William James, David Bohm, and the Puzzle of Consciousness

The paper explores a convergence between William James and David Bohm, both of whom envisioned the world as an undivided whole, beyond categories of thought and perception. While Bohm is known for his 'hidden variables' interpretation of quantum mechanics, his deeper metaphysical vision was of a unitary reality. James, from a philosophical and psychological starting point, arrived at a similar holistic view. This shared vision offers a novel approach to the hard problem of consciousness, addressing it in a way that dissolves traditional dualisms.

Study at a glance

Abstract

David Bohm is famous for inventing a ‘hidden variables’ interpretation of quantum mechanics, in which particles possess definite positions and momenta, but nonetheless preserve distinctively quantum phenomena perfectly in line with orthodox quantum mechanics. Bohm achieved this by interpreting the quantum wave function as a kind of universal ‘guidance wave’. But his particulate model does not represent the lesson which Bohm thought quantum mechanics was trying to teach us. Bohm had a much more radical metaphysical vision in which the world was, in some difficult to understand sense, an undivided whole. In this paper, I explore a compelling confluence of thought between William James and David Bohm. Arriving from very different starting points and proceeding in very different ways, they share a vision of a unitary world, undivided and ‘beyond’ all the categories of thought and perception. This vision is intrinsically interesting, not least because of the light it shines on the problem of consciousness. It both addresses and presents an entirely novel solution to the famous ‘hard problem of consciousness’.