ON MOTION

 

In David Bohm’s theory of the Holomovement (or Holokinesis), conventional movement from one isolated point in space to another ("from here to there") is not a fundamental reality. It is a secondary, surface manifestation.

At the deepest level of reality, there is only the Holomovement—the unbroken, non-local activity of total enfoldment and unfoldment of the entire universe.

1. The Surface Level: Motion "From Here to There" (Explicate Order)

What we perceive as an object moving through space from point A to point B belongs to the Explicate (unfolded) Order. In classical physics, an entity sits "here," travels through pre-existing space, and arrives "there."

In Bohm’s view, this spatial translation is only a kind of a projection created by a deeper process, much like a frame-by-frame film reel projected on a screen. The image on the screen appears to move across space, but in reality, each frame is being projected anew from a single source.

2. The Fundamental Level: Holokinesis (Implicate Order)

At the primary, Implicate (enfolded) Order, space and time are not external containers. An electron does not slide through space from "here" to "there". Instead:

• The electron at "here" enfolds back into the total fabric of the Universe (the Implicate Ground/ Order).

• An instant later, the universe unfolds a new manifestation of that electron at "there".

Because "here" and "there" are both enfolded within the same unitary undivided Wholeness, the movement is not a localized jump across a void, but a continuous re-creation of the Whole.

Bohm’s Ink Drop Analogy

To visualize this, Bohm used the metaphor of a droplet of ink suspended in a cylinder of viscous glycerine:

1. Enfoldment: When the cylinder is rotated, the ink droplet stretches out until it completely disappears into the glycerine. The drop is not destroyed; it is enfolded into the whole medium.

2. Unfoldment: When rotated in reverse, the ink droplet draws back together and reappears as a localized dot.

3. Apparent Motion: If you enfold a series of ink drops at slightly different positions and then unroll the cylinder rapidly, the dots will unfold one after another. To an observer, it looks like a single ink drop is moving from left to right across space.

In Bohmian physics, localized movement from "here to there" is an apparency. The fundamental reality is that there is only the Holomovement - he Universe perpetually folding into itself and unfolding into the Explicate Order of  "form".