E One of the most valuable ideas that eastern philosophy offers to the western tradition is the understanding that the whole of reality is made up of seemingly opposing complementarities, and so the whole of truth is best understood, not in monologue, but in dialogue.
David Bohm shows, as anyone who spends time in academia soon discovers, that dialogue between disciplines has broken down in our time.
“[I]n earlier times, [when] science was called natural philosophy…” says physicist David Bohm, in fact, since ancient times, “…there was such a general vision of the universe, humanity, and our place in the whole…Science, art and religion were never really separate.”(Science, Order and Creativity, p.10)
Physicist David Bohm writes of the breakdown in communication between Albert Einstein and Neils Bohr, and the consequent, not just for young physicists, but for all of science and for the world at large.
It was Oppenheimer who had introduced Bohm to the works of Neils Bohr, who said his quantum theory represented and “the oneness of the observer and the observed,” and “the undivided wholeness of the entire universe.”(p.4)
Bohr’s ‘principle of complementarity’, put forth in 1928, stated that, since the behavior of phenomena such as light and electrons is sometimes wave-like and sometimes particle-like, and since it is impossible to observe both the wave and the particle aspects simultaneously, a complete knowledge of phenomena – that is, the whole truth – requires both wave and particle properties. Therefore, knowledge of phenomenon (certainly at the sub-atomic scale, and arguably at every scale) is essentially incomplete until both aspects are known.
Complementarity introduced into the Western mode of thinking the concept that “seemingly irreconcilable points of view need not be contradictory” (Kothari, p.325 in *), and extended a “message of reconciliation” to the world. (Jones, p. 324 in *) Bohr saw this principle extending way beyond the scope of physics into an entire philosophy of life. And “In his last years Bohr tried to point out ways in which the idea of complementarity could throw light on many aspects of human life and thought. “(www.britannica.com/nobel/macro/5000-79.html)
He held it to be “reflective of the need for understanding mutually exclusive opposites as parts of a whole in every discipline” (Jones, 320-322) In 1947, he designed a coat of arms in the center of which was a yin-yang symbol.... The motto read ‘Contraria sunt complemnta’ or ‘Opposites are complementary’”(French and Kennedy 224)
In this principle of complementarity, Bohr expressed the ontological implications of quantum physics -- which “implies the impossibility of any sharp separation between the behavior of atomic objects and the interaction with the measuring instruments which serve to define the conditions under which the phenomena appear.” As a result, “evidence obtained under different experimental conditions cannot be comprehended within a single picture, but must be regarded as complementary in the sense that only the totality of the phenomena exhausts the possible information about the objects.”(Principle of Complementarity)
“What is needed,” he says, “is for each person to be able to hold several points of view, in a sort of active suspension, while treating the ideas of others with something of the care and attention that are given to his or her own… In this way it may be possible to hold a number of different approaches together in mind with almost equal energy and interest. In this way an internal free dialogue is begun which can lead on to a more open external dialogue” (p.87)
Indeed, a great deal of the world as we know it “came out of the intense discussions between Bohr and the steady stream of visitors to his world capital of atomic physics....” This discussion “brought virtually everyone concerned with quantum physics to Copenhagen at one time or another. Many of Bohr’s collaborators in those years have written lovingly about the extraordinary spirit of the institute, where young scientists from many countries worked together and played together in a lighthearted mood that concealed both their absolute serious concern with physics and the darkening world outside.”(www.britannica.com/nobel/macro/5000-79.html)
“Bohr himself was always ready to learn, even from his youngest collaboators. He drew strength from his close personal ties with his coworkers and with his sons, his wife, and his brother.” (www.britannica.com/nobel/macro/5000-79.html) And “In his last years Bohr tried to point out ways in which the idea of complementarity could throw light on many aspects of human life and thought. “(www.britannica.com/nobel/macro/5000-79.html)
Initially, Einstein had expressed ‘love’ for Bohr’s work, and the two had a long series of discussions. “Einstein and Bohr discussed the fundamental questions of physics on a number of occasions, sometimes brought together by a close mutual friend, Paul Ehrenfest, professor of theoretical physics a the University of Leiden, Neth., but they never came to basic agreement.” However, “In his account of these discussions, Bohr emphasized how important Einstein’s challenging objections had been to the evolution of his own ideas and what a deep and lasting impression they had made on him.” (www.britannica.com/nobel/macro/5000-79.html) But Bohr’s claim that quantum physics was just the “rational generalization of classical physics,” necessary for the understanding of atomic phenomena, was never accepted by Einstein, even though he had praised Bohr’s early work as “the highest form of musicality in the sphere of thought.”(www.britannica.com/nobel/macro/5000-79.html)
Despite Einstein’s outspoken dissention, this altered view of the meaning of ‘reality’ came to be widely accepted by the majority of physicists. “Because of its simplicity it preserved for several decades its full powers of persuasion.”(Werner Heisenberg, The Representation of Nature in Contemporary Physics)
And so, while the two began as good friends, “they eventually drifted apart after many years of fruitless argument” over whether this ambiguity implied that things were less than absolute.(p.85) But the abyss that separated Bohr and Einstein “had particularly serious consequences” for how the world would understand (or fail to understand) the potentially complementary principles of quantum theory and relativity, which remain unreconciled.
It “would be interesting to think about what would have happened if different pathways that were available at the time had been fully explored in the past.”(p.14) “While Bohr and Einstein are now dead, it is still not too late to engage in such a dialogue between…quantum and relativity theories…”(p.87)
“More generally, the opening up of a free and creative communication in all areas of science would constitute a tremendous extension of the scientific approach. Its consequences for humanity would, in the long run, be of incalculable benefit.”(p.87)
Heisenberg says of Newton, that “His position toward nature is most clearly circumscribed by his well-known statement that he felt like a child playing at the seashore, happy whenever he found a smoother pebble or a more beautiful sea shell than usual, while the great ocean of truth lay unexplored before him.” (Werner Heisenberg, The Representation of Nature in Contemporary Physics) “Nevertheless, it must be emphasized that for Newton the sea shell is significant only because it comes from the great ocean of truth. Observing it is not yet an end in itself; rather, its study receives meaning through its relation to the whole.”(Werner Heisenberg, The Representation of Nature in Contemporary Physics)
Instead, in modern times, “scientists [tend] to look down on philosophy as not being very serious.”(p.2) In physics especially, people didn’t even seem to want to talk about the ideas.”(p.5) “They seemed more interested in the formulae than the ideas behind them,” with the consequent that “physics gradually slipped into the practice of talking mostly about equations.”(p.6)
But this “current emphasis on mathematics has gone too far,” Bohm says.(p.7) Science is in danger of suffering damage to its vision. “By giving so much emphasis on mathematics, science seems to be losing sight of the wider context of its vision.”(p.10) This “tremendous emphasis on competition interfered with…free discussions,” and the “free exchange and the friendship that is necessary for such understanding.” (p.4)
What’s more, “this spirit is now spreading beyond science, not only into technology, but into our general approach to life as a whole. Understanding is now valued as a means to predict, control, and manipulate things.”(p.11) And this fragmentary way of thinking about reality “leads us to focus always on particular problems,” while we “fail to notice the unforeseen negative consequences” of the way we treat nature that “spread into the whole context and eventually come back to create problems that may be worse then those we started with.”(p.12) These days we know this phenomenon as ‘ecological backlash.’
The fact is “the modern world is finite and we have almost unlimited powers of destruction. It’s clear,” he said (even in 1987), “that the world has passed a point of no return. This is one reason why we have to pause and consider the possibility of a fundamental and extensive change in what science means to us.”(p.13) “We need to change what we mean by ‘science.’ The moment has come for a creative surge along new lines.”(p.11)
Brown put it this way:
“The Smithsonian Museums burgeoned with our inventions, our art, our science, and the ideas of our great thinkers. They told the history of man as creator -- from the stone tools in the Native American History Museum to the jets and rockets in the National Air and Space Museum.” “If our ancestors could see us today, surely they would think us gods.”(Brown, p.507)
“This is the ultimate nature of the surge we are calling for,” Bohm says.(p.14) “Our aim is to throw light on the nature of creativity and how it can be fostered, not only in science, but in society, and in the life of each individual.”(p.14)
There is danger in unbridled creativity though, for it has both constructive and destructive potentials.
Werner Heisenberg told a story to make this point; “Two and a half thousand years ago, the Chinese sage Chang Tsu spoke of the dangers to man of using machines. I would like to quote a section from his writings that is important for our subject,” he says. It tells a story of a man, Tsu-Kung, who came upon “an old man busy in his vegetable garden”:
“He had dug ditches for watering. He himself climbed into the well, brought up a container full of water in his arms, and emptied it. He exerted himself to the utmost, but achieved very little.”
“Tsu-Kung spoke: ‘There is an arrangement with which it is possible to fill a hundred ditches with water every day. A lever is used, weighted at one end and the light at the other. In this way water can be drawn, so that it gushes out. It is known as a draw-well. With little effort, much is accomplished. Wouldn’t you like to use it?’
Tsu-Kung asked the old man, who laughed at the suggestion, and grew angry as he replied:
“I have heard my teacher say: ‘When a man uses a machine, he carries on all his business in a machine-like manner. Whoever does his business in the manner of a machine develops a machine heart. Whoever has a machine heart in his breast loses his simplicity. Whoever loses his simplicity becomes uncertain in the impulses of his spirit. Uncertainty in the impulses of the spirit is something that is incompatible with truth.’ It is not that I am unfamiliar with such devices, the old man explained. It is that I am ashamed to use them.”(Werner Heisenberg, The Representation of Nature in Contemporary Physics)
Heisenberg goes on to note, “That this ancient tale contains a considerable amount of truth, every one of us will agree… ‘uncertainty in the impulses of the spirit’ is perhaps one of the most telling descriptions we can give to the condition of man in the present crisis. (Werner Heisenberg, The Representation of Nature in Contemporary Physics)
“Technology thus fundamentally interferes with the relation of nature to man, in that it transforms his environment in large measure and thereby incessantly and inescapably holds the scientific aspect of the world before his eyes.” Electricity brought a revolutionary transformation into our technology...besides having something uncanny and incomprehensible about it, electricity -- employing as it does the concept of force field --remains a strange pheonomena, even now. Add to this chemical and nuclear technology, and “Natural forces [are] now [being] exploited that were almost unknown to people in direct experience of nature.”(Werner Heisenberg, The Representation of Nature in Contemporary Physics)
“The claim of science to be capable of reaching out into the whole cosmos with a method that always separates and clarifies individual phenomenon, and thus goes forward from relationship to relationship, is mirrored in technology, which step by step penetrates new realms, transforms our environment before our eyes, and impresses our image upon it. In the same sense in which every detailed question in science is subordinate to the major task of understanding nature as a whole, so also does the smallest technical advance serve the general goal, that of enlarging the material power of man. The value of this goal is as little questioned as the value of natural knowledge in science, and the two aims coalesce in the banal slogan “Knowledge is Power.... Technology almost ceases to appear at such times as the product of conscious human effort for the spreading of material power. Instead it appears as a biological process on a large scale, in which the structures that are part of the human organism are transferred in every larger measure to man’s environment. Such a biological process would be outside man’s control, for man can indeed do what he wills, but he cannot will what he wills.”(Werner Heisenberg, The Representation of Nature in Contemporary Physics)
“Nevertheless, although technology, the machine, has spread over the world to an extent that the Chinese sage could not have imagined, two thousand years later the world’s finest works of art are still being created and the simplicity of the soul of which the philosopher spoke has never been completely lost. Instead, in the course of the centuries it has shown itself, sometimes weakly, sometimes powerfully, and it has borne fruit again and again.’(Werner Heisenberg, The Representation of Nature in Contemporary Physics)
All of which has “also transformed our thinking in a dangerous way. Here, we are told, is the root of the crisis by which our era is shaken....”(Werner Heisenberg, The Representation of Nature in Contemporary Physics)
“This new situation becomes most obvious to us in science...that we can no longer view ‘in themselves’ the building blocks of matter which were originally thought of as the last objective reality; that they refuse to be fixed in any way in space and time; and that basically we can only make our knowledge of these particles the object of science.... The familiar classification of the world into subject and object, inner and outer world, body and soul, somehow no longer quite applies, and indeed leads to difficulties. In science, also, the object of research is no longer nature in itself but rather nature exposed to man’s questioning, and to this extent man here also meets himself.”(Werner Heisenberg, The Representation of Nature in Contemporary Physics)
“...changes in the foundations of atomic physics...lead away from the reality concept of classical atomism. It has turned out that the hoped-for objective reality of the elementary particles represents too rough a simplification of the true state of affairs and must yield to much more abstract conceptions. When we wish to picture to ourselves the nature of the existence of the elementary particles, we may no longer ignore the physical processes by which we obtain information about them. When we are observing objects of our daily experience, the physical process transmitting the observation of course plays only a secondary role. However, for the smallest building blocks of matter every process of observation causes a major disturbance; it turns out that we can no longer talk of the behavior of the particle apart from the process of observation. In consequence, we are finally led to believe that the laws of nature which we formulate mathematically in quantum theory deal no longer with the particles themselves but with our knowledge of the elementary particles. The question whether these particles exist in space and time ‘in themselves’ can thus no longer be posed in this form.... The conception of the objective reality of the elementary particles has thus evaporated in a curious way, not into the fog of some new, obscure, or not yet understood reality concept, but into the transparent clarity of a mathematics that represents no longer the behavior of the elementary particles but rather our knowledge of this behavior. The atomic physicist has had to come to terms with the fact that his science is only a link in the endless chain of discussions of man with nature, but that it cannot simply talk of nature ‘as such.’” Natural science always presupposes man, and we must become aware of the fact that, as Bohr has expressed it, we are not only spectators but also always participants in the state of life.”(Werner Heisenberg, The Representation of Nature in Contemporary Physics)
Thomas Hanna illuminates one way we might remedy this breakdown in his study of somatics. Derived from the Greek word, soma is the human body as perceived and experienced from the inside by first person perception, Hanna examines the subject/object distinction.(p. 341-343)[1] This includes all living beings, he notes, not just humans – for “all members of the animal kingdom are somas.”(p.346)
Interestingly, “The soma has a dual talent…the distinctive talent of possessing two modes of perception.”(p.346) Because conscious subjects, “being equally capable of being internally self-aware as well as externally aware,” (p.343) offer two distinct observation viewpoints.
Hanna points out that the “same individual is categorically different when viewed from a first –person perception than is the case when he is viewed from a third-person perception.”(p.341) We get different data from these different points of view.
The body, as perceived by a third-person point of view, is “observable, analyzable, and measurable in the same way as any other object,” (p.341) that is, by the “universal laws of physics and chemistry…”(p.341) BUT, from a first-person viewpoint, quite different data are observed…“First-person observation of the soma is immediately factual.”(p. 341)[2] What Socrates would call *
The fact is, a “the human being is quite unlike a mineral or a chemical solution in providing, not one, but two irreducible viewpoints for observation. A third-person viewpoint can only observe a human body. A first-person viewpoint can only observe a human soma – one’s own. Body and soma are coequal in reality and value, but they are categorically distinct as observed phenomena.”(p.343) -- one of which is widely ignored.
Arguably, “Science has validity in both its research and theorizing exactly to the degree that all data are considered. To ignore essential date, either willfully or innocently, automatically calls into question what one claims or speculates to be factual…”(p.343) “Failure to recognize the categorical difference between first-person observation and third person observation leads to fundamental misunderstanding in physiology, psychology, and medicine.”(p.341)
This has no bearing on the validity of the physical sciences because their subjects are dead, Hanna points out. That is, they “lack the proprioceptive awareness,” or inside-looking-out point of view, “that the scientist himself possesses.” But this does cast doubt on the legitimacy of any science whose subjects are conscious. This challenges the validity of the grounds for the life, medical, and social sciences to “exactly the degree that they ignore, willfully or innocently, first-person data,” that is “evidence that is ‘phenomenological’ or ‘subjective’…”, which are considered unscientific and irresponsible.(p.343)
“[M]edicine, for example, takes a third-person view of the human being and sees a patient (i.e. a clinical body) displaying various symptoms that…can be diagnosed, treated, and prognosed.”(p. 342)
“Ignorance of the first-person viewpoint is ignorance of the somatic factor…[and it] permeates medicine: the placebo effect and the nocebo affect.”(p.343)
Somatic appreciation of how a given past led to ill health and how a given future may restore – or not restore – health is essential to the full clinical picture. Psychology too is a method of knowing by outside-in third-person perspective, rather than inside-out, which is readily available, albeit idiosyncratic, to the psychologist.
Self-awareness is only the first of several layers of the human soma – for we are not merely aware of self, passively observing, but “it is acting upon itself; i.e. it is always engaged in the process of self-regulation” (p.344) We are simultaneously in the process of modifying ourselves before our own eyes.”(p.344) “We cannot sense without acting, and we cannot act without sensing.”(p.345) “To think is not merely ‘to be’ passive; it is to move. ‘I am self-aware, therefore I act, is a more accurate description of first-person perception.”(p.346)
“Sensing is not mere passively perceptive, but actively productive.”(p.345) “This interlocking reciprocity between sensing and moving is at the heart of the somatic process…” And it is this process, that “internal process of self regulation that guarantees the existence of the external bodily structure.”(p.345) For “if that process ceases, then the human body – quite unlike a rock – ceases to be: it dies and disintegrates.”(p.345) Function maintains structure in this, as Aristotle would agree. And so mind and body are “an indissoluble functional unity” (p.346)
“’Consciousness’ and the focus of ‘awareness’” are the “prime somatic functions.”(p.347) We perceive “a negative ‘ground’ against which a ‘figure’ stands out.”(p.345) “Human consciousness is, therefore, a relative function; it can be extremely large or extremely small…it can range from an animal level to a godlike level…”(p.348)
“The upshot of this is that somatic learning begins by focusing awareness on the unknown.”(p.348) As Wiggins and McTighe argue, “Regardless of the current level of understanding, we possess a mixture of understanding, ignorance, and confusion; we constantly need to move back and forth between the known and unknown, the familiar and strange if we are to further our understanding.”(p.164) “Through this process, the unknown becomes known…the unlearned becomes learned.” (p.349)
“The state of somatic freedom is, in many senses, the optimal human state,” Hanna argues.(p.351) [3] “Somatic learning is an activity expanding the range of volitional consciousness. This is not to be confused with conditioning, which is a bodily procedure imposed upon a subject by external manipulations. Conditioning deals with the human as an object in a field of objective forces, and thus it is a form of learning reflecting the typical viewpoint of third-person science…”(p.349) “The Pavlovian and Skinnerian models of learning are manipulative techniques of forcing an adaptive response on the body’s involuntary reflex mechanisms. Conditioning is an engineering procedure that opposes the function of somatic learning by attempting to reduce the repertoire of voluntary consciousness. Rather, their aim is to create an automatic response that is outside the range of volition and consciousness.”(p.349)
“But we should be aware of the fact that this same form of conditioning can also take place in uncontrived ways by the fortunes of environmental forces that impinge on our lives. Environmental situations that impose a constant stimulus on deep survival reflexes will, with sufficient repetitions, make them habitual – the reflex becomes learned and ‘potentiated’.”(p.349) Thus, “…the more that is learned in this manner, the greater will be the range of voluntary consciousness for the constant task of adaption with the environment.”(p. 351)
As Hanna says, “The greater the range of consciousness, the greater will be the range of autonomy and self-regulation. Human consciousness is, in fine, the instrument of human freedom. For this reason it is important to remember that it is a learned function, which can always be expanded by further learning.”(p.348)
“A soma that is maximally free is a soma that has achieved a maximal degree of voluntary control and a minimal degree of involuntary conditioning. This state of autonomy is an optimal state of individuation…(p. 351)
This Somatic conception of human beings would logically change the purposes of our educational endeavors. As Paulo Friere argues, “There is no such thing as a neutral educational process. Education either functions as an instrument…[to] bring about conformity…or it becomes ‘the practice of freedom,’ the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.”(Pedagogy, p.15)
So what does this mean? It means that, not recognizing and understanding the role of consciousness in the development of our understanding of reality, we are lulled into thinking that ‘reality’ is all out there – and neglect that reality is, in part, in here! Reality is no less than both subject and object, in interaction with one another.
While we ‘pay attention’ to some matters in a focused way, to others in a peripheral way, and others we simply ignore, which again is the active root of ignorance. This is wherein our values matter, for what we value is what we attend to, and we value what we believe matters. Still, as Socrates says, while everybody wants what’s good for them, not everybody knows what that is.[4] This is why we need to rethink education -- because what is good for the young is too often neglected in our schools, such as they are.
As Aristotle put it, “Call this divine ability Dialectic,” as Socrates says.
As the authors note in their discussion of Plato’s allegory of the cave – whether going into the light of day from the dark of the cave, or back into the dark from having seen the light, it is difficult going either way, uncomfortable as we await the adjustment of our eyes. But the reward for the struggle may be a rare clarity, a depth of perspective such as a second eye contributes to the sight of only one.
Contrary to this ideal, however, we have more often followed the advice of those with something other than the true good of the inner child at heart when we have undertaken to structure the purposes of our schools.
[1] Bone, Breath, and Gesture: Practices of Embodiment, edited by Don Hanlon Johnson. North Atlantic Books: Berkely, CA. California Institute of Integral Studies; San Francisco, CA. 1995.
[2] “…The proprioceptive \ centers communicate and feedback immediately factual information on the process of the ongoing unified soma – with the momentum of its past, along with the intentions and expectations of its future.”(p.342)
[3] “Looked at from a first-person somatic view-point, somatic freedom is what I would term a ‘fair’ state – the ancient English word fair, meaning a temporal progress that is unblemished and without distortion or the befoulment of inhibition.”(p.351) ”…expressed from the third-person viewpoint which would view the Fair State of the soma as a condition of optimal mental and physical health.”(p.351)
[4] Find ref for everybody wants…not everybody knows.
David Bohm shows, as anyone who spends time in academia soon discovers, that dialogue between disciplines has broken down in our time.
“[I]n earlier times, [when] science was called natural philosophy…” says physicist David Bohm, in fact, since ancient times, “…there was such a general vision of the universe, humanity, and our place in the whole…Science, art and religion were never really separate.”(Science, Order and Creativity, p.10)
Physicist David Bohm writes of the breakdown in communication between Albert Einstein and Neils Bohr, and the consequent, not just for young physicists, but for all of science and for the world at large.
It was Oppenheimer who had introduced Bohm to the works of Neils Bohr, who said his quantum theory represented and “the oneness of the observer and the observed,” and “the undivided wholeness of the entire universe.”(p.4)
Bohr’s ‘principle of complementarity’, put forth in 1928, stated that, since the behavior of phenomena such as light and electrons is sometimes wave-like and sometimes particle-like, and since it is impossible to observe both the wave and the particle aspects simultaneously, a complete knowledge of phenomena – that is, the whole truth – requires both wave and particle properties. Therefore, knowledge of phenomenon (certainly at the sub-atomic scale, and arguably at every scale) is essentially incomplete until both aspects are known.
Complementarity introduced into the Western mode of thinking the concept that “seemingly irreconcilable points of view need not be contradictory” (Kothari, p.325 in *), and extended a “message of reconciliation” to the world. (Jones, p. 324 in *) Bohr saw this principle extending way beyond the scope of physics into an entire philosophy of life. And “In his last years Bohr tried to point out ways in which the idea of complementarity could throw light on many aspects of human life and thought. “(www.britannica.com/nobel/macro/5000-79.html)
He held it to be “reflective of the need for understanding mutually exclusive opposites as parts of a whole in every discipline” (Jones, 320-322) In 1947, he designed a coat of arms in the center of which was a yin-yang symbol.... The motto read ‘Contraria sunt complemnta’ or ‘Opposites are complementary’”(French and Kennedy 224)
In this principle of complementarity, Bohr expressed the ontological implications of quantum physics -- which “implies the impossibility of any sharp separation between the behavior of atomic objects and the interaction with the measuring instruments which serve to define the conditions under which the phenomena appear.” As a result, “evidence obtained under different experimental conditions cannot be comprehended within a single picture, but must be regarded as complementary in the sense that only the totality of the phenomena exhausts the possible information about the objects.”(Principle of Complementarity)
“What is needed,” he says, “is for each person to be able to hold several points of view, in a sort of active suspension, while treating the ideas of others with something of the care and attention that are given to his or her own… In this way it may be possible to hold a number of different approaches together in mind with almost equal energy and interest. In this way an internal free dialogue is begun which can lead on to a more open external dialogue” (p.87)
Indeed, a great deal of the world as we know it “came out of the intense discussions between Bohr and the steady stream of visitors to his world capital of atomic physics....” This discussion “brought virtually everyone concerned with quantum physics to Copenhagen at one time or another. Many of Bohr’s collaborators in those years have written lovingly about the extraordinary spirit of the institute, where young scientists from many countries worked together and played together in a lighthearted mood that concealed both their absolute serious concern with physics and the darkening world outside.”(www.britannica.com/nobel/macro/5000-79.html)
“Bohr himself was always ready to learn, even from his youngest collaboators. He drew strength from his close personal ties with his coworkers and with his sons, his wife, and his brother.” (www.britannica.com/nobel/macro/5000-79.html) And “In his last years Bohr tried to point out ways in which the idea of complementarity could throw light on many aspects of human life and thought. “(www.britannica.com/nobel/macro/5000-79.html)
Initially, Einstein had expressed ‘love’ for Bohr’s work, and the two had a long series of discussions. “Einstein and Bohr discussed the fundamental questions of physics on a number of occasions, sometimes brought together by a close mutual friend, Paul Ehrenfest, professor of theoretical physics a the University of Leiden, Neth., but they never came to basic agreement.” However, “In his account of these discussions, Bohr emphasized how important Einstein’s challenging objections had been to the evolution of his own ideas and what a deep and lasting impression they had made on him.” (www.britannica.com/nobel/macro/5000-79.html) But Bohr’s claim that quantum physics was just the “rational generalization of classical physics,” necessary for the understanding of atomic phenomena, was never accepted by Einstein, even though he had praised Bohr’s early work as “the highest form of musicality in the sphere of thought.”(www.britannica.com/nobel/macro/5000-79.html)
Despite Einstein’s outspoken dissention, this altered view of the meaning of ‘reality’ came to be widely accepted by the majority of physicists. “Because of its simplicity it preserved for several decades its full powers of persuasion.”(Werner Heisenberg, The Representation of Nature in Contemporary Physics)
And so, while the two began as good friends, “they eventually drifted apart after many years of fruitless argument” over whether this ambiguity implied that things were less than absolute.(p.85) But the abyss that separated Bohr and Einstein “had particularly serious consequences” for how the world would understand (or fail to understand) the potentially complementary principles of quantum theory and relativity, which remain unreconciled.
It “would be interesting to think about what would have happened if different pathways that were available at the time had been fully explored in the past.”(p.14) “While Bohr and Einstein are now dead, it is still not too late to engage in such a dialogue between…quantum and relativity theories…”(p.87)
“More generally, the opening up of a free and creative communication in all areas of science would constitute a tremendous extension of the scientific approach. Its consequences for humanity would, in the long run, be of incalculable benefit.”(p.87)
Heisenberg says of Newton, that “His position toward nature is most clearly circumscribed by his well-known statement that he felt like a child playing at the seashore, happy whenever he found a smoother pebble or a more beautiful sea shell than usual, while the great ocean of truth lay unexplored before him.” (Werner Heisenberg, The Representation of Nature in Contemporary Physics) “Nevertheless, it must be emphasized that for Newton the sea shell is significant only because it comes from the great ocean of truth. Observing it is not yet an end in itself; rather, its study receives meaning through its relation to the whole.”(Werner Heisenberg, The Representation of Nature in Contemporary Physics)
Instead, in modern times, “scientists [tend] to look down on philosophy as not being very serious.”(p.2) In physics especially, people didn’t even seem to want to talk about the ideas.”(p.5) “They seemed more interested in the formulae than the ideas behind them,” with the consequent that “physics gradually slipped into the practice of talking mostly about equations.”(p.6)
But this “current emphasis on mathematics has gone too far,” Bohm says.(p.7) Science is in danger of suffering damage to its vision. “By giving so much emphasis on mathematics, science seems to be losing sight of the wider context of its vision.”(p.10) This “tremendous emphasis on competition interfered with…free discussions,” and the “free exchange and the friendship that is necessary for such understanding.” (p.4)
What’s more, “this spirit is now spreading beyond science, not only into technology, but into our general approach to life as a whole. Understanding is now valued as a means to predict, control, and manipulate things.”(p.11) And this fragmentary way of thinking about reality “leads us to focus always on particular problems,” while we “fail to notice the unforeseen negative consequences” of the way we treat nature that “spread into the whole context and eventually come back to create problems that may be worse then those we started with.”(p.12) These days we know this phenomenon as ‘ecological backlash.’
The fact is “the modern world is finite and we have almost unlimited powers of destruction. It’s clear,” he said (even in 1987), “that the world has passed a point of no return. This is one reason why we have to pause and consider the possibility of a fundamental and extensive change in what science means to us.”(p.13) “We need to change what we mean by ‘science.’ The moment has come for a creative surge along new lines.”(p.11)
Brown put it this way:
“The Smithsonian Museums burgeoned with our inventions, our art, our science, and the ideas of our great thinkers. They told the history of man as creator -- from the stone tools in the Native American History Museum to the jets and rockets in the National Air and Space Museum.” “If our ancestors could see us today, surely they would think us gods.”(Brown, p.507)
“This is the ultimate nature of the surge we are calling for,” Bohm says.(p.14) “Our aim is to throw light on the nature of creativity and how it can be fostered, not only in science, but in society, and in the life of each individual.”(p.14)
There is danger in unbridled creativity though, for it has both constructive and destructive potentials.
Werner Heisenberg told a story to make this point; “Two and a half thousand years ago, the Chinese sage Chang Tsu spoke of the dangers to man of using machines. I would like to quote a section from his writings that is important for our subject,” he says. It tells a story of a man, Tsu-Kung, who came upon “an old man busy in his vegetable garden”:
“He had dug ditches for watering. He himself climbed into the well, brought up a container full of water in his arms, and emptied it. He exerted himself to the utmost, but achieved very little.”
“Tsu-Kung spoke: ‘There is an arrangement with which it is possible to fill a hundred ditches with water every day. A lever is used, weighted at one end and the light at the other. In this way water can be drawn, so that it gushes out. It is known as a draw-well. With little effort, much is accomplished. Wouldn’t you like to use it?’
Tsu-Kung asked the old man, who laughed at the suggestion, and grew angry as he replied:
“I have heard my teacher say: ‘When a man uses a machine, he carries on all his business in a machine-like manner. Whoever does his business in the manner of a machine develops a machine heart. Whoever has a machine heart in his breast loses his simplicity. Whoever loses his simplicity becomes uncertain in the impulses of his spirit. Uncertainty in the impulses of the spirit is something that is incompatible with truth.’ It is not that I am unfamiliar with such devices, the old man explained. It is that I am ashamed to use them.”(Werner Heisenberg, The Representation of Nature in Contemporary Physics)
Heisenberg goes on to note, “That this ancient tale contains a considerable amount of truth, every one of us will agree… ‘uncertainty in the impulses of the spirit’ is perhaps one of the most telling descriptions we can give to the condition of man in the present crisis. (Werner Heisenberg, The Representation of Nature in Contemporary Physics)
“Technology thus fundamentally interferes with the relation of nature to man, in that it transforms his environment in large measure and thereby incessantly and inescapably holds the scientific aspect of the world before his eyes.” Electricity brought a revolutionary transformation into our technology...besides having something uncanny and incomprehensible about it, electricity -- employing as it does the concept of force field --remains a strange pheonomena, even now. Add to this chemical and nuclear technology, and “Natural forces [are] now [being] exploited that were almost unknown to people in direct experience of nature.”(Werner Heisenberg, The Representation of Nature in Contemporary Physics)
“The claim of science to be capable of reaching out into the whole cosmos with a method that always separates and clarifies individual phenomenon, and thus goes forward from relationship to relationship, is mirrored in technology, which step by step penetrates new realms, transforms our environment before our eyes, and impresses our image upon it. In the same sense in which every detailed question in science is subordinate to the major task of understanding nature as a whole, so also does the smallest technical advance serve the general goal, that of enlarging the material power of man. The value of this goal is as little questioned as the value of natural knowledge in science, and the two aims coalesce in the banal slogan “Knowledge is Power.... Technology almost ceases to appear at such times as the product of conscious human effort for the spreading of material power. Instead it appears as a biological process on a large scale, in which the structures that are part of the human organism are transferred in every larger measure to man’s environment. Such a biological process would be outside man’s control, for man can indeed do what he wills, but he cannot will what he wills.”(Werner Heisenberg, The Representation of Nature in Contemporary Physics)
“Nevertheless, although technology, the machine, has spread over the world to an extent that the Chinese sage could not have imagined, two thousand years later the world’s finest works of art are still being created and the simplicity of the soul of which the philosopher spoke has never been completely lost. Instead, in the course of the centuries it has shown itself, sometimes weakly, sometimes powerfully, and it has borne fruit again and again.’(Werner Heisenberg, The Representation of Nature in Contemporary Physics)
All of which has “also transformed our thinking in a dangerous way. Here, we are told, is the root of the crisis by which our era is shaken....”(Werner Heisenberg, The Representation of Nature in Contemporary Physics)
“This new situation becomes most obvious to us in science...that we can no longer view ‘in themselves’ the building blocks of matter which were originally thought of as the last objective reality; that they refuse to be fixed in any way in space and time; and that basically we can only make our knowledge of these particles the object of science.... The familiar classification of the world into subject and object, inner and outer world, body and soul, somehow no longer quite applies, and indeed leads to difficulties. In science, also, the object of research is no longer nature in itself but rather nature exposed to man’s questioning, and to this extent man here also meets himself.”(Werner Heisenberg, The Representation of Nature in Contemporary Physics)
“...changes in the foundations of atomic physics...lead away from the reality concept of classical atomism. It has turned out that the hoped-for objective reality of the elementary particles represents too rough a simplification of the true state of affairs and must yield to much more abstract conceptions. When we wish to picture to ourselves the nature of the existence of the elementary particles, we may no longer ignore the physical processes by which we obtain information about them. When we are observing objects of our daily experience, the physical process transmitting the observation of course plays only a secondary role. However, for the smallest building blocks of matter every process of observation causes a major disturbance; it turns out that we can no longer talk of the behavior of the particle apart from the process of observation. In consequence, we are finally led to believe that the laws of nature which we formulate mathematically in quantum theory deal no longer with the particles themselves but with our knowledge of the elementary particles. The question whether these particles exist in space and time ‘in themselves’ can thus no longer be posed in this form.... The conception of the objective reality of the elementary particles has thus evaporated in a curious way, not into the fog of some new, obscure, or not yet understood reality concept, but into the transparent clarity of a mathematics that represents no longer the behavior of the elementary particles but rather our knowledge of this behavior. The atomic physicist has had to come to terms with the fact that his science is only a link in the endless chain of discussions of man with nature, but that it cannot simply talk of nature ‘as such.’” Natural science always presupposes man, and we must become aware of the fact that, as Bohr has expressed it, we are not only spectators but also always participants in the state of life.”(Werner Heisenberg, The Representation of Nature in Contemporary Physics)
Thomas Hanna illuminates one way we might remedy this breakdown in his study of somatics. Derived from the Greek word, soma is the human body as perceived and experienced from the inside by first person perception, Hanna examines the subject/object distinction.(p. 341-343)[1] This includes all living beings, he notes, not just humans – for “all members of the animal kingdom are somas.”(p.346)
Interestingly, “The soma has a dual talent…the distinctive talent of possessing two modes of perception.”(p.346) Because conscious subjects, “being equally capable of being internally self-aware as well as externally aware,” (p.343) offer two distinct observation viewpoints.
Hanna points out that the “same individual is categorically different when viewed from a first –person perception than is the case when he is viewed from a third-person perception.”(p.341) We get different data from these different points of view.
The body, as perceived by a third-person point of view, is “observable, analyzable, and measurable in the same way as any other object,” (p.341) that is, by the “universal laws of physics and chemistry…”(p.341) BUT, from a first-person viewpoint, quite different data are observed…“First-person observation of the soma is immediately factual.”(p. 341)[2] What Socrates would call *
The fact is, a “the human being is quite unlike a mineral or a chemical solution in providing, not one, but two irreducible viewpoints for observation. A third-person viewpoint can only observe a human body. A first-person viewpoint can only observe a human soma – one’s own. Body and soma are coequal in reality and value, but they are categorically distinct as observed phenomena.”(p.343) -- one of which is widely ignored.
Arguably, “Science has validity in both its research and theorizing exactly to the degree that all data are considered. To ignore essential date, either willfully or innocently, automatically calls into question what one claims or speculates to be factual…”(p.343) “Failure to recognize the categorical difference between first-person observation and third person observation leads to fundamental misunderstanding in physiology, psychology, and medicine.”(p.341)
This has no bearing on the validity of the physical sciences because their subjects are dead, Hanna points out. That is, they “lack the proprioceptive awareness,” or inside-looking-out point of view, “that the scientist himself possesses.” But this does cast doubt on the legitimacy of any science whose subjects are conscious. This challenges the validity of the grounds for the life, medical, and social sciences to “exactly the degree that they ignore, willfully or innocently, first-person data,” that is “evidence that is ‘phenomenological’ or ‘subjective’…”, which are considered unscientific and irresponsible.(p.343)
“[M]edicine, for example, takes a third-person view of the human being and sees a patient (i.e. a clinical body) displaying various symptoms that…can be diagnosed, treated, and prognosed.”(p. 342)
“Ignorance of the first-person viewpoint is ignorance of the somatic factor…[and it] permeates medicine: the placebo effect and the nocebo affect.”(p.343)
Somatic appreciation of how a given past led to ill health and how a given future may restore – or not restore – health is essential to the full clinical picture. Psychology too is a method of knowing by outside-in third-person perspective, rather than inside-out, which is readily available, albeit idiosyncratic, to the psychologist.
Self-awareness is only the first of several layers of the human soma – for we are not merely aware of self, passively observing, but “it is acting upon itself; i.e. it is always engaged in the process of self-regulation” (p.344) We are simultaneously in the process of modifying ourselves before our own eyes.”(p.344) “We cannot sense without acting, and we cannot act without sensing.”(p.345) “To think is not merely ‘to be’ passive; it is to move. ‘I am self-aware, therefore I act, is a more accurate description of first-person perception.”(p.346)
“Sensing is not mere passively perceptive, but actively productive.”(p.345) “This interlocking reciprocity between sensing and moving is at the heart of the somatic process…” And it is this process, that “internal process of self regulation that guarantees the existence of the external bodily structure.”(p.345) For “if that process ceases, then the human body – quite unlike a rock – ceases to be: it dies and disintegrates.”(p.345) Function maintains structure in this, as Aristotle would agree. And so mind and body are “an indissoluble functional unity” (p.346)
“’Consciousness’ and the focus of ‘awareness’” are the “prime somatic functions.”(p.347) We perceive “a negative ‘ground’ against which a ‘figure’ stands out.”(p.345) “Human consciousness is, therefore, a relative function; it can be extremely large or extremely small…it can range from an animal level to a godlike level…”(p.348)
“The upshot of this is that somatic learning begins by focusing awareness on the unknown.”(p.348) As Wiggins and McTighe argue, “Regardless of the current level of understanding, we possess a mixture of understanding, ignorance, and confusion; we constantly need to move back and forth between the known and unknown, the familiar and strange if we are to further our understanding.”(p.164) “Through this process, the unknown becomes known…the unlearned becomes learned.” (p.349)
“The state of somatic freedom is, in many senses, the optimal human state,” Hanna argues.(p.351) [3] “Somatic learning is an activity expanding the range of volitional consciousness. This is not to be confused with conditioning, which is a bodily procedure imposed upon a subject by external manipulations. Conditioning deals with the human as an object in a field of objective forces, and thus it is a form of learning reflecting the typical viewpoint of third-person science…”(p.349) “The Pavlovian and Skinnerian models of learning are manipulative techniques of forcing an adaptive response on the body’s involuntary reflex mechanisms. Conditioning is an engineering procedure that opposes the function of somatic learning by attempting to reduce the repertoire of voluntary consciousness. Rather, their aim is to create an automatic response that is outside the range of volition and consciousness.”(p.349)
“But we should be aware of the fact that this same form of conditioning can also take place in uncontrived ways by the fortunes of environmental forces that impinge on our lives. Environmental situations that impose a constant stimulus on deep survival reflexes will, with sufficient repetitions, make them habitual – the reflex becomes learned and ‘potentiated’.”(p.349) Thus, “…the more that is learned in this manner, the greater will be the range of voluntary consciousness for the constant task of adaption with the environment.”(p. 351)
As Hanna says, “The greater the range of consciousness, the greater will be the range of autonomy and self-regulation. Human consciousness is, in fine, the instrument of human freedom. For this reason it is important to remember that it is a learned function, which can always be expanded by further learning.”(p.348)
“A soma that is maximally free is a soma that has achieved a maximal degree of voluntary control and a minimal degree of involuntary conditioning. This state of autonomy is an optimal state of individuation…(p. 351)
This Somatic conception of human beings would logically change the purposes of our educational endeavors. As Paulo Friere argues, “There is no such thing as a neutral educational process. Education either functions as an instrument…[to] bring about conformity…or it becomes ‘the practice of freedom,’ the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.”(Pedagogy, p.15)
So what does this mean? It means that, not recognizing and understanding the role of consciousness in the development of our understanding of reality, we are lulled into thinking that ‘reality’ is all out there – and neglect that reality is, in part, in here! Reality is no less than both subject and object, in interaction with one another.
While we ‘pay attention’ to some matters in a focused way, to others in a peripheral way, and others we simply ignore, which again is the active root of ignorance. This is wherein our values matter, for what we value is what we attend to, and we value what we believe matters. Still, as Socrates says, while everybody wants what’s good for them, not everybody knows what that is.[4] This is why we need to rethink education -- because what is good for the young is too often neglected in our schools, such as they are.
As Aristotle put it, “Call this divine ability Dialectic,” as Socrates says.
As the authors note in their discussion of Plato’s allegory of the cave – whether going into the light of day from the dark of the cave, or back into the dark from having seen the light, it is difficult going either way, uncomfortable as we await the adjustment of our eyes. But the reward for the struggle may be a rare clarity, a depth of perspective such as a second eye contributes to the sight of only one.
Contrary to this ideal, however, we have more often followed the advice of those with something other than the true good of the inner child at heart when we have undertaken to structure the purposes of our schools.
[1] Bone, Breath, and Gesture: Practices of Embodiment, edited by Don Hanlon Johnson. North Atlantic Books: Berkely, CA. California Institute of Integral Studies; San Francisco, CA. 1995.
[2] “…The proprioceptive \ centers communicate and feedback immediately factual information on the process of the ongoing unified soma – with the momentum of its past, along with the intentions and expectations of its future.”(p.342)
[3] “Looked at from a first-person somatic view-point, somatic freedom is what I would term a ‘fair’ state – the ancient English word fair, meaning a temporal progress that is unblemished and without distortion or the befoulment of inhibition.”(p.351) ”…expressed from the third-person viewpoint which would view the Fair State of the soma as a condition of optimal mental and physical health.”(p.351)
[4] Find ref for everybody wants…not everybody knows.