Bohm's vision of undivided wholeness
David Bohm's holomovement theory represents one of the most ambitious attempts in modern physics to bridge quantum mechanics, consciousness, and the fundamental nature of reality. Developed in the 1980s as an extension of his earlier work on hidden variables, the holomovement proposes that the universe operates as an "undivided wholeness in flowing movement" - a continuous process of enfoldment and unfoldment between deeper and manifest orders of reality. This comprehensive framework challenges conventional notions of space, time, causality, and the relationship between observer and observed, offering profound implications for physics, consciousness studies, and practical applications across multiple disciplines.
Implicate and explicate orders reveal hidden wholeness
At the heart of Bohm's theory lies the distinction between implicate (enfolded) and explicate (unfolded) orders. The implicate order represents a deeper level of reality where everything is "enfolded" within everything else - a realm of pure potentiality where conventional notions of separation don't apply. The explicate order encompasses the surface level of reality we perceive through our senses - the world of apparently separate objects and events in space and time. These orders exist in dynamic relationship through continuous processes of enfoldment and unfoldment. As Bohm explained, the explicate order constantly emerges from the implicate through unfoldment, while simultaneously returning to it through enfoldment, creating what he termed the holomovement - the totality of this ceaseless flowing movement.
The holographic principle serves as Bohm's primary metaphor for understanding how each fragment contains the whole yet cannot perceive its own wholeness. Like a holographic film where every region contains information about the entire three-dimensional image, each part of physical reality enfolds information about the whole universe. However, from any particular perspective within the explicate order, this wholeness remains hidden. Bohm illustrated this with his famous ink-drop experiment: when an ink droplet is placed in viscous glycerin between rotating cylinders and stirred, it disappears into apparent randomness. Yet reversing the rotation makes it reappear, demonstrating how apparent disorder contains hidden order - how the whole remains enfolded even when imperceptible from limited viewpoints.
Mathematical foundations bridge quantum mechanics and holistic reality
The mathematical framework underlying the holomovement builds on non-commutative algebraic geometry, where the order of operations matters fundamentally. Working with physicist Basil Hiley, Bohm developed an approach using Clifford algebras to describe the implicate order, employing three specific algebras (Cℓ₀,₁, Cℓ₃,₀, Cℓ₁,₃) that form a hierarchy describing different particle types. The implicate order is represented through minimal left ideals of these algebras, with projection operations mathematically describing how each moment of time emerges from the total implicate order.
Consciousness emerges from the same implicate ground as matter
Bohm's framework dissolves traditional boundaries between mind and matter, proposing that consciousness and physical reality share a common ground in the implicate order. Consciousness operates as "a series of moments" where each moment enfolds previous content while unfolding new experience. This process mirrors the physical holomovement, suggesting consciousness isn't merely emergent from matter but represents a primary feature of reality itself. Bohm described consciousness as fundamentally participatory - not simply observing reality but actively participating in its unfolding.
The observer-observed relationship dissolves into unified process rather than maintaining subject-object duality. Drawing from quantum physics, where observation inevitably affects what is observed, Bohm extended this insight to suggest that consciousness and reality co-create each other through mutual participation. His extensive dialogues with philosopher J. Krishnamurti (1961-1983) deepened this understanding, exploring how thought creates apparent fragmentation while underlying wholeness remains. Together they investigated the nature of the self as a construction of thought, the possibility of observation without the observer, and how understanding consciousness requires both rigorous inquiry and direct observation.
Different angles in the implicate order generate reality through limitation
The concept of mutual unknowing through different perspectives emerges from how the implicate order manifests in the explicate. Like viewing a hologram from different angles reveals the same whole from various viewpoints, different regions of spacetime represent different "projections" from the total implicate order. These perspectives don't contradict but complement each other as aspects of underlying wholeness. Bohm used the analogy of two television screens showing a fish tank from perpendicular angles - they appear as separate, correlated images but actually represent different projections of the same three-dimensional reality.
This framework explains how reality emerges through the creative interplay of wholeness and fragmentation. While wholeness characterizes the implicate order, the explicate order necessarily involves apparent separation and limitation. Each perspective or fragment contains the whole implicitly but can only express it through its particular limitations. The inability of any fragment to perceive its own wholeness isn't a flaw but the very mechanism through which the infinite implicate order can express itself finitely. Different "angles" or perspectives thus create the richness of manifest reality through their mutual unknowing, each revealing unique aspects while obscuring others.
Thought fragments reality while wholeness remains fundamental
Bohm identified thought as the primary source of fragmentation, describing it as a system that "not only includes thoughts, but includes the state of the body; it includes the whole of society." Operating mechanically through memory and conditioning, thought divides reality into artificial categories - nations, professions, self versus other - creating conflicts between these illusory fragments. Most critically, thought creates the illusion that it merely describes reality when it actually constructs it, hiding its own participation in creating the fragmentation it perceives.
The solution lies not in trying to think differently but in developing awareness of thought as process. Bohm proposed cultivating "proprioception of thought" - direct awareness of thinking as movement, similar to our proprioceptive sense of physical movement. This awareness can free us from mechanical patterns, revealing that "wholeness is what is real, and fragmentation is the response of this whole to man's action, guided by illusory perception." Understanding this relationship between thought, fragmentation, and wholeness becomes essential for both individual transformation and addressing collective human problems rooted in fragmentary thinking.
Mathematical physics reveals enfoldment and unfoldment as fundamental processes
The physics of enfoldment and unfoldment provides the dynamic mechanism of the holomovement. Enfoldment describes how explicate forms return to their implicate source - like the ink droplet disappearing into glycerin. Unfoldment captures how implicate structures manifest as explicate phenomena - like the droplet reappearing. These aren't merely metaphors but reflect fundamental physical processes described mathematically through projection operations from the total implicate order.
Bohm proposed that spacetime itself represents part of the explicate order, emerging from a deeper "pre-space" in the implicate realm. In this pre-space, "space and time are no longer the dominant factors" determining relationships between elements. Instead, connections exist through shared implicate ground, from which ordinary spacetime concepts are abstracted. This reconceptualization suggests that laws of nature operate through continuous enfoldment/unfoldment rather than mechanical interactions between separate entities, with causality reflecting deeper organizational principles in the implicate order rather than simple linear chains of cause and effect.
Modern physics both validates and challenges the holomovement
The reception of Bohm's theories reveals deep divisions in physics. Initially, his 1952 hidden variables theory was "mostly negatively received, with a widespread tendency among physicists to systematically ignore both Bohm personally and his ideas." Critics dismissed it as superfluous for making identical predictions to standard quantum mechanics while adding "ontological wastefulness" - particle positions forever unknown to observers. The non-local nature of Bohmian mechanics has proven "very difficult to make a quantum field theory out of it," with no viable Pilot Wave alternative to the Standard Model emerging.
Yet Bohm's work inspired crucial developments. John Bell credited Bohm's ideas for motivating Bell's theorem, which proved that quantum mechanics requires non-locality - validating one of Bohm's key insights. Modern holographic theories, particularly Leonard Susskind and Gerard Hooft's holographic principle and Juan Maldacena's AdS/CFT correspondence, echo Bohm's vision of reality's holographic nature, though these physicists notably didn't acknowledge Bohm's earlier contributions. The AdS/CFT correspondence, now with over 10,000 citations, demonstrates mathematically how higher-dimensional reality underlies observable phenomena - providing the mathematical precision Bohm's theory lacked while supporting his fundamental intuition.
Time, space, and causality emerge from deeper flowing movement
The holomovement radically reconceptualizes temporality and causation. Bohm argued that "there is no future" in the conventional sense - only the present moment contains reality, with the past existing as traces enfolded in the present and the future emerging creatively from implicate potential. Each moment represents "a projection from the total implicate order," suggesting time emerges from the deeper holomovement rather than serving as its container. This challenges linear causation, replacing it with "non-local, non-causal correlations" where events connect through their common ground rather than mechanical chains.
This framework naturally explains quantum entanglement - particles remain connected through the implicate order, allowing "instantaneous response to each other's motions thousands of years later when they are light-years apart." These correlations don't violate relativity because no information transmits; rather, both particles unfold from the same implicate source. The apparent paradox of non-locality dissolves when we recognize that separation itself is an explicate manifestation of deeper implicate unity. Causality in the explicate order thus reflects holistic patterns in the implicate order, where past, present, and future interpenetrate rather than following linear sequence.
Practical implications transform multiple fields
The holomovement's implications extend far beyond theoretical physics. In neuroscience, Bohm's collaboration with Karl Pribram produced the holonomic brain theory, proposing that the brain operates holographically through windowed Fourier transforms. Memory storage follows holographic principles - distributed throughout the brain rather than localized, with each region containing information about the whole. This model helps explain non-local properties of consciousness and provides a framework for understanding how subjective experience emerges from neural processes.
In healing and medicine, the framework supports psychosomatic integration by revealing mind and body's unity through their common implicate ground. This understanding enables holistic approaches addressing whole persons rather than isolated symptoms, providing theoretical foundation for non-local healing phenomena. Consciousness-based healing gains credibility through recognition that consciousness may directly influence physical processes via their shared implicate source. Meditation and spiritual practices align with Bohm's insights by emphasizing present-moment awareness and providing potential access to deeper implicate dimensions beyond ordinary thought.
Contemporary movements apply holomovement principles globally
A growing Contemporary Holomovement community applies Bohm's insights to social transformation, focusing on collective purpose, conscious collaboration, and cultural evolution. These practitioners work in diverse fields - from metabolic health and trauma healing to social activism and spiritual development - united by understanding fundamental interconnectedness. Educational approaches emphasize Bohmian dialogue, where groups engage in suspending assumptions to observe thought's movement collectively, potentially accessing deeper collective intelligence.
Scientific research continues building on Bohm's foundation. Consciousness studies explore relationships between awareness and quantum processes, while systems science develops methodologies accounting for wholeness and non-local connections. Though direct experimental tests of the implicate order remain impossible - it makes identical predictions to standard quantum mechanics - research on quantum contextuality, entanglement, and non-locality continues validating aspects of Bohm's vision. The framework's greatest value may lie not in specific predictions but in providing conceptual tools for understanding phenomena that mechanistic science struggles to address.
The holomovement reveals reality as creative, interconnected process
David Bohm's holomovement ultimately presents reality not as a collection of separate objects interacting mechanically, but as undivided wholeness in flowing movement - a continuous creative process where mind and matter, observer and observed, past and future emerge from and return to a deeper implicate order. While aspects remain speculative and mathematical extensions to quantum field theory prove elusive, the framework offers profound insights for understanding consciousness, non-locality, and the relationship between parts and wholes.
The theory suggests we aren't separate beings in an external universe but expressions of deeper wholeness continuously unfolding through our thoughts, actions, and relationships. This understanding transforms approaches to science, healing, education, and social organization, suggesting that humanity's challenges - from personal suffering to ecological crisis - stem from fragmentary thinking that mistakes explicate appearances for fundamental reality. By recognizing the implicate order's primacy, we open possibilities for both scientific advancement and human transformation, grounded in awareness of our essential interconnectedness within the cosmic holomovement.