As I write this it is Thursday evening and tomorrow I am off on holiday for a week to Yorkshire. For once it looks as if the sun is going to shine and I am looking forward to walks in the dales and perhaps some pub lunches!  So no blog next week. But I wanted to write something this week - only allowing myself one week off!!  However, this is going to be cheating as I am  going to share with you something I read which I found interesting.

 

I am a member of the Scientific and Medical Network and have been for many years. It is quite an erudite group founded about forty years ago to bring together doctors and academics from the fields of science and spirituality. When it was founded it was quite a secretive society as it was not considered acceptable for an academic scientist to profess any kind of belief in anything beyond the material world. Yet many realised that there are realities beyond the physical which warrant study and exploration. Things have changed  and the society is now at the forefront of modern explorations into  the nature of consciousness.

https://scientificandmedical.net

They produce a quarterly journal and in the  editorial for the current edition the topic of communication was being explored in the light of developments in social media. The editor referred to a book written by the physicist David Bohm (1996) entitled ‘On Dialogue’. In it he extols the virtues of ‘free dialogue’ for investigating the various crises and challenges which society faces. However, his use of the word ‘dialogue’ has a different and deeper  meaning than is commonly understood. He suggests that the root meaning of ‘logos’ from the Greek ‘dialogos’ is not ‘the word’ but ‘the meaning of the word’. Then he suggests that dia has the meaning of ‘through’ rather than ‘two. So a dialogue can encompass a group of people. In the spirit of true dialogue there is also a sense of the flow of meaning. This shared meaning is the ‘glue’ or ‘cement’ that holds people and societies together.

He contrasts this with our usual activity of discussion (which has the same root as ‘percussion’ or ‘concussion’) which means to break things up. Discussion is often a game of ping-pong where one may reject or take up another’s ideas to support one’s own. The aim is often to win the discussion. In contrast in dialogue we are not playing a game against each other but with each other. It leads to shared meaning. However, to get to this we need to be prepared to release the hold we have on our beliefs and mind sets which often have an emotional charge and which we often accept as ‘truths’ which we are motivated to defend. However, if the opinion is right it doesn’t need such a strong reaction and if it is wrong why should you defend it? In dialogue we simply talk with each other and are not committed to accomplish anything. But the process affects us at a much deeper level. Listening to all opinions brings us together.