Spacetime Holism

The basic concepts of spacetime holism are introduced in close relation to David Bohm s holistic philosophy. It is shown how spacetime holism is inspired by and helps to understand the concepts associated with the theory of self- organization. A crucial chapter is devoted to the interpretation of relativity theory, where one of the seemingly strangest suggestions of spacetime holism, namely the full integration of space and time, receives a basis in theoretical physics. The paradigm of information processing is criticized by showing that information and processing are inseparable and by arguing for a duality relation between computation and meaning. After formulating spacetime holism s approach to the so-called representation problem of cognitive science, the conceptual tools are used to address two philosophical aspects of cognition which are usually pushed aside: the hard problem of consciousness and the question how time passes.