Holographic Nature of Our Brain

(…continued from Holographic Nature of Our Existence)

Is that a transparent fish I see swimming in front of me, or is it just a holographic projection created by my brain?  What about the lighted house behind me?  Is that real or yet another holographic hallucination?  My dog just stepped on my toes.  He’s a sixty-pound basset and his claws are digging into my foot.  Is he a holographic image stepping on my holographic toes?  And if my toes are holographic, what does that make me?

Of course, the argument can be made that EVERYTHING is a holographic projection from our holographic brains.  That’s because there is plenty of evidence as presented by neurophysiologist Dr. Karl Pribram that points to the theory that our brain is a highly sophisticated hologram itself.  In my last post, I talked about the nature of holography.  This post zeroes in on the nature of holography as it applies to the human brain.  Consider these factors:

1.  The memories residing in our brain are not preserved in any specific location.  There is no such thing as a one-to-one correspondence between an object and the location within the brain that it exists.  The memory of the object is scattered throughout the brain just as an image on a piece of holographic film is scattered in seemingly random, meaningless swirls of interference patterns.  This means that any partial lobotomy does not destroy specific memories at all as the specific

2.  Every portion of the brain also contains the entirety of the brain’s memories.  Just like a hologram, even small portions of the brain contains the brain’s memory in its entirety, albeit somewhat fuzzier and not as clear as when the entire brain is used to recall the memory.  Similar to the brain, when a fragment of a hologram is viewed, the image is rather blurry and not in focus, but nevertheless, it is still there.

3.  The brain is able to store a huge amount of information within a sphere the size of a large grapefruit.  According to physicist and mathematician Dr. John von Neumann, over the course of the average human lifetime, the brain stores 2.8 x 10 to the 20th (280,000,000,000,000,000,000) bits of information.  This staggering amount of storage capacity can be explained by comparing it with how holograms store information.  How this works is detailed by Michael Talbot in his groundbreaking work, The Holographic Universe.

Holograms possess a fantastic capacity for information storage. 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.  Any image thus recorded can be retrieved simply by illuminating the film with a laser beam possessing the same angle as the original two beams.  By employing this method researchers have calculated that a one-inch-square of film can store the same amount of information contained in fifty Bibles!*

4.  We have associative memory.  Seeing one object can trigger the memory of a completely different object if it has been associated with each other.  This can also be done with a holography recording technique where a light of a single laser beam is bounced of two objects simultaneously.  This light is then split and allowed to collide with each other, creating a unique interference pattern.  Thereafter, whenever a light is shined on one object, and that light is allowed to be passed over the film, a hologram of the other object will appear and vice-versa.

5.  We have recognitive memory.  We are able to recognize familiar objects and people, even after the object or people have changed in some drastic fashion.  This is because we use a very fast and reliable method of information processing called Fourier transforms (more about this later).  In the same way, several holography techniques have been developed that can also achieve this.  One of the methods, called interference holography achieves this by recording an image of an object onto a holographic film.  Later, when the object is viewed through the film, if any changes have occurred to the object, there will be a difference in the reflected light.  When viewing both the original and the image on the holographic film, the differences show up as the different reflected light on the object itself, which allows the viewer to be instantly aware of how the image looked previously and how much has changed.

Ugh…

Now I have to talk about Fourier transforms.

This is what it looks like.  Basically, it is a type of calculus invented by a dude named Fourier.

Needless to say, I am not good with calculus so I am not going to delve into the actual mathematics.  All we need to know is that it is a mathematical method of converting a pattern (doesn’t matter how simple or complex the pattern is) into a language of simple waves.

The top equation changes the pattern to waves.  The bottom equation changes the waves back to the original pattern.  This complex mathematics is how our brain changes light waves into interference patterns to be stored all over the brain.  When we need to retrieve the information, our brain uses the other Fourier transforms equation to change it back into waves again so that we can see the image via our brain cells in the visual cortex.

The same thing happens in our other sensory organs.  Taste, touch, hear, smell—they are all waves that must be transformed into interference patterns for our brain to process.  We use Fourier calculus all day long without even realizing that our brain is processing all this mathematics in the background.

Two things about this bothers me to some extent (not that I can do anything about it, but might as well admit it here for the record).

First, I like to think that I am in control of my brain, but the reality of the matter is, my control over myself is extremely minute compared to the harsh reality that the bulk of my brain is on auto pilot, doing heavy-duty complex things all day long without my even noticing or even knowing how it does all this.  That’s like being a front-end user of a very fast, very state-of-the-art computer (which is exactly what I am using right now) and having no clue how the computer does what it does.

Think about it.  I have very little control over most of what my brain is doing.  I have no idea how my brain is able to make sure all my antibodies are up and running to fight off all the germs that find their way into my body.  I don’t have to remember to breathe all the time, or blink, or keep my internal organs chugging along.  Sometimes, when I get an idea (or a song) in my head that keeps circling around and around, I can’t seem to shut it off.  It’s like I have a second mind, and it has a mind of its own, independent from me and what I wish to think.  Heck, all this Fourier mathematics that it can do on the fly, and instantaneously…if I had to try and figure all that math out using the part of my brain that I do control, I’d be completely deaf, blind, dumb, and unable to touch or smell.

Second, if everything that enters our mind is recorded as interference patterns, and then experienced as waves, that means everything is some form of a wave.  Of course, Einstein has said that everything is a wave, but this is taking it to the street level here.  We’re talking about a supposedly ‘difficult concept to visualize’ all of a sudden slam home in a way that is clear and simple and easy to understand.

All of a sudden, the idea of everything around us, including us, is all a huge complex hologram…all of a sudden, it’s clear and simple to see with nothing to shield me between the holographic nature of everything and the safe normal 3D world that I can sense all around me.

What mostly bothers me about this is that I cannot UN-SEE what I have seen, now that I have seen how reality is seen by my brain.  I cannot UN-KNOW what I know.  I just have to figure out how everything else fits around this holographic nature, and where I fit in the grand scheme of it all.

…

* Talbot, Michael.  The Holographic Universe.  New York, NY:  Harper Perennial.  1991.