The Ambidextrous Universe: Mirror Asymmetry and Time-Reversed Worlds ed. by Martin Gardner (review)

Books 159 consciousness, as an unbroken whole'. He is a well-known theoretical physicist who has introduced some important new concepts in physics, such as the notion of plasma waves in 1953in collaboration with D. Pines. Therefore, any physicist's attention is attracted to such an interdisciplinary and highly ambitious program. His program is presented in seven chapters, particularly in a brief Introduction, grounded on some other essays published by him over a period of about 30 years. In the first chapter, entitled Fragmentation and Wholeness, Bohm states that developments in science demand a new outlook and he develops this point in an entirely subjective way. I find it difficult to agree or to disagree with his philosophical outlook, because it depends on one's own outlook. His philosophical bases are closer to Oriental than to Occidental versions, as is made clear in the appendix of this chapter and by a reference made to Krishnamurti. His approach is further explained in the second chapter entitled The Rheomade Flowing Mode, where he proposes a new way of using natural languages in harmony with the unbroken movement of existence as a whole. This chapter, I find, is a collection of speculation (for which no adequate references are provided. In the second chapter, Reality and Knowledge, each considered 'as process', he reaches the view that the totality of human activities is in harmony only ifa world view accommodates an unending process of their development. Again, Bohm's outlook I find is too briefly outlined, for he does not take account of the vast literature now available on human thought processes and memory. He says that a kind of unspecified harmony between the left and the right brain hemispheres should be recognised, that is that account should be taken of both logical and poetic usages of natural languages. The next three chapters are more technical and are likely to be comprehensible only to readers already acquainted generally with current developments in physics. Chapter 4 deals with the question of possible 'hidden variables' in quantum theory. In Chapters 5 and 6 he proposes a new notion of order that may be appropriate to a universe of unbroken wholeness and that he calls 'implicate' or 'enfolded' order. Finally, in Chapter 7 he further presents the 'implicate' order along with its relationship to consciousness and cosmology. As anyone concerned with the matters discussed in these chapters realizes, they are very complex. He deals with them so cryptically that I shall confine my comments to Chapter 5, because it would be of major interest to Leonardo readers. In Chapter 5 (p, 115), Bohm begins his discussion ofa new and very general way of perceiving order in nature and in the visual arts, with examples, that is, 'to give attention to similar differences and different similarities', a notion first suggested to him by the visual artist C. Biederman (U.S.A.). In my opinion, it is unfortunate that Bohrn, a theoretical physicist, did not take account of the current notion of statistical order in physics. According to this notion, to find more order means to break some of the perceived symmetries of a system, thus increasing direct relationships among the parts of the system. For this reason, the current idea of order-disorder transitions in physics is dominated by the notion of 'broken symmetry', and proposed new criteria for order should have taken account of this notion. Moreover, even the notion of randomness, discussed in 20 lines (p. 112), is unclear. According to his proposed criteria, random curves are of an indefinitely high degree of order because of a hierarchy of high similarities and dissimilarities. It is not clear to me if this is true of any random curves, a question that I believe Bohm should have examined in more detail. In conclusion, it seems to me that his book is a mixture of essays related to one unattained end-a new 'meaning of order'. The essays dealing with speculative philosophy may well be accepted by some readers. Those dealing with physics are certainly valuable for their historical and critical content, but they seem to me weak in a constructive sense. The Ambidextrous Universe: Mirror Asymmetry and TimeReversed Worlds...