Thought as a System: Second edition

In this remarkable book, Bohm demonstates the falseness of concepts such as "I" and "me", and how these concepts are the inevitable product of a system - the system of thought - that is created when thought is allowed to dominate consciousness and produce all the incoherence and dysfunction we experience in a culture where it is implicitly assumed that thought is the only means of perceiving reality. The process Bohm uses in the book is a dialogue with a group of 30 or so people. As was the case with his friend Krishnamurti, Bohm avoids assuming a position of authority since this would be to fall into the trap of thought and the authoritarianism inherent in the illusory - but to the system of thought necessary - concept of "I" as "thinker". Instead Bohm creates and sustains a dialogue with the people in the group through group reflection. Bohm hints at something transcending thought but does not attempt to define the undefineable. Rather the dialogue demonstrates the falseness of the idea of thought and "thinker" as the means of perceiving the real thus aiding the participants to open to what may lie beyond thought.

An excellent mindful achievement reaching a new understanding about thoughts and thinking in our human construct. The two are apparently different from one another and the book attempts to explain questions and answers leading to thought and its relationship to our own understanding of the way we interpret the world around us. I recommend reading this book if you have ever wondered why or how you think the way you think. I found this book to be a great catalyst into the quest to understand and properly define our thinking/thought process as well as a great added addition to David Bohms work.

I was introduced to Bohm through his video dialogue with Krishnamurti in The transformation of Man. He is one of the most honest, clear thinkers I have ever read. This book is really a transcript of a group discussion of thought with Bohm at the head. If you ever wonder why you get angry for "no reason" or why people get so upset over ideas, then read this book. And if you have an insight into the way thought works, you'll never be the same.

This book is the result of Bohm's collaboration with Krishnamurti, which lasted for over twenty years. David Bohms background as a proven physicist enables him to explain K.'s thought to the West in a more systematic, clear fashion that even K. could. This book was put out after Krishnamurti's death, and so it represents the results of their collaboration from Bohm's point of view. The implications of this analysis of thought are profound. It out does phenomenology in depth as well as it's avoidance of the hideous academic jargon. The only other thinker to take as in-depth a look at "Thought" is Rudolph Steiner (see 'Intuitive Thinking As A Spiritual Path'). This book brings a focus and clarity to a subject that never quiet graduated beyond the experimental dialogues between Bohm and Krishnamurti. Bohm also took the dialogue format (very similiar to Socratic) as his methodology (see his book on communication). Bohm felt that Krishnamurti's greatest contribution was his ideas about the "observer and the observed" and the nature of thought. Bohm had already had intimations of these ideas in sub-atomic physics. Excellent stuff!

A superb book with Bohm investigating the nature of thought in all its subtlety through a dialogue approach used by Bohm in several other books. Bohm's remarkable way of dialogue investigation assumes nothing except his internal investigations of his own thought processes which are explained in a manner allowing free discussion, ie nothing is assumed, set in its ways and everything is open to question, similarly he doesn't create any sophisticated terminology which could confuse the issue or the people who are asking the questions. The talks are in the words of every day people and use their everyday experiences for understanding. Thought is dissected in all its aspects, the creation of the `subject' and `object' and the underlying self, how thought gives rise to the structure of society and its problems, where is thought appropriate, these and many other questions are studied with no final answers allowing a deeper search to be performed by the reader. A book desperately needed to brush away the cobwebs of terminology, systems, fantasies and other claptrap so prevalent in our society.