All language subtitles for Infinite Potential The Life Ideas Of David Bohm (2020) en

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>> Unhappy in Brazil,
Bohm traveled to Israel,

where he accepted a positionat the Technion in Haifa.

While in Israel, Bohm
also met and married

the woman who was to become
his lifelong partner, Sarah

Woolfson.

[music playing]

>> David had been exiled
to Brazil after the House

Un-American Activities business.

And he was never happy there.

There were many
problems, he felt.

And then he was offeredan opportunity in Israel.

And of course, it was a
new state at the time.

And also, of course,
he was Jewish.

Maybe he saw this as
a good opportunity.

And he'd only been
there a couple of weeks

when he was invited to a party.

And Saral was present.

And she spotted him
from across the room

and immediately was
interested in this young man.

I would describe Saral as
a very motherly person.

She wanted to look after people.

She liked to feed people.

She was very sociable
and including everyone.

>> My wife and I used togo to the public library.

And she discovered a
book by Krishnamurti.

And she read in there
the words of the observer

and the observed.

And I had been interested
in that because, in quantum

mechanics, that is a key
question, in the sense that,

because of this
undivided wholeness,

the two cannot be separated.

>> And she opened the book,and in it immediately saw

references to things withregard to the observer

and the observed.

And she was startled
because that's what David

was working with in physics.

And Saral is trying to
understand how could this

be that this Indian
philosopher is also

talking about the
observer and the observed.

[music playing]

>> From Israel, Bohm
moved to Bristol.

And it was here that
his fundamental ideas

on the nature of reality
began to take fresh impetus.

In Bristol, Bohm left hishidden variable ideas behind,

and was now focusing on the factthat, despite decades of work,

physicists had been unableto reconcile quantum theory

with Einstein's relativity.

>> He's left behind
his hidden variables.

He's left that
behind, and now he's

asking, why has there
been decades of work

on relativity and
quantum theory,

the two key theories ofphysics, why are there two?

Why is it not just one theory,one unified theory, as Einstein

had hoped there would be?

And so he's wondering,
do we need a new theory?

Is that the core issue?

Or is a completely new order
to physics, a new approach?

And that was what he
began to think about, what

he called the implicate order.

We need a radically new order.

So that was where his thinking
was when he arrived in Britain.

>> At this time, Bohm also
developed a new interest that

was to have a deep impact
on his life and his approach

to science.

As we have seen,
quantum physics has long

been concerned with the process
of wave function observation.

And Bohm was very much
aware that, depending

on the conditions
of an experiment,

that electrons would behave
differently depending

on what was being observed.

>> When I was younger, I
felt that, in the beginning,

that science would surely be a
source of benefiting mankind.

And I had no question about it.

I began to feel that
something beyond science

would be needed to
approach this question,

you see, that science
alone could not

guarantee that it would be
used for benefiting mankind,

the scientific impulse.

In the beginning, I thought
it would, just truth alone.

Then I began to look intophilosophy, Eastern and Western

and so on, and some peoplewith religious ideas.

I mean, just simply looking
at it when I was in Bristol,

in England.

>> In quantum physics, in
the study of the behavior

of the electron, you had this
very mysterious property that

your act of observing the
electron changes it in such

a way that there's a link
between the apparatus

of observation and
what is observed.

And Krishnamurti made a
similar statement about events

in the psychological
field, which

is that the act of
observing something

inwardly, some emotion or
some attitude or whatever,

the very seeing
of it changes it,

so that the inward sense of an
observer, myself, who's looking

is inextricably connected
with whatever I'm looking at.

And so Krishnamurti
expressed that

in sort of an
aphoristic fashion,

by saying the observer
is the observed.

>> Which, in essence, took
the questions that David was

working with in physics and
flipped them into the human

realm--

the realm of human experience,
human life, human difficulties.

David felt that Krishnamurti
was on to something

of great importance
that could help

to complete the
sense of wholeness

that he was trying to bring to
light with his work in physics.

>> Krishnamurti's approachaligned with Bohm's own views

on the nature of
thought, of reality,

and on the nature ofconsciousness, in particular,

seen as a coherent whole whichis never static or complete,

but a continuous processof enfolding and unfolding.

Both Bohm and
Krishnamurti questioned

their respective backgrounds,
ultimately rejecting

the orthodoxy they had once
felt would provide answers

to humanity's big questions.

>> In his early life, he
was kind of adopted by this

organization called the
Theosophical Society,

which discovered him when he was
a 14-year-old boy on the beach

in South India.

And they predicted
that he was going

to become this great what
they called world teacher,

and bring a new kind of
consciousness to mankind.

And they cultivated him and
nourished him in this role.

But somewhere about the age
of 25, 27, maybe a little

bit earlier than that, he
began to seriously question

all of this, and find
it very limiting,

similarly to the way Bohm had
found the scientific orthodoxy

to be limiting.

>> So Bohm wanted
to meet this man.

And they had this meeting,
and I'm told partway

through it Krishnamurti was
supposed to have stood up

with pleasure or
enthusiasm or whatever,

and said you have seen it,
sir, so that Bohm had seen it.

And then Bohm began to have
more meetings with Krishnamurti.

He became a trustee of
Krishnamurti's school

at Brockwood Park.

[music playing]

>> It was at Brockwood Park that
Bohm and Krishnamurti entered

into a series of conversations
whose themes covered the ending

of time, the nature
of mind, cosmic order,

and much more over
a 25-year period.

>> And from Krishnamurti's
perspective,

it was very important for him
because he felt as though he

had a tremendous reservoir
of insights to share with

the world, but he felt like he
couldn't necessarily bring it

out by himself.

He needed people to ask him.

He needed people to dig
and to question him.

And of all the people he evermet, Bohm was the best at that.

And I think Bohm,
to some extent,

formed a similar function
for Krishnamurti,

because Krishnamurti could raise
questions with him that might

not occur in another context.

>> Grief is not my grief.

Grief is human.

>> Yes, now but how are
to people to see that?

Because a person
feeling grief feels

that it's his grief, you--

[chuckles] I mean,
doesn't that seem right?

>> Yes, sir.

I think it is because
partly of our education,

partly our society, tradition.

>> But it's also implicit in
our whole way of thinking.

>> Yeah.

Oh, [inaudible].

Quite right.

So--

>> And we have to
jump out of that.

>> Yes.

>> But perhaps we can see
that love is not personal.

Love does not belong
to anybody, any more

than any other quality does.

>> Earth is not English
Earth or French Earth.

Earth is Earth.

>> You see?

And I was thinking of
an example in physics

that, if a scientist
or chemist is studying

an element such as sodium, it's
not that he studies his sodium,

and somebody else
studies his sodium,

and they somehow compare notes.

>> Quite, quite, quite.

Sodium is sodium.

>> Sodium is sodium universally.

>> Yes.

>> And if we have to say love
is love universally, right?

Essentially, the point
made by Krishnamurti

was that the problems
of mankind originate

in thought itself, in
consciousness itself, you see?

And as previous to
that, I had grown up

believing that poverty was
the main problem of mankind,

and science would help
me eliminate that.

And I could see that no
matter how far science went,

it probably wouldn't.

And even if it did,
it wouldn't really

solve-- it wouldn't
really make mankind happy.

>> I remember I once
asked Bohm, I said, well,

what do you think, what's
the main contribution

of Krishnamurti?

And if I remember
it correctly, Bohm

said something like that
Krishnamurti kind of pointed

out that thought is an
actual movement in our lives.

It's a physical movement,
physiological movement.

And it has a tremendous power.

It's behind almost
all our problems.

>> And we have to give attention
to that manner in which thought

is participating and shaping
what we observe in order

to understand how our
whole mind is working,

especially with respect to
conflicts which occur between

you and me, between my
country and another country,

and also the conflicts
which occur inwardly.

>> And there, then, of course,Krishnamurti was suggesting

that, if you are
able to be quiet,

the deeper layers of realitymight open up for you.

>> So in that state of mind,
the mind is not just blank.

You know, I'm not
doing anything.

It's very active.

The thinking
process doesn't have

to do with thought or
recognition or knowledge,

but it's in a state of
just perception, awareness,

attention.

Maybe you could even say
receptivity to truth.

>> There might have been
many reasons Bohm was drawn

to Krishnamurti.

The ones that are
apparent to me,

Bohm perceived the
wholeness of life.

He perceived life as
one indivisible whole,

including nature,
including consciousness.

And in Krishnamurti,
he found someone

who also had this notion.

>> Krishnamurti, who
was actually addressing

the separation of the observerand the observed in the same

way as the wholeness inquantum theory was saying,

you can't make a separation
between the system that

you're looking at
and the apparatus,

which was the oldtraditional way of doing it,

that somehow these
things formed a whole.

But rather than saying
you can't develop concepts

for it, what David was trying
to do was to develop concepts.

Now, to develop
those concepts you

can't develop within
the scientific context.

You've got to go outside
to a wider set of concepts.

And he found in
Krishnamurti a way

of discussing this
more general question.

>> I remember one day
we were here in Italy,

and he said to me, do you thinkI should give up doing physics

and just devote myself
to Krishnamurti?

And my reply was
kind of, fish exist

outside the goldfish bowl.

But that was it.

He was that extreme,
that maybe he

should devote himself
completely to having

his own brain transformed.

>> Having settled
permanently in the UK,

it was while at Birkbeck College
in London that Bohm formed one

of the most enduring science
partnerships of his life with

physicist Basil Hiley.

And he also had an unexpectedand welcome encounter

with a forgotten theory.

And that encounter
changed everything.

[music playing]

>> At that time, David Bohm wasdeveloping a new idea which was

called structured process, thatbasically we want to start with

process.

Not particles
moving in spacetime,

but a process from which
both particles and spacetime

can emerge.

Very radical ideas.

Chris Dewdney and ChrisPhillipidis came up to me

and said, why don't youtalk about the '52 paper?

And that's when I
said, mm, uh, mm,

uh, because I think it's wrong.

And that's when Chris
said to me, Basil,

have you read the paper?

And I then had to
agree that I hadn't.

>> It had been decades since
the physics orthodoxy had

blackballed Bohm and
his hidden variables.

It would take a new
team of mavericks

to unearth this critical
work and resurrect it

for a new generation.

>> Well, I got to know David
Bohm quite well when I was

a lecturer at Birkbeck College.

We had many very
interesting discussions,

and Bohm was somebody
who I got a lot from.

I always thought that he wasvery much like a wave function

himself, that you'd
ask a question,

you see, a very
specific question.

And he would be very focused and
give you a deep, very focused

answer to that question.

And then it would
start to spread out,

and it would encompass a
little more about physics,

and then it spread, and
then about philology,

and about human
nature, and so on.

And I'd get a bit lost
about what's going on,

so I'd need another question.

I'd ask him another
question, and then woomph.

The conversation would
focus itself very deeply

on this particular point.

And he would give a very
succinct answer to that,

and then again he would
spread out like this.

So it's just the way a wave
functions as you measure it,

it's the particle here.

And woomph, you see?

And then it spreads
out again, like this.

>> They'd finally developed
sufficient computing power

needed to run the complex
mathematics required

to describe Bohm's
hidden variables.

>> I think it'd be a veryvaluable thing if we could show

clearly how Bohm's '52 theoryworked in the two slits

experiment, because obviously,the two slits experiment is

the iconic experiment in theinterpretation of quantum

theory.

And so Basil went off
and read the papers.

I set about calculating the
particle trajectories for this.

And Chris Phillipidis produced
the quantum potential picture.

>> And that's what Chris was
an absolute master at, was

actually developing computer
programs to actually simulate

this, and let's have a look
at what is going on here.

>> When we put the
two together, I mean,

we were initially I think quite
staggered by how amazing this

story was, which had never
been told in any sort of clear,

detailed way.

>> And there was a trajectory
for the two slits experiment.

Wow.

>> You could actually see in the
images that reproduced exactly

how you could have particle
trajectories in the two slits

experiment and account for
interference, something,

of course, which is forbidden
in normal quantum theory.

[music playing]

You could actually see how
the thing worked exactly.

You could follow
individual particles

as it was affected by this
potential through space,

and consequentially
would guide particles

into the bright
interference fringes.

>> Wherever there was a dipin the quantum potential--

that's the rate of change of apotential, which is a force--

and the trajectories wouldjump across the ditch.

And when they were
on the plateaus,

they would just come straight.

And the end result
was a gathering

of these trajectories
which explained completely

the interference pattern.

>> There was a physicist,
Franco Selleri,

who was particularly supportive
of this work once he'd learned

about it.

And he referred to these movies
as the hard porn of physics,

in a sense, because they would
be censored by the orthodoxy.

You shouldn't be able
to see this stuff,

and yet here we were
projecting it in front of them.

>> At that stage, when
Dave was still alive,

he saw these trajectories
and this quantum potential,

and his eyes actually lit up
because he had not seen them.

He'd written about them,
but he had not seen them.

And then we started discussing
the quantum potential,

what could it mean.

And this quantum
potential energy

only functions when
quantum phenomena appear.

That is, in the particle
approaching two slits,

it is the quantum
potential that organizes

the way the individual
trajectories work.

So there is a
dynamic whole process

going on in which the
quantum potential appears.

>> If you're looking at
interpretations or ways

of looking at quantum mechanics,my view is that probably

the Bohm-Hiley way of looking atquantum mechanics has the most

satisfactory ontology.

So you have a picture of
what constitutes reality

without changing
quantum mechanics.

[music playing]

>> The Bohmian theory made
a clear prediction about

the nonlocality of the world.

What is nonlocality?

Nonlocality is really, to
put it in simple words,

the profound discovery
of the interconnectedness

of the universe at the
fundamental level of quantum.

Now, that conflicts deeply right
away with relativity theory,

where it says, no, the
speed of light is limited.

Everything is local.

Nothing can travel faster
than the speed of light,

so how could everything
be instantaneously

interconnected in the universe?

And that's the big clash
that we have today.

And that's why also Bohm's
theory of hidden variables,

which are nonlocal, has really
been rejected from the start.

>> It seems strange to us.

And I stress the word seems.

But if we want to make senseof a theory, that matters also.

And sometimes when a theory
seems strange, we get past it.

And other times when
it seems strange,

it's pointing us to
something that we

haven't understood well enough.

>> It really says that
there exists a hidden regime

of reality in which
everything is interconnected,

but no person,
even in the future,

will be able to access
that domain and control it.

So this is also what
the mystical traditions

tell us, that we must be
humble in front of reality,

that there will always be
domains of reality that

will remain beyond science,
beyond the scientific method,

will remain beyond access
by scientific agents.

And if the quantum potential
is discovered in this way

and nonlocality is proven, then
the existence of that domain

is proven.

>> Remember, we're
talking about wholeness.

We have to have
wholeness in here.

Here, we agree with Bohm.

Bohm pointed out that it was
very important the new feature

that quantum mechanics
introduces is a kind

of wholeness, which means
we cannot analyze things

by cutting them up into little
bits as we do in classical

physics.

But what we can do is, if we
want to try and cut it up,

that the way one bit
goes into the next bit

actually involves
unfolding into the whole

and then enfolding back again
into a particular region.

And so you get this idea
of unfolding, enfolding,

unfolding, enfolding.

So what looks like a continuoustrajectory is actually a series

of foldings and unfoldings.

[music playing]

>> I tried to get some idea ofwhat might be the process which

was implied by the mathematicsof the quantum theory.

And this process is
what I call enfoldment,

that the mathematics
itself suggests

a movement in which
everything in which

any particular
element of space may

have a field which
unfolds into the whole,

and the whole enfolds into it.

[music playing]

>> What David and I have done
is to open up the discussion,

which I find, when I'm
talking to young people,

that they're very interested in
trying to proceed further with

these ideas.

In other words, some
of them have actually

got it, as I put it.

They know in their
basic feelings

that this is an
interesting way to go.

>> The lab at University
College London is at the center

of experiments to prove the
existence of the quantum

potential.

>> If the quantum potential
exists in this way,

then that really is the first
evidence for the profound

interconnectedness of the
physical universe at a very

deep, fundamental level.

That would revolutionize
our scientific worldview.

It would validate those
views of unification,

those views that speak to
the wholism of the universe.

And it truly would
be a confirmation

of a kind of wholism that
religions and spiritual systems

and mystical systems have
intuited for many centuries,

and millennia, even.

>> So what does all this mean
for you, for me, the universe,

and everything?

Bohm suggests that, out of
perceived emptiness, out

of the so-called vacuum state,
particles interact with,

respond to, and are informed by
an information potential which

allows the cosmos to emerge.

>> So it's the informationinforming action of the quantum

potential that makes it possiblefor the physical universe

to be.

>> Everything we know andeverything we will come to know

is already information waitingto unfold into manifest

reality.

It's the implicate waiting
to become explicate.

[music playing]

>> We aren't just
things in space.

We are places of transformation.

And furthermore, our
relationship with others,

but with all
phenomena, is very much

a question of our
relative positions.

And I think that was something
else that really deeply

affected me about Bohm's
work, the participant

nature of the observer
in the emerging of what

we call reality.

The way that Quantum
Cloud works is

that you are thedeterminer of what you see.

This is a mess of
I think elements

that are both particlesand, hopefully, trajectories

that come together.

And depending on where yourposition is, either in a boat

or walking along the
side of the Thames,

and depending on
the time of day,

you will see or not seethe possibility of a body.

Quantum physics invites us to be
participators in that emerging

of a world.

And it has very,
very fundamental,

I think, both
philosophical, spiritual,

and political implications,
which are essentially

that each of us is a co-producer
of a world, that each of us

is a co-producer of
a possible future.

The work of people
like Einstein and Bohm,

they are like huge windows
opening in the imagination

to a way of dealing
with life and the things

we encounter within it
freshly and, in a sense,

with the right level
of uncertainty.

>> The present ego
identity is based, I think,

on a wrong mode of
thought, you see,

in which a person identifies
with his thoughts and with his

body and with things, you see,
which means that he's creating

an illusion, that this self
which people feel they have is

only a show.

It's not really there.

But it is such a convincing
show that everybody

acts as if it were
there, and that

gives it an apparent reality.

One of the most essential
points of the scientific spirit

is to acknowledge the fact, or
the interpretation of the fact,

whether you like it
or not, that is not

to engage in wishful thinking
or not to reject something

because you don't like it.

>> Is it possible scientifically
to define this wholeness?

>> Well, not really.

Wholeness is an attitude or
an approach, but it can be,

given a scientific
realization, you see--

>> I think two levels,
interdependency.

Firstly, external things,
different nations,

different country,
environment, and human beings,

other animals.

Everything interdependent.

So now, according
to that reality,

we have to take care about the
whole world and environment.

>> We are internally
related to everything,

not externally related.

Consciousness is an internal
relationship to the whole.

We take in the whole and
we act toward the whole.

And that, in turn,
whatever we have taken in

determines, basically,
what we are.

>> When we pass through some
sort of forest, no bird,

we feel something missing.

When we're passing through
some birds singing,

some birds flying,
then we feel more full.

So that's now the reality.

So interdependency
on that level.

[music playing]

>> Bohm's model of the implicateand explicate I think is

talking about how the
subject/object split,

duality emerges from a ground,which Lao Tzu would call

the Dao, which is non-subject,non-object, but a unity,

a wholeness.

>> Ancient Indians only
used mind or wisdom,

and sometimes meditation.

No instrument.

No modern science.

Use instrument.

>> Science is whatever
people make of it.

You see, science has
changed over the ages,

and it's different now from
a few hundred years ago,

and it could be different again.

Now, there's no intrinsic reasonwhy science must necessarily

be measurement.

This is another
historical development

which has come about over
the past few centuries.

It's entirely contingent,
and not absolutely necessary.

>> So far, we know this much.

Still limitless the reality we
have to sort of investigate.

So David Bohm, I think, really
something like open our mind.

So grateful.

[music playing]

>> In all the areas that he
worked in, he was constantly

pushing, pushing, pushing.

In physics, in dialogue,
in consciousness.

>> He became a
scientist, I believe,

in order to benefit humanity.

I think his mission
was always leading up

to a transformation
for human society,

overcoming the fragmentation
that we experience

towards having the experience
of a new interconnectedness

among us all to solve
problems together,

overcoming the divisions.

So in that sense, he
represented a truly holistic,

integrated vision
of a human being.

And I think as that,
he can serve as a model

for future generations.

>> It's a revolution.

It has radical implication
about how we live our life,

how we interact
with the Earth, how

we interact with each other.

And that revolution
is unfinished.

[music playing]

>> If we aspire to go beyond ourpresent state of consciousness,

if we truly want to be happier,to love and know ourselves

better, to regain
meaning and wholeness,

the old disciplines onlyserve to deepen the illusion

of manifest reality.

We must look beyond
the veil of form

to a realization of oneness
present in you, in me,

the universe, and everything.

When you grasp,
this it will put you

on the threshold of what is
real and your place in reality.

Reality is wholeness,
undivided wholeness.

And this fact has yet to
dawn on billions of people.

[music playing]