1. Background

The original inklings of the holomovement idea were first proposed at the October 1927 Fifth Solvay International Conference on Electrons and Photons by Louis de Broglie. He proposed the idea of a pilot wave as a causal interpretation of quantum mechanics rather than a purely results oriented one, as in the Copenhagen interpretation.^[1] However, Wolfgang Pauli raised an objection to it at the conference, saying that it did not deal properly with the case of inelastic scattering. De Broglie was not able to find a response to this objection, and he and Born abandoned the pilot-wave approach. Unlike David Bohm years later, de Broglie did not complete his theory to encompass the many-particle case.^[2]

In 1952, David Bohm, dissatisfied with the prevailing orthodoxy, rediscovered de Broglie's pilot wave theory. Bohm developed pilot wave theory into what is now called the de Broglie–Bohm theory.^[3]

The de Broglie–Bohm theory itself might have gone unnoticed by most physicists, if it had not been championed by John Bell, who also countered the objections to it. In 1987, John Bell^[4] rediscovered Grete Hermann's work, and thus showed the physics community that Pauli's and von Neumann's objections "only" showed that the pilot wave theory did not have locality.

The idea of holomovement is analogous to holography, wherein the interference of two types of light imprints the information about the image, and takes an indication that Schrödinger's equation can be construed as containing a new kind of field. This is apparent when it's written in the polar form:

[math]\displaystyle{ \Psi(\mathbf{r},t) = \psi(\mathbf{r}) e^{-iEt/\hbar} }[/math]

And it's easily shown that the equation has two real components.^[5]

2. Early Development of the Idea

In an essay published in 1971, Bohm continued his earlier critique (in "Causality and Chance in Modern Physics") of the mechanistic assumptions behind most modern physics and biology, and spoke of the need for a fundamentally different approach, and for a point of view which would go beyond mechanism. In particular, Bohm objected to the assumption that the world can be reduced to a set of irreducible particles within a three-dimensional Cartesian grid, or even within the four-dimensional curvilinear space of relativity theory. Bohm came instead to embrace a concept of reality as a dynamic movement of the whole: "In this view, there is no ultimate set of separately existent entities, out of which all is supposed to be constituted. Rather, unbroken and undivided movement is taken as a primary notion" (Bohm, 1988, p. 77). He then goes on to paraphrase da Vinci to the effect that movement gives shape to all forms and structure gives order to movement, but adds modern insight when he suggests that "a deeper and more extensive inner movement creates, maintains, and ultimately dissolves structure". (78).

In another article from the same period, "On the Metaphysics and Movement of Universal Fitting", Bohm identifies some of the inadequacies of the mechanistic model, particularly the inability to predict the future movement of complex wholes from the initial conditions, and suggests instead a focus on a general laws of interaction governing the relationship of the parts within a whole: "What we are doing in this essay is to consider what it means to turn this prevailing metaphysics of science ‘upside down’ by exploring the notion that a kind of art — a movement of fitting together — is what is universal, both in nature and in human activities" (90). This movement of the whole is what he calls here the artamovement, which he defines as the "movement of fitting" (91), and which is clearly related to what he would later call the holomovement.

3. Undivided Wholeness

The term holomovement is one of many neologisms which Bohm coined in his search to overcome the limitations of the standard Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. This approach involved not just a critique of the assumptions of the standard model, but a set of new concepts in physics which move beyond the conventional language of quantum mechanics. Wholeness and the Implicate Order is the culmination of these reflections, an attempt to show how the new insights provided by a post-Copenhagen model can be extended beyond physics into other domains, such as life, consciousness, and cosmology.

The holomovement concept is introduced in incremental steps. It is first presented under the aspect of wholeness in the lead essay, called "Fragmentation and Wholeness". There Bohm states the major claim of the book: "The new form of insight can perhaps best be called Undivided Wholeness in Flowing Movement" (Bohm, 1980, 11). This view implies that flow is, in some sense, prior to that of the ‘things’ that can be seen to form and dissolve in this flow. He notes how "each relatively autonomous and stable structure is to be understood not as something independently and permanently existent but rather as a product that has been formed in the whole flowing movement and what will ultimately dissolve back into this movement. How it forms and maintains itself, then, depends on its place function within the whole" (14). For Bohm, movement is what is primary; and what seem like permanent structures are only relatively autonomous sub-entities which emerge from the whole of flowing movement and then dissolve back into it an unceasing process of becoming.

4. All Is Flux

The general concept is further refined in the third chapter, "Reality and Knowledge considered as Process", this time under the aspect of movement, or process. "Not only is everything changing, but all is flux. That is to say, what is the process of becoming itself, while all objects, events, entities, conditions, structures, etc., are forms that can be abstracted from this process" (48). His notion of the whole is not a static Parmenidean oneness outside of space and time. Rather, the wholeness to which he refers here is more akin to the Heraclitian flux, or to the process philosophy of Whitehead.

5. Formal Presentation

The formal presentation of the concept comes late in the book, under the general framework of new notions of order is physics. After discussing the concepts of undivided wholeness and the implicate and explicate orders, he presents the formal definition under the subheading "The Holomovement and its Aspects". Consistent with his own earlier Causal Interpretation, and more generally with the de Broglie-Schroedinger approach, he posits that a new kind of description would be appropriate for giving primary relevance to the implicate order. Using the hologram as a model, Bohm argues that the implicate order is enfolded within a more generalized wave structure of the universe-in-motion, or what he calls the holomovement:

Generalizing, so as to emphasize undivided wholeness, we can say that the holomovement, which is an unbroken and undivided totality, ‘carries’ implicate order. In certain cases, we can abstract particular aspects of the holomovement (e.g. light, electrons, sound, etc.), but more generally, all forms of the holomovement merge and are inseparable. Thus in its totality, the holomovement is not limited in any specifiable way at all. It is not required to conform to any particular order, or to be bounded by any particular measure. Thus, the holomovement is undefinable and immeasurable." (151).

As the interconnected totality of all there is, the holomovement is potentially of an infinite order, and so cannot be pinned down to any one notion of order. It is important to note that Bohm's concepts of the implicate order and the holomovement are significant departures from the earlier "Hidden Variables" interpretation, and the conceptual framework is somewhat different from that articulated in the Bohm-Vigier interpretation, sometimes called the Causal-Stochastic Interpretation, and the interpretations of the proponents of "Bohmian Mechanics", where the general assumption is of an underlying Dirac ether (see F. David Peat's Introduction to Quantum Implications). While the concept of the holomovement has been criticized as being "metaphysical", it is actually subtler, while at the same time encompassing the whole range of interconnected physical phenomena.

6. The Law of the Holomovement: Holonomy

The starting point for Bohm's articulation of what he means by a "new order in physics" is his notion of wholeness. Thus crucial for understanding the holomovement is his notion of how interconnected phenomena are woven together in an underlying unified fabric of physical law. In the following section, called "Law in the Holomovement", he takes up the question of order, and the laws of organization which relate the parts to each other and to the whole. This is what he calls the "law of the whole", or holonomy. Rather than starting with the parts and explaining the whole in terms of the parts, Bohm's point of view is just the opposite: he starts with a notion of undivided wholeness and derives the parts as abstractions from the whole. The essential point is that the implicate order and the holomovement imply a way of looking at reality not merely in terms of external interactions between things, but in terms of the internal (enfolded) relationships among things: "The relationships constituting the fundamental law are between the enfolded structures that interweave and inter-penetrate each other, through the whole of space, rather than between the abstracted and separated forms that are manifest to the senses (and to our instruments)" (185).

7. Extension to Life, Consciousness and Cosmology

In the final chapter of the book, "The enfolding-unfolding universe and consciousness", Bohm elaborated further on the need for new notions of order of physics, and set forth a general view in which totalities are continually forming and dissolving out of the universal flux, or what he designates as the holomovement. He recapitulates: "Our basic proposal was that what is the holomovement, and that everything is to be explained in terms of forms derived from this holomovement. (178)." And again: "The implicate order has its ground in the holomovement which is, as we have seen, vast, rich, and in a state of unending flux of enfoldment and unfoldment, with laws most of which are only vaguely known (185). As such, the holomovement includes not just physical reality, but life, consciousness and cosmology. As Bohm sums it up at the end of the book: "Our overall approach has thus brought together questions of the nature of the cosmos, of matter in general, of life, and of consciousness. All of these have been considered to be projections of a common ground. This we may call the ground of all that is" (212).

8. In Popular Culture

Bohm's work and the Holomovement are the topic of a feature-length documentary under development by Paul Howard and David Peat.^[6]

Bohm features as a fictional character in the novel The Wave by British author Lochlan Bloom which includes several "enfolded" narratives.

9. Publications

• 1957. Causality and Chance in Modern Physics, 1961 Harper edition reprinted in 1980 by Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania Press, ISBN:0-8122-1002-6
• 1987. Science, Order, and Creativity, with F. David Peat. London: Routledge. 2nd ed. 2000. ISBN:0-415-17182-2. .
• 1993. The Undivided Universe: An ontological interpretation of quantum theory, with B.J. Hiley, London: Routledge, ISBN:0-415-12185-X (final work)
• 1998. On Creativity, editor Lee Nichol. London: Routledge, hardcover: ISBN:0-415-17395-7, paperback: ISBN:0-415-17396-5, 2004 edition: ISBN:0-415-33640-6
• Infinite Potential: the Life and Times of David Bohm, F. David Peat, Reading, Massachusetts: Addison Wesley (1997), ISBN:0-201-40635-7 DavidPeat.com
• Quantum Implications: Essays in Honour of David Bohm, (B.J. Hiley, F. David Peat, editors), London: Routledge (1987), ISBN:0-415-06960-2
• The Quantum Theory of Motion: an account of the de Broglie-Bohm Causal Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, Peter R. Holland, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (2000) ISBN:978-0-521-48543-2.