The mind as an hologram

ALEJANDRO MELO-FLORIÁN
Internal Medicine Specialist – Pontificia Universidad Javeriana
Bogotá D.C., Colombia
Competing interest: None
E-mail: alejandromeloflorian@gmail.com

Updating versions in:

http://knol.google.com/k/alejandro-melo-florián/the-
mind-as-an-hologram/3sktw3ldc86j2/130
How to quote this article:
Melo-Florián, Alejandro. The mind as an hologram [Internet]. Versión 11. Knol. 2011 mar 29.
Disponible en: http://knol.google.com/k/alejandro-melo-florián/the-mind-as-an-
hologram/3sktw3ldc86j2/130.

Abstract
Denis Gabor discovered the mathematical principle of holography in 1947, based
on the calculation of Leibnitz, to describe the three-dimensional photograph, but
the demonstration of the holographic image had to wait until the creation of a
laser. Interestingly, arises the holographic model of consciousness according to
which consciousness is not stored in any special place in the brain. According to
the holographic view of Karl Pribram, many sectors of the brain may participate in
any representation, although he admits that certain regions play a more prominent
role in certain functions.

What is holography?
Holography is a method of photography without a lens where the light wave field
scattered by the interference of an object is caught in a plate. When the
photographic record is exposed to a beam of coherent light-the laser-regenerates
the original wave pattern, resulting in a three dimensional image.
Additionally, the absence of plate lenses make the image appear as a pattern
(2). Lyall Watson describes the principle of holography:

"If you throw a stone into a pond it will produce a series of regular
waves that move in concentric circles. If you throw two identical
stones in different parts of the pool there will be two similar series of
waves moving towards each other. As they move, they interfere one
 another. If the crest of a ridge collides with another, work together and
produce a stronger wave, with twice the height. If the crest of a match
within the other, they cancel each other and produce a oasis of calm
water. In fact there is every possible combination of both, and the end
result is a complex arrangement of curls, known as interference
pattern. (...) Light waves behave the same way. The rate purest light we
have is that produced by a laser, which sends a beam in which all
waves are often (...) When played two laser beams produce an
interference pattern of light and dark curls that can be collected on a
photographic plate. And if one of the spokes, instead of proceeding
directly from the laser is reflected from an object such as a human
face, the resulting pattern is very complex, but still be registered. The
record will be a hologram face "3.

Karl Lashley, the eminent neuropsychologist mid-twentieth century, in his life as a

researcher of the nervous system, was particularly influenced by the
neuroanatomist Shepherd Ivory Franz, who was skeptical about the location of the
conduct in certain areas of the nervous system, which means not ascribed the
locations.
Among the findings was that of Franz destruction in the frontal lobes of mammals
not learned behavior eliminated by them, unless the destruction was massive,
which led to speculation that ingrained habits tend to persist in almost all cases
and that even those with extensive tissue damage could learn again.
Analyzing these claims, basically the aim is to support the fact that they could not
be attributed to patterns of conduct certain specific cortical regions.
This model was developed on the basis that brain science has to do with the
science of consciousness. Holographic models of human consciousness require
neurophysiologists taking into account developments in the same order of
magnitude as in quantum mechanics.
There is nothing inherent in any aspect of science that excludes consideration of
the merger between neurophysiology and phenomenology of consciousness, so
that in attempting to unravel the mystery of the interaction of mind interacting with
matter, it has been necessary focus on quantum events that occur at neuronal and
between neurons and the brain (4).

Holographic model of consciousness

The holographic model of consciousness says that consciousness is not stored in

any special place in the brain, but throughout the brain and whenever the
information is used, it is a selection taken from all sides, just as happens to the
brain from outside hologram (5).
The results of research in different centers have shown that the brain structures
analyzed sensory information through a complex mathematical analysis of
temporal and spatial frequencies.
This statement immediately follows from the fact that reality may be different
than the traditionally accepted, and hence, further follows that if reality were not
distorted by our vision, we would know a world organized on the field frequency no
space or time, consisting only of events, as postulated by the researcher physicist
Karl Pribram.
Another derivation of this new approach is that it is actually the brain's own
representations, his abstractions, amounts to a state of the universe. Although the
holographic model has evoked for investigative evidence has emerged the
question of who looks at the hologram, "the ghost in the machine", the "who
watches television," Crick about when a woman asked him as contained she who
saw the world, and replied that "probably have somewhere in his head something
like a TV," when he asked "Who was watching the TV?" highlighted the problem.

The "who looks" the hologram raises a dualistic previously described by

Descartes, when he said the "conscience of his thoughts as he appealed to their
environment." "I am aware of things around me, but who is aware of things in me to
record my thoughts, who handled my mental pictures when I think of them?.
The philosopher Daniel Dennett, quoted by Nigel Thomas, called the issue the
"problem of Hume", which posed an inner self -an homunculus-, which can not be
equated with the external representations because such representations and its
vicissitudes are a part of the entire person (6).

The phenomenon raises that external reality is a construct of the mind justified,
not known as such, but inferred from direct objects of knowledge, which would be
the sense impressions or appearances. These "appearances" arising from the
constant activity of the understanding by acting on sensory data. The world of
phenomena is one in which what is known is the way in which things appear, but
not the way things are in themselves (7). Note for example as in some languages
there are analogies between thing and thought in the English words thing-thing,
think, think, or Ding-German thing, Denke (n)-think.
Hologrammatic beings every part of our body is a bridge with two orders:
individual identity in contact with the secondary order, and the holonomy, that part
of the whole. These structures each of us literally reflect all structures of the
Universe, like the Buddhist allegory of Indra's net, which speaks of an endless plot
threads running through the universe: the horizontal traverse space, and vertical
time.

Every intersection of wires is an individual, and each individual is like a pearl,

which in turn reflects the image of all others, and similarly, all reflections of the
universe.

According to the thinker Rudolph Hofstadter, this has a resemblance with

renormalized particles, so that each electron so attached virtual photons, positrons,
neutrinos, muons, in each photon is virtual so electrons, pions, protons, neutrons,
and thus on.
Arises then the analogy of a person reflected in the thinking of many others, who in
turn are reflected, so also. The image of these situations could be represented by
so-called "Augmented Transition Networks - ATN, in which each network would
contain appeals to many others, creating a network virtual swarm around each
ATN; thus ATN the process would reach a magnitude large (8). Similarly, Teilhard
de Chardin refers to:

"The things have their inside. I am convinced that both views should
be taken to join, and will soon do so in the physical type of
phenomenology or generalized in both the domestic side of things as
the design of the world will be taken into account. Otherwise, in my
opinion, it is impossible to cover all the cosmic phenomena in a
coherent explanation "

The German poet Rudolf Peyer in a fragment of the poem "Stormy Flight" by
quoting the following excerpt, also evokes the concept holographic. Leaving to
Peyer:

"Hängend nun / am senkblei Gottes / der unter dach der welt / mit dem
Himmel / nach unten.

Hanging now / in the plumb line of God / under the roof of the world /
the sky / down. "(9)

According to the holographic view of the physicist Karl Pribram, all sectors of the
brain may participate in any representation, although he admits that certain regions
play a more prominent role in certain functions. Just as it is possible superposition
of many holograms can also be stacked in the brain an infinite number of images.

Although the holographic model has generated skepticism, some neuroscientists

are sympathizing with the aim of Pribram to demonstrate that the nervous system
is not limited to be a set of procedures for processing information and that there is
a likelihood that some forms of knowledge are important disseminated widely
throughout the brain. The psychologist Howard Gardner intelligence expert Eric
Hart quotes about proposing a limited holography in order to avoid potholes
holographic plot of a general explanation which refers to:

"What most intrigues scholars of the brain in relation to holography is

your property distributed memory, where every fragment of the
hologram says something about the proportions of the scene it
represents, without any fragment is essential." (10)

All individuality is individuality in communion. Quoted by Wilber, Varela "relates to

the notion of" structural coupling "the individuality of a biological system is relatively
autonomous, but the form of autonomy emparajada structurally changing
environment; to Varela that is to say now is that individuality the result of
evolutionary communions.

The nervous system as part of an organism operates with structure

determination, so that the structure of the medium can not specify the changes, but
only trigger them. Although we as observers incidentally we have access to both
the nervous system as the medium in which it operates, in some way describe the
behavior of the organism as if from the functioning of the nervous system with
representations of the environment or as an expression of any intent on achieving
some goal, which this description, according to Varela & Maturana, does not reflect
the operation of the nervous system itself but only have communicative value to us
as observers (11).

Through the lens of the wilberian holons as wholes / parts, and according to
Hosfstadter organizational levels, it "implies new entities ontologically beyond
the elements of where her process of self-organization" (12).

There are many implications of the holographic paradigm: certain states of

consciousness are more facilitators than others to achieve resonance with the
primary order. Harmonious and coherent states of consciousness and feel love,
empathy, unity, deep meditation, prayer, creativity, are, for example, states closest
to holonomic.

In human relationships the holonomic states can occur when a strong

experience of love and empathy "permeates" ego boundaries that allow to be in
resonance with the "other" and this "other" you "than" I " who is this "I" in the realm
of "between", just as proposed by the philosopher Martin Buber.

Given these considerations, the holographic theory of the brain supports access
to a state of consciousness that accesses the primary order in which it is possible
to establish a genuine link with others to overcome the solitude and discourse in
the category of "individual" in a community of "individuals" through a dialogic
communication. This dialectical dialogue "I-Thou" reciprocity based subjects who
speak in terms of the logic of identity that allows a harmonious, peaceful, without
contradictions, paradoxes, and ambiguities chances.

Simultaneously, the permeability to order the advent of primary and harmonious

state, thereby conserving the dialogue between individuals, to understand the
metaphysical conception of personality, his love of the subject inherent in the
relationship is worth the redundancy subjective, "that is characteristic psychology,
sociology and other human sciences (13).

References

1. LASER: Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission Radiation

2. The Brain-Mind Bulletin: La nueva perspectiva de la realidad.
Capítulo 1. En: & Wilber K, Bohm D, Pribram K, Keen S, Fergusson
M, Capra F, Weber R y otros: El Paradigma Holográfico. Una
exploración en las fronteras de la Ciencia. 3ª Ed. Edit. Kairós,
Barcelona. 1992. pp. 13-25
3. Citado en: Fergusson M: La Realidad cambiante de Karl Pribram.
Capítulo 2. En: Wilber K, Bohm D, Pribram K, Keen S, Fergusson M,
Capra F, Weber R y otros: El Paradigma Holográfico. Una
exploración en las fronteras de la Ciencia. 3ª Ed. Edit. Kairós,
Barcelona. 1992. pp. 27-41
4. & Wilber K, Bohm D, Pribram K, Keen S, Fergusson M, Capra F,
Weber R y otros: El Paradigma Holográfico. Una exploración en las
fronteras de la Ciencia. 3ª Ed. Edit. Kairós, Barcelona. 1992. pp. 161
5. Bohm D: El Universo Plegado-Desplegado. Entrevista por Renée
Weber. Capítulo 5. En: Wilber K, Bohm D, Pribram K, Keen S,
Fergusson M, Capra F, Weber R y otros: El Paradigma Holográfico.
Una exploración en las fronteras de la Ciencia. 3ª ed. Edit. Kairós,
Barcelona. 1992. pp. 65-142
6. Thomas NJT: Coding Dualism: Conscious Thought Without
Cartesianism. Home Page: Imagination, Mental Imagery,
Consciousness, Cognition: Science, Philosophy & History.
7. Wartofsky MW: Introducción a la filosofía de la ciencia. 2ª Edición.
Editorial Alianza Universidad. Madrid, 1983. pp. 146
8. Hofstadter DR: Gödel, Escher, Bach. Un eterno y grácil bucle.
Tusquets Editores, Barcelona, 1998. pp 288
9. Peyer, R: Gewitterflug (Vuelo tormentoso). Versión española de
Antonio Zubiaurre. En: Eco - Revista de la Cultura de Occidente
1962; tomo IV 4: pp. 340
10. Gardner, H: La nueva ciencia de la mente. Historia de la Revolución
Cognitiva. Reimpresión Paidós, Barcelona, 1996. pp 308
11. Maturana H, Varela F, Behncke R: El árbol del conocimiento. 13
Edición. Editorial Universitaria S.A. Santiago de Chile, 1996. pp 87
12. Wilber K: Sexo, Ecología, Espiritualidad. El alma de la evolución.
Volumen I Gaia Ediciones, Madrid 1996. pp. 63, 90
13. Garzón-Mendoza, R: Ensayos Críticos de Filosofía Histórica-Política
y del Derecho. Imp. Dptal Valle. Cali, Colombia, 1985. pp. 681-683