David Peat

From Object to Process 65These simple images, an ink drop, a holograph, and light enteringthe eye, do not really approach the richness of the implicate order. Tolapse into “explicate language” for a moment, the implicate order ismuch vaster than the explicate. It is like a great ocean reaching belowthe surface of the explicate. Although it is always possible to unfoldsome aspect of the implicate into the explicate, it is never possible toexpose the whole of the implicate at any one time. While concepts oflarger and smaller do not really apply at the level of the implicate order,one could perhaps say, loosely speaking, that the implicate order,has the capacity to embrace and contain the explicate, but not viceversa. This means that what appear to be separate objects in our everydayworld have arisen out of the same common ground and thus retainconnections and attractions for each other, correlations that lieoutside the normal range of explicate causality.In order to convey some of the flavor of Bohm’s ideas I have calledupon images and metaphors that are somewhat static. But Bohm’s notionsare all about process, or the holomovement; that is, the movementof the whole. For Bohm, the ground (if we wish to call it that) or “allthat is” takes the form of ceaseless movement. Within this movementcan be discovered an endless process of unfolding and enfolding as theimplicate order temporarily exposes aspects of itself to the explicate.The fact that our world appears stable is not so much that objects remainstatic in our world, but that the same patterns are constantlybeing born again only to die away as fast as thought. Our minds andbodies encounter the surface of things, and of the apparent stability ofthe explicate, without being truly aware of the constant movement below.(It is interesting to note that many meditative traditions lay emphasisupon the impermanence of things and suggest the world is constantlyflickering in and out of existence.)The implicate order casts light upon Bohr’s complementarity. Onlylimited aspects of the implicate order can be made explicit, one at atime. As one unfolds into the explicate another enfolds back again andvanishes. Thus the entire implicate can never be totally accounted for.Instead, complementary aspects, such as wave and particle, are revealedone at a time, aspects that may appear, within our explicate world, tobe paradoxical.