The Holographic Universe

[enoch]

Hawkings believed that matter or 'information' was 'blinked out' of existence when it entered a black hole. But he was confused about this because it defies a law of physics - that of conservation. To counter this, another theory claimed that information escapes the disintegrating black hole and is eventually filtered back into the universe (which would explain Hawkings radiation). But, alas, this also breaks another rule of physics. If information were to filter back into space it would have to travel faster than light speed to escape being swallowed by the crushing gravity of the singularity.

Then Julian Malcadena (a relatively unknown physicist) came along and set Hawking's mind straight. His theory is that of the holographic universe. A copy of everything (using string theory) exists at the boundary of the universe (call it an elter-ego if you will).

Physicists (for now) are willing to accept this theory and Hawking's Radiation is saved because it turns out to be a copy of the information falling into the hole. The info is radiated back into space and both scenarios are covered.

I've outlined this theory, because that's all I can do. I don't understand any more.

In nutshell (according to physics) we're a hologram. A laser copy if you will, of quantum events taking place at the edge of the universe.

Does anyone know any more about this theory? or it's implications?

[oath]

The theory is that information is lost through a black whole (information being the componets of the matter in question, to varying combinations of its ... molecular biology). The theory that disproves is the one of parallel universes. Because in that universe there would be no black hole, hence no lost information. Steven hawking apparently announced that he was wrong all along, but he did it in a very peculiar way, almost as if he was... mad or something. idk i hate to say that about the guy but it was... insane the way he came up and said it.

[enoch]

He had a bet with another physicist that his theory was correct. They bet an encyclopedia of each man's choosing. When he came to accept Malcadena's theory he presented the physicist with an encyclopedia of baseball at a conference in Ireland. Far from mad I'd consider a very humble act in light of how fiercely they hang onto their theories.

Does anyone know the quantum ins and outs of the holographic universe?

[journyman161]

I've been working through this idea for a while & know a little - some of it is here

I'm at work right now so can't spend much time but I'll come back...

There is hard evidence and math for holographic theory.

[enoch]

Cool, thanks Journyman.

There's a book called the "Holographic Universe", by Michael Talbot, that is quite interesting. I got about 3/4 through it a couple of years ago, and now can't remember a thing about it. Those synapses must have decayed through non-use.

[enoch]

New Scientist magazine (28th oct 2006) reports that it's such a mathematically precise theory that physicists are willing to accept it. problem is when it comes to maths I kinda shy away from learning because I'm hopeless at it. But to think that we're a holograph of events happening on the boundary of the universe is pretty exciting. There's another me out there One's enough (or so my wife tells me). There are two phg casts waggling about in the universe.

[journyman161]

Ah no, the one out there at the edge IS you. In the hologram there is no universe - it is all at the edge & we live in it, as if Princess Leia from the Star Wars hologram could be self-aware but still not see Luke Skywalker outside the holo.

Think of it as a 3D movie (to the actors) with the actors aware of what is going on in the movie but unable to even get a glimpse of the audience or the theatre. (Except in perhaps exceptional circumstances... (AP?)

Now if we are also holograms as suggested by research, then maybe consciousness is the 'laser' that activates the extra dimensions from the holo & makes it all real? We might be the 'actors' inserted in to the movie by the real beings outside it to live & learn & reach the end of our roles & hand the knowledge over to the audience

[enoch]

I quote from New Scientist: "...our universe might be something of a grand illusion - an enormous cosmic hologram." To quote the whole article would be tedious but the general gist is that black hole evaporation corresponds to quntum particles interacting on this boundary. It ges on to mention that the boundary doesn't just apply to the edge of the universe but a boundary is created anywhere where acceleration occurs, e.g: the eaerth, milky way, etc. It even applies to someone running in that there would be regions of space-time where light would never reach you if you continued to speed up. One of the most intriguing possibilities is that space-time itself is accelerating, which creates a boundary (or horizon) so it may be possible to decode what lies beyond our universe by decoding its emissions.

[journyman161]

The 'bleeding' of information from black holes is fairly new & speculative, more an idea of what may be behind the plumes of material or energy that apparently exit from the poles of black holes. If nothing can escape them, what are the plumes we see?

Quantum tunneling was one suggestion for how information may be re-entering the Universe, thus conserving the idea that information cannot be destroyed.

Hawking suggested recently that the solution is the existence of the multiverse & while I am unsure of the depths of his idea, it seems to be along the line that in an alternate universe, the black hole will not be there & thus the information will not be destroyed - that the universe without the BH will remain after the one with it passes on.

A problem for us with this is based on two bits of information.

1. We are finding BH's in virtually every galaxy we look at & we surmise that the ones where we don't see them, the BH system has gone 'passive' - this is based on finding BH's in galaxies we thought didn't have them, because we've found stars in the centre doing impossible speeds in impossible orbits.

A passive black hole system is one in which all the material close enough to be affected by the gravitational pull of the hole has been absorbed & the nearby mass is either too distant or moving too fast to be captured.

2. Newest theories & findings are that we now have a very good idea how galaxies form, & it appears they are caused by black hole formation. This comes from the interesting observation that, unlike our solar system where the outer planets move slower around the sun than the closer ones, the stars in the outer disk of the galaxies we're looking at are moving at the same speed as those in the centre.

It would seem that galaxies are formed from the primeval gas clouds when a Black Hole is formed triggering collapse of local density pockets into stars.

The evidence for a holographic plenum is from math & information theory - math tells us the possible density of information around a Black Hole (the Event Horizon) is measured in 2 dimensions - it can't be three because either that would mean part of it is not in the densest state (closest level) or it would be inside the Event Horizon.

If you run the math for how densely you can pack information into space, the math is 3D up to a point, then it 'collapses' out into 2D. If you imagine 3D computer chips being the info storage, you can add more & more to increase the info storage - the point where the math collapses is the point where the mass of computer chips causes a mass collapse into a black hole.

The interesting questions (for me at least) come when we add in the tidbit that the mind may also be a hologram. That we are holograms living within a holograph.

Holograms have some interesting properties, including what I think of as iteration - like a fractal, it 'repeats' itself no matter how small a slice of it you take. This opens up the possiblity that, if we are 'chips off the old block' we actually iterate the higher being in our selves.

What is a hologram? Well, the way we make them is to shine a number of lasers on a scene scene & record the output. To recreate the scene you shine one laser onto it & up comes the scene.

My wondering is that maybe consciousness is the 'laser' required to turn the holo into a scene; somehow consciousness operates to 'entangle' the potential cosmos & produce the 'reality' within which it can then perform & learn. This would allow for 'reality' being individual to the being & also explain why beings can share a reality