Does
Objective Reality Exist, or is the Universe a
Phantasm?
In
1982 a remarkable event took place. At the University
of Paris, a research team led by physicist Alain
Aspect performed what may turn out to be one of
the most important experiments of the 20th century.
You did not hear about it on the evening news.
In fact, unless you are in the habit of reading
scientific journals you probably have never even
heard Aspect's name, though there are some who
believe his discovery may change the face of science.
Aspect
and his team discovered that under certain circumstances
subatomic particles such as electrons are able
to instantaneously communicate with each other
regardless of the distance separating them. It
doesn't matter whether they are 10 feet or 10 billion
miles apart. Somehow each particle always seems
to know what the other is doing. The problem
with this feat is that it violates Einstein's long-held
tenet that no communication can travel faster than
the speed of light. Since traveling faster than
the speed of light is tantamount to breaking the
time barrier, this daunting prospect has caused
some physicists to try to come up with elaborate
ways to explain away Aspect's findings. But it
has inspired others to offer even more radical
explanations.
University
of London physicist David Bohm,
for example, believes Aspect's findings imply that objective
reality does not exist, that despite its
apparent solidity the universe is at heart a phantasm,
a gigantic and splendidly detailed hologram.
To
understand why Bohm makes this startling assertion,
one must first understand a little about holograms.
A hologram is a three-dimensional photograph made
with the aid of a laser. To make a hologram, the
object to be photographed is first bathed in the
light of a laser beam. Then a second laser beam
is bounced off the reflected light of the first
and the resulting interference pattern (the area
where the two laser beams commingle) is captured
on film. When the film is developed, it looks like
a meaningless swirl of light and dark lines. But
as soon as the developed film is illuminated by
another laser beam, a three-dimensional image of
the original object appears.
The
three-dimensionality of such images is not the
only remarkable characteristic of holograms. If
a hologram of a rose is cut in half and then illuminated
by a laser, each half will still be found to contain
the entire image of the rose. Indeed, even if the
halves are divided again, each snippet of film
will always be found to contain a smaller but intact
version of the original image. Unlike normal photographs,
every part of a hologram contains all the information
possessed by the whole.
The "whole
in every part" nature of a hologram provides
us with an entirely new way of understanding
organization and order. For most of its history,
Western science has labored under the bias that
the best way to understand a physical phenomenon,
whether a frog or an atom, is to dissect it and
study its respective parts. A hologram teaches
us that some things in the universe may not lend
themselves to this approach. If we try to take
apart something constructed holographically,
we will not get the pieces of which it is made,
we will only get smaller wholes. This insight
suggested to Bohm another way of understanding
Aspect's discovery. Bohm believes the reason
subatomic particles are able to remain in contact
with one another regardless of the distance separating
them is not because they are sending some sort
of mysterious signal back and forth, but because their
separateness is an illusion. He argues that
at some deeper level of reality such particles
are not individual entities, but are actually
extensions of the same fundamental something.
To
enable people to better visualize what he means,
Bohm offers the following illustration: Imagine
an aquarium containing a fish. Imagine also that
you are unable to see the aquarium directly and
your knowledge about it and what it contains comes
from two television cameras, one directed at the
aquarium's front and the other directed at its
side. As you stare at the two television monitors,
you might assume that the fish on each of the screens
are separate entities. After all, because the cameras
are set at different angles, each of the images
will be slightly different. But as you continue
to watch the two fish, you will eventually become
aware that there is a certain relationship between
them. When one turns, the other also makes a slightly
different but corresponding turn; when one faces
the front, the other always faces toward the side.
If you remain unaware of the full scope of the
situation, you might even conclude that the fish
must be instantaneously communicating with one
another, but this is clearly not the case. This,
says Bohm, is precisely what is going on between
the subatomic particles in Aspect's experiment.
According
to Bohm, the apparent faster-than-light connection
between subatomic particles is really telling us
that there is a deeper level of reality we are
not privy to, a more complex dimension beyond
our own that is analogous to the aquarium. And,
he adds, we view objects such as subatomic particles
as separate from one another because we are
seeing only a portion of their reality. Such
particles are not separate "parts", but facets
of a deeper and more underlying unity that is ultimately
as holographic and indivisible as the previously
mentioned rose. And since everything in physical
reality is comprised of these "eidolons", the
universe is itself a projection, a hologram.
According
to Bohm, the apparent faster-than-light connection
between subatomic particles is really telling us
that there is a deeper level of reality we are
not privy to, a more complex dimension beyond
our own that is analogous to the aquarium. And,
he adds, we view objects such as subatomic particles
as separate from one another because we are
seeing only a portion of their reality. Such
particles are not separate "parts", but facets
of a deeper and more underlying unity that is ultimately
as holographic and indivisible as the previously
mentioned rose. And since everything in physical
reality is comprised of these "eidolons", the
universe is itself a projection, a hologram.
In
addition to its phantomlike nature, such a universe
would possess other rather startling features.
If the apparent separateness of subatomic particles
is illusory, it means that at a deeper level of
reality all things in the universe are infinitely
interconnected. The electrons in a carbon atom
in the human brain are connected to the subatomic
particles that comprise every salmon that swims,
every heart that beats, and every star that shimmers
in the sky. Everything interpenetrates everything,
and although human nature may seek to categorize
and pigeonhole and subdivide, the various phenomena
of the universe, all apportionments are of necessity
artificial and all of nature is ultimately a seamless
web.
In
a holographic universe, even time and space could
no longer be viewed as fundamentals. Because concepts
such as location break down in a universe in which
nothing is truly separate from anything else, time
and three-dimensional space, like the images of
the fish on the TV monitors, would also have to
be viewed as projections of this deeper order. At
its deeper level reality is a sort of superhologram
in which the past, present, and future all exist
simultaneously.
This
suggests that given the proper tools it might even
be possible to someday reach into the superholographic
level of reality and pluck out scenes from the
long-forgotten past. What else the superhologram
contains is an open-ended question. Allowing, for
the sake of argument, that the superhologram is
the matrix that has given birth to everything in
our universe, at the very least it contains every
subatomic particle that has been or will be --
every configuration of matter and energy that is
possible, from snowflakes to quasars, from blue
whales to gamma rays. It must be seen as a sort
of cosmic storehouse of "All That Is."
Although
Bohm concedes that we have no way of knowing what
else might lie hidden in the superhologram, he
does venture to say that we have no reason to assume
it does not contain more. Or as he puts it, perhaps
the superholographic level of reality is a "mere
stage" beyond which lies "an infinity of further
development".
Bohm
is not the only researcher who has found evidence
that the universe is a hologram. Working independently
in the field of brain research, Standford neurophysiologist
Karl Pribram has also become persuaded of the holographic
nature of reality. Pribram was drawn to the holographic
model by the puzzle of how and where memories are
stored in the brain. For decades numerous studies
have shown that rather than being confined to a
specific location, memories are dispersed throughout
the brain. In a series of landmark experiments
in the 1920s, brain scientist Karl Lashley found
that no matter what portion of a rat's brain he
removed he was unable to eradicate its memory of
how to perform complex tasks it had learned prior
to surgery.
The
only problem was that no one was able to come up
with a mechanism that might explain this curious "whole
in every part" nature of memory storage. Then in
the 1960s Pribram encountered the concept of holography
and realized he had found the explanation brain
scientists had been looking for. Pribram believes
memories are encoded not in neurons, or small groupings
of neurons, but in patterns of nerve impulses that
crisscross the entire brain in the same way that
patterns of laser light interference crisscross
the entire area of a piece of film containing a
holographic image. In other words, Pribram believes
the brain is itself a hologram.
Pribram's
theory also explains how the human brain can store
so many memories in so little space. It has been
estimated that the human brain has the capacity
to memorize something on the order of 10 billion
bits of information during the average human lifetime
(or roughly the same amount of information contained
in five sets of the Encyclopaedia Britannica).
Similarly, it has been discovered that in addition
to their other capabilities, holograms possess
an astounding capacity for information storage--simply
by changing the angle at which the two lasers strike
a piece of photographic film, it is possible to
record many different images on the same surface.
It has been demonstrated that one cubic centimeter
of film can hold as many as 10 billion bits of
information.
Our
uncanny ability to quickly retrieve whatever information
we need from the enormous store of our memories
becomes more understandable if the brain functions
according to holographic principles. If a friend
asks you to tell him what comes to mind when he
says the word "zebra", you do not have to clumsily
sort back through some gigantic and cerebral alphabetic
file to arrive at an answer. Instead, associations
like "striped", "horselike", and "animal native
to Africa" all pop into your head instantly.Indeed,
one of the most amazing things about the human
thinking process is that every piece of information
seems instantly cross- correlated with every other
piece of information--another feature intrinsic
to the hologram. Because every portion of a hologram
is infinitely interconnected with every other portion,
it is perhaps nature's supreme example of a cross-correlated
system.
The
storage of memory is not the only neurophysiological
puzzle that becomes more tractable in light of
Pribram's holographic model of the brain. Another
is how the brain is able to translate the avalanche
of frequencies it receives via the senses (light
frequencies, sound frequencies, and so on) into
the concrete world of our perceptions. Encoding
and decoding frequencies is precisely what a hologram
does best. Just as a hologram functions as a sort
of lens, a translating device able to convert an
apparently meaningless blur of frequencies into
a coherent image, Pribram believes the brain also
comprises a lens and uses holographic principles
to mathematically convert the frequencies it receives
through the senses into the inner world of our
perceptions.
An
impressive body of evidence suggests that the brain
uses holographic principles to perform its operations.
Pribram's theory, in fact, has gained increasing
support among neurophysiologists. Argentinian-Italian
researcher Hugo Zucarelli recently extended the
holographic model into the world of acoustic phenomena.
Puzzled by the fact that humans can locate the
source of sounds without moving their heads, even
if they only possess hearing in one ear, Zucarelli
discovered that holographic principles can explain
this ability. Zucarelli has also developed the
technology of holophonic sound, a recording technique
able to reproduce acoustic situations with an almost
uncanny realism. Pribram's belief that our brains
mathematically construct "hard" reality by relying
on input from a frequency domain has also received
a good deal of experimental support.
It
has been found that each of our senses is sensitive
to a much broader range of frequencies than was
previously suspected. Researchers have discovered,
for instance, that our visual systems are sensitive
to sound frequencies, that our sense of smell is
in part dependent on what are now called "osmic
frequencies", and that even the cells in our bodies
are sensitive to a broad range of frequencies.
Such findings suggest that it is only in the holographic
domain of consciousness that such frequencies are
sorted out and divided up into conventional perceptions.
But
the most mind-boggling aspect of Pribram's holographic
model of the brain is what happens when it is put
together with Bohm's theory. For if the concreteness
of the world is but a secondary reality and what
is "there" is actually a holographic blur of frequencies,
and if the brain is also a hologram and only selects
some of the frequencies out of this blur and mathematically
transforms them into sensory perceptions, what
becomes of objective reality? Put quite simply,
it ceases to exist. As the religions of the
East have long upheld, the material world is
Maya, an illusion, and although we may think
we are physical beings moving through a physical
world, this too is an illusion.
We
are really "receivers" floating through a kaleidoscopic
sea of frequency, and what we extract from this
sea and transmogrify into physical reality is
but one channel from many extracted out of the
superhologram.
This
striking new picture of reality, the synthesis
of Bohm and Pribram's views, has come to be called
the holographic paradigm, and although many
scientists have greeted it with skepticism, it
has galvanized others. A small but growing group
of researchers believe it may be the most accurate
model of reality science has arrived at thus far.
More than that, some believe it may solve some
mysteries that have never before been explainable
by science and even establish the paranormal as
a part of nature.
Numerous
researchers, including Bohm and Pribram, have noted
that many para-psychological phenomena become much
more understandable in terms of the holographic
paradigm. In a universe in which individual brains
are actually indivisible portions of the greater
hologram and everything is infinitely interconnected,
telepathy may merely be the accessing of the holographic
level. It is obviously much easier to understand
how information can travel from the mind of individual
'A' to that of individual 'B' at a far distance
point and helps to understand a number of unsolved
puzzles in psychology.
In
particular, Grof feels the holographic paradigm
offers a model for understanding many of the baffling
phenomena experienced by individuals during altered
states of consciousness. In the 1950s, while conducting
research into the beliefs of LSD as a psychotherapeutic
tool, Grof had one female patient who suddenly
became convinced she had assumed the identity of
a female of a species of prehistoric reptile. During
the course of her hallucination, she not only gave
a richly detailed description of what it felt like
to be encapsuled in such a form, but noted that
the portion of the male of the species's anatomy
was a patch of colored scales on the side of its
head. What was startling to Grof was that although
the woman had no prior knowledge about such things,
a conversation with a zoologist later confirmed
that in certain species of reptiles colored areas
on the head do indeed play an important role as
triggers of sexual arousal.
The
woman's experience was not unique. During the course
of his research, Grof encountered examples of patients
regressing and identifying with virtually every
species on the evolutionary tree (research findings
which helped influence the man-into-ape scene in
the movie Altered States). Moreover, he found that
such experiences frequently contained obscure zoological
details which turned out to be accurate.
Regressions
into the animal kingdom were not the only puzzling
psychological phenomena Grof encountered. He also
had patients who appeared to tap into some sort
of collective or racial unconscious. Individuals
with little or no education suddenly gave detailed
descriptions of Zoroastrian funerary practices
and scenes from Hindu mythology. In other categories
of experience, individuals gave persuasive accounts
of out-of-body journeys, of precognitive glimpses
of the future, of regressions into apparent past-life
incarnations. In later research, Grof found the
same range of phenomena manifested in therapy sessions
which did not involve the use of drugs.
Because
the common element in such experiences appeared
to be the transcending of an individual's consciousness
beyond the usual boundaries of ego and/or limitations
of space and time, Grof called such manifestations "transpersonal
experiences", and in the late '60s he helped found
a branch of psychology called "transpersonal psychology" devoted
entirely to their study. Although Grof's newly
founded Association of Transpersonal Psychology
garnered a rapidly growing group of like-minded
professionals and has become a respected branch
of psychology, for years neither Grof or any of
his colleagues were able to offer a mechanism for
explaining the bizarre psychological phenomena
they were witnessing. But that has changed with
the advent of the holographic paradigm. As Grof
recently noted, if the mind is actually part of
a continuum, a labyrinth that is connected not
only to every other mind that exists or has existed,
but to every atom, organism, and region in the
vastness of space and time itself, the fact that
it is able to occasionally make forays into the
labyrinth and have transpersonal experiences no
longer seems so strange.
The
holographic paradigm also has implications for so-called
hard sciences like biology. Keith Floyd, a psychologist
at Virginia Intermont College, has pointed out that
if the concreteness of reality is but a holographic
illusion, it would no longer be true to say the brain
produces consciousness. Rather, it is consciousness
that creates the appearance of the brain as well
as the body and everything else around us we interpret
as physical. Such a turnabout in the way we view
biological structures has caused researchers to point
out that medicine and our understanding of the healing
process could also be transformed by the holographic
paradigm.
If
the apparent physical structure of the body is
but a holographic projection of consciousness,
it becomes clear that each of us is much more responsible
for our health than current medical wisdom allows.
What we now view as miraculous remissions of disease
may actually be due to changes in consciousness
which in turn effect changes in the hologram of
the body. Similarly, controversial new healing
techniques such as visualization may work so well
because in the holographic domain of thought images
are ultimately as real as "reality". Even visions
and experiences involving "non-ordinary" reality
become explainable under the holographic paradigm.
In
his book "Gifts of Unknown Things," biologist Lyall
Watson describes his encounter with an Indonesian
shaman woman who, by performing a ritual dance,
was able to make an entire grove of trees instantly
vanish into thin air. Watson relates that as he
and another astonished onlooker continued to watch
the woman, she caused the trees to reappear, then "click" off
again and on again several times in succession.
Although current scientific understanding is incapable
of explaining such events, experiences like this
become more tenable if "hard" reality is only a
holographic projection.
Perhaps
we agree on what is "there" or "not there" because
what we call consensus reality is formulated and
ratified at the level of the human unconscious
at which all minds are infinitely interconnected.
If this is true, it is the most profound implication
of the holographic paradigm of all, for it means
that experiences such as Watson's are not commonplace
only because we have not programmed our minds with
the beliefs that would make them so. In
a holographic universe there are no limits to the
extent to which we can alter the fabric of reality.
What we perceive as reality is only a canvas waiting
for us to draw upon it any picture we want.
Anything
is possible, from bending spoons with the
power of the mind to the phantasmagoric events
experienced by Castaneda during his encounters
with the Yaqui brujo don Juan, for magic is our
birthright, no more or less miraculous than our
ability to compute the reality we want when we
are in our dreams.
Indeed,
even our most fundamental notions about reality
become suspect, for in a holographic universe,
as Pribram has pointed out, even random events
would have to be seen as based on holographic principles
and therefore determined. Synchronicities or
meaningful coincidences suddenly makes sense,
and everything in reality would have to be seen
as a metaphor, for even the most haphazard events
would express some underlying symmetry.
Whether
Bohm and Pribram's holographic paradigm becomes accepted
in science or dies an ignoble death remains to be
seen, but it is safe to say that it has already had
an influence on the thinking of many scientists.
And even if it is found that the holographic model
does not provide the best explanation for the instantaneous
communications that seem to be passing back and forth
between subatomic particles, at the very least, as
noted by Basil Hiley, a physicist at Birbeck College
in London, Aspect's findings "indicate that we must
be prepared to consider radically new views of reality".