Mainstream physicists are talking about the possibility (quickly becoming a probability) that we are living in a hologram. Here are excerpts from two articles that I did not write but that you should read….
by Katie McCormick in the New Scientist, 3 May 2023…."In November 1997, a young physicist named Juan Maldacena proposed an almost ludicrously bold idea: that space-time, the fabric of the universe and apparently the backdrop against which reality pys out, is a hologram.
"For many working in the fields of particle physics and gravity at the time, Maldacena’s proposal was as surprising as it was ingenious. Before it was published, the notion of a holographic universe was “way out there”, says Ed Witten, a mathematical physicist at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton (IAS), New Jersey. “I would have described it as wild specution.”
"And yet today, just over 25 years on, the holographic universe is widely revered as one of the most important breakthroughs of the past few decades. The reason is that it strikes at the mystery of quantum gravity – the long-sought unification of quantum physics, which governs particles and their interactions, and general retivity, which casts gravity as the product of warped space-time.
"Then again, you might wonder why the idea is held in such high regard given that it remains a mathematical conjecture, which means it is unproven, and that the model universe it applies to has a bizarre geometry that doesn’t resemble our universe.
"The answer, it turns out, is twofold. First, the holographic conjecture has helped to make sense of otherwise intractable problems in particle physics and bck holes. Second, and more intriguing perhaps, physicists have finally begun to make headway in their attempts to demonstrate that the holographic principle applies to the cosmos we actually reside in.
by Julian Baggini in The Telegraph, 25 February 2024…"Perhaps most disturbing is the idea that we don’t even perceive the world as it is. For centuries we have known that the exact way the world seems to us is determined by our senses, not the things in themselves. The green of grass, for example, is generated by our visual system. But more recent research goes even further. Our brains do not just color (sometimes literally) our perceptions, they actually construct them. Brains are not passive receptors of perception but are rather “prediction machines” seeing what they expect to see, hearing what they expect to hear.
"Think of it like this. We tend to think that our minds are like video cameras, recording the world. In fact, they are more like projectors, creating our reality. Of course there are data coming in. But those data are used to help train the projector to get better and to fg up when the projection fails to include something critical. That’s why we so often fail to notice things that do not have a direct bearing on our survival, such as features of buildings we pass each day."
For a fascinating example of the failure to notice things, please watch this short video...
