Within the Edge of …

October 27, 1992


That was last thing he said to his wife.



“… Our ordinary view holds that the field of the finite is all that there is.   But if the finite has no independent existence, it cannot be all there is.  We are in this led to propose that the true ground of all being is infinite, the unlimited; and that the infinite includes and contains the finite.  In this view, the finite, with its transient nature, can only be understood as held suspended, as it were beyond time and space, within the infinite.”

Einstein would have made him his assistant.  Richard Feynman was quoted as saying “You probably don’t know how great he is.”  But he had to be saved from idiots and some charlatans like Uri Geller, for he was always interested in new ideas — new possibilities — no matter how flakey they were.  David would talk to people with interesting (to him) new ideas that might give insight into existence. There was long and important friendship between him and mystic Krishnamurti, which went through a rocky interval in later years, and although they overcame their differences and remained friends until Krishnamurti’s death, the relationship did not reattain its previous intensity.

He felt that physics was not sufficient to describe the nature of our existence. He was always seeking better understanding.


David Joseph Bohm FRS (20 December 1917 – 27 October 1992) was an American quantum physicist who contributed to theoretical physics, philosophy of mind, and neuropsychology. Due to suspicions of Communism during the McCarthy era, he left the US, eventually becoming a Brazilian, and later, a British citizen. Bohm is widely considered to be one of the most significant theoretical physicists of the 20th century. [Wikipedia]

In his view, subatomic particles such as electrons are not simple, structureless particles, but highly complex, dynamic entities. He rejects the view that their motion is fundamentally uncertain or ambiguous; they follow a precise path, but one which is determined not only by conventional physical forces but also by a more subtle force which he calls the quantum potential. The quantum potential guides the motion of particles by providing “active information” about the whole environment. Bohm gives the analogy of a ship being guided by radar signals: the radar carries information from all around and guides the ship by giving form to the movement produced by the much greater but unformed power of its engines.


Given his over abiding interest in both hard physics and soft philosophy one question is: was he an Architect Rational or Healer Idealist?  I suspect he was an Architect Rational, but like his quantum world — undivided — nothing is for certain.


“Healers have a profound sense of idealism that comes from a strong personal sense of right and wrong. They conceive of the world as an ethical, honorable place, full of wondrous possibilities and potential goods.” [Please Understand Me II]

David Bohm was a very complex man and the atoms of his physical body have long been entangled with 7th edge of chaos/order, but his ideas are still within the 8th edge of chaos/order.  There is potential.

Bohm Interview


to be continued…

Architect Rationals include: Mary SomervilleDavid Mark KeirseyJames MadisonSrinivasa RamanujanEmmy NoetherPaul DiracRobert RosenDavid West KeirseyAlbert EinsteinLonnie AthensDavid Bohm

18 thoughts on “Within the Edge of …

  1. jason taylor November 2, 2012 / 5:08 pm

    He may have been an INTP with a more developed feeling component as a secondary. I am sure I am an INTP, but I have an instinctive sympathy for INFPs.


    • socratus October 19, 2013 / 7:10 am

      God is a Scientist and Materialist.
      Because the God can create and govern the Universe
      only using physical laws, formulas, equations.
      Here is the scheme of His plan.
      God : Ten Scientific Commandments.
      2. Particles:
      6. Proton: (p).
      a) electromagnetic,
      b) nuclear,
      c) biological.
      8. The Physical Laws:
      a) Law of Conservation and Transformation Energy / Mass,
      b) Pauli Exclusion Law,
      c) Heisenberg Uncertainty Law.
      9. Brain: Dualism of Consciousness.
      10. Practice: Parapsychology. Meditation.
      Best wishes.
      Israel Sadovnik Socratus
      I want to know how God created this world
      I am not interested in this or that phenomenon,
      in the spectrum of this or that element
      I want to know His thoughts; the rest are details
      / Einstein /
      In Physics we trust.
      / Tarun Biswas /
      The Physics is our policy to think logically.
      / Israel Socratus /


  2. goodrumo November 2, 2012 / 5:28 pm

    ‘I’ ‘Me’ ‘Self’. He comes down to what is it he uses best. He has such a brilliant mind he is able to draw upon the many strengths of his intellect. Thinking and reading his work, I find one day I say he is an Architect Rational, today I believe he is the great seeker of Reconcilation. He is driven by his quest of Reconciling life, the universe, the big questions, his part, his role in that. Today I believe he is a Reconciling Idealist.


  3. goodrumo November 2, 2012 / 5:29 pm

    spell check -reconciliation. ->i<-


    • goodrumo November 2, 2012 / 5:43 pm

      Need to get my hands on ‘Dialogues with Scientists + Sages’ by Renee Weber. //David Bohm is the principal character in Renee Weber’s “Dialogues.” He has two with Renee; the third, atriangular between Bohm, Sheldrake and Renee; and the fourth between Dalai Lama, Bohm and Renee.Powerful streams of ideas in search of truth! The last was perhaps the best, held at Rikon, a Tibetanvillage in Europe – near Zurich! The crackling infectious laughter of Dalai Lama; original, dynamic, excitingand yet gentle style of Bohm and Renee’s conducting of the physical-come-mystical ..//


  4. goodrumo November 2, 2012 / 6:00 pm

    //Bohm is saying the same truths which the mystics, Western as well as Eastern, have presented to the humans since ages.

    These Truths have four phases: the first is that the observable universe of our experience is a reflection or extension of higher mystical universes.

    The second Truth is that the consciousness of a non-saintly human is confined to 3 dimensions of space viz. length, breadth and heightand one dimension of time. The higher universes or “orders” (as Bohm puts it) have n dimensions where n can be any number – even infinity.

    As Williams Blake’s well known poem says:

    To see a World in a grain of sand
    And heaven in a wild flower
    Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
    And Eternity in an hour.

    The third Truth of the Mystics is that the consciousness of an ordinary non-saintly human is capable of expansion, so as to experience the higher universes.

    The fourth Truth is that the expansion of consciousness can be achieved by various practices, like ‘Yoga’s, meditations, ‘Manthra Prayers’ Religious Tarikats, coupled with stringent moral disciplines, like controlling the mind from its own enemies, like carnal passion, lust, anger, greed, craving towards worldly objects, ego, pride jealousy, selfishness, hatred.

    David Bohm’s Scientific training and thinking brought him to the first two truths and led him to believe that grasping those two, will make humanity more human and lead it to the other two…

    In his early career, he wrote a standard text book on quantum theory, which was so lucid that Einstein declared that he had not fully understood the theory until he read Bohm’s book. That was in 1951.

    Three years before his retirement from Birkbeck College, London, he came out with the cream of his life-time thinking : a book, “Wholeness and the Implicate Order.” (Routledge & Kegan Paul – 1980; Ark Paperback 1983, reprinted in 1984, 1985, 1987.) It was a long and fruitful intellectual journey of a scientific genius from quantum Theory to wholeness.

    Bohm’s concept of wholeness germinated from his boy-hood vision on the hill near Wilkes-Barre. Lights from the town spreading out all over tile sky which, in turn, is shining with the points of light the stars! You SEE this! It means you have contained the whole space in your small eye-ball!

    You are seeing “structures covering immense stretches of space and time”! ”

    A total order is contained, in some implicit sense, in each region of space and time.” (Bohm’s own words: p. 149 – ibid).

    Again, this is the ULTIMATE reconciliation, wholeness. He HAD to understand wholeness to do science, and yes, Rationals are want to be Utilitarian, but this was in Bohm standing on the hill ‘attaining’ reconciliation, it was THEN he realised he would need to be able to explain it. He attempted that and very few understood. Look at the people that ‘got’ what he was talking about, mostly fellow Idealist mystics, Einstein to some degree, but even he admits it took him a long time to catch up. Reconcilers ‘get’ stuff long before humankind can even understand. We just often cannot explain it. Bohm did.


  5. goodrumo November 2, 2012 / 6:25 pm

    The Edge of Something Unknown

    David Peat asserts that David Bohm’s grail was wholeness, not any kind, but one that was subtle with all the ramifications of that connotation. “Bohm genuinely believed that dialogue could make a difference. They would help resolve conflicts by moving directly to their roots and act, in a non local way, on human society. Now however, in the light of global events, his approach seemed futile, and he questioned the value of this work.”


  6. Stefaye November 3, 2012 / 6:54 am

    I believe he was and intp. As an intp I affiliate strongly with his keen desire to question the nature of the universe and existence itself, and find answers. As well as his preference to associate with those who are ‘interesting’. My infp friend does not seem to have the same all consuming drive to do this. However I do believe that since humans are complex creatures shaped by multiple influences, that different temperaments can be ‘blurred’. We also show conflicting behavior and have conflicting attitudes during our life.


    • Adrienne December 27, 2012 / 6:41 am

      I’m an ENTP Rational Inventor and I have the same keen desires to understand the universe and existence itself. It may not be a trait solely characteristic of INTP. Or maybe just our TP part.


  7. David Keirsey September 26, 2013 / 3:34 pm

    Reblogged this on Please Understand Me and commented:
    I am on the edge of something too.


    • Brenda December 2, 2013 / 7:17 am

      I hope those were not your last words!


      • David Keirsey December 2, 2013 / 3:04 pm

        I am on the Edge of Something – always… And I am ok with that. It keeps me off the street, at least. No, they were not my last words. I am reading Undivided Universe again, again, and again.


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