The Paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould coined the acronym NOMA (Non-overlapping magisteria). This view advocated that "science and religion do not glower at each other . . . [but] interdigitate in patterns of complex fingering, and at every fractal scale of self-similarity." He suggests that "NOMA enjoys strong and fully explicit support, even from the primary cultural stereotypes of hard-line traditionalism" and that it is "a sound position of general consensus, established by long struggle among people of goodwill in both magisteria." Despite this there continues to be disagreement over where the boundaries between the two magisteria should be.
The irony here is that this statement either means nothing at all or it implies that there is overlap between these two `magisteria'--like two parallel lines meeting in curved space.
But, what does this have to do with `Thought As A System'?
In Bohm's view, we have inherited a belief that mind (or thought) is of an inherently different and higher order than matter. This belief has nurtured a faith in what we call `objectivity'--the capacity to observe and report neutrally on some object or event, without having any effect on what we are looking at, or without being affected by it..[Bohm] suggests that we have overextended our faith in the objectivist perspective. Once we make the critical (and false) assumption that thought and reality are not participating in our sense of reality, but only reporting on it, we are committed to a view that does not take into account the complex, unbroken processes that underlie the world as we experience it. (pp. ix, x) Thought As A System
So if we take `mind' to be a mere epiphenomena of matter (the scientific, materialist view), then all idealist or spiritual philosophies that posit a reality that transcends matter will appear false. But once we understand Bohm's observation that what we call `matter' is not some purely objective `fact' or reality, but is itself an idea derived from a perspective (mind/thought) that shapes our idea of matter (or any other `objective' fact) then all dichotomies between what is corporeal (physical) and noncorporeal (nonphysical) seem more problematic; that is, it opens the mind to the idea that science and religion might `interdigitate in patterns of complex fingering, and at every fractal scale of self-similarity.'
And, in my experience, no one is more knowledgeable when it comes to the intricate `interdigitation' of spiritual thought (east and west) and scientific thought than David Bohm. Bohm is the penultimate guide for anyone who has begun to suspect that the seemingly intractable contradictions between various spiritual world views, and similar contradictions between spiritual and scientific worldviews, might have more to do with how we view such things (mind) than intrinsic properties of the world (matter).
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Great book very high call to self evaluation
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