Young Writers Society

The Holographic Universe

William Blake once wished for humanity “to see the world in a grain of sand”. This may finally be possible now with a theory that proposes that the world we see around us is a hologram. A hologram is a three-dimensional projection of a two-dimensional image. Every pixel on the three-dimensional image contains information about the whole. For instance, if one were to cut up a hologram of a Norwegian Ridgeback into two, one could recreate the entire hologram with one half alone. This idea of a small part containing information about the whole is not novel to the universe; a single cell from the body of any organism can tell a lot about the entire organism, and in fact help recreate it, thanks to the mechanism of DNA. The implications of this theory are tremendous, but before its implications can be assessed we need to assess how valid it is in the first place. The idea can be approached from three perspectives: either a physical perspective, a neuroscientific perspective, or a spiritual one. Arguments for the idea that the universe is a hologram usually encompass all these three perspectives, but the individual disciplines (with the exception of new-age believers) do not take into account the other two.

The physical perspective is a cumulative result of two paradoxes and three experiments, all of which lead to the idea of a holographic universe. The first of these paradoxes is the EPR Paradox. A consequence of Einstein’s theory of Relativity states that no physical object, message, or field line can travel faster than the speed of light. However, in 1935, Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen conducted a thought experiment that predicted that if two particles that had previously interacted physically were separated, changes in one would produce simultaneous changes in the other. According to quantum mechanics, this could not be accomplished because nothing travels faster than the speed of light. This came to be known as the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox (Squires). Their predictions were proved experimentally by University of Paris physicist Alain Aspect:

Alain Aspect and his coworkers in Paris demonstrated this result in 1982 with an ingenious experiment in which the correlation between the two angular momenta was measured, within a very short time interval [that] was less than the time taken for a light signal to travel from one particle to the other at the two measurement positions. Einstein’s special theory of relativity states that no message can travel with a speed greater than that of light. Thus, there is no way that the information concerning the direction of the measurement on the first proton could reach the second proton before the measurement was made on it. (Squires).

This phenomenon is known as quantum entanglement. Assuming Einstein’s and Aspect’s reasoning is logically correct, this leads to the conclusion that information, at least at some level, is implicate to the universe and that somehow one part of the universe carries information within the other part, much like a hologram. University of London physicist David Bohm believed in this holographic model and proposed a theory of a universe with implicate and explicit order: “the tangible reality 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 (which means "enfolded") order, and he refers to our own level of existence as the explicate, or unfolded, order” (Talbot 31). Bohm’s argument holds a lot of weight because of his authority as one of the most influential physical theorists of the twentieth century. In his book Wholeness and Implicate Order Bohm talks at length about how quantum mechanics’ various puzzles could be solved with this idea. As an analogy, the idea of a hologram works perfectly into Bohm’s argument but explicit proof still needs to be seen.

Another consequence of Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity is the existence of black holes. A black hole is the end state of a star whose gravity caused the star to collapse on itself and crush itself out of existence. An important law to be considered here is the second law of thermodynamics. It states that “the entropy of an isolated physical system can never decrease; at best, entropy remains constant, and usually it increases” (Bekenstein). Entropy is the amount of disorder in a system and is a physical measure of information. Stephen Hawking proved in the 1970s that Black holes give out radiation, so much so that microscopic black holes evaporate out of existence all the time. So, if an object were to physically disappear into a black hole, its entropy, (that is its information) would be lost forever when the black hole evaporates. This violation forms the basis of the black hole information paradox. The paradox was eventually resolved in 1972 when Bekenstein proved mathematically that the entropy of a black hole is directly proportional to its surface area. This means that “microscopic quantum ripples at the event horizon can encode the information inside the black hole, so there is no mysterious information loss as the black hole evaporates” (Chown). In essence, if the 3-dimensional information of a star that collapsed into a black hole can be given solely by the information on its 2-dimensional surface, it is equally possible that the information of our universe could be given by a 2-dimensional boundary that is 13.7 billion years away. This idea was first proposed by Gerard ‘t Hooft and Leonard Susskind as the Holographic principle: “it proposes that another physical theory defined only on the 2-D boundary of the region completely describes the 3-D physics..” (Bekenstein). This has been proved by work of other scientists, such as Juan Maldacena who “showed that the physics inside a hypothetical universe with five dimensions and shaped like a Pringle is the same as the physics taking place on the four-dimensional boundary” (Chown). Thus, there is some evidence, on the basis of string theory, that there might be a holographic universe. However, this theory is still a work in progress. As Bekenstein himself stated, “we do not yet know of any such 3-D theory that works in that way. Indeed, what surface should we use as the boundary of the universe?”. Nonetheless, this is the closest the holographic universe theory gets to actual mathematical proof.

Experimental proof for the theory, however, could have come in the form of the “inexplicable noise” detected by a gravitational wave detector (GEO600) in Germany in 2009 (Chown). Craig Hogan, a researcher who was working separately from the project claimed that “GEO600 has stumbled upon the fundamental limit of space-time - the point where space-time stops behaving like the smooth continuum Einstein described and instead dissolves into ‘grains’, just as a newspaper photograph dissolves into dots as you zoom in… Theoretical physicists have long believed that quantum effects will cause space-time to convulse wildly on the tiniest scales. At this magnification the fabric of space-time becomes grainy” (qtd. in Chown). Hogan believes that if we truly did live in a hologram, the universe would be grainy at the tiniest length. This length was set to be around 10^ (-35) meters, called as Planck length. The head researcher of the project, Karl Danzmann, was more cautious: “It's intriguing. But it's not really a theory yet, more just an idea. Let's wait and see. We think it's at least a year too early to get excited." The scientists working on the experiment weren’t sure themselves, and this was justified. In June 2011, the European space agency’s INTEGRAL gamma-ray Observatory made the following statement. The observatory, like the GEO600 experiment, had the ability to measure the fuzziness at quantum length through detections of the polarization of gamma rays coming from distant supernovae. The observations reported that “Integral hasn't found any quantum graininess down to a scale of 10^-48 meters” (O’Neill). Though these findings contradict those reported by GEO600, it must be remembered that the noise had not been explicitly attributed to the graininess of the holographic universe in the first place. As stated by Danzmann, it was just an idea. Supporters of the theory still counter by arguing that the INTEGRAL calculated the polarizations based on a space-time that fits the quantum theory, as opposed to the holographic theory. It may also be possible that the unit of length may be far smaller than Planck length. However, as far as the physical perspective goes, there are many theories that can prove mathematically that the universe is a hologram, but experimental proof still eludes the believers of the theory.

The neuroscientific perspective was put forward through the work of neurophysiologist Karl Pribram and is called as the holonomic brain theory. This theory, as the ones above, came about as a result of an unexplained phenomenon. In the 1940s, it was believed that the function of memory was localized in the brain. Neuropsychologist Karl Lashley disproved this belief through an experiment he conducted on rats. He trained rats to perform a variety of complicated tasks, and then surgically removed parts of the rats’ brains. He found that no matter what part was removed, even with large portions of the cortex missing, the rats’ memory of how to perform the task could not be erased (Talbot 13). According to Karl Pribram, this whole-in-part nature of memory could only be explained by a holographic model of the brain: “If it was possible for every portion of a piece of holographic film to contain all the information necessary to create a whole image, then it seemed equally possible for every part of the brain to contain all of the information necessary to recall a whole memory” (Talbot 17). This model has also been used to explain the vastness of human memories (a human brain can store upto 2.8 x 10^20 bits of information), human ability to both recall and forget, associative nature of memory, photographic memories, phantom limb sensations etc. Talbot explains each of them using the analogy of a hologram, and the theory seems to fit perfectly with the analogies he provides. For example, the human ability to forget is compared to shining a light on a holographic piece of film “but failing to find the right angle to call up the image/memory for which we are searching” (Talbot 21). He further gives proof of these theories by citing experiments conducted by several neurophysiologists. However, the theory that the brain is a hologram is still not widely accepted, and in fact, there are more logical theories to explain the whole-in-part nature of memory, such as the ebb and flow of chemicals, electrical fluctuations among neurons, etc, and they have their share of experimental proof as well. Ultimately, the holonomic brain theory is still a theory, and needs further proof to be established as the absolute theory explaining the various unexplained aspects of cognition, perception, and memory. However, Pribram did meet Bohm later on in his career and they combined both of their theories into a unified holonomic paradigm which states that “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 enfolded in a holographic universe” (Talbot 54).

The holographic paradigm is not the only attempt to create a unified theory; many spiritual leaders, and new-age propagators have looked at the physical and neuroscientific theories suggested above and point out smugly that they were already foretold by our religious scriptures thousands of years ago. For example, innate to Hinduism is the philosophy of maya, or illusion. It states that “Under maya's influence, the atman, (the soul) mistakenly identifies with the body. Under this sense of false-ego (false-identity) the soul aspires to control and enjoy matter. However, in so doing he continuously serves lust, greed, and anger. In frustration he often redoubles his efforts and, compounding mistake upon mistake, only falls deeper into illusion” (ISKCON). This could be taken to akin to the idea of the holographic universe, where what we perceive is not what is real. However, such an argument would skip several important steps of logical reasoning and would mean extrapolating the measly evidence we have to the breaking point. Others, like Mark Germine, propose a Universal consciousness. In his article Germine states that Bohm’s and Pribram’s theories lead to a “Consciousness [that] gives us information at a level of experience that is causal. In this sense, we partake in the creation of the Universe. We participate in creation, and this participation, when fully realized, leads us to higher levels of consciousness and of realization” (Germine). In this sense, we could control everything that happens by our thoughts alone. But again, the jump from fact to belief is evident in Germine’s argument. Another example of such an integration is Michael Talbot’s book The Holographic Universe where he uses the holographic paradigm to explain everything from multiple personality disorders to extra-sensory perception, including near-death experiences, psychic abilities, and lucid dreaming. For example, he explains out-of-body experiences (OBEs) by stating that the entire idea of the holographic universe implies that location itself is an illusion, much like the Norwegian Ridgeback, whose image could be found in any pixel. Similarly, he states that “although our consciousness appears to be localized in our heads, under certain conditions it can just as easily appear to be localized in the upper corner of the room, hovering over a grassy lawn, or floating eyeball-to-shoelace with a tennis shoe on the third-floor ledge of a building” (Talbot 234). Again, Talbot’s analogous interpretation of OBEs is flawless, but the lack of evidence pulls up his argument short.

In essence, there is scientific evidence that forms the basis of proof for the holographic model. However, at what point does making conclusions based on evidence change to jumping to them instead? At what point do we draw the line between science and belief? Here’s an example. The holographic principle implies scientifically that information in a black hole is encoded on its surface, like a hologram. This means that information is never lost and this solves the black hole paradox. Now, we could extrapolate this specific example to the entire universe and say (within the bounds of logical reasoning) that the entire information of the universe exists on its surface too. We could further extend this to perception and cognition and state that what we see is actually 2-dimensional and this world is created by our holographic brain. Take it one small step further, and we can say the world is an illusion. Voila! The Hindu philosophy of maya proved scientifically. Now, at what point in this reasoning did our expectations interfere with our logic? The Holographic principle may imply a lot of things. It definitely implies that information is contained on a 2-dimensional level for our universe. But to what extent we extrapolate this tiny bit of information to our understanding of consciousness, intelligent life, and the world itself should depend explicitly on further evidence, regardless of what our cultures, religions, beliefs, and personal philosophies tell us.

Works Cited

Bekenstein, Jacob D. "Information In The HOLOGRAPHIC UNIVERSE." Scientific American Special Edition 17.1 (2007): 66-73. Academic Search Complete. Web. 26 Feb. 2012.

Chown, Marcus. "All The World's A Hologram. (Cover Story)." New Scientist 201.2691 (2009): 24-27. Academic Search Complete. Web. 26 Feb. 2012.

Germine, Mark. "The Holographic Principle Of Mind And The Evolution Of Consciousness." World Futures: The Journal Of General Evolution 64.3 (2008): 151-178. Academic Search Complete. Web. 26 Feb. 2012.

ISKCON. "Maya: Illusion." Heart of Hinduism:. ISKCON Educational Services. Web. 26 Feb. 2012. <http://hinduism.iskcon.org/concepts/105.htm>.

O'Neill, Ian. "We May Not Live in a Hologram After All." Discovery News. Discovery Communications, LLC., 1 July 2011. Web. 26 Feb. 2012.

Squires, Gordon Leslie. "quantum mechanics." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online Academic Edition. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. 24 Feb. 2012. Susskind, Leonard, and James Lindesay.

Talbot, Michael. The Holographic Universe. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1991.