Physical reality is a hologram

Book Reviewed: The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot, Published by Harper Collins Publishers.

This is an interesting book by an author who passionately believes that existence and physical reality perceived through consciousness is generated by a holographic phenomenon. In other words the holographic universe creates reality. This book is described in three parts; the first part describes the central concepts of physicist David Bohm and neurophysiologist Karl Pribram. The second and third part of the book does an exhaustive review of the work of many psychologists, psychiatrists, neurosurgeons, and neurobiologists who have expressed strong support for Bohm-Pribram holographic concept to explain phenomena such as; near death experience, out of body experience, telepathy, ESP, etc.

The summary of this book is as follows: The holographic concept is a form of quantum mysticism extrapolated from two theories. One due to David Bohm who proposed that the universe and physical reality is a holographic structure; and the second due to Karl Pribram who proposed that consciousness perceives reality through the holographic structure. The holographic paradigm is rooted in the concept that all organisms and forms of matter are holograms embedded within one universal hologram. A hologram is two-dimensional photographic pattern of interference between coherent light reflected from the object of interest, and light that comes directly from the same source or reflected by a mirror. When this two-dimensional image is illuminated from behind by coherent light, a three-dimensional image of the object appears in space, but without illumination the image appears as blur. The characteristic of a perfect hologram is that all its content is contained in any finite part of itself: 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. The reductive or deterministic approach doesn’t work, which means that components or parts doesn’t make the whole. Bohm used this analogy to explain quantum entanglement where the separated quantum particles “communicate” with each other regardless of the distance separating them, which is a direct contradiction of special theory of relativity. Bohm suggested that particles remain in contact with one another because at deeper level these particles are not individual entities, but extensions of the same fundamental reality; the separation is a mere illusion. This phenomenon is illustrated by “Bohm’s aquarium.” Imagine an aquarium containing a fish, which you can not see directly, but this can be seen indirectly from two television cameras, one directed at the aquarium's front and the other directed to its side. As you stare at the two television monitors, you might assume that the fish on each of the screens are separate fishes, because the cameras are set at right angles, and the two images are different. But as you continue to watch you will notice that when one turns, the other also turn; when one faces the front, the other always faces toward the side at right angle. From this you will conclude that the two fishes are instantaneously communicating with one another, but we know that it is not so. Bohm suggested that this is precisely what is going on between the particles in quantum entanglement.

In a holographic universe time and space are no longer viewed as fundamentals, because concepts such as location and time breaks down in a universe in which nothing is truly separate (as in quantum entanglement described above). At its deeper level reality is a sort of super-hologram in which the past, present, and future all exist simultaneously. Support for Bohm’s quantum physical ideas came from unexpected sources when neurophysiologist Karl Pribram invoked holographic model to explain memories, which are dispersed throughout the brain. Pribram suggested 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 brain itself is a hologram. Pribram's theory also explains how the human brain can store so many memories in so little space. A human brain memorizes of the order of 10 billion bits of information during the average human lifetime. How does brain translates the avalanche of frequencies it receives via the senses (light frequencies, sound frequencies, electro-chemical potentials, and so on) into the concrete world of our perceptions? Pribram argues that encoding and decoding frequencies is best performed by a hologram. 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 the senses into the inner world of our perceptions. It is only in the holographic domain of consciousness that such frequencies are sorted out and divided up into conventional perceptions. This essentially means that consciousness creates the appearance of the brain, the human body and everything we regard as reality. 

When holographic models of David Bohm and Karl Pribram are put together the world becomes a secondary reality. Primarily the world is a holographic blur of frequencies, and if the brain is also a hologram which selects some of the frequencies out of this blur and mathematically transforms them into sensory perceptions, then the objective reality cease to exist. This is in agreement with Vedanta philosophy (Hindu philosophy) where Maya, an illusory power creates the illusion which we believe is physical reality, but the universe is one whole entity called Brahman. We are essentially “receivers" floating through a kaleidoscopic sea of frequencies of a super-hologram.

Quantum physics and relativistic physics are incompatible in explaining reality. For example in relativity, movement is continuous, causally determinate and well defined; in quantum physics it is discontinuous, not causally determinate and not well-defined. Separate events are connectible by signals in relativity, but in quantum physics they are connectible in a defined quantum state. Both theories assume that reality is reducible (subdivided) into fundamental particles and laws describing the behavior of particles are applicable to a static (unchanging) entity; whether these entities are part of separate events in spacetime, separate quantum states, or static entities of some other nature. Both theories also assume that reality are related to human knowledge and generally presume that mathematical prediction of statistical aggregates gives the correct picture of reality. The Cartesian coordinate system or its extension to a curvilinear system is universal in its application to the description of the world. There is also a distinction between reality and thought; correspondingly there is distinction between the observer and observed. It is also assumed that one theory that describes both quantum world and the cosmic world, the theory of everything may some day be discovered. Bohm’s paradigm is antithetical to reductionism, he differed from the views of other physicists (described above) that world is made of a set of separate indivisible elementary particles which are the fundamental parts of the entire universe. Bohm’s order includes an undivided whole and the implicate order inherent within the whole, and not contained in parts of the whole, such as particles or quantum states. The parts are considered in terms of the whole, and in such terms, they constitute relatively autonomous and independent sub-totalities but nothing is entirely separate or autonomous. In the quantum entanglement experiment Bohm calls the greatly separated particles as the manifestation of explicate order and the entanglement as the implicate order. The term unfolding is used to characterize processes in which the explicate order becomes relevant. In the “Bohm’s aquarium” experiment the signal, screen, and television electronics in this analogy represent the implicate order whilst the image produced represents the explicate order. In another experiment an ink droplet introduced into a viscous substance such as glycerin and the cylinder inside the container is rotated, the ink spreads and eventually becomes invisible. By rotating the cylinder in the opposite direction, the droplet is reformed. Bohm uses this phenomenon as an example for an order to manifest (explicit order) or stay hidden (implicit order). In another analogy a pattern produced by making small cuts in a folded piece of paper and then unfolding it will produce another pattern with widely separated elements, but they are actually produced by the same original cut in the folded piece of paper. Here the cuts in the folded paper represent the implicate order and the unfolded pattern represents the explicate order. The tangibility of our everyday lives is really a kind of illusion like a holographic Image. Underlying it is a deeper order of existence, a vast and more primary level of reality that gives birth to all the objects and appearances of our physical world in much the same way that a piece of holographic film gives birth to a hologram. Bohm calls this deeper level of reality the implicate order (which means "enfolded"), and he refers to our own level of existence as the explicate order, or unfolded order. Bohm sees manifestation of all forms in the universe as the result of countless enfolding and unfolding between these two orders. For example, an electron is not one thing but a totality or ensemble enfolded throughout the whole of space. When an instrument detects the presence of an electron it is simply because one aspect of the electron's ensemble has un­folded, similar to the way an ink drop unfolds out of the glycerin at that particular location. When an electron appears to be moving it is due to a continuous series of such unfolding and enfolding. This could be generalized to include all forms of matter. When a particle is destroyed, it is not lost, it merely enfolded back into the deeper order from which it sprang. A piece of holographic film and the image it generates are also examples of implicate, and explicate orders. The film is an implicate order because the image encoded in its interference patterns is a hidden totality enfolded throughout the whole. The hologram projected from the film is an explicate order because it represents the unfolded and perceptible version of the image. The way a quantum can manifest as either a particle or a wave depends on the way an observer interacts with the ensemble determines which aspect unfolds and which remains hidden. Both aspects are always enfolded in a quantum's ensemble. the role an ob­server plays in determining the form a quantum takes is similar to the way a jeweler manipulates a gem determines which of its facets become visible. This is called holomovement (instead of hologram) to describe the dynamic nature of numerous enfolding and unfolding that create our uni­verse. Hologram refers to a static image and does not convey the dynamic and ever active nature of our uni­verse. The existence of deeper and holographically organized orders results in the breakdown of location, because every part of a piece of holographic film contains all the information possessed by the whole. Hence information is distributed nonlocally. Bohm suggest that everything in the universe; space, time and matter are a part of continuum. At a deep level, even implicate and explicate orders blend together. Bohm also suggests that consciousness is a more subtle form of matter, and the basis for any relationship between the two lies deep in the implicate order. Consciousness is present in various de­grees of enfoldment and unfoldments in all matter. Hence dividing the universe up into living and nonliving things also has no meaning. Animate and inanimate matter is inseparably interwoven along with life throughout the totality of the universe. This is a revolutionary and very far-reaching conclusion by a traditional physicist since Einstein proposed that space and time are inseparable and part of a continuum.

Another consequence of Bohm’s holographic principle reveals that every region of space has many fields of different energies, and empty space con­tains more energy than the total energy of all the matter in the universe. Matter does not exist independently from space: It is a part of space. Bohm explains this as follows: A crystal cooled to absolute zero will allow a stream of electrons' to pass through it with­out scattering them. If the temperature is raised, various flaws in the crystal will lose their transparency, and begin to scatter electrons. From an electron's point of view such flaws would appear as pieces of "matter" floating in a sea of nothingness, but this is not really the case. The nothingness and the pieces of matter do not exist independently.