Chapter 7: Participatory Thought and the Unlimited
What is “participatory thought”?
- “Participation” as “to partake of” and “to partake in” (to make your contribution).
- It sees that everything partakes of everything. There is no separation of the subject and the object, it does not have an independent being.
- Tends to bring together, although it can lead to fragmentary thinking (tribe “human beings”)
What is “literal thought”?
- Aims at being a reflection of reality as it is – it claims just to tell you the way things are.
- Tends to fragment.
“To some extent we need literal thought even internally, psychologically. And to some extent we need the participatory thought outwardly.”
“Society is not an objective reality – period. It is really created by all the people through their consciousness… Individually and collectively – together – we have a consciousness which creates this society, and sustains it with thought, intellect, feeling, and so on.”
Idea of thoughts as folding and unfolding in our consciousness.
Three Dimensions of the Human Being
1. Individual
2. Collective
3. Cosmic
- Sphere of man’s immersion in nature, the cosmology of science and of religion.
- “Religion has left us, we have moved very far away from nature, and philosophy has become confused.”
- “We are the end of nature”… We can no longer rely on nature as being limitless.
- Man’s attitude toward nature
“In a participatory view, the suggestion is that we have the unlimited as the ground of everything – that our true being is unlimited. Then the question arises – is there a possibility of consciousness actually contacting the true being?”
- Is Bohm referring to God?
“We should ask: is it in the nature of thought to be able to know everything – since thought is abstraction, which inherently implies limitation? Or put differently: is the whole field of thought – experience, knowledge, tacit thought – is that a field limited?”
- Objective truth, TFITE
Bohm proposes that the field of thought is limited, but there’s also the unlimited that consists of not only expanding our cone of vision of the universe, but also about going more and more subtle levels (general levels) of the whole process. At this level the consciousness of everyone varies little and the tacit thoughts are the foundation of consciousness shared by all.
“Leisure”: “emptiness”, an empty space of some sort – an empty space of time or place, where there is nothing occupying you.
“If you had a considerable number of people who really could see through this, they would have an effect immensely beyond any one person.”
“I think, then, that there is the possibility of the transformation of consciousness, both individually and collectively. It’s important that it happens together – it’s got to be both. And therefore this whole question – of communication and the ability to dialogue, the ability to participate in communication – is crucial.”