Little Shop of Knowledge

Chapter 6 is a deep inquiry into the nature of thought. Once again Bohm mentions about the proprioceptive quality thought may come to acquire. Like the body, you have a sense if you’re standing or laying down, if someone’s touching your shoulder or if it’s your hand the one that’s scratching your arm. Your body has inherent this quality of knowing when itself is doing something. Thought however seems to lack such quality. Thought produces something but fails to perceive itself as the origin of whatever it produced.



For these reasons Bohm calls one to learn about suspension. Thoughts and feelings stimulate each other mutually, usually in a way that makes US believe that they’re going through us, however it resulta that they’re a system of their own and don’t really pass through this central entity we call self. This is both good news as well as bad news. Good because it means that our feelings and thoughts may be reactions or conditions outside of us that we can analyze and correct, however it’s  bad news because now I’m wondering if there’s such thing as “I”, or what composes my self?



When you suspend a feeling you try to recognize it not as a part of you but simply as what it is: a feeling. You’re not denying it or allowing it to control you but rather you’re setting it in a specific place where you can figure out what’s provoking it without yourself falling apart in the whole process.



Some notes I took as I read the chapter:



Suspension:

-You can suspend feelings and observe them in detail, see the thoughts and assumptions that are provoking them and then remove the assumptions, if you keep them you’ll remain feeling (angry, sad, nostalgic, etc.)

-Be careful not to enter denial when you’re suspending a feeling. For example “I shouldn’t be angry, I’m not angry” it will lead to losing awareness of you being angry as you remain angry.



Suspension is not suppression or execution. It’s taking an analytical approach to a problem, looking at it the way Abuelito was telling me last night a scientist looks at a problem. Don’t jump to conclusions on what the answer is and rush into manifesting it, also don’t leave the problem completely unattended. Set it in this petri-dish where you can look at it, analyze, it, so that when you understand it something can be done.



1. Is it possible to suspend an action without suppressing it?
IF you find that this is not possible then observe the process of suppression without suppressing this suppression.

There’s no formula, only a point of departure for inquiry. We don’t know where it will lead but at any point you may again suspend and begin another process of thought.



Another approach: You get an outburst of emotion and it cools down. More urgent things happen so you set it aside, but it’s stilled stored somewhere. You can bring it back on purpose by expressing through words the reason for such emotion. Go over the thoughts that actually come to you.



“If you can’t watch it in the moment that it actually happens, you can watch it afterwards – you can recall it. Recall it by the words: go over the words which hurt you, and see what happened.”

Difference between Thinking ABOUT the hurt and Thinking THE hurt.



Thinking ABOUT it is saying it’s “out there”, like an object – the problem is that “the hurt” is not an object, “the hurt” is me.

Thinking The Hurt is allowing yourself to re-live an experience and let it produce whatever reaction it may in your body. When that’s going on suspend the activity in both directions, let it reveal itself, and see it.



Incoherence: Intention / Result. For some reason they aren’t matching. Ex. In riding a bicycle it’s clear not when you think you don’t know how to ride it but when you fall from it. Physical change comes from changing that tacit response.

Coherence: Intention – Result (Careful not to think everything is coherent and nice you might fall for settling to low standards. Be aware of incoherence, for dealing with them leads towards coherence.)



Thought: Subtle set of reflexes, potentially unlimited in obtaining new ones and modifying ones already acquired. Emotions, the bodily state, physical reaction, the logical process, and everything else that’s commited to memory. It’s part of a material process, the brain, the nervous system, the body, it’s all one system.

Ways to convey thought: Radio waves, Television, Writing, Talking (sound), nervous system signals, etc.



“An insight or perception of truth may deeply affect the material process.”



Matter may be infinitely subtle. It’s not just mechanical.



Thought is not proprioceptive but requires proprioception.