Subjective Realism in a holographic universe
Here is some interesting video conducted by a quartet of some top theoretical physicists, including a Nobel Laureate, discussing how all the information in the universe can be stored as a holographic surface (not volume).
The primary information begins at around 36 min. into the video. By watching this video, one can begin to imagine a different way of looking at the universe as wave interference patterns being translated into images by the human mind.
https://youtu.be/HnETCBOlzJs
The primary information begins at around 36 min. into the video. By watching this video, one can begin to imagine a different way of looking at the universe as wave interference patterns being translated into images by the human mind.
https://youtu.be/HnETCBOlzJs
Comments (65)
That's a great video, I've listened to it several times over the past couple of years. I was first introduced to the idea of a holographic universe when I read Michael Talbot's book The Holographic Universe back in the mid 90's. The holographic principle probably explains many things about our brains, which in some ways show signs of being holographic.
So the holographic principle - the one that current physics is talking about - is concerned about the fundamental dynamics of spacetime. It speaks to a limit on the information content of a region that is either highly curved, like the event horizon of a black hole, or expanding at light speed, like the Hubble radius of a light cone in a flat expanse of the Universe.
Which of these stories apply to a flesh and blood organ like a brain I wonder. Is a brain more like a black hole or a Hubble region? :-}
No, it is totally reworking the underlying theory of gravity.
There is no space-time other than a metaphysical interpretation of GR mathematics. The holographic approach is looking at it in terms of quantum information entanglement. No space-time anywhere though the mathematics may turn out to be equivalent - or maybe not.
Quoting apokrisis
Well, the flesh and blood brain is just like everything else, quantum information (or as Bergson described it 100 years ago, Memory) meshed into the holographic fabric.
I agree with this. Based on my metaphysics, the brain is like a receiver, and it's existence is holographic, just like everything else in the universe.
Moreover, for me, all of existence, metaphysical or otherwise is a product of consciousness. Consciousness, it seems to me, is the fundamental stuff behind all that exists. However, consciousness is not created, it's primary, and it's at the bottom of the universe. All that can be said to exist is set into motion by consciousness.
Of course. It is inevitable. However, if a scientist wishes to have continued access to funding, it is advisable to use the term quantum information entanglement. Certain words get funding and others do not.
Again, another opinion based on some evidence, is that we exist as part of that consciousness, and we can participate in every possible reality that that consciousness can create. We can insert ourselves into various realities. I believe we are eternal, and that our existence never ends.
Do you see any specific analogies for this view in previous philosophy? Or do you think this is something that is only now just being discovered?
There is not such a thing like emergence. Do you believe in magic?
I believe in Godel's Incompleteness Theorems.
What Godel's Incompleteness Theorems has to do with emergence?
A lot, methinks.
As for Susskind's 'landscape' video - note this paragraph from a George Ellis cover story in Scientific American, Does the Multiverse Exist?
DOES THE MULTIVERSE REALLY EXIST? (cover story). By: Ellis, George F. R. Scientific American. Aug 2011, Vol. 305 Issue 2, p38-43. 6p. 2
Pause for a moment to consider whether the notion that the natural universe is one of 10[sup]500[/sup] 'other universes' is indeed 'a tidy explanation' of anything whatever. That number is many orders of magnitude larger than the number of atoms in the known universe. (I'm sure William of Ockham would be rolling in his grave.)
I think there's a fundamental issue when science seeks to explain nature herself. Science, being natural philosophy, can explain many things, given nature. But why should it be able to explain nature? I think this is where scientists are over-stepping the mark, and devising metaphysical theories which are now masquerading as science (which is the subject of a criticism by science columnist Jim Baggott in his book Farewell to Reality: How Modern Physics Has Betrayed the Search for Scientific Truth).
Now I know that's a difficult and contentious point, but bear with me, I have an argument for it. I believe the way of thinking that treats mind as an objective reality is descended from Cartesian dualism. The modern 'mind-body' problem goes back to that. When Descartes posited the res cogitans, he made an object of the mind, as if it were a something that objectively exists. That was the very reason why, later, the criticism of the 'ghost in the machine' could fairly be made of Descartes' philosophy. The idea of the 'ghost in the machine' is very much a consequence of that, even if it really might not have been what Descartes himself meant to say. (The specific criticism of Descartes on these grounds can be found in Husserl's The Crisis of the European Sciences.) Perhaps it is a result of the literalistic interpretation of an abstract idea, but there it is.
Now, from a different perspective altogether, I do of course agree that 'mind' or 'consciousness' is fundamental. But I think the implications of that understanding are (shall we say) subversive to naturalism. If mind is indeed fundamental, but it's not an object of cognition, then this perspective is more akin to non-dualism than to scientific naturalism. And the reason that it's subversive to naturalism, is that naturalism always assumes the division of subject and object, knower and thing known (a.k.a. 'the epistemic cut'.) Whereas 'mind' is 'what knows', not 'what is known', so that trying to 'know the mind' is trying to know that which is never 'other' to us; it's akin to 'the eye trying to see itself'. (And if this sounds like a Zen Koan, it is not entirely coincidental.)
This does have precedent in Western philosophy - hence my earlier question. But that precedent, is the Greek idea of nous, which is the seminal notion of the nature of 'the intellect' in Platonism and Neo-Platonism. You will find that kind of understanding in pre-modern philosophy, but not in modern philosophy, as it is descended from Descartes and operates within the objectivist paradigm which is nowadays so taken for granted that it's practically impossible to question.
I think what you seem to be saying is something akin to the eye verses its visual field, i.e., within the visual field one cannot observe the eye because it's not in the visual field. If this is what you're saying, I would agree, but only if there was one mind, but there are other minds, at least according to my metaphysical take on things, and other minds can perceive and know objectively that these other minds exist.
Putting aside the genius of Bergson, one must ask, how the heck did he do it?? My best guess is that he intuited a model that somehow fit the nature that he observed in a multidimensional manner. Absolutely amazing.
If Dennett claims that dumb bits in adaptive interaction are the 'man behind the curtain' of consciousness( or the dumb bits behind the man behind the curtain) , and that explanation seems wholly unsatisfying, then how 'smart' do these bits have to be? Or how feeling-laden? Just what is the recipe for a primordially world-constituting consciousness?
I can infer that there are other minds, but we only ever know mind in the singular and in the first person. And even then, we don't know it but mind is 'that which knows'. And even if I say to you, 'you have a fine mind' I'm only inferring that, based on what you write or say or do. Obviously I can't see or know your mind directly. What we think we know of the mind is really a kind of place-holder.
Quoting Joshs
That's a good summary. I think another way of putting it is that objects and subjects 'co-arise' but Husserl likewise was strongly critical of the attempt to 'naturalise' the mind.
Quoting Joshs
Again - you're dealing with the question naturalistically, as if 'consciousness' is something that appears within nature. That is, then, cognitive science, not philosophy of mind - cognitive science is dealing with how conscious acts appear to you as an observer. But again, it's a third-person perspective. Let me put it to you that we have internalised that perspective in such a way that it seems natural but that actually it's really a kind of mental construction. This is precisely why Dennett's critics, such as Nagel and Searle, have said for about the last half-century that Dennett consistently ignores what he purports to explain. (Although I think it's safe to ignore Dennett, as, according to his own work, he is just a kind of 'moist robot' that makes apparently-meaningful noises.)
@Rich - sorry about barging into your thread. I will butt out now.
If you want to call it a re-figured naturalism, or radical immanentism-materialism, you could embrace Deleuze. If you want to call it a metaphysics or irreducible conditions of possibility ( or quasi-transxendentalism), you could go the route of Derrida, Nietzsche or Heidegger. Or something in between like Merleau-Ponty or Maturana and Varela. They all reject the idea that this irreducible is a consciousness of any sort. That's
why I was asking you what are the minimum requirements of a consciousness. Because such minimum requirements are preaupppsed by Nagel and Searle in their embrace of a constituting intentionality.
He definitely intuited it and what he intuited went againstall of the established science of his age. And while he enjoyed great popularity and a Nobel Prize for a short period of time, materialists in both science and philosophy quickly worked to banish him from academia and the popular press, preferring their materialist godfather Einstein.
All of his works predated by several decades the new scientific discoveries of quantum behavior and holographic photography which is absolutely mind-boggling.
No problem at all. Did I suggest otherwise? If so, I apologize. I've been enjoying what you and everyone else have been discussing.
Would go well with computation analogies and simulation hypotheses.
When idealists hijack quantum mechanics I sometimes wonder why they still can't derive qualia therefrom.
Well, some such idealists are hell-bent on making room for their deity.
I came across one claiming to have proven the Christian Trinity from quantum mechanics, no less.
A Californian physics student I think.
(Admittedly, I didn't bother to read it.)
No one is hijacking anything. Physicists are reworking the model of the universe around quantum information and entanglement. Information implies a Mind. It is just that scientists can't use that word so they use consciousness or quantum information instead. Keeps the materialist troops happy.
That's something I'm currently stuck on... It's hard to imagine me being the sole source of consciousness, somehow creating all that exists (including other seemingly self-aware entities) at some subconscious level. It's easier to swallow the idea that there is some sort of greater source consciousness of which we are all a part, and we are co-creating a shared reality. The problem with the second scenario is how gazillions of contributing minds collapse all of the probable outcomes into a consistent shared reality... Also confounding is the thought of the timing of all forms of consciousness coming into existence. Was most of reality basically already collapsed by the time my remembered self-awareness started to form; or is the past constantly adjusted to reflect the collective memories of all conscious entities that exist at any one time?
Exactly. I had the same response once to a lecturer who claimed she was making her own universe. I told her to try to take my wallet and she might notice another mind at work.
Quoting CasKev
Yes, we are all waves in an ocean.
Quoting CasKev
It is all weaved into the fabric of the universe. There is no collapse and it is not in the mind. It is all around us with a holographic-like wave-form. The biggest obstacle to understanding the universe is the concept that is taught (incorrectly) from childhood that it's in the brain. It isn't. No more than people live in TV sets. The TV broadcasts spread out everywhere and are shared in this manner. The TV is only receiving and transmitting which is analogous to the brain.
Quoting CasKev
The universal memory is constantly morphing.
But of course you would be 'programmed' to behave in certain ways consistent with my first-person experience, so as to appear self-aware. There's no way for me to explicitly prove that another entity is truly self-aware and experiencing the sense of 'I' that I do. I would have to have a way to temporarily 'plug in' to your first-person experience.
Quoting Rich
Doesn't this contradict the findings of quantum mechanics - that something only comes into existence (probability waves collapsing into particulate matter) once it is observed?
Quoting Rich
Cumulative memory is constantly changing in the present moment, but is every aspect of our past already firmly established, waiting to be observed, or do the as of yet undiscovered elements of our past exist only as probabilities, morphing to fit our most current observed reality? For example, did dinosaurs actually exist, or was that 'memory' just part of the story consciousness created to explain our existence in the present moment?
I have never understood myself as 'the sole source of consciousness', but as an instance of it. As for the 'consistency' of the shared reality - I think that can be understood through the perspective of language and culture. Those are the media which sustain the 'consensus reality' which humans inhabit, because by those means we arrive at conventional designation, description, and standards of measurement, which are the basis of language and even science.
However it needs to be understood that, according to traditional philosophy, the ordinary person (the hoi polloi, the mass of people) labour under some fundamental misconceptions as to the nature of reality. This gives rise to many confusing and contradictory notions which are basically fuel for all the debates that are constantly going on here on Philosophy Forum!
I think your post is hinting at a worldview in which 'consciousness is the primary reality'. That is the understanding behind Neo-platonism, Advaita Vedanta, and Yog?c?ra Buddhism, all of which developed elaborate philosophical cosmologies based on the primacy of mind. Interesting fact: many of the pioneers in quantum mechanics, including Schrodinger, Heisenberg, Wigner, and Pauli, became very interested in such philosophies, as they appeared to offer some means to accomodate the paradoxes that had been discovered through their research. (That is the subject of the well-known book,The Tao of Physics, by Frithjof Capra.)
At some point in one's life one had to jettison these notions of proof and someone programming them, and just come up with a model of nature and life that makes sense and provides real insight. But of course one can treat the whole thing like Sci Fi game and just have fun and forget about insights.
Quoting CasKev
Quantum suggests that the observer is entangled with the system. The so-called Copenhagen wave-collapse interpretation is nonsense, but it fun because it yields so many paradoxes. The interpretation that makes senses and avoids paradoxes as well as predicting "spooky actions at can distance" is the Bohm model which is real and which Bohm first used to develop a prototype of the Holographic Universe.
Quoting CasKev
No memory and history is constantly changing. Everything is always in flux.
Quoting CasKev
The bones exist. They change over time. What happened before we can only guess, and that is what science does. It makes up a story by guessing. We can never know, but we can enjoy the bones and the story behind it.
By the way, here is a skeptical account of David Bohm which takes a look at some of his philosophical preoccupations and his relationship with Krishnamurti. It’s from Martin Gardner who was a mainstay of the Skeptic Society. I don’t agree with many of its conclusions, but it’s worth reading as a counter-factual.
He does, however, believe that Bohm's 'pilot-wave theory' has merit, so we might as well post the PBS explanation here of the De Broglie-Bohm Pilot Wave Theory:
It will evolve but easily explains all of the wave collapse paradoxes, predicts spooky action at a distance (Bell was an advocate for Bohm Mechanics) and is real. He should have received a Nobel Prize but was implicated as a Communist sympathizer during the McCarthy era and the Copenhagen crowd never forgave him for showing how wrong they were in claiming a real, cause equivalent was impossible (yes, they claimed it was impossible so he hurt their feelings).
Quoting Wayfarer
For the most part, maybe over 90%, science is no different from Wall Street and exists to make money and grow in power. Any one who challenges it is ostracized. Bohm's treatment was a disgrace but scientists had to keep the government funding coming in during the McCarthy era and beyond. Industry and government is in charge and they carefully place their puppets in position of authority.
Quoting Wayfarer
There is no "truth here". Just lots of pieces of a large puzzle that people have put together. It will evolve, but it works and had practical applications and insights. Much, much better then the ridiculous mess that science has put together, but then again it doesn't matter since science had become a make work business with lots of featherbedding.
As for the video, the guy hasn't read Bohm. He calls it deterministic (impossible) which Bohm explicitly rejected. Bohm called it causal. The quantum potential in Bohm Mechanics is still probabilistic and leaves open a causal interpretation that allows for choice. He does point out the "action at a distance", one of the reasons it was rejected, was shown by Bell and all experiments since is real.
Calling it certainly wrong because it doesn't conform to Relativity is bone-headed. In fact, recent research work confirms it. Now you understand I ignore everything scientists say and always do my own research using source material where feasible.
Getting back to this... Assuming quantum behavior at a macro level, what seems more likely? That once observers collapse probability waves, they are permanently collapsed, and future collapses have to be consistent with what has already been collapsed? Or is everything being constantly re-collapsed, and the consistency arises from probability waves being heavily weighted toward what existed previously? (I'm currently leaning toward re-collapse dependent on cumulative collective memory...)
Another question... If reality depends on conscious observation, does it not make the most sense for reality to have arisen from a single consciousness? If so, what seems more likely? That there still exists only one conscious observer, in which all other seemingly conscious observers are just constructed 'bots'? Or that the single consciousness was able to create similar conscious entities capable of co-creating reality? (I'm currently leaning toward a single conscious observer, given the inability to create conscious AI, and the lack of understanding of how consciousness arises from matter...)
There is no collapse. The wave/particles are real. Forget about the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. If you stick with it, you'll always come up with weird scenarios of reality that will make no sense.
Quoting CasKev
Of course it doesn't. Everything is real and out there as we perceive it. Consciousness is perceiving and then co-creating just like two artists working on a canvas.
All of this weird ontology is coming from the ridiculous Copenhagen Interpretation. Watch Stephen Robbin's videos on Bergson and understand Bohmian Mechanics and you'll be on a sensible track. Otherwise you'll just be playing games of how does consciousness collapse this and that for the rest of your life.
Does Bohmian Mechanics explain the quantum experiments where a particle's behavior is affected retroactively based on a choice made in the present?
Yes, in a very straightforward way.
Whenever the experiment is changed (e.g. opening or closing one if the slits), the guiding wave (quantum potential) instantaneously changes affecting the behavior of the particle/position.
Instantaneous behavior doesn't explain retroactive behavior though, does it?
"The usual assumption in cosmology is that the universe has a single definite history. One can use the laws of physics to calculate how this history develops with time. We call this the “bottom-up” approach to cosmology. But since we must take into account the quantum nature of the universe as expressed by the Feynman sum over histories, the probability amplitude that the universe is now in a particular state is arrived at by adding up the contributions from all the histories that satisfy the no-boundary condition and end in the state in question. In cosmology, in other words, one shouldn’t follow the history of the universe from the bottom up because that assumes there’s a single history, with a well-defined starting point and evolution. Instead, one should trace the histories from the top down, backward from the present time. Some histories will be more probable than others, and the sum will normally be dominated by a single history that starts with the creation of the universe and culminates in the state under consideration. But there will be different histories for different possible states of the universe at the present time. This leads to a radically different view of cosmology, and the relation between cause and effect. The histories that contribute to the Feynman sum don’t have an independent existence, but depend on what is being measured. We create history by our observation, rather than history creating us.
The idea that the universe does not have a unique observer-independent history might seem to
conflict with certain facts we know. There might be one history in which the moon is made of
Roquefort cheese. But we have observed that the moon is not made of cheese, which is bad news
for mice. Hence histories in which the moon is made of cheese do not contribute to the present
state of our universe, though they might contribute to others. That might sound like science fiction,
but it isn’t.
An important implication of the top-down approach is that the apparent laws of nature depend on
the history of the universe. Many scientists believe there exists a single theory that explains those
laws as well as nature’s physical constants, such as the mass of the electron or the dimensionality
of space-time. But top-down cosmology dictates that the apparent laws of nature are different for
different histories."
It's not retroactive with Bohmian Mechanics. It is only retroactive in other interpretations because they lack the quantum potential that acts instantaneously when they slit configuration changes.
Full disclosure - I've had an experience where this seemed obvious. Never been sure how much to make of it.
Cool. No judgment from me one way or the other but I suppose it lends credibility to the insights if they're corroborated soberly.
I'm pretty sure this experiment shows true retroactivity ...
Where what seemed obvious?
Bohm's model is very nice and resolves all of the spookiness of the Copenhagen Interpretation. The quantum potential can be viewed as the fabric of the holographic universe, which is the trajectory of current quantum theory, which will surely replace General Relativity (which is an ontological mess)
Possibility if you Google delayed choices, quantum potential you will find a thorough description of how Bohm's model makes it a non-issue.
That we're all subsets of the same source of consciousness, and that this is something like the fundamental nature of reality.
So the issue of quantum entanglement remains unexplained? There is no known cause for the "spooky action at a distance"?
Only in all other interpretations other that Bohmian. In Bohmian, it is a fundamental aspect. Bohmian Mechanics was Bell's inspiration.
I cannot underscore enough how much Bohmian Mechanics leaves the other interpretations in the dust. For sure it is not the final say, but it is the best trajectory in terms of continued understanding of the nature of nature. One needs to understand Bohm, Sheldrake's morphic resonance, and Bergson's duree/time). And very important is Stephen Robbins' conceptualization of perception (based upon Bergson's) in a holographic universe. These pieces fit together to form a real universe that one can understand and use as a platform for deeper understanding of life. Of course, I'm always big on practicing the arts.
So that is to say it occurs, but has no observable explanation as of yet?
A holographic perspective accounts for this, since the holographic wave formation spreads in all all directions. A holographic image can be reconstructed from any piece of the hologram.
Trust me. Bring yourself up to speed on the fundamental concepts and a very coherent view of nature will begin to emerge.
Quoting Rich
So according to Bohmian Mechanics, there is only one possible reality, based on causation, right? Wouldn't that mean the past is fixed and should be able to explain what we see in the present, as opposed to what Stephen Hawkings postulates in the quote I posted earlier from his book 'The Grand Design'? Or does it just say that what we observe in the present exists, and will behave according to certain patterns, with no real certainty of the events leading up to the present?
Well this gets tricky, because it depends upon perspective. What each of us is creating and perceiving it's real - but different. The fabric that we are part of, the holographic universe, is continuously changing. So we can't speak in static terms or as though there is only one perspective.
Quoting CasKev
Nothing is fixed. Even memory changes. Consider yourself memory (information) entwined in a constantly changing holographic waveforms. You are part of it and constantly creating within it.
"The whole difficulty of the problem that occupies us comes from the fact that we imagine perception to be a kind of photographic view of things, taken from a fixed point by that special apparatus which is called an organ of perception - a photograph which would then be developed in the brain-matter by some unknown chemical and psychical process of elaboration.But is it not obvious that the photograph, if photograph there be, is already taken, already developed in the very heart of things and at all the points of space? No metaphysics, no physics even, can escape this conclusion. Build up the universe with atoms: each of them is subject to the action, variable in quantity and quality according to the distance, exerted on it by all material atoms. Bring in Faraday's centers of force: the lines of force emitted in every direction from every center bring to bear upon each the influences of the whole material world. Call up the Leibnizian monads: each is the mirror of the universe. All philosophers, then, agree on this point. Only if, when we consider any other given place in the universe, we can regard the acton of all matter as passing through it without resistance and without loss, and the photograph of the whole as translucent: here there is wanting behind the plate the black screen on which the image could be shown. Our "zones of indetermination" play in some sort the part of the screen. They add nothing to what is there; they effect merely this: that the real action passes through, the virtual action remains."
Stephen Robbins provides his own insights on how this solves the "hard problem in this video.
Precisely, it is Memory. That which the Mind remembers. Information is not information unless there is a Mind to interpret it and use it. Using implies that there is some movement in a chosen direction. To simply have information implies a static, dormant universe.