Holographic Universe

Bikewer

Penultimate Amazing
Bikewer
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Anyone familiar with Michael Talbot and his "Holographic Universe" notions?

A fellow on another board is constantly quoting the guy. I checked Amazon's reviews, and it sounds like utter woo-woo psuedoscience, treading the same ground Fritjoff Capra did 30 years earlier with the Tao of Physics.

The Skeptic's Dictionary has a brief note in the "to be reviewed" section.
 
From what little I've read on it after a quick google search, it looks to be a new take on the ansible effect. (JS Bell Theorm)
He basically theorizes that if the ansible effect is in fact true, then objective reality does not exist, therefore it must be a hologram.

Seems like a bunch of wild speculative leaps to me...
 
I've actually got a copy of the book.

While I agree he does get quite a bit woo woo at times, there are interesting ideas in the book.

Also, he does not argue that reality is a hologram because of the ansible effect. He argues that the universe has a structure that could be described as holographic (he applies the same description to the brain). This does not mean unreal, but that each part of the whole contains the whole. As an example, a holographic crystal produces an image when a light is shown through it. Any piece of the hologram will show the same image, although smaller pieces show less detail (lower esolution). He basically applies the same ideas to the universe, which seems to be an interesting idea worthy of study.

However, he then goes on to make the link between brain hologram and universe hologram, and gets more woo woo from there.

Now, admittedly, it's been a while since I read this book, so I may be misremembering details. I'll spot check it tonight if anyone is interested.
 
Bikewer said:
Anyone familiar with Michael Talbot and his "Holographic Universe" notions?

A fellow on another board is constantly quoting the guy. I checked Amazon's reviews, and it sounds like utter woo-woo psuedoscience, treading the same ground Fritjoff Capra did 30 years earlier with the Tao of Physics.

The Skeptic's Dictionary has a brief note in the "to be reviewed" section.
Click to expand...

I liked the Tao of Physics.

I liked the Holographic Universe too.

There was an interesting article in, I believe, Scientific American about it a while back?? Something to do with entropy and surface area.
 
Something to do with entropy and surface area.
Click to expand...

It was something like: a black hole doesn't increase in volume linearly with the amount of matter that falls in - it's surface area increases linearly. Then there was something about how the entire entropy of a black hole is tied up in the event horizon, so you've got a 2d surface representing 3d matter. A bit like a hologram, which is a 2d plate projecting a 3d image.

David
 
Something I found here...

The word "ansible" was actually invented by Ursula K. Le Guin in 1966 in her novel Rocannon's World.

It is, in essence, a specialized radio that bypasses the Einsteinian limit of the speed of light. It would miss the point to say that the transmissions travel “faster than light,” as that implies that there could still be some delay between transmitter and receiver. There is no delay; communication is instantaneous.

This article then goes into tunneling and the EPR paradox.

So that's where the word came from.
 
odorousrex said:
From what little I've read on it after a quick google search, it looks to be a new take on the ansible effect. (JS Bell Theorm)
He basically theorizes that if the ansible effect is in fact true, then objective reality does not exist, therefore it must be a hologram.
Click to expand...

Hmm, I'd say that he theorizes that Aspect's experimental verification of instantaneous communication allows objective reality to exist, and he then likens objective reality to a hologram.

One then gets into the "is what-is infinitely divisible" problem.


The obverse is that if instantaneous communication does not in fact actually occur, objective reality does not exist.
 
hammegk said:


Hmm, I'd say that he theorizes that Aspect's experimental verification of instantaneous communication allows objective reality to exist, and he then likens objective reality to a hologram.

One then gets into the "is what-is infinitely divisible" problem.


The obverse is that if instantaneous communication does not in fact actually occur, objective reality does not exist.
Click to expand...

Why can't reality exist in portions that communicate with each other over time? If reality is just the relations between particles of energy, yet to be proven. Then it doesn't matter how many can interact, just that they do.

In inflation theory, particles that drop below the energy potential are very large in the later universe. I think that any, yet to be proved, instantaneous communication will be related to these very latge particles that potentiate in the early inflation. It is possible that some particles couls span a whole 'local area' like a galaxy.
 
There is always the issue of isotropy and the observational horizon, so I am still not sure why we need simutaneity to have 'reality'.

Maybe it is just a local phenomena.
 
That's what Bell's Theorem disproves; no simultaneity (without respect to distance) means objective reality doesn't exist.

Or, something is screwed up with Aspect's experimental results.
 
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