Implicate and explicate order: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 20:55, 10 April 2019

Revision as of 02:55, 4 May 2019

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In proposing this new notion of order, [[David Bohm|Bohm]] explicitly challenged a number of tenets that he believed are fundamental to much scientific work:

# that phenomena are reducible to [[fundamental particles]] and [[Law (principle)|laws]] describing the [[behaviour]] of particles, or more generally to any static (i.e., unchanging) [[entities]], whether separate events in [[space-time]], [[quantum states]], or static entities of some other nature;

# related to (1), that human knowledge is ''most fundamentally'' concerned with [[mathematical]] prediction of [[statistical]] aggregates of particles;

# that an analysis or description of any aspect of [[reality]] (e.g., quantum theory, the speed of light) can be unlimited in its [[Field of study|___domain]] of relevance;

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His [[paradigm]] is generally opposed to [[reductionism]], and some view it as a form of [[ontological]] [[holism]]. On this, Bohm noted of prevailing views among physicists that "the world is assumed to be constituted of a set of separately existent, indivisible, and unchangeable 'elementary particles', which are the fundamental 'building blocks' of the entire universe ... there seems to be an unshakable faith among physicists that either such particles, or some other kind yet to be discovered, will eventually make possible a complete and coherent explanation of everything" ({{harvnb|Bohm|1980|p=173}}).

In Bohm's conception of order, primacy is given to the undivided whole, and the implicate order inherent within the whole, rather than to parts of the whole, such as particles, quantum states, and continua. This whole encompasses all things, [[structures]], abstractions, and processes, including processes that result in (relatively) stable structures as well as those that involve a metamorphosis of structures or things. In this view, parts may be [[entities]] normally regarded as [[physics|physical]], such as [[atoms]] or [[subatomic particle]]s, but they may also be [[abstraction|abstract]] entities, such as quantum states. Whatever their nature and character, according to Bohm, these parts are considered in terms of the whole, and in such terms, they constitute relatively separate and independent "sub-totalities." The implication of the view is, therefore, that nothing is ''fundamentally'' separate or independent.

{{harvnb|Bohm|1980|p=11}}, said: "The new form of insight can perhaps best be called Undivided Wholeness in Flowing Movement. This view implies that flow is in some sense prior to that of the ‘things’ that can be seen to form and dissolve in this flow." According to Bohm, a vivid image of this sense of analysis of the whole is afforded by [[vortex]] structures in a flowing [[stream]]. Such vortices can be relatively stable [[patterns]] within a continuous flow, but such an analysis does not imply that the flow patterns have any sharp division, or that they are literally separate and independently existent entities; rather, they are most fundamentally undivided. Thus, according to Bohm’s view, the whole is in continuous [[flux]], and hence is referred to as the [[holomovement]] (movement of the whole).