David Bohm was a world renowned physicist from Wilkes-Barre, Pa,. He wrote this eulogy for a friend at Penn State, the same eulogy was recited at his funeral.
“ In considering the relationship between the finite and the infinite, we are led to observe that the whole field of the finite is inherently limited, in that it has no independent existence. It has the appearance of independent existence , but that appearance is merely the result of an abstraction of our thought. We can see this dependent nature of the finite from the fact that every finite thing is transient.
Our ordinary view holds that the field of the finite is all that there is. But if the finite has no independent existence , it cannot be all that is. We are in this way led to propose that the true ground of all being is the infinite, the unlimited; and that the infinite contains and includes the finite. In this view, the finite, with its transient nature can only be understood as held suspended , as it were, beyond time and space, within the infinite.
The field of the finite is all that we can see, hear, touch, remember and describe. This field is basically that which is manifest, or tangible.The essential quality of the infinite by contrast, is its subtlety, its intangibility. This quality is conveyed in the word spirit whose root meaning is “ wind or breath”. This suggest an invisible but pervasive energy, to which the manifest world of the finite responds. This energy, or spirit, infuses all living beings, and without it any organism must fall apart into its constituent elements. That which is truly alive in the living being is this energy of spirit, and this is never born and never dies.”
