Theories of the Universe: Ordered Reality

Ordered Reality

Even though this was a breakthrough in quantum theory, there was very little response to his ideas. He was at a standstill himself, not knowing where to go with his theories of wholeness and nonlocality. So he began to look at it from another perspective. Maybe it has to do more with the order of things. In classical theory, order is usually considered to be of two kinds: ordered arrangements like people, computers and crystals, and disordered things like debris left from an explosion or a box of dropped toothpicks.

After considerable thought, Bohm realized that we are surrounded by different degrees of order, some things being much more ordered than others. This led him to the idea that perhaps order is hierarchical and that there may not be any limit to the hierarchies of order in the universe. Maybe the things we see as disordered are simply of a higher order and only appear random and chaotic. It was at this point in his thinking that he was ripe for another leap of insight. This leap occurred while watching a BBC television program. On the show was a specially designed jar that contained a large rotating cylinder. There was a narrow space between the cylinder and the jar that was filled with glycerin (a thick, clear liquid) and floating motionless in the glycerin was a drop of ink. When the handle on the jar was turned, which rotated the cylinder, the drop of ink spread out through the glycerin and seemed to disappear. But when the handle was turned in the opposite direction, the ink slowly came back together forming the original drop. This image gave Bohm the idea that order can be hidden from view (nonmanifested) as when the ink drop was spread out, or manifested, as when it reformed into the drop.