David Peat

From Object to Process 63Ink drop experiment. Bohm’s “ink drop experiment”gives some indication of the relationship betweenthe implicate and explicate orders. A drop ofink is placed in glycerin and the inner cylinder rotatedn times. As the fluid moves the drop is drawnout into an ever thinner thread until it appears tovanish, enfolded into the glycerin. When the rotationof the inner cylinder is reversed, for a further nturns, the drop reappears. The initial drop is analogousto the explicate order, whereas the enfoldeddrop is analogous to the implicate.implicate order, A contains B at the same time that A is containedwithin B. Within the explicate order this would be a paradox or contradiction,but it is perfectly natural within the implicate order.Seeking to explain this new logic Bohm supplied a few simple imagesthat go some way toward explaining the nature of this enfoldedworld or implicate order. One is the ink drop experiment (see figure).Glycerin is placed between two cylinders, the inner of which can berotated. Place a drop of ink in the glycerin, and slowly rotate the innercylinder. The drop begins to spread out into a line. In turn, this linewinds around the cylinders until it becomes so attenuated that it appearsto vanish. The drop, which in the explicate order is analogous toa point in space, has become enfolded into the implicate order. Nowrotate the cylinder in the reverse direction and suddenly as in a reversedmovie the drop reappears, as if out of nothing. The implicatehas been unfolded into the explicate.In the next stage of the experiment, after turning the cylinder ntimes, so that the initial drop has been enfolded into the glycerin, asecond drop is added close to where the first had been, and a further nturns are made. The process is continued with additional drops. Thistime not only is the first drop enfolded within the whole of the glycerin,but the second drop is enfolded within the first, and the first