The Holographic Universe argument

This is my argument against the integration of faith and science in rhetorical situations, made through the lens of the holographic universe.

The Holographic Universe

The idea of a holographic universe comes from three main perspectives. The physical perspective gives the most scientific basis for the argument, using the Einstein Podolsky Rosen and the black hole paradox to form the Holographic Principle. The neuroscientific perspectives claims that the main aspects of cognition and perception can only be explained if the brain was a hologram, and the spiritual perspective claims that the holographic principle has several spiritual implications including, but not limited to, proving the philosophy of maya from Hinduism, spiritual medicinal implications and an explanation for all paranormal phenomenon reported to date (alien abductions, out-of-body experiences, near-death experiences etc.). All these perspectives have not formed independent of one another. To prove their arguments they have had to integrate science and belief in some way or another and this makes their argument null and void. Some of the scientific conclusions in this issue are drawn based on spiritual beliefs and many of the spiritual conclusions are drawn based on the scientific beliefs. Apart from misleading people, drawing such conclusions is wrong both philosophically and rationally, especially when the facts are not right. As is shown further in the essay, the holographic paradigm is valid only from the physical perspective and even that is a result of theoretical predictions. This issue also serves as a reminder that the idea of integrating science and faith, while really enticing, serves to mislead the audience in any type of rhetorical communication and should be avoided.

Scientific facts are frequently used to back up the spiritual perspective in this issue. For example, Michael Talbot’s book The Holographic Universe uses several scientific “facts” to back up it its argument. One of these facts is the “whole-in-part nature of memory” (Talbot 31). Talbot’s argument is that as proposed by Karl Pribram, this nature could only be explained if the universe were a hologram. Pribram trained rats to run learn their way around a maze, surgically removed parts of their brains, and found that no matter what part of the cortex was removed, the rat could not unlearn the way out of the maze. This lead him to conclude that memory’s nature in the brain was whole-in-part. Dr. John Allen, a distinguished Professor of psychology at the University of Arizona, said the following about the conclusion: “It is untrue because rats learn through simple associations. To unlearn those associations they require higher level cortical systems to send in inhibitory signals. With the cortex removed, they would not have the required power to override that authority” (Allen). Similarly, the other key aspects of memory that Talbot suggests can be explained only though the holographic universe have perfectly rational, less dramatic explanations. For example, phantom limb sensations could be explained by the fact that “the cortex is adaptive. If a limb is missing, then the part of the cortex responsible for that limb takes over the functioning of some other part. When stimuli from that other part come in, you subjectively identify it as the phantom limb” (Allen). Thus, the scientific facts used by Talbot were not right in the first place.

Talbot also uses the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Paradox to support his argument. According to him and David Bohm, the paradox was the perfect proof for the holographic universe. If one could separate particles that had previously physically interacted to a specific distance, changes in one would produce simultaneous changes in the other. This was not possible according to relativity because no message can travel faster than the speed of light. Further, the fact that by knowing the x spin of one particle instantaneously the x spin of the other was simultaneously known (they had interacted earlier, which meant that the spin of one was the opposite of the other), we could measure the y-coordinate of the other particle at that instant, then we would be able to measure both momentum and position of a particle with some precision. According to Quantum mechanics, you cannot measure x and y spin simultaneously even if you know the x-spin from an indirect source. How could the knowledge that the measurement was made on one particle transfer to the other faster than the speed of light and create the uncertainty? The resolution was this: “the observed results agree with those of quantum mechanics…One is forced to conclude that the two protons are a correlated pair and that a measurement on one affects the state of both, no matter how far apart they are. This may strike one as highly peculiar, but such is the way nature appears to be” (Squires). Since the EPR paradox is already resolved, it should not be used as a justification for the holographic universe.

It is also wrong to use scientific facts to support spiritual claims on a philosophical level. For example, using the holographic principle to prove that the Hindu philosophy of maya is true would be unfair to both Hinduism and science. Spiritual claims are inherently an extension of someone’s faith and faith is belief in something you cannot see. The moment one tries to see what they believe, this faith is converted to something else. Tolstoy defined faith in a similar way. According to him, “irrational belief” was what gave life meaning: “To live humanly is to believe in something beyond proof” (Archie). According to him, rationalization of faith was wrong. Rabindranath Tagore in his poem Fireflies stated “I am able to love my God/ because He gives me freedom to deny Him” (Tagore 157). Everyone who chose their faith had the freedom to deny it. When they made their choice, they lost the right to question it.

The same fallacy can be conducted the other way around as well; one could use prior spiritual beliefs to form scientific conclusions. In the issue of the holographic universe the fact that Hinduism says the world is an illusion is used to justify the holographic paradigm: “Was it possible, [Pribram] wondered, that what the mystics had been saying for centuries was true, reality was maya, an illusion, and what was out there was really a vast, resonating symphony of wave forms, a ‘frequency domain’ that was transformed into the world as we know it only after it entered our senses?”  (Talbot 31). This question involves logical and philosophical fallacies because empirical science is conducted without letting expectations interfere with the sequence of reasoning. Whether it is conducting experiments or forming a hypothesis, letting expectations guide us from fact to conclusion is considered to be no less than cheating in science. It would also be unfair to Hinduism because according to Hinduism, maya is “entanglement with the material world” (ISKCON). According to A. C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (the founder of ISKCON), the world we see around us is a mere reflection of the actual world, much like the reflection of a tree in the water cannot be taken for the real thing: “the tree of this material world is only a reflection of the real tree of the spiritual world. This reflection of the spiritual world is situated on desire, just as a tree’s reflection is situated on water” (Prabhupada). So, if a Hindu were to use the Holographic principle as a justification of their belief, it would be akin to believing that the reflection gives you the real thing. Also, because science is a part of the “material world” using science as a justification would mean getting entangled in it. No Hindu would use the holographic principle as a justification of their belief.

Both the above fallacies take place far more frequently in our daily lives than we realize. Consider the following article written by Marcus Chown on the Holographic Universe for New Scientist, a popular science magazine. The article starts with the question “Could our three dimensions be the ultimate cosmic illusion?” (Chown). This question is the ultimate hook. Every single one of us has an escapist within us who is always on the lookout for things to make our boring world more interesting. Though not every one of us is extreme enough to wish for the person sitting next to us to be vampire, or to wish for an owl to bring that letter with the loopy handwriting in green ink and that oh-so familiar crest, we do wish for more unusual things to be true. Myths, fables, fairy tales, stories all fascinate us because they give us an escape. This question is doing exactly that. What if the world were the ultimate cosmic illusion? Wouldn’t that make our boring lives a tad bit more interesting? Wouldn’t it nullify the tediousness of our everyday lives? And the ultimate thing—wouldn’t it change entire perspectives on our lives, the world itself and reality as we know it? But the fact remains that the Holographic principle, at this moment, applies only and only to Black holes. Further, even if it were extended to the entire universe, it would merely imply that information was contained on a boundary 13.7 billion light years away. Technically, this shouldn’t make a difference in our lives at all. Every one of us uses electricity, but we don’t need to know how it works. Similarly, we live in this universe, but we don’t necessarily care about where its information is contained. Also notice that even though the word “illusion” is meant to be a direct implication, it most certainly is not. The holographic principle gives only the location of information. No more, no less. Chown continues “A German detector is picking up a hint that we are all mere projections”. This is most definitely not true. As stated later in the article by Chown himself, the head researcher of the experiment explicitly refused to accept responsibility for the claim (which was made by someone outside of the research project) and this was with good reasoning, because this claim was proved to be false a year later by the INTEGRAL observatory. Both these sentences serve to mislead the readers to no end.

Consider another source, this time a spiritual website that promotes “Quantum Holographic Healing” (Holographic Universe). This site, like countless others, uses science to back up its claims. One of the first things the site offers as proof is the Marcus Chown article discussed above, which was misleading in its own right. The scientific explanation given by the author of the site is not very accurate either. It does not mention anything about the black hole paradox, or the holographic principle--save for article, which is provided as additional information. Instead, it uses quantum mechanics to as proof.  It uses Bell’s theorem as proof of “universal connectedness”. The phenomenon of quantum entanglement (what was earlier described as the EPR paradox) is used to make statements like "Quantum entanglement goes both ways: your Quantum Hologram is entangled with you, and you are entangled with it”. How does one skip from quantum mechanics to this? According to the author, “Your Quantum Hologram is the blueprint that determines and builds your 3-dimensional world. Change the blueprint and you change your world…Anytime a person receives harmonious frequency information into their Quantum Hologram, their body gets rebooted into knowing what is healthy and what is not” (Holographic Universe). Quantum mechanics by no means implies this. The holographic principle might, but that would be stretching proof to the breaking point. Also, there is no mention of the holographic principle anywhere on the site. Questions like “What if that place of higher vibration is the missing piece in quantum mechanics? The leap that John Bell was looking for?” (Holographic Universe) again play with the escapist part of us but are wrong at the most fundamental level.

Though such websites are easier to ignore, all of us encounter such rhetorical situation in which someone tries to either convince us of their faith, or tell us that there is more to reality than we know. But we must always remember that there is always going to be that escapist part of us rooting for such stuff to be true. It may not be spiritual causes explicitly; it could be a news report on TV telling you the world is a hologram, or that the myths of the Loch Ness monster, Bermuda triangle, Roswell, and Stonehenge are all true. Two, the writers are going to play with the escapist part of you. Three, if the situation requires any sort of integration of scientific and spiritual spheres, there is bound to be at least one fallacy (either logical or spiritual) as is shown from the issue of the Holographic Universe. Lastly, we are not always on the receiving end of such situations. Sometimes, we create them and when we do, we should take care to never to form our argument by integrating science and faith. We should also take care to give the audience everything they need to know, even if we have to forego dramatic impact for it. It may be possible, that in the future science and faith might be reconciled, but till then we will have to make do with this lack luster reflection.