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Nearly everyone is familiar with holograms-three-dimensional images projected into space with the aid of a laser. Two of the world's most eminent thinkers believe that the universe itself may be a giant hologram, quite literally a kind of image or construct created, at least in part, by the human mind. University of London physicist David Bohm, a prot�g� of Einstein and one of the world's most respected quantum physicists, and Stanford neurophysiologist Karl Pribram, an architect of our modern understanding of the brain, have developed a remarkable new way of looking at the universe. Their theory explains not only many of the unsolved puzzles of physics but also such mysterious occurrences as telepathy, out-of-body and near-death experiences, lucid dreams, and even religious and mystical experiences, such as feelings of cosmic unity and miraculous healings. Now featuring a foreword by Lynne McTaggart, The Holographic Universe is a landmark work with exciting conclusions that continue to be proven true by today's most advanced physics, cosmology, and string theory.… (more)
User reviews
We live in an age of cynicism, rationality, and materialism. Simply by virtue of being alive in the 21st century, it is both normal and easy to participate in the hard-edged thinking that characterizes modern thought. So, on one hand, my responsibility as a rational human is to dismiss the ideas of writers like Talbot, who take cutting edge physics as a point of departure and spin it into parallel universes, telepathic and clairvoyant explanations, and into all manner of strange and wonderful possibilities. Like the other books I have mentioned, 'The Holographic Universe' suggests that mysticism and spirituality in fact provide appropriate metaphors for processes that scientific investigation is only beginning to sense the existence of, processes which lie well beyond our normal perceptions. Apparently, these implications remain largely ignored by mainstream physics. They fall too far outside the known. With one or two exceptions, it is not comfortable for a professional to publicly hold them; espousing these ideas encourages ostracism. It is always safer in the short term to reject an idea than to allow it.
On the other hand, there is something that rings so true concerning the idea that mind determines its reality. Is it possible that perception and creation are two sides of one coin? Are we so in charge of our world that it is exactly as we have judged? And then, is it possible that rejecting spiritual ideas entirely becomes a self-reinforcing position? Perhaps James Randi's skeptical challenge to 'prove it,' in fact insures the very outcome that he expects. I wonder. Talbot's observations about the way in which quantum particles appear to behave according to how the observer thinks about them certainly provokes some thought along these lines. There is in cosmology a dividing line, which separates individuals by the way they choose to think about reality. Either 1) we populate a mechanistic universe in which consciousness has arisen out of matter, or 2) the universe as we know it is a property of mind, and matter arises from consciousness. Which of these is the fundamental property of reality? It is not provable, one way or the other. As an adult, I have tended to oscillate back and forth on that question.
Indeed, reading Talbot's book and writing this review marks my most recent return from the atheistic, existential domain. Shall I embrace the possibility once again that something unimaginably wonderful is going on? Some of the new science begins to point that way. But as yet, in order to accept the possibility of the miraculous, of alternate dimensions and the validity of near-death experiences, a rational thinker must make a decision to accept an argument which is based on circumstantial evidence. Circumstantial evidence is the stock-in-trade of 'The Holographic Universe,' if not most calls for acceptance of the numinous. Talbot cites volumes of near-death accounts in which the experiencer corroborates exact operating room procedures; countless telepathic and clairvoyant 'coincidences'; accounts of past-lives remembered under hypnosis in which buildings and geographical layouts are later supported by visits to actual locations. Investigating the sheer volume of notes and references Talbot cites causes that evidence to become weighty indeed. But is it sufficient?
Finally, one must decide for oneself. And continue the search.
The
After which, Talbot begins to look at "the brain as hologram", taking as a starting point the fact that our senses are interpreted only within the brain and what we think of as an external reality is actually an internal construction. Again, so far, so good; and the arguments are backed up with what appears to be reasonable expositions of the work of published scientists.
But as the book progresses, the discussion veers further away from science and down the path of anecdote. Michael Talbot has written a number of works on psychic experiences, and he dips more and more into that territory than into verifiable or reasoned scientific discussion. Any further discussion on cosmological matters disappears and we concentrate entirely on psychology and (increasingly) parapsychology When we got onto regression into past lives, auras and chakras, my patience began to give out. And from about half-way through the book, the style turned into pure Readers' Digest and Talbot began to cite his own psychic experiences. At which point, I gave up, exasperated.
The concept of the holographic universe is important and fascinating. This book should not be your entry point to discussion of the subject.
'... Pribam realised that the objective world does not exist, at least not in the way we are accustomed to believing. What is 'out there' is a vast ocean of waves and frequencies and reality looks concrete to us only because our brains are able to take this holographic blur and convert it into sticks and stones and other familiar objects that make up our world...'
'...In other words, the smoothness of a piece of fine china and the feel of beach sand beneath our feet are really just elaborate versions of the phantom limb syndrome (when amputees 'feel' a limb long after it has been removed)..'
'According to Pribram, this does not mean there aren't china cups and grains of sand out there. It simply means that a china cup has two very different aspects to its reality. When it is filtered through the lens of our brains it manifests as a cup. But if we could get rid of our lenses, we'd experience it as an interference pattern. Which is real and which is illusion? "Both are real to me," says Pribham, "or, if you want to say, neither of them are real".
Also look up the research by Russian biophysicist Pjotr Garjajev, and his colleagues known as the phantom DNA effect. The Russian scientists irradiated DNA samples with laser light, on screen, a typical wave pattern was formed. When they removed the DNA sample, the wave pattern did not disappear, it remained. Many control experiments showed that the pattern still came from the removed sample, whose energy field apparently remained by itself.
Also see their work known as wave genetics, they found that living DNA will always react to language-modulated laser rays, and even to radio waves, if the proper frequencies are used. They succeeded in repairing chromosomes damaged by X-rays, they even captured information patterns of a particular DNA and transmitted it onto another, so reprogramming cells to another genome. They successfully transformed for example, frog embryos to salamander embryos simply by transmitting the DNA information patterns. This way the entire information was transmitted without any of the side effects involved when western researchers cut out and insert DNA.
If you fall into a black hole, nothing happens to you, by the equivalence principle you cannot know you are falling into a black hole. You carry on happy as Larry. To us outside, looking at you falling into a black hole, you slow down, your time seen by us gets slower and slower and slower and you never fall into the hole. You get stuck at the horizon. (look at the Penrose diagram, the event horizon can never be in an outside observer's past) But, eons later, you come back out by hawking radiation and say hi! I was in a black hole! We say, no you weren't; you got close then you were radiated back out. Who's right? Smeared over the surface, or inside, it's the same, it's just your point of view. As a member of the general public that is exactly how I feel now. I feel smeared! There are too many theories describing the universe and many of them seem to be correct. There is still no universal equation combining all four forces. Is the physics we know correct, or is it only sufficient approximation to satisfy our senses? Will our intelligence ever allow us to understand it or are we just fooking dumb? We do not have a vantage point to be objective on that matter. Cosmic man. But whoosh. I'm blown away that there are people who genuinely understand this Holographic and Black Hole stuff. Respect.