competitors may come from his personal religious or mystical experience. He supports and develops a physical theory because it is the similar to his religious belief. In this way, Capra's religion is influencing his science.

Capra says he is not proposing a synthesis of science and mysticism. They are separate; one does not contain the other, he believes. Physics and mysticism are complementary, each providing a type of understanding, a mode of knowing, that the other cannot be.<301> He cannot mean this. His proposing and using the bootstrap theory contradicts the separation.

Bohm's Religion and Physics

Bohm's physics is an example of one of the parallels Capra sees between Eastern mysticism and modern physics. Bohm is trying to build a new base for physics based on the idea of the world being an undivided whole. This is, of course, developing the holistic and organismic vision of the universe. It may also be creating a more general metaphysical framework within which to place Capra's bootstrap world-view.<302>

Like Capra, Bohm may be trying to use religion in physics by his rebuilding of physics. Bohm does not draw a parallel between the two fields as does Capra. Further, he has a guarded view of the relations between Western and Eastern thought. It may, however, still be correct to suggest as does Sal Restivo that his physics is spiritual or mystical.<303>

There are several reasons I think Bohm is using religion in physics. First, he is trying to create not only a physics, but an entire world-view beyond physics. I suggest it, second, because of Bohm's own religious interests. The third reason centers on his efforts to show from physics the need for his particular type of undivided wholeness. As I said in Chapter Three, they do not convince me. I thought Bohm's motivation may come from another source as well, such as a religious one.

The point is that Bohm's idea of undivided wholeness has its roots in religion or mysticism. It may or may not be useful in physics. Bohm proposes it as a physical theory, but it is still subject to the testing ground of physics. There is as well a second contribution religion can make. It can strengthen a believer's dedication, enthusiasm and tenacity to try to have her or his ideas accepted as physical theory. It does this despite the opposition and difficulties involved.

John Boslough refers to Bohm as saying that understanding Eastern mysticism can help physicists. It can briefly free their minds from the prison of dividing experience into separate compartments. Boslough also mentions others as hoping to find insights into the objective world through Eastern mysticism. Stephen Hawking opposes this. He thinks it "is absolute rubbish....The universe of Eastern mysticism is an illusion....A physicist who [tries] to link it with his [or her] own work has abandoned physics."<304> I am not trying to make such a link. If there is a similarity, it is either a coincidence or has social or psychological reasons. I am only considering religion as possibly providing for physicists potential ideas and motivations.

The physics of Bohm and Capra show religion can try to add to the knowledge of the hardest of the sciences, namely physics.<305> Many religions, including Christianity, have much to say about the nature and direction of the physical world. They should not be afraid of bringing these ideas, in appropriate forms, to the sciences. As hypotheses they are still, of course, in need of factual support.<306>