Wholeness - the possibilities to a deeper, unforeseen part of Nature thanks to Quantum Mechanics

An American physicist, David Bohm, who Einstein once called his "spiritual son," got into science because he thought it was enough to help humanity solve its worst problems. Bohm thought poverty was the world's single biggest problem. But after years of doing science, he concluded science was not enough for the human race to find a new reality of happiness and being rid of its biggest problems. This thought, plus the bizarre reality of quantum mechanics/quantum field theory, as well as more strangeness of general relativity, led him on a quest to also determine what consciousness itself is.

These are all pieces of the human quest to figure out answers and reasons for the most fundamental questions: how and why did the universe begin, why are we here, what is the meaning of life, what is our connection to the universe...

Bohm took an approach to find out what was beyond the reaches of science, and actually came up with a scientific way of thinking about the "hidden variables" in quantum mechanics. This was perceived as a realm where we could not observe those variables, but that realm was responsible to a true interconnectedness, or wholeness, of the universe. Our consciousness is connected to the collective consciousness of humanity, which is connected to the universe as a whole. His 1952 paper on hidden variables was looked at by world experts in quantum mechanics, led by Robert Oppenheimer (the 'father of the atomic bomb' since he led the Manhattan Project during WWII), and they could not find anything incorrect about Bohm's theory...but Bohm was then sent into scientific exile from the U.S. when McCarthyism ramped up at the start of the Cold War.

It is a fascinating and intriguing story, where one must think in terms of science, philosophy, religion, and mysticism (Eastern mystics have thought about this interconnectedness and wholeness for millenia). A really well-done movie about Bohm's quest is below, with very well known physicists being interviewed, as well as the Dalai Lama.