The Universe as a Hologram - Holographic Reality
-
I know this has been posted before in sgforums, and quite some time has passed. But I was suddenly reminded about this a few days ago after talking with Thusness on IRC - he told he he bought the book on this holographic reality after quite some effort searching for the book and it was quite interesting. Then I put the URL as channel topic in the channel, and today the founder of the forum, Suicine, suggested that I post this in the forum too because it is quite interesting.
The following article is slightly different from the one found in Bar and maybe a little easier to understand... I don't know if it's any easier.. but it's not really 'chim' lah (as many people have said in the bar forum). See the bar post: Your life isn't real. Your world is an illusion.
---------------------------------------
The Holographic Universe
Michael Talbot
In 1982 a remarkable event took place. At the University of Paris a research team led by physicist Alain Aspect performed what may turn out to be one of the most important experiments of the 20th century. You did not hear about it on the evening news. In fact, unless you are in the habit of reading scientific journals you probably have never even heard Aspect's name, though there are some who believe his discovery may change the face of science.
Aspect and his team discovered that under certain circumstances subatomic particles such as electrons are able to instantaneously communicate with each other regardless of the distance separating them. It doesn't matter whether they are 10 feet or 10 billion miles apart.
Somehow each particle always seems to know what the other is doing. The problem with this feat is that it violates Einstein's long-held tenet that no communication can travel faster than the speed of light. Since traveling faster than the speed of light is tantamount to breaking the time barrier, this daunting prospect has caused some physicists to try to come up with elaborate ways to explain away Aspect's findings. But it has inspired others to offer even more radical explanations.
University of London physicist David Bohm, for example, believes Aspect's findings imply that objective reality does not exist, that despite its apparent solidity the universe is at heart a phantasm, a gigantic and splendidly detailed hologram.
To understand why Bohm makes this startling assertion, one must first understand a little about holograms. A hologram is a three- dimensional photograph made with the aid of a laser.
To make a hologram, the object to be photographed is first bathed in the light of a laser beam. Then a second laser beam is bounced off the reflected light of the first and the resulting interference pattern (the area where the two laser beams commingle) is captured on film.
When the film is developed, it looks like a meaningless swirl of light and dark lines. But as soon as the developed film is illuminated by another laser beam, a three-dimensional image of the original object appears.
The three-dimensionality of such images is not the only remarkable characteristic of holograms. If a hologram of a rose is cut in half and then illuminated by a laser, each half will still be found to contain the entire image of the rose.
Indeed, even if the halves are divided again, each snippet of film will always be found to contain a smaller but intact version of the original image. Unlike normal photographs, every part of a hologram contains all the information possessed by the whole.
The "whole in every part" nature of a hologram provides us with an entirely new way of understanding organization and order. For most of its history, Western science has labored under the bias that the best way to understand a physical phenomenon, whether a frog or an atom, is to dissect it and study its respective parts.
A hologram teaches us that some things in the universe may not lend themselves to this approach. If we try to take apart something constructed holographically, we will not get the pieces of which it is made, we will only get smaller wholes.
This insight suggested to Bohm another way of understanding Aspect's discovery. Bohm believes the reason subatomic particles are able to remain in contact with one another regardless of the distance separating them is not because they are sending some sort of mysterious signal back and forth, but because their separateness is an illusion. He argues that at some deeper level of reality such particles are not individual entities, but are actually extensions of the same fundamental something.
To enable people to better visualize what he means, Bohm offers the following illustration.
Imagine an aquarium containing a fish. Imagine also that you are unable to see the aquarium directly and your knowledge about it and what it contains comes from two television cameras, one directed at the aquarium's front and the other directed at its side.
As you stare at the two television monitors, you might assume that the fish on each of the screens are separate entities. After all, because the cameras are set at different angles, each of the images will be slightly different. But as you continue to watch the two fish, you will eventually become aware that there is a certain relationship between them.
When one turns, the other also makes a slightly different but corresponding turn; when one faces the front, the other always faces toward the side. If you remain unaware of the full scope of the situation, you might even conclude that the fish must be instantaneously communicating with one another, but this is clearly not the case.
This, says Bohm, is precisely what is going on between the subatomic particles in Aspect's experiment.
According to Bohm, the apparent faster-than-light connection between subatomic particles is really telling us that there is a deeper level of reality we are not privy to, a more complex dimension beyond our own that is analogous to the aquarium. And, he adds, we view objects such as subatomic particles as separate from one another because we are seeing only a portion of their reality.
Such particles are not separate "parts", but facets of a deeper and more underlying unity that is ultimately as holographic and indivisible as the previously mentioned rose. And since everything in physical reality is comprised of these "eidolons", the universe is itself a projection, a hologram.
In addition to its phantomlike nature, such a universe would possess other rather startling features. If the apparent separateness of subatomic particles is illusory, it means that at a deeper level of reality all things in the universe are infinitely interconnected.
The electrons in a carbon atom in the human brain are connected to the subatomic particles that comprise every salmon that swims, every heart that beats, and every star that shimmers in the sky.
Everything interpenetrates everything, and although human nature may seek to categorize and pigeonhole and subdivide, the various phenomena of the universe, all apportionments are of necessity artificial and all of nature is ultimately a seamless web.
In a holographic universe, even time and space could no longer be viewed as fundamentals. Because concepts such as location break down in a universe in which nothing is truly separate from anything else, time and three-dimensional space, like the images of the fish on the TV monitors, would also have to be viewed as projections of this deeper order.
At its deeper level reality is a sort of superhologram in which the past, present, and future all exist simultaneously. This suggests that given the proper tools it might even be possible to someday reach into the superholographic level of reality and pluck out scenes from the long-forgotten past.
What else the superhologram contains is an open-ended question. Allowing, for the sake of argument, that the superhologram is the matrix that has given birth to everything in our universe, at the very least it contains every subatomic particle that has been or will be -- every configuration of matter and energy that is possible, from snowflakes to quasars, from bluü whales to gamma rays. It must be seen as a sort of cosmic storehouse of "All That Is." -
Although Bohm concedes that we have no way of knowing what else might lie hidden in the superhologram, he does venture to say that we have no reason to assume it does not contain more. Or as he puts it, perhaps the superholographic level of reality is a "mere stage" beyond which lies "an infinity of further development".
Bohm is not the only researcher who has found evidence that the universe is a hologram. Working independently in the field of brain research, Standford neurophysiologist Karl Pribram has also become persuaded of the holographic nature of reality.
Pribram was drawn to the holographic model by the puzzle of how and where memories are stored in the brain. For decades numerous studies have shown that rather than being confined to a specific location, memories are dispersed throughout the brain.
In a series of landmark experiments in the 1920s, brain scientist Karl Lashley found that no matter what portion of a rat's brain he removed he was unable to eradicate its memory of how to perform complex tasks it had learned prior to surgery. The only problem was that no one was able to come up with a mechanism that might explain this curious "whole in every part" nature of memory storage.
Then in the 1960s Pribram encountered the concept of holography and realized he had found the explanation brain scientists had been looking for. Pribram believes memories are encoded not in neurons, or small groupings of neurons, but in patterns of nerve impulses that crisscross the entire brain in the same way that patterns of laser light interference crisscross the entire area of a piece of film containing a holographic image. In other words, Pribram believes the brain is itself a hologram.
Pribram's theory also explains how the human brain can store so many memories in so little space. It has been estimated that the human brain has the capacity to memorize something on the order of 10 billion bits of information during the average human lifetime (or roughly the same amount of information contained in five sets of the Encyclopaedia Britannica).
Similarly, it has been discovered that in addition to their other capabilities, holograms possess an astounding capacity for information storage--simply by changing the angle at which the two lasers strike a piece of photographic film, it is possible to record many different images on the same surface. It has been demonstrated that one cubic centimeter of film can hold as many as 10 billion bits of information.
Our uncanny ability to quickly retrieve whatever information we need from the enormous store of our memories becomes more understandable if the brain functions according to holographic principles. If a friend asks you to tell him what comes to mind when he says the word "zebra", you do not have to clumsily sort back through ome gigantic and cerebral alphabetic file to arrive at an answer. Instead, associations like "striped", "horselike", and "animal native to Africa" all pop into your head instantly.
Indeed, one of the most amazing things about the human thinking process is that every piece of information seems instantly cross- correlated with every other piece of information--another feature intrinsic to the hologram. Because every portion of a hologram is infinitely interconnected with ever other portion, it is perhaps nature's supreme example of a cross-correlated system.
The storage of memory is not the only neurophysiological puzzle that becomes more tractable in light of Pribram's holographic model of the brain. Another is how the brain is able to translate the avalanche of frequencies it receives via the senses (light frequencies, sound frequencies, and so on) into the concrete world of our perceptions. Encoding and decoding frequencies is precisely what a hologram does best. Just as a hologram functions as a sort of lens, a translating device able to convert an apparently meaningless blur of frequencies into a coherent image, Pribram believes the brain also comprises a lens and uses holographic principles to mathematically convert the frequencies it receives through he senses into the inner world of our perceptions.
An impressive body of evidence suggests that the brain uses holographic principles to perform its operations. Pribram's theory, in fact, has gained increasing support among neurophysiologists.
Argentinian-Italian researcher Hugo Zucarelli recently extended the holographic model into the world of acoustic phenomena. Puzzled by the fact that humans can locate the source of sounds without moving their heads, even if they only possess hearing in one ear, Zucarelli discovered that holographic principles can explain this ability.
Zucarelli has also developed the technology of holophonic sound, a recording technique able to reproduce acoustic situations with an almost uncanny realism.
Pribram's belief that our brains mathematically construct "hard" reality by relying on input from a frequency domain has also received a good deal of experimental support.
It has been found that each of our senses is sensitive to a much broader range of frequencies than was previously suspected.
Researchers have discovered, for instance, that our visual systems are sensitive to sound frequencies, that our sense of smell is in part dependent on what are now called "osmic frequencies", and that even the cells in our bodies are sensitive to a broad range of frequencies. Such findings suggest that it is only in the holographic domain of consciousness that such frequencies are sorted out and divided up into conventional perceptions.
But the most mind-boggling aspect of Pribram's holographic model of the brain is what happens when it is put together with Bohm's theory. For if the concreteness of the world is but a secondary reality and what is "there" is actually a holographic blur of frequencies, and if the brain is also a hologram and only selects some of the frequencies out of this blur and mathematically transforms them into sensory perceptions, what becomes of objective reality?
Put quite simply, it ceases to exist. As the religions of the East have long upheld, the material world is Maya, an illusion, and although we may think we are physical beings moving through a physical world, this too is an illusion.
We are really "receivers" floating through a kaleidoscopic sea of frequency, and what we extract from this sea and transmogrify into physical reality is but one channel from many extracted out of the superhologram.
This striking new picture of reality, the synthesis of Bohm and Pribram's views, has come to be called the holographic paradigm, and although many scientists have greeted it with skepticism, it has galvanized others. A small but growing group of researchers believe it may be the most accurate model of reality science has arrived at thus far. More than that, some believe it may solve some mysteries that have never before been explainable by science and even establish the paranormal as a part of nature.
Numerous researchers, including Bohm and Pribram, have noted that many para-psychological phenomena become much more understandable in terms of the holographic paradigm.
In a universe in which individual brains are actually indivisible portions of the greater hologram and everything is infinitely interconnected, telepathy may merely be the accessing of the holographic level.
It is obviously much easier to understand how information can travel from the mind of individual 'A' to that of individual 'B' at a far distance point and helps to understand a number of unsolved puzzles in psychology. In particular, Grof feels the holographic paradigm offers a model for understanding many of the baffling phenomena experienced by individuals during altered states of consciousness. -
The article in previous posts is taken from http://www.keelynet.com/biology/reality.htm.
----------------------
So what is the significance of this article? This article is very close to Buddhist teachings. It tells us about the Empty nature of phenomenal existence.
University of London physicist David Bohm, for example, believes Aspect's findings imply that objective reality does not exist, that despite its apparent solidity the universe is at heart a phantasm, a gigantic and splendidly detailed hologram.
http://buddhism.sgforums.com/?action=thread_display&thread_id=129929
The metaphor of Indra's Jeweled Net is attributed to an ancient Buddhist named Tu-Shun (557-640 B.C.E.) who asks us to envision a vast net that:
* at each juncture there lies a jewel;
* each jewel reflects all the other jewels in this cosmic matrix.
* Every jewel represents an individual life form, atom, cell or unit of consciousness.
* Each jewel, in turn, is intrinsically and intimately connected to all the others;
* thus, a change in one gem is reflected in all the others.
This last aspect of the jeweled net is explored in a question/answer dialog of teacher and student in the Avatamsaka Sutra. In answer to the question: "how can all these jewels be considered one jewel?" it is replied: "If you don't believe that one jewel...is all the jewels...just put a dot on the jewel [in question]. When one jewel is dotted, there are dots on all the jewels...Since there are dots on all the jewels...We know that all the jewels are one jewel" ...".
The moral of Indra's net is that the compassionate and the constructive interventions a person makes or does can produce a ripple effect of beneficial action that will reverberate throughout the universe or until it plays out. By the same token you cannot damage one strand of the web without damaging the others or setting off a cascade effect of destruction.
Source: Awakening 101
...One of the images used to illustrate the nature of reality as understood in Mahayana is The Jewel Net of Indra. According to this image, all reality is to be understood on analogy with Indra's Net. This net consists entirely of jewels. Each jewel reflects all of the other jewels, and the existence of each jewel is wholly dependent on its reflection in all of the other jewels. As such, all parts of reality are interdependent with each other, but even the most basic parts of existence have no independent existence themselves. As such, to the degree that reality takes form and appears to us, it is because the whole arises in an interdependent matrix of parts to whole and of subject to object. But in the end, there is nothing (literally no-thing) there to grasp....
Source: Sunyata ('Emptiness')
Compare the first picture with:
Computer model of early universe. Gravity arranges matter in thin filaments.
Source: Awakening 101. -
A post by my friend Longchen in that post:
Thanks Ashiene for the very interesting articles.
I also too feels that our perception of the universe is a hologram... and that the hologram itself is thoughts.
As individual selfs, we only perceive our own thoughts... or rather we are these thoughts.
My opinion is that all of us are individual containments within a vast/infinite 'body' of All that is. We are all one... and are different expressions (reciever) of the ONE.
When thinking, we perceive ourselves as separate beings. When the thinking mind is stilled (no thoughts/Now), we realised what emanated the thoughts... It appears to me as a 'bright' energetic vastness. This infinite vastness is us... we all meet here.
Suffering appears to me to be the thoughts... that creates a 'personalised sense of self'. It is the personalised sense of self that gave 'meaning' to the invisible vastness. In the vastness, there appears to me ... 'no meaning'.
I must say... I have not entered into these experiences long enough to give more concrete answers....
so these are just my understanding at current stage. -
wah so long post de.
I just glance through it and realised its so long to read, lol.
Maybe will read later on. -
Very interesting reading indeed
-
I dont think it will take more than 5-10 minutes
Unless you dont understand certain parts loh...
But basically the Net of Indra summarised it well
-
By the way, Indra's Net is a core metaphor of Hua Yen (Avatamsaka). There is also a Buddhist sect dedicated to Hua Yen, known as Hua Yen Buddhism.
Here's a website that tells you about 8 points of the Indra Net.
http://www.heartspace.org/misc/IndraNet.html
The Indra's Net: What Is It?
FAR AWAY IN THE HEAVENLY ABODE OF THE GREAT GOD INDRA, THERE IS A WONDERFUL NET WHICH HAS BEEN HUNG BY SOME CUNNING ARTIFICER IN SUCH A MANNER THAT IT STRETCHES OUT INDEFINITELY IN ALL DIRECTIONS. IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE EXTRAVAGANT TASTES OF DEITIES, THE ARTIFICER HAS HUNG A SINGLE GLITTERING JEWEL AT THE NET'S EVERY NODE, AND SINCE THE NET ITSELF IS INFINITE IN DIMENSION, THE JEWELS ARE INFINITE IN NUMBER. THERE HANG THE JEWELS, GLITTERING LIKE STARS OF THE FIRST MAGNITUDE, A WONDERFUL SIGHT TO BEHOLD. IF WE NOW ARBITRARILY SELECT ONE OF THESE JEWELS FOR INSPECTION AND LOOK CLOSELY AT IT, WE WILL DISCOVER THAT IN ITS POLISHED SURFACE THERE ARE REFLECTED ALL THE OTHER JEWELS IN THE NET, INFINITE IN NUMBER. NOT ONLY THAT, BUT EACH OF THE JEWELS REFLECTED IN THIS ONE JEWEL IS ALSO REFLECTING ALL THE OTHER JEWELS, SO THAT THE PROCESS OF REFLECTION IS INFINITE
THE AVATAMSAKA SUTRA
FRANCIS H. COOK: HUA-YEN BUDDHISM : THE JEWEL NET OF INDRA 1977
When I was trying to come to a decision regarding the look and feel of my new web site, I wanted to employ a background image that had universal import and could point the way to an adequate description of the nature or reality. A tall order, if not impossible, but the choice was clear: Indra's Net.
There are several aspects of Indra's Net, as described in the above quote, that signify it as a crystal clear allegory of reality:
1. The Holographic Nature of the Universe
Long before the existence of the hologram, the jeweled net is an excellent description of the special characteristic of holograms: that every point of the hologram contains information regarding all other points. This reflective nature of the jewels is an obvious reference to this.
This kind of analogy has been suggested by science as a theory for an essential characteristic of the cosmos, as well as as the functioning of the human brain, as beautifully described in The Holograpic Universe by Michael Talbot.
2. The Interconnectedness of All Things
When any jewel in the net is touched, all other jewels in the node are affected. This speaks to the hidden interconnectedness and interdependency of everything and everyone in the universe, and has an indirect reference to the concept of "Dependent Origination" in Buddhism. Additionally, Indra's Net is a definitive ancient correlate of Bell's Theorum, or the theory of non-local causes.
3. Lack of a substantive self
Each node, representing an individual, simply reflects the qualities of all other nodes, inferring the notion of 'not-self' or a lack of a solid and real inherent self, as seen in the Advaita Vedanta school of Hinduism and Buddhism in general.
4. Non-locality
Indra's Net shoots holes in the assumption or imputation of a solid and fixed universe 'out there'. The capacity of one jewel to reflect the light of another jewel from the other edge of infinity is something that is difficult for the linear mind, rational mind to comprehend. The fact that all nodes are simply reflections indicates that there is no particular single source point from where it all arises.
5. Innate Wisdom
The ability to reflect the entirety of all light in the universe attests to the inherent transcendant wisdom that is at the core of all nodes, representing all sentient beings, and to the inherent Buddha Nature.
6. Illusion or Maya
The fact that all nodes are simply a reflection of all others implies the illusory nature of all appearances. Appearances are thus not reality but a reflection of reality.
7. Universal Creativity
A familiar concept in various high dharmas is one of an impersonal creative intelligence that springs forth into reality through the instruments of all living beings.
8. The Mirror-like Nature of Mind
The capacity to reflect all things attests to the mind being a mirror of reality, not its basis. This is a common thesis among various schools and religions.
And Indra's Net has been used as a defining metaphor for the Internet. One major web hosting site is www.indra.com.
The following are some quotes and interesting web sites regarding Indra's Net: -
Yes, its a good science read.
How does it apply to Buddhism? Nothing because the Buddha said its not relevant to our practise to salvation. Remember the poisoned arrow metaphor? I want to know how old is the assasin before I will have this arrow pulled out, or I want to know where does the assasin lived before I have this arrow pulled out. -
This is completely relevant, and in fact, fundamental to our liberation. Why do I say so?Originally posted by marcteng:Yes, its a good science read.
How does it apply to Buddhism? Nothing because the Buddha said its not relevant to our practise to salvation. Remember the poisoned arrow metaphor? I want to know how old is the assasin before I will have this arrow pulled out, or I want to know where does the assasin lived before I have this arrow pulled out.
Because we need to understand the teachings of Emptiness if we want to be liberated and enlightened. It is because sentient beings do not understand Emptiness, they cannot be liberated and are forever stuck in samsara. When we understand the teachings of Buddha and practise, then we will be liberated very quickly.
The Holographic Reality is not a speculation - it is scientific proof of the important tenets of Avatamsaka Sutra. Modern physics have been very supportive of Buddhism. We all know that many things that Buddha taught 2500 years ago is only proven and found recently. Although in Buddha days there were no such thing as modern science, quantum physics, etc, in modern times, we need to reconcile the Buddhist teachings with modern findings and terms. I believe you know the Dalai Lama has also done quite a lot of this. He was like building a bridge between science and buddhism.
Anyway in other words, to me the Holographic Universe is a modern scientific way of explaining the ancient teachings of Avatamsaka. Of course it cannot replace the traditional methods of teachings, it is definitely worth mentioning."Buddhism has the characteristics of what would be expected in a cosmic religion for the future: it transcends a personal God, avoids dogmas and theology; it covers both the natural & spiritual, and it is based on a religious sense aspiring from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual, as a meaningful unity" -- Albert Einstein [1954, from Albert Einstein: The Human Side, edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, Princeton University Press]"The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. The religion which is based on experience, which refuses dogmatism. If there's any religion that would cope the scientific needs it will be BuddhismÂ…"
-- Albert Einstein -
veri impressive !
-
The book Holographic Universe is recommended to me by Thusness.
Those who wish to get it, get it fast. The book is about Consciousness as wave. Though not all its content is relevant (it has 9 chapters and 338 pages), it is pretty good read and close to Buddhism. And even in meditative experience, we experience what that is being described.
Try to get a book before you miss it. Cos Michael Talbot is dead. The book will stop publishing soon. -
Originally posted by An Eternal Now:
wow...din know that you have posted it here. I am not exactly sure whether it will stop publishing but I came to know of his death when searching for more of his books (http://www.thinking-allowed.com/2mtalbot.html).
The book Holographic Universe is recommended to me by Thusness.
Those who wish to get it, [b]get it fast. The book is about Consciousness as wave. Though not all its content is relevant (it has 9 chapters and 338 pages), it is pretty good read and close to Buddhism. And even in meditative experience, we experience what that is being described.
Try to get a book before you miss it. Cos Michael Talbot is dead. The book will stop publishing soon. [/b]
The book is an interesting read and details out the researches and struggles of how reputable quantum scientists, neurosurgeons, hard science biologists, pychologists, medical doctors, zoologists and even paranormal psychologists came to believe this holographic model of the universe.
Is this holographic paradigm merely a passing cloud and will it face an ignoble death under thorough scrutiny of science? We do not know. But in whatever case, it does provides us insight into the intimate, unseparable and oneness relationship between consciousness and the physical universe. -
that is very true, for a detailed understanding , watch the movie
WHAT THE BLEEP DO YOU KNOW?
using quantum physics to explain, this illusion world that we live in.. -
yes it is one of the recommend movie related to BuddhismOriginally posted by geforce:that is very true, for a detailed understanding , watch the movie
WHAT THE BLEEP DO YOU KNOW?
using quantum physics to explain, this illusion world that we live in.. -
Interesting thanks for sharing. I'll try to get it when I'm freer...Originally posted by geforce:that is very true, for a detailed understanding , watch the movie
WHAT THE BLEEP DO YOU KNOW?
using quantum physics to explain, this illusion world that we live in..