Holographic Universe

[PangQuan]

Are any of you familiar with the theory of the holographic universe/mind, foremostly presented by Pribram and Bohm? And if so how does this effect your martial arts training? Just curious as I have been fully enveloped in this theory for several years now, and the more evidence i find regarding this subject the more of a reality it becomes within my mind. And for those of you that are not familliar with this theory I would be most pleased to share its base components.:D

[red5angel]

got any good links on it?

[Starchaser107]

yeah please share, I haven't heard about this till now.

[PangQuan]

Ok, tell ya what, I am leaving work now, I have hard copies of data on this (books) one of the major players is a man named Michael Talbot he compiled much of the supporting theories/data into a book called "The Holographic Universe". This book is how I was introduced to the theory. I will look into it more on the web tomorrow and post here. Do a google on that book or go to your local store and buy it $14.00 published in 92'. But if you dont want to question everything you currently know about your reality DO NOT look into this subject.

[Starchaser107]

I already question everything.

and I'm in Jamaica, my local bookstore doesn't have S#it

[PangQuan]

Originally posted by Starchaser107
I already question everything.

and I'm in Jamaica, my local bookstore doesn't have S#it

Ok, I hooked up the ol' 56 k here at home. Here is a basic rundown. This is going to be long. To start here is a quote from Karl Pribram one of two gentlement (David Bohm, Einsteins protege) who were the pioneers in developing this theory, neither with the consultation from the other. Both men highly respected within the scientific community. Though at the same time this theory is not highly accepted by many in the same community that respects each mans genius.

~ It isn't that the world of appearances is wrong; it isn't that there aren't objects out there, at one level of reality. It's that if you penetrate through and look at the universe with a holographic system, you arrive at a different view, a different reality. And that other reality can explain things that have hitherto remained inexplicable schientifically:paranormal phenomena, synchronicities, the apparently meaningful coincidence of events.
~Karl Pribram
in an interview in PSYCHOLOGY TODAY

First you have to understand how a hologram works, basically, you take a laser, split the beam, one end goes through some filter thing, and hits your object, (an apple is used in the book) the other goes through some filter and hits the holo film, the one that hit the apple is reflected off of it and also hits the film. Take a laser of the same frequency and project it through the film, and then you have your hologram.

This film when split up into smaller pieces each contain the entire image in a whole. This is compared with what many studies have shown, regarding that memories are not stored localy in one spot in the brain, but are disributed around the entire thing. (studies are explained in detail throughout the entire book) In order to have devised this theory of memory it is again compared with the holographic process which interferance patterns are need. An interferance patter is created when two wave forms collide. Much like two waves in lake would do. Light being a energy form of waves, and the laser being a very powerful form of light, it is capable of creating the "perfect interferance pattern". When you look at how the brain opperates it is through communication with electricity, ie; energy. Energy using the form of waves. Brain waves. When these waves interact they create interferance patters. Like a hologram.

Then we have Bohm. This is when it starts to get interesting in the book.

Pretty much when you have quantum physicists, what they like to do is take the world that we see everyday and break it down smaller and smaller until all that your left with is nothing that resembles nothing resembles any sort of oject. Electrons, protons, and such. physicists have found that an electron "literally possesses no dimension." An electron has also been found to be able to manifest either as a particle or a wave.

Then the book goes on to describe how these electrons are in actuality, both. And how these waves that these electrons are, will interact creating, yep, you got it, interferance patterns.

I mean this book goes so far as that we are all really not seperate, and that everything is one big whole ness. This is not really new to eastern thought. I'm sure you have thought about that b4, i mean c'mon now, you are in Jamaica. But talbot talks about how each of us, which are not seperate, carry the existance of the entire cosmos within every cell of us.

This is all based around studies and experiments by many many people, who were eventually introduced to this theory along their scientific exploration of life.

What I have just written is barely touching the surface of the subject, and also is not a complete trail of how the theories were developed, its missing stuff, because frankly, I dont want to write a book right now.

And it gets sooooooo much deaper, all that is covered within the first 40 pages, This thing is basically a 300 page scientific essay. Lots of compiled data, ranging from LSD experiments, hipnotism, past lifes, schizophrinia, ufo's, God, and so much more.

To me this theory is something I am passionate about, It coincides with my Taoist beliefs far too well for me to ignore. I found Taoism years before this theory and it
"fits like a glove" ~Jim Carey- Ace Ventura, Pet detective.
:p

You will actually have to get a copy of this book to fully get what this dude is saying.

[PangQuan]

ok, in that pribram quote, its "scientifcally: paranormal"

there is no speach problem, but im not gonnna edit cause i think its funny.

[red5angel]

http://www.crystalinks.com/holographic.html

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060922583/104-5787164-1335154

I didn't get much form the top article. The theory sounds interesting enough but I think there are some fundamental flaws comparing the universe to a hologram. I can't explain it right now, I'd be more comfortable reading the book first before I comment.

[PangQuan]

Yes, definately read the book, and also remember this is a relatively new theory, and the book was published in 92', I am interested in any new developments on this theory if any are found.

[red5angel]

I think I figured out the problem I have with that short essay link I posted.

I think what this guy is talking about, or atleast a theory very close to what he is getting at is that some scientists have proposed that there is only one electron. It moves between two points in time, call one the beginning, and the other the end (some would say the beginning is the Big Bang, but I don't buy the Big Bang theory). Everything we see is just a reaction of that electron with itself on a time line that effectively never ends.

His explanation of this as a Holograph is somewhat inaccurate but I think mostly because of the words he chose to describe his ideas.

[Starchaser107]

why discredit a theory based on semantics.

[red5angel]

http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/Einstein-Podolsky-RosenParadox.html


Starchaser, I'm not discrediting the theory at all. I read the article and something struck me as slightly off. I believe it's the comparison to a hologram that is incorrect.

See, language is extremely important when talking about hard to grasp concepts. That's why some people are really successful and popular - Feynman for example, and why other guys are only known within their discipline, because only those people can understand them.

in the late 80's to early 90's there was a movement to push out science based books that were fairly simply written so the layman could understand them While I think it's a great idea, it also opens things up to some pretty bizarre interpretations that lead people down the wrong paths. This gentlemans Holographic Universe, while the right idea, gives the wrong impression for the material he is trying to get across.

For example, when he mentioned cutting a hologram in half to get two full pictures of the original subject, I thought he was wrong. He's not, because he's refering to an active hologram , one that requires the use of a laser and light to create the interference pattern that gives the hologram it's 3D effect. If you were to take a so called static hologram, and cut it in half, the medium would be ruined and all you'd get is a mess.

[PangQuan]

Ya that guy basically took some of the info from the first two chapters of Talbots book and put them in his own words. Kinda like i did;)

But the whole hologram thing is this when the holographic image is recorded onto a piece of film, it encodes the entire amount of information on everypart, yet as you take it apart piece by piece the entire image will still be able to be projected from the film, but the more you pull it apart the more "fuzzy" the image will become, untill all you have left is a blurred mess. One thing he does not touch on, which is tantamount to Bohms studies, is his idea of the implicate order, kind of like how a snowflake obviously has an order to it that is quite visible, compared to a handfull of beens that is spread on the ground, this appears to be random. But in actuallity it possesses an order which, at our level of reality perception, we cannot see. He basically discredits the idea of the chaos theory, stating that everything has a form of order to it. Kind of like how the patriots won the superbowl, it would seem they did so out of chance, randominity and such, but if you look at everything required for them to actually make such an action take place you would have to take into account, the evolutionary process of the human, the thumb, scientific understanding, plastic, leather, steel, trillions of endless factors are in play, this all, according to bohm, is an order that is far beyond our personal recognition. It is a trip. Personally I dont really like to refer to the idea as "holographic" but this is basically used as an analogy, because what this theory is getting at as a whole is new, no words have been created yet to cope with the information that is supported by numerous amounts of data presented by a large amount of people. I guess what im saying is, to get the book. LOL. I have always been into stuff like this and I really like the compilation that Talbot has made of facts. He takes sources that are not in conjunction with eachother, and had not corolation on theoretical based assumptions, and never planned to. then he puts them all in this book and says "look at the connection i have seen" He goes far into the past he goes to our present, he looks at ghosts, god, eastern thought, dreams, the mind, other dimension theories.

[PangQuan]

Some one asked me once what qi manipultion was, I kinda used this developing theory to explain it, in a scientific method so that one who is not akin to the eastern ability to absorb information, could more easily grasp the concept.

i put it like this.

its the mental collective of all consciousness, being manipulated through your personal psychi, in effect modifying your surroundings, which when broken to a scientific quantum level, are all connected, everything (quantumly) is connected through a comlex variety of energy waves and interferance patterns, these interferance patterns, which are created when one energy wave meets another of a different origin within the whole, are what create the desired effect of "Qi" manipulation. It all depends on how you look at reality and how much you are willing to open to things that have never, actually been PROVEN to be non-existant. For you see, reality as we know it is not a complete theory and still exsists within it a complexity of information waiting to be found anaylized and studied. NO ONE knows the whole truth, and when viewed from a stand back point, we barely have even begun to know what it is like to have an idea about scratching the surface. :)

this was on a different forum.

[PangQuan]

Ok i lied, they didnt ask, they said they didnt believe in qi so i wrote that...they still dont believe in qi... LOL

[red5angel]

I don't believe in qi either but I'm not interested in the metaphysical interpretations on some science. Until something like qi can be shown scientifically it's not really worth bothering with.

I'll check out the book this weekend, the local bookstores either carry it or can order it. I'll let you know what I think when I'm done!

[Starchaser107]

Ok red I understand what you're saying now.
As for chi , I am not sure where I stand on this matter because it still hasn't been properly defined and agreed upon, (what exactly it is), and that in no way takes away from what pang so eloquently described as his own knowledge and understanding of what chi means for him.

the who hologram concept reminds me of when i was practicing yoga, and the theories I heard back then about the world and what lies underneath.
I guess wether people use science to define reality or spirituality to define science and reality. Chemists, Alchemists, Physicists and Meta-Physicians, are probably all saying different sides of the truth.

I'll review these findings and comment more.

[PangQuan]

Sounds good, I believe in qi, but more on the level that it is an interaction of energy waves one type being waves from your mind, the other being the waves that are electrons. Thinking about this kind of stuff always gets me excited for my death, which i hope does not happen for many many years, but i still look forward to that moment of either true realization of the cosmo's, or the total annhialation of the self on every level. I am kind of strange in my belief system, I look at it like this, I can believe anything, and it doesnt really matter because there are so many things to believe in that each of us is wrong on some level. But I am off of work now, so im going to go celebrate the new year with my gongfu brothers. HAPPY NEW YEAR !!!

[PangQuan]

Originally posted by Starchaser107
I guess wether people use science to define reality or spirituality to define science and reality. Chemists, Alchemists, Physicists and Meta-Physicians, are probably all saying different sides of the truth.

Totally. Thats kind of another belief i have, that there is more than one way to find an answer, and that it may just be possible that most of the answers out there are all correct. ill catch you guys tomorrow, again, HAPPY NEW YEAR!

[Starchaser107]

kung hee fah choy !

[red5angel]

I don't believe in qi as being anything more then a really good understanding of ones body and superb control of your body. I've never seen anything that didn't have a physiological reason based in science for why it was occurring. I've heard plenty of claims but they either lie in a nebulous area such as "I'm so much healthier now that I started cultivating my qi" - I'm so much healthier after I turned 30, bug deal - or "I can levitate my body or blow out candles from 50 feet away, I just can't do it while anyone is watching.".

[PangQuan]

Growing up in the united states I have been highly influenced by western thought patterns, particularly the desire to break everything down and look at it in terms of scientific explanation. I dont really know what to think about people who claim to levetate and throw fire balls and such. But I look at Qi kind of like this, electricity-qi, kenetic energy-qi, cintrifical force- qi, (my spelling sucks) but I pretty much look at any form of energy as qi, I dont see it as some mystical force that can only be experienced through secret kung fu techniques. When I turn on my lights at home, i am manipulating qi with science. When I get kicked in the head, yep that thing that causes all that force and knocks me out, thats qi. I see qi as such a large spectrum of things, that i cant really break it down into one specific area. I probably am not using the word "qi" in the traditional sense, because i have a large amount of western thought process in the workings of my belief system. But I also think that if we are able to use our minds to help manipulate the physical workings of our bodies, then we are using "qi". For instance, when I want to lift my arm, there is an electrical reaction in my brain, causing receptors to fire and all that neat brains jazz, then my arm lifts. It reqires my mind over matter. Using my mind to raise my arm is using qi. At least by my reasoning of what qi is. Its like the plecebo effect on patients, our minds are effecting our physical reality, disolving cancer, melting tumors, fighting viruses, all through faking ourselves into believing that a "drug" is doing all the work, when in actuallity its our minds. I of course am still very sceptical about the enitre theory, but I wish I wasnt, then maybe my mind would have more control over my surroundings. Yet in comparison to any other theory i have heard this one is very in depth and has a lot of experimental evidence to back it, and frankly it makes more sense to me than alot of other beliefs, mainly because it doesnt flat out deny lots of stuff, it leaves room for god, tao, buddha. Hell whos to say that god did not create this implicate order as a way to keep everything together, if there was no order to things, it would all fall apart. I also look at qi the same way you do red, and the whole "healthy cause i cultivate my qi" thing is because they are doing things that are having a positive reaction on their health do to the order in which things are being put into, based on their new order in which they are performing. In other words they are acting more closly in tune with the natural order in which a healthy body should be kept. They just call it qi. At least thats how i see it.

[red5angel]

I understand where your coming from but that's exactly what I don't agree with. Electricity is well defined as a thing all it's own and doesn't need anything else to help it along.

While Western Philosophy might not be completely incorrect, at the very least they try to prove what they believe, and aren't afraid to say it's just theory or whatever. Westernes are losing the need to come up with mysticism to explain the things they don't understand, while easterners continue to hang onto those things. One thing to keep in mind is that while China may have been breaking gorund on may things along long time ago, the west jumped way ahead in understanding the world then most Asian cultures over the last couple of centuries. Asia may have created gunpowder, but Europe perfected its use.

I'm not saying there isn't any room in the world to speculate, but that something like Qi, that has been around for a long time has never solidly been investigated or proven concretely. While Gravity is totally understood, you can demonstrate it and it's effects obviously, by dropping a an object or falling down.
Qi is surrounded by mysticism. What it is or a solid explanation of hwat it could be is often obfuscated by misdirection - "Science can't explain everything" and "we don't completely understand the human body or mind" Just because those things are true, it doesn't make Qi real. Qi is an artifact concept left over from a time when human beings really didn't understand what the human body was capable of.

[PangQuan]

Good points and i completely agree, I think I just happen to use the term Qi in a different respect than most people do, I pretty much refer to any energy source as Qi, I am pretty free with the term.

I am a very "hands on" type of person, One of the major reasons why I cannot follow a religion blindly, I cannot prove the bible is not fiction, so I cannot believe. But, I still believe in the idea of a higher entity. I cannot prove people have a mystic cosmic energy that can be used through mental manipulation, so i cannot believe. But I do believe that there are specific types of energy involved in everything we do, which I call Qi.

This is kind of why I like the idea of this "holographic universe" for the reason that it is a form of western science devoted to explaining things that otherwise have no explanation, and have for the most part been ignored by anyone who does not believe in mysticism. The fact that people do not believe in the previous explanations for such happenings does not mean they did not happen. This growing theory seems to have a lot of connections between science and myth. It is neat.

Oh, by the way I thought you might get at kick out of this, I got tricked last night into eating Goose intestine. And then sifu got someone else to eat a fish tail. it was **** funny.

[red5angel]

you have to understand too that I'm not the type of person to say science has explained everything. By it's nature I think it's capable of proving or disproving just about everything at some point, and it's doing a pretty good job of picking the pebbles from the mountain.
Of course that also depends on how you view science. Often in a conversation like this (not saying it's going on here, I don't think it is) those on the other side of the science vs. religion/mysticism argument often use throw around the term as if it's another religion, whereas I view it as a constantly changing an evolving set of tools to help us understand the world. Science will one day prove whether qi exists or does not exist. That doesn't make science right, science is not right or wrong, it just is.

[PangQuan]

true dat red. So whats up with that church of scientology anyhow. I think it will be cool when we are all real old, and we have hover cars. LOL. like "they" said we would have by now.

[Christopher M]

Originally posted by PangQuan
Are any of you familiar with the theory of the holographic universe/mind, foremostly presented by Pribram and Bohm?

Yes, Bohm's theory in particular has been a significant influence and fascination for me.


how does this effect your martial arts training?

It doesn't.


An electron has also been found to be able to manifest either as a particle or a wave.

Then the book goes on to describe how these electrons are in actuality, both. And how these waves that these electrons are, will interact creating, yep, you got it, interferance patterns.

This idea isn't particular to Bohm's theory, but is foundational across modern physics. Bohm's theory is a few steps beyond this: his essential move is to critique the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics (which is the most widely accepted interpretation) and demonstrate a theory which can account for the same observations without being vulnerable to these critiques -- which is how he establishes the implicate order.


When you look at how the brain opperates it is through communication with electricity, ie; energy. Energy using the form of waves. Brain waves. When these waves interact they create interferance patters.

This is really an analogy too. The brain doesn't really operate with electricity. A "brain wave" is a function of the frequency of action potentials across some portion of the brain, which are in turn functions of ions moving in and out of neurons. The holistic quality of brain function is believed to arise because information is not associated with particular neurons, but rather with the structure generated by the mass of neurons responding to one another in different ways -- so there's no specific place in the brain where a memory is stored. This is the basis of "neural nets" / "parralel distributed processing."

So Bohm's physical theory and Pribram's neuroscientific theory have different mechanisms/foundations.

There are neuroscientific theories based on quantum mechanics, most notably suggested by Hameroff and Penrose, but they're not really part of the holistic thought that unites Bohm and Pribram -- in fact, they're based largely on the interpretations of quantum mechanics which Bohm criticized.


what this theory is getting at as a whole is new, no words have been created yet to cope with the information

We can arguably trace this line of thought back to 'german holism,' of which the Gestalt psychologists are the most famous example, (see Anne Harrington's book 'Reenchanted Science'), and from them back to Goethe (google 'Goethean science'), and perhaps from him back to Spinoza, and from him back to classical philosophy and theology. So there is an authentic western tradition of holism, although it's not as well known as competing worldviews.

[PangQuan]

Christopher M

Thanks for the post. I will look into those books that you listed. It is always nice to find someone who is a bit more comfortable with subjects than oneself.

[Christopher M]

It's definitely a fascinating topic. Have you read any of Bohm's books? They run the gamut from highly technical to very accessible (at least relative to the complexity of the issue).

You can trace the development of his thought from Quantum Theory (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0486659690/qid=1108420857/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/002-4556912-2311200?v=glance&s=books), which describes classical quantum mechanics, to Causality and Chance in Modern Physics (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0812210026/qid=1108420992/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-4556912-2311200?v=glance&s=books), which introduces criticisms of that perspective, to The Undivided Universe (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0415065887/qid=1108421069/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-4556912-2311200?v=glance&s=books), which describes his proposed solution. These are technical books. Wholeness and the Implicate Order (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0415289793/qid=1108421134/sr=2-1/ref=pd_ka_b_2_1/002-4556912-2311200) is a more accessible representation of his final theory, and delves more into philosophical implications, so is probably the best starting point, particularly for the non-physicist.

[PangQuan]

Thanks again for the insight.

[red5angel]

Bohm's got some good stuff. I just recently got my hands on a set of Feynman's "Lectures on Physics" Also pretty good.

[PangQuan]

im strapped for cash right now (moving, bast@rds want 1000) but i will go to powell's books and see what they have of those titles.