On Dialogue

Good Books: (via Emergic) David Bohm's On Dialogue is on thought and dialogue in a new way. I never realized how different + inspirational the concept was till I tried it with friends. It's a good book.

David Bohm was a quantum physicist. But he also made contributions to a number of other fields. He developed a technique called Bohm Dialogue. According to Wikipedia:

Bohm Dialogue or Bohmian Dialogue is a form of free association conducted in groups, with no predefined purpose in mind besides mutual understanding and exploration of human thought. It aims to allow participants to examine their preconceptions, prejudices and patterns of thought. Bohm dialogue was developed by David Bohm, Donald Factor and Peter Garrett starting in 1983. Bohm published his views on dialogue in a series of papers between 1985 and 1991.

Bohm Dialogue (often referred to simply as Dialogue by its proponents) is conducted in groups of 20 to 40 people, who sit in a single circle. Participants "suspend" their thoughts, impulses and judgments instead of speaking from their usual point of view, they carefully analyse their thoughts. According to the proposal, Dialogue should not be confused with discussion or debate, which, says Bohm, suggests working towards a goal rather than simply exploring and learning.

David Bohm wrote:
In a dialogue, however, nobody is trying to win. Everybody wins if anybody wins. There is a different sort of spirit to it. In a dialogue, there is no attempt to gain points, or to make your particular view prevail. Rather, whenever any mistake is discovered on the part of anybody, everybody gains. Its a situation called win-win, whereas the other game is win-lose - if i win, you lose. But a dialogue is something more of a common participation, in which we are not playing a game against each other, but with each other. In dialogue, everybody wins dialogue is really aimed at going into the whole thought process and changing the way the thought process occurs collectively.