How To Find Intelligent Life
The fact that the particle is moving under its own energy, but being guided by the information in the quantum field, suggests that an electron or any other elementary particle has a complex and subtle inner structure.... This notion goes against the whole tradition of modern physics which assumes that as we analyse matter into smaller and smaller parts its behaviour always grows more and more elementary.... a particle has a rich and complex inner structure which can respond to information and direct its self-motion accordingly."
To make this suggestion yet more plausible, we note that between the shortest distances now measurable in physics (of the order of 10 [to the negative 16 power] cm) and the shortest distances in which current notions of space-time probably have meaning which is of the order of 10 [to the negative 33 power] cm, there is a vast range of scale in which an immense amount of yet undiscovered structure could be contained. Indeed, this range of scale is comparable to that which exists between our own size and that of the elementary particle."
- David Bohm and B. J. Hiley, The Undivided Universe: An Ontological Interpretation of Quantum Theory, 1993
I'm going to argue something, but it will be difficult, and I may not make my point. But here it goes:
Imagine (i.e., grant for the sake of my argument) a sentient entity observing, studying, and trying to explain urban automobile traffic, where, due to their constitution, the observer cannot directly perceive, nor has it yet inferred the existence of, the human occupants of cars. They can observe, either directly and unaided or with the aid of some technology, the cars, the highways and roads, and the lines on the highways and roads.
Imagine that they observe, over time, the flow of traffic on different streets and highways. They watch the flow of traffic from a high level, as well as interactions between individual cars, on a variety of roads and highways, in various conditions. They try to explain how and why it is that the cars travel the way they do, in the directions they do, sometimes in clumps of many cars, sometimes singly, most of the time without contact between them, sometimes colliding.
Based on these observations, the sentient observer concludes that the lines on the roads are the cause of the motion and direction of the cars, though the mechanism must be quite complex, since the cars do travel across the lines, at various points and at various times. But clearly the lines directly cause the observed behavior of the cars.
As this study proceeds, the observer begins to notice something very strange: it appears that, in some way, the behavior of cars on a particular road or highway are affected by behavior of cars on some other, fairly distant road or highway - say, 20 miles away. For instance, several cars on a highway may make contact and slow or stop, and then almost instantaneously - to the observer anyway - there are noticeable changes in the behavior of cars on a road many miles away - more and more of those distant cars may turn onto a highway than had been just moments before. Or fewer and fewer cars turn onto that highway.
The notion, then, that the lines on the roads 'control' the motion of the cars has to be considered more carefully. Do the lines change somehow when those several cars made contact and slowed or stopped? Did the lines change twenty miles away when the other cars seemingly changed trajectory soon after the other cars made contact? Very strange.
Ok, so, our imaginary observer has no idea that there are humans in the cars. Further, they have no idea that those humans communicate with one another, and it is their behavior that controls the cars. The lines on the roads direct the behavior of the cars, to a great extent, but it's not a mechanical cause and effect at all, but rather one mediated through meaning and volition.
That's what David Bohm is saying about elementary particles.
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