"Yet it looks as if the thing we use to solve our problems with is the source of our problems. It's like going to the doctor and having him make you ill. In fact, in 20% of medical cases we do apparently have that going on. But in the case of thought, its far over 20%"
About this Quote
Bohm lands the punch with a scientist's deadpan and a mystic's suspicion: the instrument we trust most - thought - might be the contaminant. The line works because it flips the usual hierarchy. Thought is supposed to be the clean tool that diagnoses messy reality. Bohm suggests the opposite: thought manufactures the mess, then congratulates itself for offering solutions.
The doctor analogy is doing quiet rhetorical heavy lifting. It borrows the authority of medicine (a domain where expertise is culturally sacrosanct) and then punctures it with iatrogenesis: treatments that cause harm. That "20%" is not just a statistic; it's a reality check that even our most disciplined systems can produce collateral damage. Bohm then uses that admitted imperfection as a wedge to make a far more provocative claim: with thought, the harm rate is worse. It's a subtle escalation from physical side effects to cognitive side effects - anxiety, division, ideological rigidity - as if the mind has its own version of infection.
Context matters. Bohm wasn't merely throwing shade at rationality; he was reacting to a 20th-century landscape where brilliant thinking built quantum theory and also built nuclear weapons, propaganda machines, and bureaucracies that mistake models for people. His work on wholeness and dialogue circles this same problem: thought tends to fragment reality, then lives inside those fragments as if they're the world itself.
The subtext is a critique of reflexive problem-solving. When the same patterns of thought generate the problem, "more thinking" becomes like increasing the dosage of the drug that caused the symptoms. Bohm isn't anti-intellect; he's warning that unexamined thought behaves like a system with no feedback loop, mistaking its outputs for truth.
The doctor analogy is doing quiet rhetorical heavy lifting. It borrows the authority of medicine (a domain where expertise is culturally sacrosanct) and then punctures it with iatrogenesis: treatments that cause harm. That "20%" is not just a statistic; it's a reality check that even our most disciplined systems can produce collateral damage. Bohm then uses that admitted imperfection as a wedge to make a far more provocative claim: with thought, the harm rate is worse. It's a subtle escalation from physical side effects to cognitive side effects - anxiety, division, ideological rigidity - as if the mind has its own version of infection.
Context matters. Bohm wasn't merely throwing shade at rationality; he was reacting to a 20th-century landscape where brilliant thinking built quantum theory and also built nuclear weapons, propaganda machines, and bureaucracies that mistake models for people. His work on wholeness and dialogue circles this same problem: thought tends to fragment reality, then lives inside those fragments as if they're the world itself.
The subtext is a critique of reflexive problem-solving. When the same patterns of thought generate the problem, "more thinking" becomes like increasing the dosage of the drug that caused the symptoms. Bohm isn't anti-intellect; he's warning that unexamined thought behaves like a system with no feedback loop, mistaking its outputs for truth.
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| Topic | Deep |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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