https://paricenter.com Pari Center Mon, 01 Nov 2021 09:39:43 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0.4 https://paricenter.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/id_Pari_Center-100x100.png https://paricenter.com 32 32 https://paricenter.com/product/understanding-the-nature-of-reality-and-consciousness-bohms-philosophica-project-paavo-pylkkanen/ Mon, 01 Nov 2021 09:38:19 +0000 https://paricenter.com/?post_type=product&p=26537 July 18, 2021 - David Bohm was concerned with providing a description of reality—at the quantum level, and more generally, a unified description of matter, life, and consciousness, all adding up to a general concept of reality or a metaphysical theory. Such synthetic ontological projects were not popular in much of 20^thcentury philosophy and thus Bohm’s philosophical work has been often ignored by professional philosophers. However, it is important to realize that although he was clearly more concerned with describing a mind-independent reality than many other 20th-century physicists or philosophers, this concern did not mean that he ignored the role of the mind (language, perception, etc.) in his attempts to describe reality. In other words, he did not ignore epistemological issues or questions that concern the nature of our knowledge and the problems of justifying it, or the way language shapes our perception of reality. On the contrary, his broad philosophical work includes extensive studies of various epistemic issues: physics and perception (Bohm 1965a), the notions of truth and understanding (Bohm 1964), a view of science as ‘perception-communication’ (Bohm 1977), experimentation with the structure of language (the rheomode, Bohm 1977), study of knowledge understood as process (Bohm 1974), and discussions of topics such as communication, creativity, art, and so on. To fully appreciate Bohm’s views about the nature of reality, they should be understood in the context of his epistemic considerations. What would it mean to go beyond Bohm in philosophy? Before doing that we ought to first be able to understand the philosophical significance of what he did. Perhaps his main contribution was to offer us a version of scientific metaphysics, through his interpretations of quantum theory and the more general implicate order scheme he developed. The need for a scientific metaphysics has in recent years been energetically proposed by Ladyman and Ross in their ‘ontic structural realism,’ which is in some ways similar to Bohm’s implicate order scheme—perhaps some new possibilities arise when thinking together these schemes? But Bohm’s proposal to experiment with the structure of language and to ask what happens to epistemology if both reality and knowledge are processes offer likewise radically new perspectives for philosophy. In this talk Pylkkänen goes through some of Bohm’s key philosophical contributions and sketches how they could be further developed in future research. Length: 2 hours Paavo Pylkkänen, PhD, Philosopher of Mind, Helsinki University, Finland]]> https://paricenter.com/product/the-dirac-bohm-picture-bohms-1952-approach-in-a-wider-context-basil-hiley/ Mon, 01 Nov 2021 09:36:16 +0000 https://paricenter.com/?post_type=product&p=26535 July 17, 2021 - It has recently been shown that the Bohm approach outlined in his 1952 work is not a new type of ‘mechanics’ but is unitarily equivalent, i.e. mathematically equivalent, to the Schrödinger approach, dealing directly with canonical coordinates (x, p) rather than through the intermediary ‘wave functions’. This fits in with the Stone-von Neumann theorem which explains why we already have the Schrödinger ‘picture,’ the Heisenberg ‘picture,’the interaction ‘picture,’ etc. We have called it the Dirac-Bohm ‘picture’ based on a non-commutative algebra: it is from this picture that Bohm’s ’52 approach emerges. The word ‘picture’ is here used in a technical sense, but can be taken as providing a different physical intuition with which to understand quantum phenomena. Although many of the details are very technical, Hiley shows how the ideas provide a new way of looking at quantum phenomena, which not only confirms Bohm’s philosophical insights, but adds a new meaning to terms like the ‘Bohm momentum,’ the ‘osmotic momentum’ which, in turn, enables us to understand how the quantum potential fits in with the general notion of a gauge field. The reason why the quantum potential gives rise to such a ‘strange’ force is that we are looking at it in terms of an interaction force. However it gives rise to a different type of force which Einstein calls a ‘phoronometric’ force.  It is the type of potential that generates the Coriolis force which is responsible for the depressions arising in the Atlantic ocean which is responsible for such ‘wretched weather’ in the UK or the vortices that arise in the Bosporus. What is not generally realised is that the perihelion precession of Mercury arises from just such a force in general relativity. It is this mathematical structure that enables us to generate a new ‘dynamical geometry’ or better still a phoronometry providing new insights into the relation between the individual and the collective.  Professor Basil Hiley, PhD, quantum physicist and professor emeritus of the University of London was a collaborator and colleague of David Bohm for over 30 years. Length: 2 hours]]> https://paricenter.com/product/the-brain-and-its-mindful-double-with-giuseppe-vitiello/ Mon, 01 Nov 2021 09:30:50 +0000 https://paricenter.com/?post_type=product&p=26534 July 11, 2021 - By repeated trial-and-error the brain constructs within itself, through its mental activity, an understanding of its surround, that we describe as its Double. The relation that the self and its Double construct constitutes the meaning of the flows of information exchanged during their interactions. The act of consciousness resides in such a dialogue of the self with its Double. The continuous attempt to reach the equilibrium in this dialogue shows that the real goal pursued by the brain activity is the aesthetical experience, the perfect ‘to-be-in-the-world.’ Active reciprocal responses between the self and the world imply responsibility and thus they become moral, ethical responses through which the self and its Double become part of the larger social dialogue. Aesthetical pleasure unavoidably implies disclosure, to manifest ‘signs,’ communication. An interpersonal, collective level of consciousness then arises, a larger stage where the actors are mutually dependent, each one simply non-existing without the others. Giuseppe Vitiello, PhD, is Honorary Professor of Theoretical Physics, University of Salerno, Italy Length: 2 hours and 10 mins]]> https://paricenter.com/product/contextuality-in-de-broglie-bohm-and-beyond-with-emily-adlam/ Mon, 01 Nov 2021 09:24:42 +0000 https://paricenter.com/?post_type=product&p=26533 July 10, 2021 - Contextuality is one particularly puzzling non-classical feature of the quantum world—but what conclusions should we draw from it? In this talk, Dr Adlam explains what contextuality is and why the presence of contextuality in our theories needs explaining. She describes how contextuality is manifested in the de Broglie-Bohm interpretation of quantum mechanics and compares and contrasts the de Broglie-Bohm account of contextuality to various alternatives. Finally, she discusses some interesting new mathematical approaches to contextuality and consider what these results add to our understanding. Emily Adlam, PhD, is a theoretical physicist and philosopher of physics specialising in quantum information and foundations. Length: 2 hours]]>