Quantum Perspectons
Quantum phenomena have been described as wave-functions, wavicles, or particles. Through the observer effect and recent experiments proving ‘spooky action at a distance’, we have an inkling that what we’re talking about are not like objects or substantial forms. Quantum ‘event’ is another term that has been used, and David Bohm refers to an ‘implicate order’ within which all potential events exist in universal superposition before collapsing into explicit observables. With the implicate order, we don’t need superluminal signalling since there's nowhere to have to signal to or from...it's all already 'here'.
The holomovement is a key concept in David Bohm`s interpretation of quantum mechanics and for his overall worldview. It brings together the holistic principle of “undivided wholeness” with the idea that everything is in a state of process or becoming (or what he calls the “universal flux") For Bohm, wholeness is not a static oneness, but a dynamic wholeness-in-motion in which everything moves together in an interconnected process. The concept is presented most fully in Wholeness and the implicate order published in 1980.
Referring to quantum theory, Bohm’s basic assumption is that “elementary particles are actually systems of extremely complicated internal structure, acting essentially as amplifiers of information contained in a quantum wave.” As a consequence, he has evolved a new and controversial theory of the universe. A new model of reality that Bohm calls the “Implicate Order.”
The theory of the Implicate Order contains an ultra-holistic cosmic view; it connects everything with everything else. In principle, any individual element could reveal “detailed information about every other element in the universe.” The central underlying theme of Bohm’s theory is the “unbroken wholeness of the totality of existence as an undivided flowing movement without borders.” - source
My only issue with Bohm’s view is that that the implicate order is assumed to be space rather than awareness. I see the primacy of movement and order as a physicists ideal. It envisions the totality of all phenomena as existing within space, or impregnating space with possibilities. The zero-point field or vacuum energy has been described this way:
ZPF Basics In quantum field theory, the vacuum state is the quantum state with the lowest possible energy; it contains no physical particles, and is the energy of the ground state. This is also called the zero point energy; the energy of a system at a temperature of zero. But quantum mechanics says that, even in their ground state, all systems still maintain fluctuations and have an associated zero-point energy as a consequence of their wave-like nature. Thus, even a particle cooled down to absolute zero will still exhibit some vibrations. -source
In my view, this concept is almost correct, but it is ‘inside out’. I suggest instead that we try thinking of it this way:
Space is not an empty void.
Space is not a plenum full of energy.
Space, or spacetime is not the foundation of the cosmos.
The cosmological foundation is not a (spatiotemporal) ‘field’
...not is it a (massenergetic) ‘movement’ or ‘force’
I suggest instead that the cosmological foundation an aesthetic ‘spectacle’ spanning all forms of awareness.
Information may give rise to physics, but it is perception and participation, on every level, which gives rise to information and even to order itself.
Quantum should be considered sub-category of aesthetic phenomena, aka qualia.
Quantum phenomena are neither events not structures (particles, waves, wavefunctions)
Quantum should be considered perceptual encounters, or ‘re-acquaintances’ rather than objectively comprising nature.
Quantum perceptual-encounters have been formatted by specific modes of perception which render them a special case of nature rather than the building blocks of nature.
By thinking of quantum mechanics as one particular perspective within the total cosmic spectacle of evolving perspectives, we can understand that the features of QM do reveal things about the entire spectacle of nature, but also about the limitations of that one perspective. Each quantum-perceptual event can be thought of as a ‘perspecton’ which is as much a particle of quantum theory and practice as it is a particle of nature. An interferometer can only describe those phenomena which it was designed to collide with, not the innumerable phenomenal tones and textures which neither emerge from quantum nor exist separately.
All equipment used in physics is an extension of our sense of the tactile and tangible. Quantum mechanics, rather than being a truly universal theory is a theory of tangiblity. Bohm and others take the next step of identifying tangibility as an emergent property of intangibility, however, the universe has a lot more to it than just the facts of objects knowing each other through touch, collision, and binding together to split apart.
MWI, for example, can be thought of as a way to ‘graph’ Bohm’s holomovement, such that all possible information is explicitly ordered (like a static block or finite deck of cards)*. All things and events that can happen are happening, somewhere. Every hand is played in every possible game.
Instead of taking the graph literally, we should begin by seeing that space begins where ‘things’ (such as bodies or objects) end. When we jump from the concept of space being a distance between things to being a thing in itself, then we have adopted a perspective which ultimately exchanges the materialistic philosophy of classical physics for a philosophy of mathematical idealism which is taken as realism. Bohm gives us a way to see the graph as emerging from the holos, but there is an additional step to take to see both graph and holos diverging from an even more primitive necessity for aesthetic quality.
If we wanted to understand nature as a whole, we would have to employ many different perspectives and meta-perspectives, most of which would require that the perceivers themselves and their quality of awareness be changed. Each perceptual mode contains aesthetic qualities and meanings which are not completely reducible or compatible with other modalities. It is the residual, non-emergent qualities and modes which cannot be produced from any form or function as they are unique and idiopathic. Seeing colors is a way of touching nature from a distance, but adding distance to touch does not, in itself, produce the phenomenon of color.
*I see this as a natural outcome of the impulse to quantify and formalize rather than an insight into the deepest foundation of nature. The desire to expose and control nature completely goes hand in hand with a kind of existential impatience. The intellectual mode which conceives of a universe of recursive, generic computations in a fixed set of possibilities is one which has no time for phenomenal qualities. Qualities which cannot be mapped on a grid are discarded.