Antwoord: On Dialoque

Hoi Fulco,

met een print van je topic het vliegtuig in gegaan en nu even mijn gedachten en aantekeningen 'digitaliseren'.

Fulco schreef : A lot of new techniques, knowledge and brand new people and ideas are passing through. And this is great. New ways of doing things are unfolding for me.

Kun je hier wellicht iets over uitweiden: wat zijn die nieuwe technieken, waar zie jij de toegevoegde waarde hiervan, waar kunnen we ze voor inzetten....

...In his Book On Dialoque he shares his insights he developed around these matters: dialoque and perceptions.

Deze komt op mijn 'to-read-list' klinkt erg interessant en volgens mij ook relevant voor mijn essay over 'vorm en essentie', bedankt hiervoor!

...in some way because it was recognized now.

Een mooi voorbeeld van 'sowing' (door Bohm) is 'harvesting' (jouw leermoment) = 'sharing' (door jou zodat ook anderen weer kunnen oogsten). Dit is zoals we dit forum bedoeld hebben!

...The incoherence increases when past meaning is imposed on present situations. As this continues, yesterday's meaning becomes today's dogma, often losing much of its original meaningfulness in the process. When this happens collectively, societies become governed by shadows, hollowed out myths from the past applied as inviolate truths for the present.

En de 'future' is vaak ook een projectie van angsten en (slechte) ervaring uit het verleden die zich vertalen in een re-actie in het heden: loslaten en het moment beleven (hoe moeilijk dat vaak ook is)

...In a way science has become the religion of the modern age. It plays the role that religion used to play of giving us truth. This intellectual fundamentalism is largely invisible to us because it is embedded deeply in cultural assumptions that most members of modern society share and which we do not know how to challenge.

Science doet het goed in het beschrijven 'what is', onomstotelijk, bewezen en herhaalbaar. Science mist in mijn ogen echter een visie, een verhaal, wat in mijn ogen de brandstof is voor passie en commitment voor verandering: niet alles hoeft onomstotelijk bewezen te zijn! Hiermee niet zeggende dat science niet met passie en bevlogenheid uitgevoerd kan worden! Science alleen gaat het dus ook niet worden

... The quest for 'unique truth' carries the potential to divide rather than connect people.

We kunnen natuurlijk ook stoppen met zoeken naar 'the unique truth': terug naar het hier en nu en het accepteren daarvan.

...I hope that this bloq is a contribution to you in the matter of "Food for thought". For me it is, frankly!

Dat is het zeker, Fulco bedankt hiervoor! ik heb een aantal mooie 'overpeinzingen' voor mezelf eruit gehaald en mijn 'to-read-list' weer aangevuld.

ben ook benieuwd naar de reacties van anderen.

m.vr.gr.
Ruud.

Already two people asked me to write a bloq for 'lerendeleiders'. Ruud van Lent two weeks ago and Lindsie van de Horst last week. Actually I promised her to publish it yesterday. So I'm aware that I'm a littlebit late. The couple of last weeks a lot is happening with me. You could see I'm in some kind of blur of chaos. A lot of new techniques, knowledge and brand new people and ideas are passing through. And this is great. New ways of doing things are unfolding for me. Things necessary to act out of my own destiny, my passion. My will to serve. Actually a way to contribute in spreading 'inspirative & servent leadership'. I'm a leader, a writer and a speaker. I like to contribute, not only 'lerendeleiders' but also on a more fundamental way spreading the way of doing in a more new way for me. So looking at this blur of chaos its not so easy to write a consistent story. I have got a lot to write about and that will follow later on. For now I decided to contribute with a piece of the forword Peter Senge wrote in the amazing and classic book from David Bohm: On Dialoque. Its a book that really contributes in the way we look, create perception and how we interact with eachother. I think it is a must read! So I'm reading it right now.
David Bohm was in some way a colleague of the more famous Albert Einstein. Albert Einstein ones told that when David Bohm was explaining the quantem physics to him, that was the one and only time he really understood Both Bohm and Einstein were confronted with the same kind of challenge. They were working on very complex matters and to make it even more complex, these matters transcended our paradigms. The knowledge and ideas which they were developing were fundamental different then the way we looked at matter, the world and the way creation works. Confronting these challenges, David Bohm developed a way of forming dialoque and perception, which was necessary for him to confront all the contradictions in science and in dialoques. In his Book On Dialoque he shares his insights he developed around these matters: dialoque and perceptions.
These insights form a real pillar in the way I approach the world and in the way I approach relationships. Relationships I take care of at work, in my family, in friendships, in love and th way I look at the world and nature as a whole. Its a way of mindset I always had and which I got even more consious about by David Bohm, in some way because it was recognized now.

So to give you a good and short insight here a piece of Peter Senge's forword.

Thought is emerging from the tacit ground and any fundamental change in thought will come from the tacit groud. Shared meaning is really the cement that holds society together and you could say that the present society has a very incoherent set of meanings. In fact, this set of "shared meanings" is so incohorent that it is hard to say that they have any real meaning at all.
The challenge in dialoque is simply allowing multiple points of view to be. Our habits are so strong to defend our views to agree with views that correspond with our own, and to disagree to those that differ, that simply allowing diverse views to stand can be almost impossibly difficult. The thing that mostly gets in the way of dialoque is holding to assumptions and opinions, and defending them. This instinct to judge and defend, embedded n the selfdefense mechanisms of our biological heritage, is the source of incoherence. Our personal meaning start to become incoherent when it becomes fixed. The incoherence increases when past meaning is imposed on present situations. As this continues, yesterday's meaning becomes today's dogma, often losing much of its original meaningfulness in the process. When this happens collectively, societies become governed by shadows, hollowed out myths from the past applied as inviolate truths for the present. This leads to incoherence on a large scale, patterns of thinking and acting that separate people from one another and from the larger reality in which they are attempting to live. Collective coherent ways of thinking and acting only emerge when there is truly a flow of meaning which starts with allowing many views, an approach that defensiveness precludes. In a way science has become the religion of the modern age. It plays the role that religion used to play of giving us truth. This intellectual fundamentalism is largely invisible to us because it is embedded deeply in cultural assumptions that most members of modern society share and which we do not know how to challenge. The quest for 'unique truth' carries the potential to divide rather than connect people. When one human being tells another human what is 'real', what they are actually doing is making a demand for obedience. They are asserting that they have a priviledged view of reality (Humberto Maturana). We will never come to truth unless the overall meaning is coherent. Out of creating a larger field of more coherent shared meaning, truly new and penetrating understandings may emerge. Often unexpectedly. Truth does not emerge from opinions, it must emerge from something else, perhaps from a freer movement of this tacit mind. We have to get meanings coherent if we are to perceive truth, or to take part in truth. "Take part in truth" points to what seems to be Bohm's second fundational idea: what it means to understand wholes. The fundamental problem here is that "the whole" is too much. There is no way by which thought can hold the whole, because thought only abstracts; it limits and defines. In my opinion this confronts us with humility. The idea of abstracting versus appreciating wholes was conveyed beautifully by Hebrew existentialist philosopher Martin Buber, in speaking of what it means to take in the whole of a person, to see a person as "a Thou":

"If I face a human being as my Thou, ... he is not a thing among things, and does not consist of things... Thus human being is not a He or She, bounded from every other He or She, ... but with no neighbor, and whole in himself, he is Thou and fills the heavens. Just as the melody is not made up of notes nor the verse of words nor the statue of lines, but these must be tugged and dragged till their unity has been scattered into these many pieces, so with the man to whom I say Thou. I can take out from him the color of his hair, or of his speech, or of his goodness. I must continually do this. But each time he ceases to be Thou."

Bohm believed that toward understaning a whole arises through participation rather than abstraction. A different kind of consciousness is possible amoung us, a participatory consciousness. Each person is participating, is partaking of the whole meaning of the group and also taking part in it. This is not necessarily pleasant. The present state of the systems in which we live almost inevitably contains great pain as well as great beauty, deep anger as well as unconditional love. If we separate ourselves from whatever is within the whole, we cannot take part in it and we return to abstracting, judging and defending. Herein lies the first gateway to generating dialoque and moving toward a more coherent tacit ground. To take part in truth we must see our part in it. As members of modern society, we all participate in creating forces that give rise to what exists, both that we value and what we abhor.
David Bohm knew that, in a world of growing interdependence, people who cannot do this are headed inevitably toward escalating conflict. As a physicist, Bohm's life had been dedicated to understanding a participatory universe where meaning is continually unfolding. As a human being, he believed that the present crisis offered a unique opportunity to bring that some sort of understanding into the center of human affairs. Peter Senge calls David Bohm a extreme realist, rather than a romantic idealist. David Bohm knew that no society has ever faced the sort of global predicament we face, and that we are not likely to muddle through without radical changes in our way of being - together.

I hope that this bloq is a contribution to you in the matter of "Food for thought". For me it is, frankly!