ABOUT DIALOGUE,
Think clearly, communicate clearly.

David Bohm

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Contents

Foreword to the Routledge
Classics Edition 7 – Peter M. Senge

Introduction – Humberto Schwab 17

1 About communication 29
2 About the dialogue 34
3 The nature of collective thinking 90
4 The problem and the paradox 108
5 The observer and the observed 117
6 Suspension, the body and proprioception 122
7 Participatory thinking and the limitless 137
Bibliography 153
Register 155
Acknowledgments 159

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Preface

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1 Today, when I reread David Bohm's essay On Dialogue, it was like unwrapping a precious gift. It is not only an honor but also a wonderful opportunity to be asked to write a foreword for a new edition of this classic article by Bohm. I met David and Saral Bohm in mid-1989 at the famed Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT. The speeches that form the basis of this book were delivered at that time. We talked about the dialogue together for many hours. Afterwards I regretted that those conversations were not recorded, because I remember that there was a lot that made a deep impression on me and I realized that I would not be able to remember much of it. My mind simply could not comprehend the subtleties of David's thoughts. I feel like a lot of what I didn't understand then is presented here and hopefully many of us are better prepared for it now. Since this meeting, many attempts have been made to practice dialogue in often very complex situations,

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1 Written for the Routledge Classics edition.

2 The research from MIT and the SoL network was presented by W. Isaacs, Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together: A Pioneering Approach to Communicating in Business and in Life (New York: Curren cy, 1999).

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and the idea has now been better developed. Nowadays the word is used for all kinds of meetings: 'stake holder dialogues' (between shareholders), 'cross-sector dialogues' (between different sectors), 'civic dialogues' (between citizens). For example, when Kofi Annan and his colleagues founded the United Nations Global Compact to boost social, environmental and labor standards worldwide, 'policy dialogue' (between policy makers) was one of the key elements to encourage companies, trade unions and and to encourage society to 'seek innovative solutions to complex problems'.

3 There have been serious attempts across organizations to integrate dialogue into daily work – with simple practices such as 'check-ins' and 'check-outs': listening to thoughts at the beginning or end of a meeting and the feelings of the participants. For years, a senior vice president of a globally operating multinational organized an 'agenda-free' meeting every month that was intended to work on 'collective leadership'. All this shows that more and more people have come to realize that the complex problems of organizations and societies require better listening and a more open form of communication. 'Win/lose' politics and hierarchical patterns of authority are simply unable to cope with climate change, the growing gap between rich and poor and the dilemmas of genetic technology. Just because people 'talk to each other' is not enough to create mutual understanding, get on the same page and take action together. Alternatives must be devised, both internally and between the institutions themselves. This increased interest in dialogue is the 3 See www.globalcompact.org.

 

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reason why this reissue of Bohm's speech is so well timed. It could lead to a broader appreciation for his view of dialogue and the changes that come with it. For Bohm, dialogue was not just a way to make conversations more fruitful, although he also considered that purpose not unimportant. The dialogue was not primarily intended to make people think, however essential he thought that was. And it was certainly not just a method to increase the effectiveness of companies and other established organizations. He was quite ambivalent about this, because he knew that greater effectiveness of these types of organizations would reinforce existing problematic patterns in industrial development. Bohm believed that society is held together by an 'unconscious layer'. He hoped that the changes he intended would result from this. "Our thoughts bubble up from an unconscious layer," he said, "and every fundamental change in thinking comes from this tacit ground." He has repeatedly emphasized that a well-functioning society needs a 'coherent' tacit foundation. and that this is lacking in our time. 'A shared sense of meaning is the cement that holds society together, and you could say that the cement of our current society is rather brittle (...) Society at large uses a large number of incoherent meanings. These “shared meanings” are so incoherent that it is difficult to say whether they are actually meaningful.' For Bohm, a good understanding of the dialogue started with a correct understanding of what he meant by 'incoherence'. This is not a common term among social critics, and certainly among social activists. But for physicists it is a well-known concept. A laser generates

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exceptionally high energy due to the coherence of the light, and it requires no more power than an 'incoherent' light bulb. But what does that comparison say about the social world? In his speech, Bohm often speaks about the challenge of allowing multiple points of view in dialogue. We have a strong tendency to defend our own views, to agree with people who share our views and to disagree with people who have a different opinion. This makes tolerating other views difficult. “The greatest obstacle to dialogue,” says Bohm, “is that people have all kinds of assumptions and opinions and start to defend them.” Our tendency to judge and defend ourselves is anchored in self-defense mechanisms in our biological structure. That is the source of the incoherence. Our personal meaning becomes incoherent when it becomes a fixed opinion. Incoherence increases when meaning from the past is imposed on situations in the present. In that case, yesterday's frameworks of meaning become today's dogmas, with much of the original sense and meaning being lost in the process. When this happens in a collective context, societies are dominated by shadows from the past, eroded myths that are applied as intact truths for the present. This leads to incoherence on a large scale, thought patterns and models of action that separate people from each other and from the larger reality in which they try to live. Unchecked incoherence becomes an absurdity. Bohm tells the story of a psychiatrist who worked with a confused girl. She didn't want to talk to anyone until she angrily lashed out at him and said she wasn't answering him because she "hated" him. When the psychiatrist asked her how long she would continue to hate him, she said:

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“Forever.” When he asked how long she would “hate him forever,” the absurdity of her behavior dawned on her. She burst out laughing. Her anger disappeared. But absurd situations shared by virtually all people of a culture are much less easy to understand – such as the idea that our economy on a limited planet must continue to grow in material production (and waste), or the idea that a unilateral approach to problems national security in a world increasingly threatened by deadly weapons that are becoming increasingly easy to obtain, or the idea that the pace of life can always be accelerated – as one teenager said: 'People are running faster and faster towards a place where no one wants to be.' Put another way: Bohm realized that the core problem is that we don't know how to live together in a changing world. All we know is how we live according to old truths, which inevitably leads to the creation of groups that try to impose their truth on others. We easily recognize this in others – such as fanatical 'terrorists', radical fundamentalists who aim to overthrow modern democratic society. But is their view really different from that of “democratic fundamentalists” who want to impose their truth as the only true way? Bohm realized that the defense of core beliefs and the resulting incoherence characterize our modern world. He tells an informative anecdote about Einstein and Bohr. Both men initially had a warm friendship, but later stopped speaking to each other, 'because they no longer had anything to say to each other. They had nothing in common, because both were convinced they were right.' If such rigidity can happen between two brilliant people, who would be immune to it?

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Conversely, collective ways of thinking and acting that are coherent can only emerge if a flow of meaning is created that allows multiple views, an approach that excludes defense mechanisms. But coherence is a way of life and not a fixed state, and Bohm was well aware of how difficult that could be. Above all, as a scientist he realized that the incoherence of society is not separate from the scientific rationalism that seems to be sacred in the modern Western world. Although most scientists reject fundamentalism, the functioning of the scientific establishment shows that little comes of the much-vaunted openness of science. “In a sense,” said Bohm, “science has become the religion of modern times. By giving us truth, it has taken over the role that religion played.' This intellectual fundamentalism is barely visible, because it is deeply rooted in the cultural assumptions that most people in our modern society share. We don't know how to question it. From our earliest moments in school, we learn that scientists are people who tell us 'how things work'. The problem, according to Bohm, is that contemporary science is 'based on the concept (...) [of] finding a unique truth. The idea of dialogue is foreign to the current structure of science, as is the case with religion. Bohm knew that the search for a 'unique truth' has the potential to divide people rather than connect them. The Chilean biologist Humberto Maturana put it this way: 'When one group of people tells another group what is "real", they are in fact asking for obedience. They claim that they possess a privileged view of reality.' According to Bohm, dialogue offers another path to reality
 
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truth – or rather: another conception of truth. “We will never find the truth unless the overall meaning is coherent,” he says. By creating a large field of coherent and shared meanings, truly new and compelling insights can emerge. This often happens unexpectedly. 'Truth does not arise from opinions,' says Bohm, 'it must arise from something else – perhaps from a freer dynamic of this silent mind.' And he continues: 'Significance will have to be coherent if we want to see or participate in the truth to the truth.' That strange expression 'participating in the truth' points, I think, to another fundamental point of Bohm: namely what it means to see the whole. Our reductionist science finds its power in isolating things and applying that knowledge to create new things such as technological inventions. But its effectiveness is based on its ability to divide the world into fragments. Reductionist science can do nothing with the whole and is opposed to the whole with its hands in its hair. After all, it must operate in a context in which everything depends on everything else. That is one of the reasons why in this modern world full of amazing inventions it is becoming increasingly difficult to live together. The fundamental problem, according to Bohm, is that 'the whole thing is too much. Our thinking cannot possibly get a hold of the whole, because thoughts are always an abstraction. Thinking limits and limits.' The idea of abstraction versus appreciation for the whole was very nicely expressed by the Jewish existentialist philosopher Martin Buber, when he talked about the way we see the whole of a person, namely by seeing someone as 'a you':

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If I confront a human being as opposed to my You, (...) then he is not a thing among things and does not consist of things. He is not He or She, limited by other He's or She's (...) But he is You, without neighbors, without joints and fills the sky. (...) Just as a melody is not composed of tones, a verse is not composed of words, a column is not composed of lines - one has to tug and pull at it to turn the unity into a multiplicity - so it is with the human being to whom I say you. I can get the color of his hair or the color of his language or the color of his goodness out of him, I have to do it again and again, but then he is no longer You.4 Bohm was convinced that participatory thinking is the alternative to understand the whole versus abstraction. “A new kind of consciousness can arise among us, a participating consciousness.” In a true dialogue, “every person is a participant. Everyone is part of the whole meaning of a group and also participates in it.' That is not always a pleasant experience, Bohm warns. The systems we live in today involve both pain and beauty, and both anger and unconditional love. If we detach ourselves from the whole, we cannot participate in it – and we fall back into abstraction, judgment and defense. We then say: 'Luckily I'm not like that person,' or: 'That other person is no good, I am,' or: 'He doesn't see what's going on, but I do.' generating a dialogue and searching for an unconscious layer that shows more coherence. In order to participate in the truth, we must4 Martin Buber, Me and You, translated by Marianne Storm (Utrecht: Erven J. Bijleveld, 1959/1998), p. 13-14.

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until we see our own part in it. There are no "good guys" and "bad guys" outside of us. As members of modern society, we are part of the forces that give rise to all that exists: both that which we value and that which we despise. The poet Maya Angelou told the story of her reconciliation and awakening. As a teenager she was raped by someone from her family. Ultimately, she came to terms with this by recognizing that the emotions and violence of her rapist were also present within herself. When she tells this story, Angelou often ends with the words of Publius Terentius Afer, an African who came to ancient Rome as a slave and was later freed: “I am a human being. Nothing human is foreign to me.' That is participating in the truth. In short, the main goal that David Bohm had was to find a new and better path to a real society. In a world of increasing interdependence, he realized that people who cannot cope with this inevitably lead to an escalation of conflicts. As a natural scientist, he had dedicated his life to understanding a participatory universe that unfolds its meaning in a constant process. As a human being, he was convinced that the current crisis offers a unique opportunity to transfer the same vision to the understanding of the human world. You could easily call Bohm a romantic idealist – he envisioned 'a kind of culture which, as far as I can see, never really existed (...) (except perhaps) a very long time ago'. But my experiences over the last fifteen years with the possibilities and challenges of dialogue have given me a very different picture. I would actually call David Bohm a great realist. He realized that no society before us has ever experienced the globalizing dilemmas we face, and that we will not overcome them unless we make radical changes to the way we live and live together. Peter M. Senge SOL (Society for Organizational Learning) and MIT January 13, 2004

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Introduction This collection of texts by physicist and philosopher David Bohm is a gift with an incentive. This book might change you dramatically. It can therefore rightly be called a game changer. David Bohm is a guide who gives hints to make sense of everything that is going on in the current contradiction between social crises and technological utopias and... to make sense of the adventure of the philosophical search for hidden presuppositions. You can apply much of the content directly to yourself, although this sometimes seems uncomfortable, because Bohm's insights sometimes partly unmask the image we cherish of ourselves. The book actually undermines all the certainties you have as an ordinary citizen. It makes short work of the 'normal' way we think about ourselves and how we subsequently perceive the world. Cleverness, abstract thinking, sharp discussion, science, 'peace and love' – it is all exposed as more of the same: we need a radical turn to break free from our hyper-atomic I-culture, in which man is a stand-alone is, locked up in the mind, which is too often seen as your identity or even as the space of freedom. This is a reversal of values!

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State of the world When Bohm wrote these texts - at the end of the last century - there was not yet such explosive growth. There was no iPhone yet. It seems like we could really use this book right now. The Dutch translation of this book comes at the right time. In the industrialized world, in addition to the enormous positive developments in cultural and socio-economic terms, many signs of decomposition are visible. In both the observable and the unobservable world there is an accumulation of issues that affect both society and ourselves. On the one hand, this concerns issues such as climate crisis, nuclear threats, pollution, refugee flows and political instability, and on the other hand, phenomena such as depression, burnouts, smartphone and drug addictions and simply loneliness. As if it were not bad enough, a tsunami is moving through our society, which, just like the natural phenomenon, we did not 'see' coming.1 This tsunami is caused by exponential technological development. We could not see it because until now we have always been in charge of technological development. Our human mind thinks linearly. Technological development, on the other hand, does not follow that linear line, but follows a curved curve that we call exponential. It goes up steeply. At first there was nothing wrong, we denied the voice crying in the desert, who warned us about the robots, artificial intelligence (AI), hypercontrol, big data and what not. But suddenly that curve is visible: that is the tsunami, emerging from the misleading period of calm.1 See: 'A Tsunami of Change' - Yuri van Geest on Our Future Health 2016

 

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rises and intersects the straight line. That intersection is the singular point where we are now: we can no longer imagine what will happen tomorrow. Need for new concepts It seems that everything we have built up over hundreds of years, thinking, acting and feeling; to rituals, customs, laws; but also to theories and philosophies about ourselves and the world, is no longer adequate. And that this might be a block to our ability to create a new story. In short, we need completely new concepts and perhaps a major cleaning of our thinking system. Perhaps different images of ourselves and our thinking. The phenomenal thing about Bohm is that he knows how to connect the inner world and the outer world in an in-depth analysis, which makes 'joint conscious action' possible. Errors in our thought system Particularly in modern times, there are significant derailments in the following areas: the way we think and how we think about thinking; the way we think about feeling; the model we have of our 'I' or of the 'self'; the way we discuss and debate; the way we glorify abstract knowledge; the way we perceive; the way in which we divide everything into boxes and silos (education, government, companies, ourselves); the way in which we are obsessed with facts, which we defend as objective truth and the way in which we want to solve all problems in a rational, results-oriented manner. We do not realize that the world of buildings, roads, schools, companies, barracks and houses is a consequence of our thinking:

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it is a design produced by our thinking.2 But conversely, the outside world also determines how we think. The main drama is that we do not really think, but repeat thoughts (thought is the past tense of think); basically we keep going around in the same circles. It is because our prefrontal neo-cortex, in which our reflective thinking takes place, is directly connected to the evolutionarily oldest parts of the brain (such as the amygdala) in the brain stem. Survival instincts, flight or fight reflexes, drives and emotions still play the leading role in this brain stem. We cannot simply discard our reptilian brain. Thinking is linked to our countless neural circuits, which consist of wires or nerves connected by synapses. It means that a circuit can release dopamine or serotonin when another thought is repeated by that circuit. That gives a good feeling. So you can understand that repeating the thought that asylum seekers are criminals creates an increasingly stronger circuit that can secrete more and more dopamine ('when you fire you wire'). This thought is therefore not purely mental, but directly linked to our neural network with hormones and endorphins3, in short to our body. The misleading thing is that this thought works like a virus, it actually says 'think me'. 2 In my practice (Socratic Design), individuals but also companies learn to create a new world of facts, based on this insight. 3 Thought as a System (1992, Routledge, New York) also lists several seminars that specifically explain this effect.

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You get the impression that you are thinking. This is where the first, the FIRST SYSTEM ERROR4 emerges in our thinking. The above effect is even stronger with hidden presuppositions or so-called necessary thoughts, which are often collective in nature. When someone says 'I always assume that...', there is an addictive necessity. Moreover, colleagues often already know what person X or Y is going to say about this or that theme; but the person thinks he or she really thinks. The necessary thoughts (such as 'Everyone does everything for their own sake') are so strong that our neuroendorphin system responds to any threat to these necessities with a defensive reflex. It goes so far, Bohm again, that we avoid a priori any indication that the thought might be wrong. The assumptions come from parental nutrition, school, church and - nowadays increasingly - media and so-called social media. But there are also assumptions in the buildings and the environment that surround us. Our thinking is not locked up in our heads, our thinking designs the outside world and the outside world unconsciously directs our thinking. Much of what now comes through social media is explosive viral material that thoroughly shakes up thinking and feeling. The makers of these platforms are now starting to recognize that there is serious manipulation of the mind: 'hacking of the mind'. In fact, Bohm's model explains why Facebook and Instagram have so much influence: within and 4 A system error in physics is an error in the measuring instrument, so it is often not measured

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​A second system error that Bohm has identified is that thinking hides what it does: it shows the world as factual, it pretends to be a passive medium that transmits what is going on 'outside'. It causes the whole world and then says, "I didn't do this." The thinking that identifies problems in the world ignores that those problems were caused by that very thinking. The world is a result of our thinking. The fact that we have nations is a consequence of the collective necessity that we attribute to that concept. We can continue to debate, but we can also look carefully at what thinking is doing here, and what the grounds are for it. We also always make abstractions in our thinking and then accept those abstractions as true. The map of Rotterdam is an abstraction (literally: subtraction) of the real city. Suppose we take that map at face value – that would be crazy. Well, we actually do that continuously with our abstractions (models) that thinking presents to us... The philosopher John Dewey called this system error 'the intellectual fallacy'. The more abstract something is, the more it is considered 'true'. Hence science is the religion of today.6 A third system flaw, related to the previous one, is our total inability to listen. We are so addicted to repeating our own thoughts and our 'feelings' (past tense of feeling), that we only let in what fits our thoughts and feelings. The deception is so strong that people who claim to 6 In fact, logical positivism has gained massive ground.

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listened, then cannot reproduce what someone has said. We don't listen because we sometimes defend unconscious assumptions (related to vulnerability or fear) through the defensive reflex: we are on guard. Listening is truly an art and makes completely new interactions possible. Attention – a crucial concept for Bohm – is a catalyst in this process. the Fourth system error is the idea of the isolated self (the 'stand-alone'). This I reasons like this: Our thoughts and feelings must be caused by me as a thinker, and all my feelings and thoughts are therefore mine. The external and collective character is completely denied in this line of thought. The idea of the 'I-think' is one of the strongest necessities in our culture, an idea that also manifests itself in the way in which we are constantly addressed about our unique, 'free' self.7 In groups, according to Bohm, this leads to discussions, which actually mainly come down to trading blows (the words 'discussion' and 'percussion' have the same root). In debates we lock ourselves into a misleading self-image. The evolutionarily oldest part of the brain dominates. Heart rate, blood pressure, adrenaline – everything is involved in the debate. What to do? The book provides a clear response to the gaps in our thought system outlined by Bohm. We must realize that our thought system, linked to writing, has developed over the last three thousand years. 7 See also Mark Johnson, The Meaning of the Body: Aesthetics of Human Understanding. University of Chicago Press, 2008, p. 105.

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Before that there was only the oral method of communication, practiced in dialogue. This always happened in collective contexts. Tribal communities mainly knew the ritual of communal attention. Writing makes isolated reflection possible (a development that is further enhanced by the internet and email). The dialogue comes apart from thinking. In this book, Bohm shows that we must always engage in dialogue in order to properly understand our thinking. You can enter into dialogue with yourself by observing your own thoughts and feelings as impulses that come from outside. You can 'suspend' an emerging negative thought, for example about your partner or colleague. You then ask yourself: Do I want to think this? Bohm calls this 'self-perception' proprioception. We are used to looking at our bodies regularly (for example, in the mirror every morning); You should also do this with your thinking and feeling. Proprioception allows you to penetrate deeper into your own assumptions. This way your mind enters its creative mode. In groups we can have a dialogue that transcends discussions and debates. The art of listening is then central. In our society, moderation is necessary to guide people away from their self-centeredness and from results-oriented thinking to that attitude of listening. When different positions are taken, it is not primarily about discussing and exchanging arguments, but above all about deepening: the assumptions of both positions are unearthed. The entire group looks at the underlying thoughts through 'joint concentrated attention'. The joint proprioception that then arises creates a sense of community. In the dialogue group, the common

 

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physical attention a 'participatory consciousness', in which and in which all participate. This participating consciousness is much broader than abstract thinking, because it can generate much deeper insights from tacit assumptions. You cannot do this alone, because most of the necessary assumptions are collective in nature. But in a mini-culture – which is a group – we can unmask the disturbing assumptions and jointly produce new meanings. Because you really listen, you start to absorb other thoughts and break free from your own system. Participatory consciousness therefore helps us to solve concrete technical issues in our normal thinking. In addition, participatory consciousness is a fantastic answer to the described dissolution phenomena of our time. Thinking from this consciousness we are able to design completely new realities. Participation consciousness is a natural activity and can heal fragmentations resulting from 'stand alone' thinking. It makes it possible for us to control exponential technological growth with completely new concepts, because our intelligence – which arises in our collective participation consciousness – is no longer tied to the old baggage. Joint attention does not coincide with rational thinking, but is necessarily also physical. Artificial intelligence (AI) can therefore greatly support us in this. The challenge I called Bohm's collection (following Peter Senge) a gift and an encouragement. Regarding the latter, the challenge is to create tribal contexts where

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within we can give new meaning to our existence, meaning that does justice to people's authentic desires. The meaning is already in the joint, attentive concentration on our silent ground. The brilliant thing is that you can start this tomorrow: you get a new self within a significant us. But that doesn't happen overnight. It is advisable to cherish this book for a while, it will only come into its own if you allow the content to sink in.8 The challenge is to integrate all products that have been produced by our 'stand alone' thinking. and feeling, to be critically revalued and, if necessary, replaced by creations of participating consciousness. This applies to individuals, to companies, but also to major political conflicts. Humberto Schwab Sant Climent Sescebes Spain * * * Drs. Humberto Schwab studied physics and philosophy at the University of Utrecht and the University of Amsterdam. He has successfully advocated the introduction of the subject of philosophy in education. From Catalonia (Spain) he works throughout the EU with the Socratic Design method he developed. This allows you as a person or 8 You can read the different chapters independently of each other; they were created in different periods (usually during dialogue weekends). Chapter 2 contains David Bohm's core message. The other chapters provide an in-depth and detailed explanation of the second chapter.

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