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Meet Cosmic Physicist, David Bohm (1917 - 1992)
David Bohm was assistant professor at Princeton University from 1947-1950 until his arrest
by the House Un-American Activities Committee (McCarthy) for refusing to give testimony. He was acquitted the following year.
While teaching quantum theory over his few years at Princeton, he wrote a textbook entitled Quantum Theory (1951), which remains
a classic in the field to this day.
Although scientists hold divergent views about the implications
of quantum mechanics for our everyday lives, physicist David Bohm says that ultimately we have to understand the entire universe
as "a single undivided whole." Instead of separating the universe into living and nonliving things, Bohm sees animate
and inanimate matter as inseparably interwoven with the life-force that is present throughout the universe, and that includes
not only matter, but also energy and seemingly empty space. For Bohm, then, even a rock has its unique form of aliveness.
Life is dynamically flowing through the fabric of the entire universe. Indeed, even mind and matter are united: "In this
flow, mind and matter are not separate substances. Rather they are different aspects of one whole and unbroken movement"
(Hayward 1987, 25). Such theories resonate with the Native American worldview. British physicist, F. David Peat, has correlated
these ideas in his popular book, 'Blackfoot Physics,' (2002).
"All physical force, energy,
and matter are one." (UB 11:5.9, p. 123)
The cosmos is continuously regenerated. For decades,
the dominant cosmology in contemporary physics has held that creation ended with the Big Bang some fourteen billion years
ago. Since then, nothing more has happened than a rearranging of the cosmic furniture.
"The universe
is everywhere undergoing change. A changing universe is a dependent universe; such a creation cannot be either final or absolute.
A finite universe is wholly dependent on the Ultimate and the Absolute. The universe and God are not identical; one is cause,
the other effect. The cause is absolute, infinite, eternal, and changeless; the effect, time-space and transcendental but
ever changing, always growing." (UB 102:7.1, p. 1126)
Because traditional physicists think of
creation as a one-time miracle from "nothing," they regard the contents of the universe -- such as trees, rocks,
and people -- as being constituted from ancient matter. In sum, the dead-universe theory assumes creation occurred billions
of years ago, when a massive explosion spewed out lifeless material debris into equally lifeless space and has, by random
processes, organized itself into life forms on the remote planet-island called Earth.
"To the
finite mind there simply must be a beginning, and though there never was a real beginning to reality, still there are certain
source relationships which reality manifests to infinity." (UB 105:1.5, p. 1153)
In striking
contrast, the living-universe theory proposes that the cosmos is completely recreated at each moment, and is maintained, moment
by moment, by an unbroken flow-through of energy. … David Bohm calls the universe an "undivided wholeness in flowing
movement," in his book Wholeness and the Implicate Order," published in 1980.
"The
universe is not wound up like a clock to run just so long and then cease to function; all things are constantly being renewed.
The Father unceasingly pours forth energy, light, and life. The work of God is literal as well as spiritual." (UB 4:1.6.
p. 55)
Bohm objected to the assumption that the world can be reduced to a set of irreducible particles
within a three-dimensional Cartesian grid, or even within the four-dimensional curvilinear space of relativity theory. Bohm
came instead to embrace a concept of reality where the entire cosmos is being regenerated at each instant. A single symphony
of expression unfolds from the most minute aspects of the subatomic realm to the vast reaches of billions of galactic systems.
"The grand universe is not only a material creation of physical grandeur, spirit sublimity, and
intellectual magnitude, it is also a magnificent and responsive living organism. There is actual life pulsating throughout
the mechanism of the vast creation of the vibrant cosmos. The physical reality of the universes is symbolic of the perceivable
reality of the Almighty Supreme; and this material and living organism is penetrated by intelligence circuits, even as the
human body is traversed by a network of neural sensation paths. This physical universe is permeated by energy lanes which
effectively activate material creation, even as the human body is nourished and energized by the circulatory distribution
of the assimilable energy products of nourishment." (116:7.1, p. 1276, The Living Organism Of The Grand Universe)
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