"Even in relationships with inanimate objects and whit nature in general, something very like communication is involved.”
Name: On Dialogue
Author: David Bohm
Edited: Lee Nichol
Category: Expository – Philosophy
Year: 1996
Version: 2003
Pages: xviii: 95
What is the book about as a whole?
It is an introduction to the process of dialogue as a stream of meaning: the book joins theoretical foundations and practical advices to have a better understanding of it. Expanding more the book is a compilation of some of the main Bohm’s ideas on the subject. A physicist by career he was also interested in questions about how we communicate and share meaning as human beings.
What is being said in detail, and how?
The book is a selection of essays that although written in different years make a ‘comprehensive documentation’ of Bohm’s ideas evolution on the subject. The first essay is “ON COMMUNICATION” and he opens it talking about the widespread dissatisfaction with the state of communication in his days (and ours too) given the problem to listen each other. The critique to the world’s situation will be a recurrent topic in through the book. He calls us to the roots of the word to remind that in essence communication is “to make something common”. Particularly in dialogue we are trying to communicate, but no something already known to us, but to create something new.
The next essay is “ON DIALOGUE” and covers most of the book’s length and is an overview about what it means to have a dialogue. In the first part he advises us that before starting a dialogue we should think about the dialogue itself. We then can see that the nature of a Dialogue is not an “I win, you lose” situation, rather is a non-zero sum situation where both parties can gain something. He also makes a case for having dialogues if our aim is to communicate given that it requires a set practices that we need to do and that will help us to escape the usual ‘communication problem’.
In the part Dialogue and thought he talks about dialogue as a “process of thought” that happens in the collective level. This view makes us realize that in it we can have problems such as fragmentation of thought, thinking that the ideas that we have are separated and even contradictory, instead of realizing they might be parts. At some point he uses the analogy of fragments as in a broken dish and parts as the components of a clock. He also talks about the assumptions we might have given our background and how they might affect our participation in the process of sharing and creating meaning. Finally he talks that in practice a small group might not be the best for having a dialogue since individuals can adjust their expressions to maintain a cozy environment instead of engaging in real dialogue. The he talks about Suspending Assumptions that is to realize what your assumptions or presuppositions are and then instead of attaching yourself to them or disregard them you let them be but disentangled from the subject.
In the impulse of necessity he talks about a particular kind of thought that might be a handicap to have a great dialogue. In its root necessity is what we can’t turn aside and necessity creates powerful impulses. We often assign the level of absolute necessity to whatever we want to do or say, but stopping one moment an reflect about it might lead us to think about other levels and maybe realizing that what I need to do is not absolutely necessary and can wait. Absolute necessity might also become a recurrent assumption.
In that line he continues with the section Proprioception of thought by that he means becoming aware of oneself, in this case aware or our own thought. If we fail to do that we might not realize if what it comes to us is often not occasioned by other but by our own. He continues in the chapter talking about collective participation or being able to think together and a New Culture where he presents rules, laws, institutions and agreement to have them as the link that joins a society. Behind this there is Culture that is the glue that sticks society together and we should aim to have one that allows us to create things together.
In Difficulties in Dialogue he talks about the possible problems we might face when we are in a dialogue. We can find that some people assume roles such as the dominant or holding back positions. Also we can see the “talkers” who feel the necessity to say something and are not comfortable with silence to think more about an idea. He says that it is not even required to talk you might hold back but still be a “talker”. Finally we can face frustration given the nature of the process since some people might get anxious since there is no leader or specific topic to cover.
In the vision of dialogue he talks about how dialogue should allow oneself, an individual, to be participant in a group process. In a dialogue we might see the rising of “one mind” composed by the individual thoughts of the participants that feel that are integrant parts of the mind set in the circle. We have been talking about a kind of free dialogue so in the section Limited Dialogue he talks about certain dialogues that can have a goal in mind or that might not have the openness in character such as the one we have been talking but that even in this ones we should aim to opening up judgments and assumptions. Finally in Beyond Dialogue he thinks that dialogue is not only to solve the problems we have as a society, even if we don’t have them, it would be a fantastic way to get connected with each other. It might help us to transform us individually and collectively. Dialogue might empower us, give coherence to our human efforts, just like the analogy between the diffuse light of the candle and the concentrated light of the lantern.
The essay “THE NATURE OF COLLECTIVE THOUGHT” addresses the idea of knowledge moving autonomously, passing from one person to another. It is like if human beings have a pool of knowledge, one that has been developing for many thousands of years and it is full of all sorts of contents. He also talks about the way in which the facts of reality are presented to us and we create in our minds re-presentations of them. We do this individually but also collectively and our conception of a different world would be our ability to change whose collective representations. We also are introduced in this chapter to the problems that arise if we assume that our representation of the world is the one “picture of reality”.
Following this in the essay “THE PROBLEM AND THE PARADOX” he talks about the often missed difference between problems, for which we can find solutions and paradoxes, those which finding a solution might create a contradiction. The distinction is important not only in psychological terms for the individual but for the human relationships, it applies on dialogue too. Then in the brief essay “THE OBSERVER AND THE OBSERVED” he talks about the experience of self-cognition. He goes describing the interesting phenomenon of trying to think about yourself, about the assumptions you have, about the way you behave, being yourself both the observer and your feelings and thoughts what is observed. It is a pretty recursive process.
The last two chapters are “SUSPENSION, THE BODY AND PROPRIOCEPTION” and “PARTICIPATORY THOUGHT AND THE UNLIMITED”. The first talks about the awareness that we have about our body reactions towards thought. It also talks of how when suspending an assumption we have to be able to notice the changes in our body, because we are suspending without suppressing, even if you want to suppress something you would have to see the process of suppressing without suppressing it . It also addresses the importance of self-perception or proprioception of your own thinking. Finally in the last essay he talks about the difference between literal thought and participatory though. The first one is result oriented and has been the favored in our civilization. But there is also the other that is a different way to see thought, because it makes of the process of thinking a collective activity in which we can part take in and part take off. He quotes some examples of tribes that they feel they are part of a bigger dimension. By the way, he talks about the dimensions in which humans exists. The first one the individual, the collective formed by the interactions with others and the pool of knowledge we talked before and finally the cosmic dimension that connect us with the whole, with all, with everything. In regard to this last dimension he says that for a long time it was the task of religion to connect us with this one and even if science have tried to do it, it has been limited by its characteristics. Then we could perhaps see in dialogue a possibility to connect with this larger dimension. He closes the essay talking about how crucial is to be able to participate in communication for the individual and collective growth.
What are the author’s questions and problems?
In my perspective David Bohm in selection of essays is mainly concern about communication as sharing of meaning. He is proposing Dialogue as the way in which we can construct new meaning; he works out the theoretical foundations, moral justification and even practical advices about how to achieve this goal successfully. I think he is asking among other questions: what is communication? How can we share and construct meaning better? How can we describe the process of dialogue? How can we achieve dialogue? What are the good sides of it? What problems we might confront? How can we solve these problems? What is the role of the self in this process? Why is this relevant to human beings?
What of it?
Reading this book has been a really interesting experience given the MPC context. Mainly because it was my first formal encounter with theory about a process I’ve been practicing for more than a year. I think I would have not been able to appreciate the content of this book, as much as I have now, if I didn’t have the chance to join my program. I agree with Bohm that Dialogue can be a transformative experience. Also I share the opinion that many of the problems we have on our current society shall be solved if we try more often to do the non-zero sum process of dialogue instead of the usual debate that we do every day. Finally it seems interesting to me how this book indirectly was related to many issues we have seen during the term. The concept of proprioception was incredible related to what we have read on Hofstadter’s ‘Godel, Escher, Bach’; as well with the idea or a mind and how we can create one. On other hand Pinker’s ‘Words and Rules’ and the human quest to transmit knowledge through language is also related to On Dialogue. In other aspects it is also related with ‘Getting Real’ since at some point talks about being authentic and don’t just talk (or not) to avoid be looking as a fool. Finally I like how well it connects with Mortimer Adler’ ‘How to read a book’ and the intellectual etiquette required to do communication exercise.
On other dimension the book also opened my perspective to new forms to think about the human dimensions and how they infested of being in conflict, coexist and are complementary. The view of the Cosmic Dimension, although at the beginning looked to me as a kind of allegory after some thought I realized it is very meaningful and important to think about and on this dimension. In the end the book is an excellent companion to anyone who wants to be part of a dialogue.
What quotes did you like the most?
“Thus, in a dialogue, each person does not attempt to make common certain ideas or items of information that are already known to him. Rather it might be said that two people are making something in common, i.e., creating something new together.”
"Love will go away if we can't communicate and share meaning. The love between Einstein and Bohr gradually evaporated because they could not communicate. However, if we can really communicate, then we will have fellowship, participation, friendship, and love, growing and growing." David Bohm
“Even in relationships with inanimate objects and whit nature in general, something very like communication is involved.”
“Thus, if people are to cooperate (i.e., literally to “work together”) they have to be able to create something in common, something that takes shape in their mutual discussions and actions, rather than something that is conveyed from one person who acts as an authority to the others, who act as passive instruments of this authority.”
"A society is a link of relationships that are set by people in order to work and live together: rules, laws, institutions, and various things. It is done by thinking and agreeing that we are going to have them, and then we do it."
“…people might be frightened and anxious if there is no leader and no topic and nothing ‘to to.’”
“Nature is sensed as something beyond the individual or society.”
“Religion has left us, we have moved very far away from nature, and philosophy has become confused. In modern society, science attempts to connect us to the cosmos to some extent; but it is limited, and most people can’t understand it all that well anyway.”
“Consider the organization of any sort of contemporary bureaucracy or hierarchy. In such an organization, people are treated as objects: they have to do this and this, and be related in that way. Literal thought knows the person by his function –he is whatever you call him – a worker, a banker, this or that. That sets up the social hierarchy – people are isolated from each other, and the participation is very limited.”
“The individual body is in certain ways separate from others –although not totally, because it merges with air and light and food. There is no place where the body really ends –its boundary is relative. We can’t say an oxygen molecule comes into the body, it suddenly becomes alive, and that when it leaves as carbon dioxide it’s dead. We must say that there is really no sharp end to the body. And perhaps we can’t even say where life begins and ends, but rather that the body is a sort of “focus” of life at certain place.”
[In a society based in bureaucracy or hierarchy]: “We treat other people as objects, and eventually you must treat yourself as an object, saying ‘I must fit in here, and I must do this and be that and become better,’ or whatever.”
What books are connected with it?
Godel, Escher, Bach
How to Read a Book
Getting Real
Words and Rules
