Started reading #books

If a person tries to observe what he is thinking about at the very moment that he is reflecting on a particular subject, it is generally agreed that he introduces unpredictable and uncontrollable changes in the way his thoughts proceed thereafter. —David Bohm, Quantum Theory

…a person can always describe approximately what he is thinking about…But as he tries to make the description precise, he discovers that either the subject of his thoughts or their trend or…both become very different from what they were before he tried to observe them —D. Bohm

...the actions involved in making any single aspect of the thought process definite appear to introduce unpredictable and uncontrollable changes in other equally significant aspects. —David Bohm, Quantum Theory

...if a person attempts to apply to his thinking more and more precisely defined elements, he eventually reaches a stage where further analysis cannot even be given a meaning. —David Bohm

Part of the significance of each element of a thought process appears, therefore, to originate in its indivisible and incompletely controllable connections with other elements. —David Bohm

...part of the connotation of a word depends on the words it is associated with, and in a way that is not, in practice, completely predictable or controllable... —David Bohm

...the analysis of language, as actually used, into distinct elements with precisely defined relations between them is probably impossible. —David Bohm

...thought processes and quantum systems are analogous in that they cannot be analyzed too much in terms of distinct elements, because the “intrinsic nature” of each element is not a property existing separately from and independently of other elements... —David Bohm

…an analysis into distinct elements is correct only if it is so approximate that no significant alteration of the various indivisibly connected parts would result from it. —David Bohm, Quantum Theory

...the entire universe must, on a very accurate level, be regarded as a single indivisible unit in which separate parts appear as idealizations permissible only on a classical level of accuracy of description. —David Bohm, Quantum Theory

...the view of the world as being analogous to a huge machine, the predominant view from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries, is now shown to be only approximately correct. The underlying structure of matter, however, is not mechanical. —David Bohm, Quantum Theory

...the logical process corresponds to the most general type of thought process as the classical limit corresponds to the most general quantum process... —David Bohm

In the logical process, we deal with classifications. These classifications are conceived as being completely separate but related by the rules of logic, which may be regarded as the analogue of the causal laws of classical physics. —David Bohm

In any thought process, the component ideas are not separate but flow steadily and indivisibly. An attempt to analyze them into separate parts destroys or changes their meanings. —David Bohm

Yet there are certain types of concepts…in which we can, without producing any essential changes, neglect the indivisible and incompletely controllable connection with other ideas. Instead, the connection can be regarded as causal and following the rules of logic. —David Bohm

Logically definable concepts play the same fundamental role in abstract and precise thinking as do separable objects and phenomena in our customary description of the world. —David Bohm

Without the development of logical thinking, we would have no clear way to express the results of our thinking, and no way to check its validity. —David Bohm

...just as life as we know it would be impossible if quantum theory did not have its present classical limit, thought as we know it would be impossible unless we could express its results in logical terms. —David Bohm

…the basic thinking process probably cannot be described as logical. For instance, many people have noted that a new idea often comes suddenly, after a long and unsuccessful search and without any apparent direct cause. —David Bohm

…if the intermediate indivisible nonlogical steps occurring in an actual thought process are ignored, and if we restrict ourselves to a logical terminology, then the production of new ideas presents a strong analogy to a quantum jump. —David Bohm, Quantum Theory

In a similar way, the actual concept of a quantum jump seems necessary in our procedure of describing a quantum system that is actually an indivisible whole in terms of words and concepts implying that it can be analyzed into distinct parts. —David Bohm, Quantum Theory, p. 170

…the…point-by-point analogy between the thought processes and quantum processes would suggest that a hypothesis relating these two may well turn out to be fruitful. If such a hypothesis could…be verified, it would explain…a great many features of our thinking. —David Bohm

…the behavior of our thought process may perhaps reflect in an indirect way some of the quantum-mechanical aspects of the matter of which we are composed. —David Bohm, Quantum Theory, p. 172