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 25 May 2003 @ 03:32
The following are some selected quotes from The book, Holographic Universe, by Michael Talbot. Personally I think this type of a shift to this type of paradigm will be key in enabling mankind to emerge to a higher role in the universe.
Considered together, Bohm and Pribram's theories provide a profound new way of looking at the world: Our brains mathematically construct objective reality by interpreting frequencies that are ultimately projections from another dimension, a deeper order of existence that is beyond both space and time: The brain is a hologram folded in a holographic universe.
For Pribram, this synthesis made him realize that the objective world does not exist, at least not in the way we am 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 the sticks and stones and other familiar objects that make up our world. How is the brain (which itself is composed of frequencies of matter) able to take something as insubstantial as a blur of frequencies and make it seem solid to the touch? "The kind of mathematical process that Bekesy simulated with his vibrators is basic to how our brains construct our image of a world out there," Pribram states. 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.
According to Pribram this does not mean there aren't china cups and grains of beach 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 brain it manifests as a cup. But if we could get rid of our lenses, we'd experience it as an interference pattern. Which one is real and which is illusion? "Both are real to me," says Pribram, "or, if you want to say, neither of them are real."
This state of affairs is not limited to china cups. We, too, have two very different aspects to our reality. We can view ourselves as physical bodies moving through space. Or we can view ourselves an a blur of interference patterns enfolded throughout the cosmic hologram. Bohm believes this second point of view might even be the more correct, for to think of ourselves as a holographic mind/brain looking at a holographic universe is again an abstraction, an attempt to separate two things that ultimately cannot be separated.
Do not be troubled if this is difficult to grasp. It is relatively easy to understand the idea of holism in something that is external to us, like an apple in a hologram. What makes it difficult is that in this case we an not looking at the hologram. We are part of the hologram.
The difficulty is also another indication of how radical a revision Bohm and Pribram are trying to make in our way of thinking. But it is not the only radical revision. Pribram's assertion that our brains construct objects pales beside another of Bohm's conclusions: that we even construct space and time. The implications of this view are just one of the subjects that will be examined as we explore the effect Bohm and Pribram's ideas have had on the work of other fields. More >
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