Thought as a System David Bohm

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Thought as a SystemDavid Bohm

• Saturday Morning
• dialogue with Carl Leonard

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What happens when you question?

• When you are puzzled by something your mind wont
  let go.
• What is Thought doing at this time?

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Bohm encourages awareness.

• When you perceive, can you look at what really
  going on?
• Your thoughts, emotion, body, and even other
  people are all a part of one system.

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Bohm encourages awareness.

• Raising questions intellectually affects
  non-intellectual parts- and vice versa.
• You must see it all as one system or else you
  will not be able to deal with it.

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Thought addiction?

• Addiction to not just physical things like drugs
  and alcohol, but various kinds of thought
  addiction. Positive or negative thoughts for
  example.

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Addiction

• compulsive need for, and use of, a
  habit-forming substance characterized by
  tolerance, and by well-defined physiological
  symptoms upon withdrawal
• as a concept it fits into this representation.

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Thought Addiction

• many addictive drugs are external substances that
  cover pain receptors so you don't feel pain. The
  body can naturally produce these chemicals-
  called endorphins.
• It is possible for thoughts- reassuring or
  pleasant thoughts to produce endorphins.

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Thought Addiction

• It is possible to become physically addicted to
  these thoughts, and any concept that may
  challenge them will remove the endorphin 'fix'
  that they provide.
• You physically can't bear the idea that what you
  want to think- might not be true, because that
  would remove the endorphins, and the pain would
  start to come back.

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Thought addiction

• The thought process is neurophysiological, as
  well as intellectual and emotional.
• It has physical and chemical elements.

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Positive Thinking?

• Positive thoughts may provide a temporary
  endorphin relief for negative thoughts that are
  within us, but those negative thoughts, and their
  underlying cause is still there.
• At worst you bring in endorphins which could
  addict you to false thoughts. Which reinforce
  incoherent behavior.

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Seeing what IS.

• With thought and perception clouded by addiction,
  how can we ever see what truly IS?

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Seeing what IS.

• be really attentive to what's going on in the
  process of thought, you must do so in depth-
• find a way to know past the images of reality
  we construct to protect ourselves from the
  positive and negative feelings attached to
  thoughts.

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Seeing what IS.

• As long as you accept these filtered images as
  reality, you are in the thought trap.

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How to see what IS.

• first recognize that there is a reflexive
  mechanism is our brains that chemically and
  emotionally resists disturbance.
• We must find a way to quiet the reflexive
  response of thought.

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Reflex

• "an automatic response to a stimulus without
  reaching the level of consciousness.
• Look at thought as a set of reflexes.

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How to see what IS.

• Many reflexive emotionally defensive thoughts are
  designed to suppress incoherent, or divergent
  thoughts.
• This 'smooths over' the true but disturbing
  reality thought may be trying to avoid.

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How to see what IS.

• Psychological analysis of this may assign
  judgment to certain thoughts, (good or bad
  thoughts) avoidance of 'bad thought' or the
  suppression of them, compound the emotional
  trigger of guilt. Trying to paint over the
  details of an uncomfortable reality blinds us.

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Good or Bad?

• The positive and the negative thoughts are two
  sides of the same system.
• It's not whether we should believe in the
  positive or negative, its understanding the whole
  thing in one piece.

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What is true?

• Well assume that what is true is consistent and
  coherent.
• What is false results in incoherence within us.

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Incoherence

• Lacking orderly continuity, arrangement, or
  relevance.
• Inconsistent, confusion, show contradiction,
  conflict, exhibits internal stress.
• sustained incoherence would result in the
  inappropriateness.

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What IS true?

• The criterion for for coherent thought is that it
  is true and correct.
• But if you are getting pleasure and pain from
  coherent thought- then coherent thought is no
  longer functioning.
• Then the criterion of thought becomes whether or
  not the thought gives your pleasure of pain- and
  that thought then becomes destructive.

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Observe reflexive thought.

• can you become aware of the reflex nature of
  thought?
• these reflexes only serve us if they are not too
  rigid.
• reflexes forms structures as they become rigid.

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Observe Reflexive Thought

• Now that you are aware of these reflexes and
  structures..
• ask- are they incoherent? inconsistent,
  confusion, show contradiction, conflict, do they
  exhibit internal stress?
• This hints at what is not true.

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Knowing what IS

• knowing if you are seeing things as they are is
  about creating coherence, consistency, and
  appropriateness in thought.
• Thought without resistance.
• Allowing for changes in expectation to affect
  your perceptions.

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An edge of Thought

• While thinking about thinking we continue to
  build a map of thought.
• Look for ideas within this map that are
  coherent.

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Unconditioned Thought

• Thoughts that truly reflect what IS.
• a thought without bias, without the baggage of
  past perception and emotional distortion.

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Impulse

• The tension that results in the space between
  what is necessity and contengency.
• This tension results in an urge.
• You are compelled to act. What you feel is an
  impulse.

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Necessity and Contingency

• Necessity- is more than a thought- it is an
  anchor- within thought it means 'it cannot be
  otherwise'
• it suggests the emotional-physical stance of
  resistance and holding.
• this notion is crucial to our whole ordering of
  thought.
• it's opposite is

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Necessity and Contingency

• Contingency-
• meaning 'what can be otherwise'
• 'an event that MAY, but is not certain to occur'

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Chain of reflex

• What happens when someone yells at you?

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Making Thought Explicit

• Something happens to thought when you express
  it.
• When you put thought into words, it makes
  thought explicit, real, concrete, and we can
  relate to it.
• If you don't express it- thought can take over
  your mind, and you lose the sense of 'what you
  can control What is the process is you.

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Making thought explicit.

• by bringing it out you can see what's
  happening, how thought is involved.
• otherwise you may deflect the cause
• 'this is an emotional problem'
• or
• 'somebody out there caused it

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• by bringing it out you can see what's
  happening, how thought is involved.
• and therefore you say 'this is an emotional
  problem' or ' somebody out there has done it'

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Emotion Affects Perception

• We are a system, and emotions can also affect
  your perception. when you say the words-
• Watch how your body reacts.
• When you express true words expressing the way
  you really think- your body responds.

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Words have impact

• "I was hurt!"
• "she betrayed me1"
• "he attacked me1"
• Notice how your body reacts.
• When you find the words that truly express what
  you are feeling, your body will react.

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Emotional Assumption

• Think back on a disturbing emotion you've had.
• At it's core is the underlying assumption of
  necessity.
• Often, even once your realize that the necessity
  WAS just an assumption-
• You still cant let go of that strong emotion.
• You don't want to let it go.

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That's the reflex.

• It is in the intellect,
• It is in the biology.
• It is a part of you.
• So how do you change it??

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So how to change it?

• How can you change it when it's a part of you?

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• Dr. Phil! Oprah!!
• Whats the answer?!!?!

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• That's not the purpose of this exercise..

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Why do this?

• We are trying to get some perception into this
  process. Not to change it- but to learn about it.
• Don't try to DO anything.
• We are just learning, being aware and attentive.
• Not changing. Something may change you when you
  learn, but that's just a by-product.

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The system as a Whole

• When we are aware of the system as a whole
• the physiological,
• the psychological,
• the social,
• the whole thing-
• an awareness results-
• but when the intellect tries to put that into
  words, tries to describe that process,
• it doesn't work too well.

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Words as trigger

• This exercise is about becoming aware of the
  process, that this system is at work.
• Find the right words that trigger and reinforce
  this reflexive system. What words make it go full
  strength?

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Thought as a machine?

• It's like having a machine and you want to know
  how it works.
• You don't want it out of control where you can't
  see the parts.
• But you don't want it frozen still, because you
  can't see how the parts move together.

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• Can we get a lever, a button, literally can we
  get a handle on this machine?

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the purpose of this exercise

• become aware that the system exists.
• be aware how thought, reflex, emotion, and others
  affect your place in the system.
• then dig, to find the words truly that explicitly
  express this system.