An essay in David Bohm’s Wholeness and the Implicate Order, has me rethinking my attitude toward thought. The piece is entitled “Reality and Knowledge Considered as Process.” As with much of Bohm’s work, the concepts challenge the mind. But although he sometimes loses me, I trust his interpretation, as he was a highly regarded physicist who pondered the philosophical implications of quantum theory. Since an earlier essay looked at one quantum principle in spiritual terms, it makes sense to explore Bohm’s discussion; it pursues similar goals through more sophisticated means.

Bohm insists that thought and the world at large are not two separate realms. There is no thinking that doesn’t arise from prior contact with reality, and our experience of reality is never completely divorced from thought. Furthermore, thought is just as much a product of the cosmos as anything else. It emerges in a flowing stream along with Creation itself. Thought is no different, in this sense, from mountains, clouds, sunlight, electricity, or anything else we might think about.

Bohm compares thought to poetry. There will never be an ultimate poem that will make all future poetry unnecessary. Similarly, there will never be a final theory about reality that will obviate the need for more theorizing. Each view of the Cosmos is a work of art, not an objective truth. Some models of the world work better in a predictive sense, but all are susceptible to ongoing change and refinement. All are subjective and conditioned by prior prejudice. Bohm considers it a mistake to equate concepts with reality-as-it-actually-exists.

Consider gravity. According to Newton, matter exerts an invisible force on other matter. A planet has a large mass and through action-at-a-distance pulls strongly on objects nearby. Hence, we don’t float off into space. Newton’s laws permit one to calculate orbits and trajectories. They work in a predictive sense, but that doesn’t mean gravitation acts through force fields like Newton thought. Einstein’s theory of General Relativity describes the same reality in terms of distortion to the fabric of space-time. Planets orbit stars because stars warp the matrix through which planets travel. There is no force that extends from the sun to the earth; there is merely a kind of well that traps the earth in orbit around the sun. Relativity theory is also predictive of orbits and trajectories. Yet although its scope is more comprehensive than Newtonian mechanics, it cannot be said to be more ‘correct;’ it is merely more broadly applicable.

Newton and Einstein devised very different descriptions of gravity and reality. Each created a highly sophisticated line of thought. But neither can be said to have described ultimate Truth. Theories work in a utilitarian fashion but never pin down reality in any literal sense.

Physicists have long sought a ‘Theory of Everything’ that would succinctly describe the universe in mathematical terms. All manifestation would then be clarified as unfolding according to fundamental equations. Stephen Hawking appears to have abandoned this quest, as he now talks of ‘Model-Dependent Realism,’ wherein there would not be a single theory but rather a system of overlapping models. Each formulation would work within a defined domain, but none could be said to capture the totality. Einstein’s equations work when calculating the dynamics of light and matter on cosmic scales. Quantum mechanics works for subatomic particles. The hope (not yet realized) would be to find a way to make the two descriptions fit together when conditions overlap, as during the formation of the universe. But Hawking appears to have abandoned the search for a single set of equations that could be applied in all situations.

Bohm would probably welcome this concession by Hawking. He would insist that thought is not capable of describing totality, mainly because thought is part of totality itself. There is no separate reality, outside the mind, that the mind can figure out. There is only a single cosmos that includes the mind and everything the mind comprehends. We do not view reality from outside, we watch it from within. We can describe what we see, but we cannot describe the totality because we do not exist outside of it. We can’t get a view on the cosmos similar to the Apollo photographs of planet Earth. Just as we cannot see the whole earth from its surface, and so our view of it remains limited, we cannot see the whole universe. Our concepts are necessarily restricted and incomplete.

Furthermore, thought and cosmos are ever changing, so there can be no final description of anything. What fits today’s world may not fit tomorrow’s. Tribal societies on the North American plains had no need of a theory of digital computation, anymore than we have need of one guiding nomadic encampment in pursuit of herds of bison. You could argue that both theories are latent in the cosmos, but what does a theory of logic gates describe if there are no computers? How consequential is knowledge of migratory patterns if the few remaining buffalo live in fenced enclosures? Each formulation is relevant to a particular time and place, and useless outside of it.

For a hunter-gatherer society, a view of the environment that depended on vital spirits would be competent to the situation. It would help the hunter follow his prey; it would help the gatherer predict where her favored plants could be found. It would be a valid model under the circumstances. For some people, a religion built around a single, caring deity works well. It provides meaning, guidance, and feelings of safety. For others, life is better served by insisting that no such God exists. To them, the universe feels more comfortable if it is believed rational and predictable, without any quirky intrusion by non-material influences. Each person lives by a model that works for his or her given temperament. But none can claim ultimate truth, because there is no such thing.

This is a very difficult position to adhere to, precisely because it lacks solidity. To quit conflating thought with truth means to recognize every insight as provisional, including this one. Any claim to objective understanding, permanent and free of contamination by prior prejudice, is false. But the mind resists admitting its own limits, and clings to beliefs even when it knows better.

Bohm provides an alternate (and more challenging) path to the conclusion that ended my earlier post: we should hold our views lightly. I’m not sure this essay does his argument justice, but I think he would have agreed with the advice.

On a comment left at Storied Mind, a great blog and depression resource created by John Folk-Williams, I mused about whether or not depression is an illness.  (A recent post on this site covered the same question from a different angle.) What follows connects my reply to John’s essay with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), which WillSpirit readers have heard me discuss many times before.

John focuses on ACT in his essay and only mentions the illness question in passing. The issue comes up because the ACT view of mental symptoms contradicts the biological disease paradigm of conventional psychiatry.

ACT is based on behaviorism, a philosophy that dominated psychological study in America for much of the early and mid-twentieth century. By the 1980′s behaviorism had been supplanted by cognitive science, a movement that was driven by neurobiology’s computational model of the brain. Behaviorism suffered intense criticism after falling from grace.

The backlash was so thorough and effective that when I first learned that ACT is a behaviorist approach, I assumed it succeeded despite that heritage and not because of it. Behaviorism has a reputation for being overly mechanistic and dehumanizing. The common caricature is that it rejects the importance of mental life and views people as automatons who don’t choose their actions but only react to environmental contingencies.

In his 1974 book, About Behaviorism, B.F. Skinner (the most prominent leader of the movement) defended his views. The text more often assumes than establishes the basic foundations of its philosophy; it insists that  inner life is a consequence rather than a cause of a person’s interaction with his or her environment but doesn’t provide much supportive evidence (although subsequent research has bolstered such assertion). So the book isn’t terribly effective as a counterattack. But it does demonstrate that Skinner looked at human behavior with an admirably practical eye.

In managing depression and other psychiatric symptoms, it is this practicality that makes a behaviorist approach effective. CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) has trained many of us to challenge negativity. But thoughts arise rapidly and seldom cooperate with attempts at control. Positive thinking is a great concept, but every uplifting thought is dogged by its counterargument. The affirmation, “I’m a good person” seldom can escape whispering rebuttals like, “but remember the time you…”

I don’t deny the helpfulness of monitoring thoughts to weed out inaccuracies and unfair self-criticism. But CBT assumes that feeling is a result of thinking, and that we can feel better if we think better; both these premises are questionable. Thinking and feeling are internal processes that mutually interact and respond to environmental input; thinking isn’t the sole determinant of how we feel. And we all know from experience that positive thinking by itself never resolves a deeply entrenched depression.

But the real problem with CBT, and most other therapies, is precisely that they teach us to focus on thoughts and feelings as we battle mental difficulty. If we are stuck in a deep funk and spending our days in bed, we are taught that if we adjust how we view our childhood, or how we think about our current situation, we will soon feel better. Having established a sunnier inner landscape, we’ll want to get up and live our lives again. Sadly, most of the time the sun simply refuses to shine no matter how much we rethink our past or challenge our negativity.

Skinner would reply that our staying in bed results from learning, not from thinking or feeling. Something in our environment has taught us that lying down pays off. Maybe we get sympathy. Maybe we avoid facing stress. There is a reward that sustains the behavior despite the fact that it undermines our progress in life.

The answer to depression isn’t to wait for our inner state to improve while we do little to alter externals. Rather, we should act on the outer world, which will provide new consequences and teach us better behavior. If I attend a community picnic when depressed, two benefits accrue: I interact with others and so increase my social connections, and I spend some time outdoors. These positive outcomes, especially if repeated a few times, will teach me to adopt similar outgoing behavior in the future. Waiting for the depression to lift before attending such an event would win me neither more friends nor contact with nature. My future behavior would be unlikely to change.

Which finally brings me to the substance of my comment on Storied Mind and the question of whether depression is an illness. Here is an excerpt:

…whether depression is an illness or not [is] a semantic question, and it can have different answers depending on one’s stage in dealing with the problem. If ‘illness’ means a condition that feels unpleasant and limits life, then yes, depression can be (and usually starts out as) an illness. But if it means a definable brain disease that can be treated with specific medications, one can only say that at this point there is little evidence to support that view. I’ve followed this research for years and have yet to see any findings that solidly (or even plausibly) demonstrate organic pathology. For every suggestive piece of evidence one can find powerful refuting arguments.

Although the disease concept helps relieve us of shame and so can be helpful early on, eventually we want more than escape from blame. We want better living. ACT offers an approach to achieving that…  what works is living life with purpose without so much emphasis on how [we] feel or what [we] think…

I no longer react reflexively out of fear, anxiety, insecurity, or negative self-talk. As I’ve begun to live a richer life despite my frequent feelings of sadness, regret, and fear, I’ve started to see that the ‘illness’ concept no longer serves me as it did earlier…

I would add, in light of the behaviorist perspective, that if the answer to depression lies in interacting differently with the environment, then it seems unlikely that the problem resides in the brain. Instead the difficulty is, and has always been, a consequence of the world around us and how it’s taught us to respond to circumstances. This is a radical concept when compared with the traditional view on mental distress. It takes the problem out of the realm of thoughts and feelings and places it in the real world. And isn’t that where we want to live our lives?

Sadly, no one seems to have been intrigued by my last post. Of course, the number of people visiting my still-new blog remains small. (I have to keep reminding myself how recently I started this project, or else I get discouraged when I visit sites that get ten comments to a post.) Maybe it just happened that no one tuned in to look at the post. Probably a sign that I need to head back out to some of the other 200,000,000 blogs and start leaving comments, so people will find out about me.

Nevertheless, as I slept last night (actually, as laid awake thinking) this sense of being ‘called’ to write out my spiritual understanding grew stronger and stronger. I cannot let the power of my psychotic ‘visions’ just pass out of my life the way you gradually forget about a bad flu. I refuse to think what happened was just a symptom of ‘mental illness.’ At the time the experiences seemed to be true messages from something far larger and more mysterious than I had ever suspected to exist. Even though it remains clear to me that everything that happened might have just been hallucinatory and delusional, it still seems that I should not just brush it all off. It would be tragic if ‘God’ somehow communicated with me, and I just ignored the call. I have read quite a bit about spirituality and consciousness, and pondered quite a bit more, for the past nine years. Since for most of that time I have not been employed, those nine years translate into an enormous number of hours combining concentration and looking inward without thought (plus meditating) in order to work things out. It is a body of work I want to develop into a product for the world, knowing full well that chances are good no one will pay attention.

As spelled out in my ‘About’ section, I have a solid education for the task of pulling together basic principles of science (e.g., physics, mathematics, many areas of biology, etc). Given my spiritual readings, retreats, meditations, and a love of writing I feel comfortable and assured combining this science with even more basic spiritual principles. I think another advantage is that I began developing these ideas with few preconceived ideas about ‘God’. As I’ve mentioned in my ‘About’ section, my father worked hard to convince me that religion is no more valid than fantasy, and he mostly succeeded. However, my grandparents had deep-seated faith, and my older sister was exploring ‘New Age’ movements before they even got that name. So I always held my dad’s opinion lightly, remaining open to other possibilities. The end result was that I entered adulthood as something close to a ‘blank slate’ in spiritual matters.

I have great respect for Christianity. My ‘visions’ had many Christian elements, and for years afterward I practiced devoutly as a Roman Catholic. My ideas about Christ form part of my ‘philosophy’ (I need to come up with a better name; any ideas?), as will come out as I go along. I do believe Jesus had immense divine presence within him. As a caveat, however, I cannot say that I believe he was the only son of God. There have been others, with the Buddha coming instantly to mind. (Despite the fact that the Buddha did not propose any kind of personal deity, I don’t think my ideas stand in much opposition to the fundaments of Buddhist philosophy. Others can be the judge of that as this goes forward.)

I truly hope someone will follow along with me, but if not I will still plug away. I don’t intend for this to be the onlything I blog about. Not at all. I may even move this project to its own page (but not a different URL, it is too important for me to move away from WillSpirit). I welcome, and actually would not hesitate to beg for input from others. I am under no illusion that I have the whole truth, or that I can’t gain from outside perspectives.

The goal is to come up with something that is as ‘true’ as I can make it, but also useful. I’m not sure I would be going to this trouble if I did not think my view of the universe has implications for how to live a good, productive, and satisfying life. I humbly pray (in my own sense of the term) for assistance to make this happen.