Causality and Chance in Modern Physics

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Summary: Defense of Hidden Variables
Review: Bohm in this book attacks to Standard Interpretation of Quantum Physics. He starts with definition of Physical Theories, Laws of Nature, discusses Statistical Mechanics and goes into Deterministic Mechanicstic Philosophys and indeterminist Mechanistic Philosophy. He attackes Bohr and Heisenberg on their stand that Uncertainity Principal is the rule of the nature and foundation of Quantum Physics.Claims it is not conclusively proven as a rule and than argues that one can always find new Theory that can be fundemantally different from Uncertainity Principle, yet could explain nature better and yields current Quantum Physics as complimentarity. Although he claims that Heisenberg's claim is with no foundation, I believe he fails to prove that Nature can not be explained completely with limited number of laws and concepts.His argument against Heisenberg could be reversed and used against his own argument

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Summary: Required Reading for Physics Students!
Review: I consider this book a gem.

The forthright explanations of mechanistic systems, both deterministic and indeterministic, will help to awaken any student of physics as to the degree to which their world-view may not be as broad as they had imagined.

The concerns raised about quantum mechanics are not trivial or extreme. And they are raised with deliberation and humility. Likewise, so are Bohm's suggested solutions.

Finally, and most importantly I think, the argument for a world-view of physics that presumes - as the most scientifically (investigationally speaking) useful view to take - that the universe is comprised of an infinite number of levels of depth and complexity. Perhaps there are not an infinite number of levels of reality, but to presuppose there is opens the mind to want to investigate what they might be. Thus, supposing that QM defines and "explains" the 'bottom' of reality is first, not a logically strong position (just as Brownian motion formulas do not "explain" such motion as a fundamental aspect of nature) and secondly, such a view is scientifically inhibiting: supposing that QM *is* the bottom level of reality is rather silly in light of our historical knowledge of how humans have consistently misjudged the 'fundamental' aspects of nature in the past, and supposing we have reached it now via QM is a dubious claim. Further, even the issue of determinism vs. indeterminism may be a moot point: it may be at a lower level of reality, there is no such distinction - we may be seeing those two 'macroscopic' aspects of a more basic or inclusive feature of reality.

If you want to be an original thinker in physics (or perhaps any science or philosophy), this book is a good starting point to help you realize how easily assumptions of the nature of reality slip past our awareness.

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Summary: A good introduction to a deep thinker.
Review: In this, David Bohm's first book looking at the conceptual foundations of modern physics he writes in a fast paced energetic way which, although quite analytical and interesting, lacks the warmth to be found in his later books.

His aim is to investigate the concepts of cause and chance and their applicability in physics. Bohm considers the ideas of causality in terms of relationshipos between "things" both as one-to-many and many-to-one types, then considers how contingency, chance and probablity are present in natural law.

Then, starting from the ideas of classical mechanistic physics and the changes which occurred over several hundred years in the way that the philosophy of mechanism both, took hold, 17th and 18th centuries, and significantly changed, 19th century he considers the longevity of this philosophy even after changes in it which would normally entertain a new outlook: classical particle mechanics->wave theory->fields. All of these new developments altered how the philosophy of mechanism was thought of but still maintained fundamental aspects such as: a quantitative law which could explain all natural phenomena. he goes on to explain the links between macroscopic and microscopic levels of law and how in each level a relatively independent state of affairs exists which regard to the laws, valid in each case.

Further, with the development of quantum theory at the start of the 20th century, ideas of probablity, indeterminacy and discreteness became the new concepts in physics, once again significantly changing the outlook yet still maintaining the most important tenet of mechanism: a be all and end all explanation of reality ie a final explanation which knows no alteration.

Bohm then goes on to demonstrate at least qualitatively what a different, alternative interpretation of quantum mechanics could look like, introducing his concepts of the sub-quantum level and the qualitative infinity of nature which is yet a unity. In the final chapter he looks at the way in which humans attempt to comprehend this qualitative infinity in terms of the abstraction of certain aspects from the whole and its consequences such as the multiplicity of these abstractions and their significance. He thereby avoids the seemingly obvious conclusion of Neumann regarding the non-existence of underlying laws or hidden variables. He considers question on the modes of being, becoming and how a "thing" can exist for long periods of time unchanged and yet in certain contexts always changing. He belittle's the Laplacian mechanistic "God" and what objective reality really means.

It is Bohm's first attempt at these difficult issues (1957) long before chaos theory and its ability to lead to randomness even from strictly deterministic laws and the further developments he himself underwent in talks with Krishnamurti and the consequent construction of the idea of the holomovement. This book does not go as deep or is as fascinating as his later, richer ideas. But it does give an overview of what Bohm wished to change in physics and also society through his ideas such as dialogue.

A good introduction to a deep thinker.