silber@voodoo.ucsb.edu (11/16/89)
-Message-Text-Follows- David Bohm gave a general purpose, big audience talk at UCSB yesterday. In the foyer of campbell hall were minions of the Ojai crowd who peddle krishnamurti literature (bohm used to hang out with the now deceased guru of indeterminate one-time Indian extraction). He spoke about his concept of the 'implicate order' of the universe and all and everything. Certainly his notion that some kind of 'wholeness' forms/patterns are more fundamental than physical phenomena is appealing to abstract computationalists. It seemed to me that his analogy sets up a precedence of a pattern/context system over and above the generally defered-to physical system of physical phenomena in space-time (juxtaposition of pattern/context with field/spatial-extent) To computational paradigmists, it would seem that bohm's stuff can be accomodated within some notion of privileged, super-fundamental pattern-generating phenomena.
bwk@mbunix.mitre.org (Kort) (11/19/89)
In article <3033@hub.UUCP> silber@voodoo.ucsb.edu writes: > David Bohm gave a general purpose, big audience talk at UCSB yesterday. > In the foyer of Campbell Hall were minions of the Ojai crowd who peddle > Krishnamurti literature (Bohm used to hang out with the now deceased > guru of indeterminate one-time Indian extraction). He spoke about his > concept of the 'implicate order' of the universe and all and everything. > Certainly his notion that some kind of 'wholeness' forms/patterns are > more fundamental than physical phenomena is appealing to abstract > computationalists. It seemed to me that his analogy sets up a > precedence of a pattern/context system over and above the generally > defered-to physical system of physical phenomena in space-time > (juxtaposition of pattern/context with field/spatial-extent) > To computational paradigmists, it would seem that Bohm's stuff can > be accomodated within some notion of privileged, super-fundamental > pattern-generating phenomena. Oh to be able to speak and write like that! --Barry Kort
smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar) (11/19/89)
When David Bohm came to UCLA, he gave one talk to the Physics Department and one to the Cognitive Science Group. This allowed him to get more technical than he probably could at a public lecture. Now I have to confess that it has been quite some time since I looked at the Schroedinger wave equation, which means that it is not too difficult for a "granola scientist" to pull a fast one on me. Nevertheless, it seemed like the general direction in which he was heading was that he wanted to put "information" up there along with "matter" and "energy" as a fundamental building block for our understanding of the physical world. I believe this is basically the punch line behind what he called "soma-significance." I would like to pursue this matter further; and I bought myself a copy of UNFOLDING MEANING, which is apparently the only thing in writing available about soma-significance. (The "implicate order" theme is in his book WHOLENESS AND THE IMPLICATE ORDER.) Now all I need is the time to sit down and do some serious reading . . . ========================================================================= USPS: Stephen Smoliar USC Information Sciences Institute 4676 Admiralty Way Suite 1001 Marina del Rey, California 90292-6695 Internet: smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu "For every human problem, there is a neat, plain solution--and it is always wrong."--H. L. Mencken