#explicate order

When we look at what we call ourselves, we are looking at a rather explicate image of something which is very, very different, and there has to be a searching movement to feel out what is happening. Then the image becomes valuable as a reflection of the deeper reality. But otherwise, the image can become a source of confusion and we begin to value it too highly; it becomes ego, and we have worship of the self-image, etc. I think that science can be looked at in this way too. We get all sorts of explicit images – things that happen – but we have to look deeper to find out what underlies them. If you try to deal directly with them at their own level, then things become incoherent. You can do it up to a point, but the method is limited.

Matter is a front for a deeper order.

Bohm: Now, the ordinary idea of matter is: it’s an object which exists external to other objects, passes through space continuously, goes from here to there, and connects up with other objects. Makes the whole that way. Now, to just give the idea of what I mean: I saw once on BBC television a device which I realized would be very useful for my purposes. It was made at the Royal Institution in London, and it consisted of two glass cylinders, concentric, one inside the other. The inner one was held fixed, and the outer one turned slowly, and you placed a very viscous fluid such as glycerin in between the two cylinders. Now, as you turn the outer cylinder, the glycerin on the outside is turning, the glycerin on the inside is fixed, and in between it’s moving at an intermediate rate. So if you took a small bit of glycerin it would slowly get drawn out into a thread. Is that clear?

One way to express the hard problem of consciousness in Bohmian terms is to say that there seems to be nothing within the explicate order that would necessitate or make possible conscious experience. Traditional philosophy of mind and neuroscience often assume that the explicate order is all there is to the physical world, while at the same time seeking to locate consciousness to the physical world. Thus it is not surprising, from the Bohmian point of view, that the hard problem is so acute for these subjects. The key point is that the Bohmian scheme proposes that there is more to the world than the explicate order of matter, namely the implicate order and what may be beyond that. If conscious experience cannot be fully accounted for within the explicate order of matter, then there is no choice but to explore the role played by the implicate order and what may lie beyond it.

The central new notion introduced by quantum mechanics is not indeterminism, nor uncertainty, but wholeness. This new feature has been described by phrases such as "the non-separability of spatially separated systems", or more briefly as "quantum non-locality". These terms are actually inadequate expressions of the radical implications of the notion of wholeness and reflect a strong desire to cling to a reductionist philosophy. A radically new approach is needed, an approach that does not depend upon the Cartesian Order, but requires the introduction of new orders such as the implicate order and the generative order. Mathematical descriptions of these new orders are under active development at present.It is now quite clear that if gravity is to be quantised successfully, a radical change in our understanding of spacetime will be needed. We begin from a more fundamental level by taking the notion of process as our starting point. Rather than beginning with a spacetime continuum, we introduce a structure process which, in some suitable limit, approximates to the continuum. We are exploring the possibility of describing this process by some form of non-commutative algebra, an idea that fits into the general ideas of the implicate order. In such a structure, the non-locality of quantum theory can be understood as a specific feature of this more general a-local background and that locality, and indeed time, will emerge as a special feature of this deeper a-local structure.

I propose something like this: Imagine an infinite sea of energy filling empty space, with waves moving around in there, occasionally coming together and producing an intense pulse. Let's say one particular pulse comes together and expands, creating our universe of space-time and matter. But there could well be other such pulses. To us, that pulse looks like a big bang; In a greater context, it's a little ripple. Everything emerges by unfoldment from the holomovement, then enfolds back into the implicate order. I call the enfolding process "implicating," and the unfolding "explicating." The implicate and explicate together are a flowing, undivided wholeness. Every part of the universe is related to every other part but in different degrees.