Government Researchers Think We May Be Living in a 2D Hologram

a reply to: TruthxIsxInxThexMist

Nope haven't seen that show but that's an interesting thought you had reg. imprisoning ourselves. I think the why of us being here is interesting if we're a hologram. If it's programmed can the programmer give us free will? limited free will? I think of us sometimes as ants on a sidewalk. We only know what we can see from the sidewalk but beyond that...

a reply to: 3n19m470

What if all the video games being made in the world manifest in their own alternate reality? Like simply by programming it comes to be in some plane invisible to us?

originally posted by: weirdguy
The idea that reality is just an illusion goes waaaayyy back. This is just a modern scientific approach to the hypothesis.

I've always wondered how Herman Melville wrote the line in Moby Dick that I use for my signature. Seems like something people have known intuitively for millennia, without having any real proof other than their instinct that this is all an illusion.

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
Hologram, when used metaphorically, is a perfect descriptive.

Its all about uncertainty, and collapse of the wave function. The metaphorical hologram.

Then the question becomes: how? Is it a property of the universe, or is the universe a property of it? At that point you are getting pretty far out into the deep waters.

Ahh, the classic questions that are framed and put together to keep you in a box, a box full of water ??

How about actually trying to find out WHAT you are, that will lead you far beyond the "water".

I didn't know they were already testing for the holographic universe theory. If it is true, it is definitely something to follow. Who put us here and for what purpose? I have wondered if the Grey aliens are some kind of researchers or keepers.

I didn't know the government was interested in this.

A little ridiculous if you ask me but if this could be 2D then only god knows what the hell a dream could be

Operating with cutting-edge technology out of a trailer in rural Illinois, government researchers started today on a set of experiments that they say will help them determine whether or not you and me and everything that exists are living in a two-dimensional holographic universe.

That sounds like the kind of text that would be scrolling upwards to a Cheech and Chong movie, or a Bill and Ted's excellent adventure

There's a theory that all the particles in the universe are really just one single long energy wave (or string), but that it exists in our dimensions in the same way that thread is stitched through a piece of cloth. It looks like multiple pieces of thread, but in reality, it is just a single thread. To us, every particle seems to be a single exclusive point in our three dimensions, but if higher dimensions exist, all these points could be connected.

originally posted by: Illiberation
... only god knows what the hell a dream could be

That right there is what makes this idea plausible. Dreams tend to feel real and have a sense of being 3-dimensional, but it's all constructed within your mind. You aren't really standing in front of class naked while being attacks by demonic birds, but it FEELS SO REAL. Everything we experience in 'real life' could be something along the same lines, a projection coming from a 1-d point (singularity) or 2-d surface. When reality comes down to being just slightly more real than a dream, and dreams are just mental constructs, who's to say what the source of our perception of reality actually is.

Perhaps the Big Bang was nothing more than a singularity turning on it's projector. Maybe that would explain why multiverse theories and hypothesies work so well, maybe they are all projected from the same source as well, yet linked at a 0- or 1-dimensional level.

For the record, I have no idea what I'm talking about. Any type of "cite your source" or "this quantum equation shows that.." from anyone will be pointless.

I remember when Whitley Strieber asked the aliens about what was happening and the reality of it all, they merely said to him, "I am the dreamer and you are the dream". That made me think of that song someone else mentioned here, I think..."Life is but a dream".

Our existence is a mystery and part of the "fun" of being alive sometimes is to have that mystery to contemplate. In the scheme of things, would "knowing" be to our advantage. What would we do with this information and how vastly would it change us or would we simply be "erased".

The reason this particular theory falls apart so effortlessly is because we live in the 3rd dimension. How could this possibly be proven mathematically or any other way for that matter?

a reply to: robbystarbuck

This seems a bit odd, 40 meter interferometers? ROFL. NASA and other government organizations have had much larger interferometers for years. Personally, I've never found a 40 meter gravity wave perturbation in the last 20 years. Good luck to them, silly hoomans LOL.

Cheers - Dave

"... So things are a little blurry and jittery. Nothing ever just stands still, but is always moving a tiny bit."

Aha! I was right: it wasn't cataract!

To me it would fit into my understanding of super string theory and super super symmetry.. it all adds up unbelievably

Well considering that each persons individual reality is a construct of imagination and sensory input coalesced into a reality matrix we call perception or consciousness how is everything NOT a 2D hologram?

Even though we perceive in 3D thats just a reconstruction of partial reality in a completely black void in our brains as far as we can tell. The only light if you can even call it that are the microscopic neurons that fire when we think or think we are perceiving. These networks of electrical current somehow create our reality which we assume is the real world and the fundamental reality we all operate in. We could all be brains in jars or there could be no we at all.

It might all just be some lunatics crazy dream..or just a highly evolved reality simulation with AI that think they are real....And as another poster has already pointed out how can you prove the unreality of reality with the same unreal tools of an unreal universe. Its an exercise in stupidity, the only way to know for sure is to observe the universe from OUTSIDE which is impossible because you are a part of a system you cannot leave. If you somehow left it whatever you entered into would still be the universe because you are there to observe it.

Consciousness itself is a paradox. Consciousness trying to understand the reality that spawned consciousness is in my (worthless to anybody but me) opinion the height of arrogance and stupidity. Which tend to go hand in hand.....

A paradox is only a paradox when info is missing.

Quantum physics told (or hinted at) this long ago... there were limits to measurement where it got fuzzy... and then computer science added it's piece.

Interesting to know and if true, even if a little, then a few things make more sense... but the question then arises, why?

Is there anything NOT a simulation? Is there a primary, real "place?" Is our simulation recreational, or educational... or both? Neither? An overlay, or augmented reality, as Tetra offered?

I remember when my father died the first time, he was sure he experienced a more "real" reality... I sometimes feel the illusion strongly... but had chalked that up to too many exotic chemicals.

When one extrapolates on our tech and where it will be in 50, 100, 100,000 years... it is not any surprise, as we could already be in an historical simulation from 5,023 A.D.... and they could be in one, too.

As AL said, and a few wise souls before him... truly turtles all the way down.

Oh, and to the guy who wondered if people thought of this before the Matrix... yes, they had.

"US Government Researchers"

How very generic and yet authoritative sounding

a reply to: ParasuvO

"How about actually trying to find out WHAT you are, that will lead you far beyond the "water".

What if "you" find out you are simply strings of equations? A program? All we know are bits of info... we are what we sense.

The question is are we something more? How could we know? Does it matter?

Perhaps some of us ARE something more... perhaps some are just acquired info.

It's early where I am, and before my coffee I sure feel like a slightly defective program.

a reply to: systemic.aberration

I liked your projector analogy for the singularity event. It made me think about the stories about telling the dead to go towards the light or for those that have had NDEs, stating they seen the light but didnt enter. They returned to continue 'life'. One can go on and on with using a holographic theory to explain the majority of paranormal or spiritual experiences. Glitches in the system? Or purposely added for effectual dissonance?

I have to admit the idea of it all being a hologram, is definitely a fun exercise in what if!

I see a connection.

a reply to: jonnywhite

If reality is simulated, then it is still real. To some degree, if you can sense it or think it, then it is real. That which is inconceivable is real too. Are we a hologram or computer simulation? I don't know the means of God's creation or His instruments of action, but if we are holograms or computer simulations, then still, we are real. What makes something real? Existence. Regardless of how something exists, and idea or something physical, it exists nonetheless, even in the mind.