I made a video essay about David Bohm's influence on Paul Feyerabend's Against Method

[KingCrimson]

Hey everyone,

About a year ago, I made a rather arcane video essay on the topic of “How David Bohm influenced Paul Feyerabend’s philosophy of science”.

It was a small project, the main purpose of which was to find out whether I would even find creating these kinds of videos enjoyable (in the spirit of the principle of “making small bets”), but also, to learn the basics of video editing, and to practice writing in English, which is my second language. I consider it a success insofar as I learned a lot during the process, and there seem to have been at least a few people who enjoyed what I made in spite of the extremely niche topic and my rudimentary video editing and English speaking skills.

I was apprehensive at first, but I thought it would be good idea to share it with you guys on the forum for a few reasons. Firstly, because I think there might be a few people here who would actually be interested in the topic, and could take something away from the video. Secondly, I am often quite fearful of sharing my creations with others for fear of being judged, so making it public in this way is a way seems like exactly the thing to do if I wanted to overcome this. Pretty sure I would have shared it way sooner if I wasn't such a chicken.
And thirdly, of course, I am quite happy to hear your feedback, as well as discuss in this thread any of the topics that I touched upon in the essay. If you are a fan of Leo’s work, I am sure you will find some of this stuff familiar.

I hope you find some value in the video and I am very much looking forward to your replies.

Thanks

Benjamin

[Happy Lizard]

Great video, although I didn’t understand some parts of it, but I guess I got the general Idea.

You said you will be making more videos about other topics, any plans for whats next? Also you mentioned “atomism” as if it’s an ideology, last time I diged into that I only found bad resources about this, do you know where I should start reading about this? 

[KingCrimson]

@Happy Lizard

Hey! So glad you found some value in it, I really appreciate you taking the time to check it out! 

"Atomism" is the familiar idea that the world is essentially made up of tiny particles, like little LEGO blocks. It was first proposed by the Ancient Greek philosophers Leucippus and Democritus. The term "atom" is derived from the Greek word "atomos", which means "uncuttable". The idea is that an atom is the smallest possible and most foundational thing in existence, and that all other things are merely made up of various configurations of atoms.

Sometimes, "materialism" and "atomism" are used interchangeably. Materialism is the belief that everything in the world is made of matter. What is matter? Well, in the view of a materialist, matter is of course made up of atoms. So materialism and atomism can often mean the same thing.

Atomism is a belief which is still held today by most people, even scientists, even though Einstein's relativity and even more so quantum mechanics have clearly shown to us that it is a way too simplistic, inadequate way of looking at reality. Bohm argues against atomism and puts forth an interpretation of quantum mechanics which sees reality as one, unbroken, undivided WHOLE. In Bohm's view, the atoms are not that of which the world is made of, but the atoms themselves DEPEND on the whole for their existence, in fact, nothing can exist independently from the whole. The whole comes first, and everything else - that is, seemingly independent particles/objects in the world - derives its existence from the whole.

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy can be a very useful resource for anything to do with Western academic philosophy. If you are interested in learning about the roots of atomism, this entry might be worth a read: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atomism-ancient/ 

As far as the channel is concerned, I have made a few more videos since then, however, they are all in German, just because it is significantly easier for me to make them in my mother tongue. I do want to keep making content in English though, just because I find it way more interesting to connect with people all over the world rather than only German speakers, but right now I'm still figuring out how to make them in English in a reasonable amount of time and without losing any substance. As far as topics go, I have a long list of video ideas, many of which deal with rather abstract philosophical/academic topics (like this video). Next in line for the English channel is a video essay on Phenomenology, in which I will not only explain what Phenomenology is, but also elaborate on its relationship with Eastern philosophy and how it fits into the bigger picture of spirituality/personal development.

Thanks again, and don't hesitate to ask if there's anything else you're curious about! 

Edited May 6, 2022 by KingCrimson
@User

[LastThursday]

I enjoyed that. Well narrated and researched and learned something new. I'm glad you didn't put any background music in! Any more videos in English coming up?