QUESTIONS – A Physicist on Questions, Wholeness and Reality

Physicist David Bohm, known from his work in physics but also in philosophy and spirituality in his book "Wholeness and the Implicate Order" (1980) writes that questions are not neutral – they shape the way we perceive reality: “Indeed, each question contains presuppositions, largely implicit. If these presuppositions are wrong or confused, then the question itself is wrong, in the sense that to try to answer it has no meaning… (For example, Einstein saw that questions having to do with space and time and the particle nature of matter, as commonly accepted in the physics of his day, involved confused presuppositions that had to be dropped, and thus he was able to come to ask new questions leading to radically different notions on the subject.)” – David Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order (1980), First published 1980 by Routledge & Kegan Paul, ISBN 0-203-99515-5 Master e-book ISBN)

Bohm wanted to point out that questions can “trap” thought within a framework that may not be correct. If a question begins from fragmentation, the answer will also be fragmented. If a question begins from process and wholeness, it opens the possibility of a different kind of understanding.

So, think about the questions you have been asking. If you have been taught to ask “powerful” questions, ask yourself about them. (Even this – being taught to ask – is already a framework 😉)
Have these questions kept those being asked in the same framework(s)?
Even this article asking these questions about questions is in a certain framework of thought, isn’t it? 😉
Photo: Monad/The Absolute by SMART – representing totality of all things. Infinite source of all existence.

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