Science is moving from Materialism to Idealism and that's good news!

reply to post by Astrocyte

The "neural cascade" you describe isn't merely a cascade, but a flow of information which follows a logical and linear pathway, necessarily beginning with brain areas that process vision, and ending with the secretion of hormones that increase attention to the stimulus.

.... i have been mulling this over for a bit now, and i must raise a contention with your use of "logical and linear". unless i am mistaken, what you have stated is the exact opposite of what is really going on.

for when the attention to the stimulus has been achieved, another neural cascade is initiated. if we tighten this up to the infintesimal limit of the system (the synapse-gap-length, maybe?), it is easy to see that the entire system is a giant feedback-loop which is far better described as noise than information. this is again supported when we consider that each neuron does not fire its signal off to a single location, but rather, multiple locations.... very very noisy indeed.

and so, while it is true that if we trace a single signaling cascade the brain appears to function on the principles of information theory, this is not the case. in fact, the collective feedback noise of the system generates a state. when we consider the organism's experience of all of this, we are forced to conceed that the human brain, and indeed the whole body, operates on the principles of chaos theory.

going back to your quote... it is certainly NOT logical and linear.

reply to post by neoholographic


I did learn/attempt to learn about these things. I think claiming the universe is 2d and a hologram is a knee jerk reaction (towards some mathematical gymnastics). Explain how (let alone all the objects) 1 object, for example a bowling ball, can be 2d? Ok I guess thats the wrong way of me looking at it, you are saying its not that a bowling ball is 2d, its that a bowling ball is 3d, but only a 3d informational projection, hmmm. meaning that there is a screen, with a quantity of pixels equaling the '2d' dimensions of the universe, I assume you are claiming the dimension of width is time the 3rd dimension of time, and the entire universe exists on a plane, and are you claiming its not moving at all, but that the light shining on the 2d screen making the projection of the universe, is what is moving, or the pixels on the 2d screen are moving, and right now, there are pixels moving on the screen, bazillion of them to make my fingers type?

reply to post by ImaFungi


Asked and answered several times.

The problem here is that you think the true nature of reality has to be boxed in to the subjective way that you perceive or as "it appears to be." Sadly for you, history is littered with people who thought reality had to be a certain way based on their subjective perception of it.

People said the sun rises and sets therefore the sun must revolve around the earth. This wasn't the case, just a mistaken perception. This goes from Newton, to Einstein to Quantum Mechanics. Each step of the way there have been people who just knew that Newton applied down to microscopic scales or the quantum mechanics was just too weird. Again, our perception tells us when we shoot a particle through a slit in the double slit experiment, it should be like shooting baseball's at a wall and there should be a clumping in the area that you're shooting the particles. Instead, when the particle isn't being measured it behaves like a wave and there's this thing called non locality that Einstein called "spooky action at a distance."

The point is, it makes no sense in 2013 to stay in a box of your subjective perception of reality based on the history of science and people proclaiming the universe must conform to my subjective perception of it. It's a modern day version of Plato and the Cave.

The Bowling Ball is an illusion because if it was an objective 3 dimensional object it would exceed maximum entropy. There's a boundary that tells us how much entropy can be contained in matter and energy occupying a volume of space. It turns out that this limit isn't determined by an objects volume but a 2 dimensional surface boundary 1/4 the size of it's volume. So if a bowling bowl couldn't exist as an objective 3 dimensional object because it would exceed maximum entropy and collapse into a black hole.

Again, this isn't conjecture it's just physics.

There's thermodynamic entropy or what some call Boltzmann entropy and there's Shannon entropy. Boltzmann entropy gives us the number of distinct microscopic states that your bowling bowl could be in while still looking like the same bowling ball.

It turns out, this limit isn't determined by it's volume but a 2 dimensional surface boundary. If the bowling ball was an objective 3 dimensional object it would exceed maximum entropy allowed for that volume of space.

It gets even deeper.

The thermodynamic entropy limit corresponds to Shannon entropy. So Boltzmann entropy reflects the amount of Shannon information one would need to implement any particular arrangement. This information is encoded in a 2 dimensional surface boundary. Thermodynamic entropy is expressed in units of energy divided by temperature whereas Shannon entropy is expressed in terms of bits.

So the information or bits needed to arrange your bowling ball is encoded in a 2 dimensional surface boundary and not it's volume. So the 3rd dimension is an illusion or hologram of this information and arrangement.

I'm looking at a cup sitting on my table. If my cup was made of matter, it would exceed maximum entropy and collapse into a black hole. It has to be a hologram or a phantasm. So my cup is information encoded on a surface boundary that describes the arrangement of my cup.

reply to post by neoholographic


You use the same simple yet must likely false quips of statements, exceed maximum entropy and turn into a black hole; and, information encoded on 2d surface area that describes the volume. Both of these arguments are wrong. The 2d surface area saying of yours is probably wrong because you are using values that are ^3, which is a mathematical symbolic way of expressing 3 d volume, just because you can symbolize things in shortcuts and such, doesnt mean reality is the shortcut you use to more easily understand it. It is impossible for the universe to be a hologram. Take the earth for example, where are you suggesting the information of the earth exists (the rocks,water, mountains, people, buildings and birds and human minds, from quantum to material), where is the 2d screen, because the earth is just a holographic projection right, so what direction is the projector and screen, and is the projector projecting light? A different kind of light then that which is made in stars and microwaves and at radio stations and doctors x rays? How is it being projected? And how does the hologram interact with itself at a gigagillion different points at all times? When I get up and leave my house and walk down the street, where is this event being processed and created, what is choosing for this to occur? ignore the first part of this response and focus on these last bundle of questions, if you ignore these questions I will reply with these exact same questions. I am trying to have a discussion with you, giving you the benefit of the doubt that you know the truth and what you are talking about. I head your 2 heavily repeated talking points, now I am asking you more in depth questions.

reply to post by ImaFungi


What are you talking about?

I explained it to you in simple English. If you will not take the time to try and understand what I'm saying and just keep making these silly proclamations of denial, I'm not going to waste any more time with you. What is it that you don't understand? Again, I explained it to you in simple English and you don't try to understand you just say silly things like this:

It is impossible for the universe to be a hologram.

With all due respect, this has to be one of the most ignorant statements I have heard so far in this debate. And this statement just shows that your mind is closed so what's the point?

Anyone who says the Holographic universe is impossible doesn't understand it. Does that mean the holographic universe is the final answer? No, but to claim it's impossible is just mind boggling.

Like I said earlier, history is littered with people who claim things are impossible.

If you think there's an objective 3 dimensional reality, prove it. Show me the equations that say the entropy of a system is determined by it's 3 dimensional volume.

Again, you keep asking for things like projectors and this shows you haven't tried to understand what is being said. We're talking about black hole thermodynamics, thermodynamic entropy and Shannon entropy. What projectors are you talking about? What does that have to do with anything that I have said?

Here's an old article from 2003 that goes over the basics. Of course you're not going to read it because the objective isn't to understand what's being said. It's just to deem things impossible that doesn't match your simple subjective perception of the universe.

This viewpoint invites a new look at venerable questions. The information storage capacity of devices such as hard disk drives has been increasing by leaps and bounds. When will such progress halt? What is the ultimate information capacity of a device that weighs, say, less than a gram and can fit inside a cubic centimeter (roughly the size of a computer chip)? How much information does it take to describe a whole universe? Could that description fit in a computer's memory? Could we, as William Blake memorably penned, "see the world in a grain of sand," or is that idea no more than poetic license?
Remarkably, recent developments in theoretical physics answer some of these questions, and the answers might be important clues to the ultimate theory of reality. By studying the mysterious properties of black holes, physicists have deduced absolute limits on how much information a region of space or a quantity of matter and energy can hold. Related results suggest that our universe, which we perceive to have three spatial dimensions, might instead be "written" on a two-dimensional surface, like a hologram. Our everyday perceptions of the world as three-dimensional would then be either a profound illusion or merely one of two alternative ways of viewing reality. A grain of sand may not encompass our world, but a flat screen might.

www.sufizmveinsan.com...

Do you understand what's being said? Have you even tried to understand any of the lectures and videos that I've posted?

I have to admit, it irks me when someone deems something impossible and they don't even understand it. So people like Susskind, Greene and Bekenstein are idiots because you say it's impossible?

These people are not infallible and there's nothing wrong with saying, I don't accept the holographic principle because a 3 dimensional object can exceed maximum entropy and this paper or study shows why. That's a logical counter argument vs. just saying it's impossible because I don't understand it. I have better debates with my 5 year old nephew about the Teen Titans Christmas special.

Again, the things I'm saying have nothing to do with projectors. This is why I keep talking about things like black hole thermodynamics, Shannon entropy and thermodynamic entropy. This has nothing to do with projectors creating a hologram.

One more time, I ask you to watch this lecture from Leonard Susskind titled The World as a Hologram. If you pay attention, you will realize your question about projectors doesn't make any sense.



It always amazes me how materialist can claim that consciousness is an emergent property of the material brain with zero evidence but they can't grasp the limits of thermodynamic entropy occupying a volume of space.

Susskind gives a simple illustration of entropy that's very helpful. If you had a bath tub full of water what information would you need to describe that water? You would need simple things like how hot is the water and the volume of the water. Is there enough water in the tub?

Susskind describes entropy as hidden information. If you were to take a microscope and look at this water on a molecular level you would see this hidden information. This hidden information or entropy determines what macroscopic information you will see and experience. So if the entropy or hidden information is ordered, you might see ice, if it's more disordered you'll see water.

Bekenstein discovered that that the amount of entropy or hidden information isn't proportional to it's volume but a surface boundary 1/4 the size of it's volume. Some people thought entropy was proportional to volume. So atoms or bits of information would have a one to one correspondence with the volume of say a bathtub of water. This isn't the case.

So the thermodynamics or entropy of a 3 dimensional object is proportional to a 2 dimensional surface boundary 1/4 the size of it's volume. So if we were to say the entropy of your bowling ball is proportional to it's volume. then that would just be a lie. Like I said, this is just physics. That bowling ball can't have an objective existence in the 3rd dimension because if it existed it would violate thermodynamics. It would exceed maximum entropy and collapse into a black hole.

So the volume of the 3rd dimension(hot water,full bathtub) is projected by the entropy of a lower dimensional "reality" or the hidden information. In other words, the maximum amount of information that can be held in a region of space like the room your sitting in is proportional to the area of the walls in the room in planck units. So the 3 dimensional volume in your room can't exist or it would exceed maximum entropy allowed for the region of space you're sitting in.

reply to post by neoholographic


Yea I watched that lecture a year or two ago, think I left a bunch of questions and "this is wrong and dumb" on the comments then. Came across it because I was watching a bunch of Susskinds lectures at Stanford. The whole argument is a logical fallacy, it is basing its premise off of a posited theory about the event horizon of a black hole, which it is misinterpreting, and then using that to describe then entirety of the universe. What is this you keep saying about maxmium entropy and creating a black hole, a 3d object cant exist in a hologram because it will create a black hole; does that mean black holes were 3d objects that exceeded maximum entropy (in your/their theory)? If the universe is 2d or a 3d hologram, then what kind of activity occurs for the 3d event you state exceeds max entropy and turns into a black hole, how is that possible and what is going on? Can you explain how you only need 2 dimensions to describe the volume of a 3d object? What is your view on subatomic particles, atoms and quarks, what are these? What do you mean by holographic, you said no projection but then you mention projection nearing the end of your reply, is the world and you and me 3d, but as a hologram and all the information is 2d, or is the world you and me 2d, and a hologram, and all the information is 2d? you know the earth is 3d right, so you are saying the earth is a hologram, a projection appearing 3d, so if there exists a point on earth, and it is surrounded by atoms in front of it, behind it, under it and above it, how is the hologram creating 3d layers like that, yet within the 3d hologram, each part or point has 3 dimensions of freedom to move about each other, and all this informational activity comes from at the quantum level, or outside the universe?

reply to post by ImaFungi


What??

You're not making any sense. You said:

The whole argument is a logical fallacy, it is basing its premise off of a posited theory about the event horizon of a black hole, which it is misinterpreting, and then using that to describe then entirety of the universe.

You make these sweeping proclamations that are essentially meaningless like "it's impossible" or "it's dumb."

You said the whole argument is a logical fallacy, what argument exactly? What's being misinterpreted? What posited theory about the event horizon are you speaking of?

Do you have evidence that the entropy of a 3 dimensional object like your bowling ball is proportional to it's volume? If not, how can you show that your bowling ball has a 3 dimensional existence. You keep saying it's because it appears to be. Excuse me if I trust the laws of physics over your subjective perception of the universe.

Also, matter is mostly empty space. When my hand touches this hard table, it's the electrons of my hand repelling against the electrons of the table. So my perception says I'm touching a hard table but I can't show that the table is a solid objective object that exist outside of my perception of what constitutes a hard table.

Again, if you have scientific evidence that the entropy of my table is proportional to it's volume, then I would like to hear it. If not, how can you show that my table has an objective existence outside of my perception of what constitutes a hard table?

reply to post by neoholographic


These are the questions you ignored, the only things I wanted you to answer in my last post:

What is this you keep saying about maxmium entropy and creating a black hole, a 3d object cant exist in a hologram because it will create a black hole; does that mean black holes were 3d objects that exceeded maximum entropy (in your/their theory)? If the universe is 2d or a 3d hologram, then what kind of activity occurs for the 3d event you state exceeds max entropy and turns into a black hole, how is that possible and what is going on?

Can you explain how you only need 2 dimensions to describe the volume of a 3d object? What is your view on subatomic particles, atoms and quarks, what are these?

What do you mean by holographic, you said no projection but then you mention projection nearing the end of your reply, is the world and you and me 3d, but as a hologram and all the information is 2d, or is the world you and me 2d, and a hologram, and all the information is 2d?

you know the earth is 3d right, so you are saying the earth is a hologram, a projection appearing 3d, so if there exists a point on earth, and it is surrounded by atoms in front of it, behind it, under it and above it, how is the hologram creating 3d layers like that, yet within the 3d hologram, each part or point has 3 dimensions of freedom to move about each other, and all this informational activity comes from at the quantum level, or outside the universe?

Quantum particles like quarks and electrons dont really exist, you are suggesting? There is no such thing as mass or energy? What is the hologram made out of? How is the illusion of a 3d reality achieved, or are you suggesting that 3d does exist, but as a hologram? So a bowling ball is 3d, but as a hologram? Or you are saying the entire appears to be physical universe is actually 2 d, like a bowling ball is completely flat, when i pick up a bowling ball I am picking up a bowling ball that is infinitely thinner and flatter then a piece of paper?

reply to post by ImaFungi


Nobody ignored them, most of these questions have been answered, the problem is you don't understand what you're reading or you just don't bother to read it or watch the videos because your mind is made up. When you make blanket statement like the holographic universe is impossible, it pretty much tells you all you need to know.

People like Greene, Susskind and Bekenstein are just idiots who are proponents of the impossible holographic universe because your simple perception of reality has to be correct. Again, history is littered with people who deem things impossible and at least some of these people actually make a scientific argument trying to refute what they claim is impossible.

Like I said, these guys are not infallible but in order to refute the holographic principle you need more than than saying the holographic universe is impossible because I think it's impossible. That's just nonsense in the context of this debate.

Again I ask, do you have any evidence that the entropy contained in matter like your bowling ball is proportional to the volume of space the bowling ball occupies? If not, where's the evidence that shows a 3 dimensional objective reality exists?

For instance, if I fill up a bathtub with water, the water would fill the volume of the bathtub. If you exceed the volume of the bathtub, the water will over flow.

In this case, water would be analogous of entropy. Scientist thought that there would be a one to one correspondence between entropy and the volume of space matter occupies. Scientist like Bekenstein showed this wasn't the case. The entropy contained in matter was proportional to a 2 dimensional surface boundary 1/4 the size of it's volume.

Back to the bathtub. This would be like filling the bathtub with water but stopping after it's a quarter of the way full. All of the information needed to describe a bathtub filled with water is contained in the water that's a quarter of the way full.

If you try to say entropy contained in matter is proportional to it's volume, you will run head first into physics. A bathtub filled with water will exceed maximum entropy and couldn't exist so volume is said to be a hologram or an illusion.

This is why many of your questions make no sense. When you ask about projectors and screens, it shows you're not even attempting to look over the information.

The reason I keep talking about things like black hole thermodynamics and Shannon entropy, is because the holographic principle doesn't say a the universe as a hologram is created the same way we make a hologram in a lab. It's saying that a lower dimensional reality can describe the thermodynamics of a higher dimension.

In the analogy above, the lower dimensional reality would be the water in the bathtub that's a quarter of the way full. This lower dimensional reality corresponds to the entropy needed to describe a tub filled with water.

So again I ask, do you have scientific evidence that shows entropy contained in matter is proportional to it's volume?

You also said, these Scientist just reached a knee jerk reaction. Are you serious? The debate between Hawking and Susskind went on for close to 20 years. These things go back to people like David Bohm and Karl Pribram. Bohm said this:

Bohm employed the hologram as a means of characterising implicate order, noting that each region of a photographic plate in which a hologram is observable contains within it the whole three-dimensional image, which can be viewed from a range of perspectives. That is, each region contains a whole and undivided image. In Bohm’s words:

"There is the germ of a new notion of order here. This order is not to be understood solely in terms of a regular arrangement of objects (e.g., in rows) or as a regular arrangement of events (e.g. in a series). Rather, a total order is contained, in some implicit sense, in each region of space and time. Now, the word 'implicit' is based on the verb 'to implicate'. This means 'to fold inward' ... so we may be led to explore the notion that in some sense each region contains a total structure 'enfolded' within it".[7]

en.wikipedia.org...

This can even go to Susskind speaking on entropy and hidden information.

Like I said earlier, I think this all leads to the inescapable conclusion that all is mind or knowing.

reply to post by neoholographic


Water filling a bathtub a quarter of the way would still be utilizing volume. My mind is not made up, and I dont have a simple view, I have just heard know sufficient argument or description as to how the universe being a hologram would actually work and function, which is why I asked the questions I did. Have you read my last post and answered my questions, if you want to do that it will be nice to discuss after you answer them.

Why was it surprising that water in a bathtub had maximum entropy or whatever, wouldnt that have to do with the thermodynamics of the water itself, and the room, and the relativity of the earth, and the fact that water is a pretty stable and long lasting molecule? How much questioning did you exude upon first hearing about this theory, how long was it until you hoped on board this truth train? and what were some of the critical thoughts and questions you had of the theory, or it is blatantly obvious, intuitive, self evident, and true?

hm maybe I just picked up on some of what you were trying to relay, about entropy where your talking about that, are you just saying that the small describes the large? Because thats obvious, the nature of atoms and knowledge of all the qualities of atoms and how they react molecularly gives an insight (after experimentation) into what might occur if those atoms are combined in large numbers to make materials. And those atoms which number in the 100s of type, are macro materials which can be known and understand and described by the smaller bits which make them up. Are you saying macro events can be described and known by the most fundamental quantum quark and electron and force nature of reality? Thats what your trying to say, that the fundamental and true nature is the smallest stuff of fundamental reality, and that the classical macro realm is 'less real' because it is but the result of the micro and fundamental interacting?

So reading your last sentence it appears you start with your conclusion or belief, and then seek a theory that best allows your belief to be potentially true.

reading the paragraph about was it bohm or deutsh, about implicte order and the whole contained in each part, where is this true that the macro is contained in the micro?

reply to post by ImaFungi


The problem here is, you're taking these analogies literally and for this reason it's hard to grasp what the science is actually saying. For instance, you said:

Water filling a bathtub a quarter of the way would still be utilizing volume.

This has nothing to do with the volume of water in the bathtub. This is why I said the water is analogous to entropy contained in matter.

It's simply showing how a lower dimensional reality can describe the thermodynamics of a higher dimensional universe. The water a quarter of the way full is an analogy of the lower dimensional reality that contains all of the information needed to describe a bathtub filled with water. This is analogous to how a lower dimensional reality(2 dimensional surface boundary) contains all the information to describe the thermodynamics of a higher dimensional universe(3 dimensional volume).

This conversation could end quickly if you just provide evidence that the entropy contained in matter is proportional to it's volume and not it's surface boundary.

At the end of the day, physics tells us that matter couldn't exist as an objective 3 dimensional object. If the matter contained in the 3 dimensional object was proportional to it's volume then it would exceed maximum entropy and collapse into a black hole. It really doesn't get much simpler than this.

If you have scientific evidence that says entropy of an object is proportional to it's volume, I'm ready to hear it.

neoholographic

This conversation could end quickly if you just provide evidence that the entropy contained in matter is proportional to it's volume and not it's surface boundary.

What does it mean for entropy contained in matter to be proportional to its volume, and what does it mean for it to be proportional to its surface boundary? How is the value of entropy determined in these scenarios, and how might the entropy contained in matter be if it were proportional to its volume?

reply to post by ImaFungi


For every planck area there's 4 units of entropy. When the calculations were done, they showed that the maximum entropy of a volume of space was determined by it's surface boundary instead of it's volume.

Let's take a hypothetical object that has 8 planck areas. This object would have 4 units of entropy per planck area. This corresponds to the maximum entropy allowed for that volume of space. In other words all of the entropy needed to describe the object is determined by a surface area 1/4 the size of it's volume.

Now you take that same object and you try to use the volume that it occupies. You see that it can't exist because it exceeds maximum entropy. It's volume would = 32 planck areas which would be 128 units of entropy. An object with 128 units of entropy couldn't exist in the volume of space that the object occupies. The object couldn't exist as an objective 3 dimensional reality.

reply to post by neoholographic


Why wouldnt that object be able to exist in the volume its the same 1 to 4 relationship as you started out with. I hope someone else that knows what your talking about comes on the thread to determine if that last reply has any validity or meaning, because im a bit confused.

A planck length has 4 units of entropy, what does that mean? A planck length is different then an object, are you considering a planck length is 3d or 2d? If a planck length is 2d what would its 4 units of entropy be? an object that takes up 8 planck lengths, would have its 32 units of entropy, and what is your mantra that entropy exceeds boundary limits or something. What is a unit of entropy? Give me an example with a real world object, an electron for example, how do units of entropy relate to an electron?

reply to post by neoholographic


"Happy New Year", Fingers crossed and maybe Scientists will eventually go from Theorism to Realism (Grin) they still dream about exploiting Mars, yet are still ignorant when it comes to Fungi and how such has the ability to actually communicate with roots of trees etc.