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Study reveals substantial evidence of holographic universe

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Re: Study reveals substantial evidence of holographic universe

#81

Post by Asooka »

21 wrote: post #37
atomicfiredoll wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the first time I've read anything about Holographic universe theory and I really don't understand anything about it yet. But, does this mean we were the ones living in a 2-dimensional "flatland" the whole time?

One way to think about is what goes on in a video game - you see characters on screen, but in the computer you actually have some data-structures describing them. So a Player data-structure maps to a Player on screen, in the same way that some configuration of qubits on the surface of the universe corresponds to some thing from the "bulk" that we see.

Does that mean there are more low-level 2-D laws of physics that give rise to the observable laws of physics? If yes, would we be able to access them?

Re: Study reveals substantial evidence of holographic universe

#82

Post by kurthr »

curiousgal wrote: post #74
d0mine wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All models are wrong. If a model is not wrong; it is called reality. http://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/57407/what-is-the-m...

To me, saying that model or a theory is wrong is like saying a hammer is wrong. A tool cannot be right/wrong or true/false. However it can be unsuitable for a task. In this case, the task is understanding reality.

Exactly, if your model has all the complexity of reality... then you're going to have a hard time understanding it or answering any question unless it is historical rather than prediction. They key is in the model being useful locally, and a big part of that is knowing where it is valid (e.g. Newtonian Mechanics is great for most things until you exceed micro/Tera scales). Then you can choose the right model to solve the right problem or answer the right question. Trying to figure out what every molecule in a gas is going to do will drive you crazy, but measuring pressure/temperature/entropy will often lead you to insight.

In my mind this is one of the problems that moral philosophy has fallen into... rule utilitarianism works because we are about as good at predicting how others would feel as we are for ourselves (i.e. mediocre, but not terrible). Most modern moral theory is so complex in order to deal with various oddities that we're terrible at using it in even the simplest cases.

Re: Study reveals substantial evidence of holographic universe

#83

Post by r00fus »

blincoln wrote: post #51

Possibly dumb question, but I know my niece is going to ask me about this, and I'd like to be able to give her a solid response: does this mean that most distances within our universe are illusory? If not, why not? To expand on that thought a little bit, with a hologram, the projected object is an illusion, and can be made to appear to move at arbitrary speed by e.g. rotating the projection apparatus. On a larger sca…

Is this the real-life equivalent to Plato's Allegory of the Cave [1]?

I wonder if books like Zelazny's Amber series will seem, in retrospect, more insightful.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_Cave

Re: Study reveals substantial evidence of holographic universe

#84

Post by kafkaesq »

blincoln wrote: post #51

Possibly dumb question, but I know my niece is going to ask me about this, and I'd like to be able to give her a solid response: does this mean that most distances within our universe are illusory? If not, why not? To expand on that thought a little bit, with a hologram, the projected object is an illusion, and can be made to appear to move at arbitrary speed by e.g. rotating the projection apparatus. On a larger sca…

Not a dumb question at all. Questions like these are the very heart of physics, actually.

Re: Study reveals substantial evidence of holographic universe

#85

Post by captain_crabs »

patcon wrote: post #71

I've recently been thinking on how our human definition of intelligence might relate to holographic principles, particularly in regards to information theory. We are small creatures, but our networks -- our brains and societies -- represent the most complex information-encoding geometries we've yet seen in the universe. And I see the way that our curiosity reaches upward in scale, documenting the far corners and fold…

Haha, beautifully put, but I often wonder the opposite. What if our capacity to perceive and think is so limited and narrow that most of the underlying workings of reality are completely missed by us? The what if being, we are not so special as we think. The way an ant colony will bustle full of self-import and purpose, blissfully unaware of the giant people passing by. And the people pay it no mind, because they can't interact meaningfully with the ant colony, so while one is aware of the other and far more about the world, the reverse isn't true.

Re: Study reveals substantial evidence of holographic universe

#86

Post by wturner »

remir wrote: post #77

It's crazy to think we are the universe observing and trying to understand itself. Matter organised in a certain way is able to observe itself? How weird is that!

This is the perspective that I hardly ever hear discussed when the issue of "human freedom" is brought up. If you assume we are a result of the big bang, then the causal relationship infers humans are not free. If on the other hand you assume humans "are" the universe, then an entirely different perspective seems to be possible albeit one that is much more confusing to reason about.

Re: Study reveals substantial evidence of holographic universe

#87

Post by jayajay »

Very misleading title! This article doesn't really discuss the "evidence", you will need to dig deeper. The article is a summary of what holography is, and not much more.

> They found that some of the simplest quantum field theories could explain nearly all cosmological observations of the early universe.

This seems to be very, very old news. Like all theories, holography sounds very interesting. This article implies that a prediction made by holography has been observed. This is not the case, apparently. The math may a lot more elegant, but what new predictions are there, and have we observed them? This is what the article claimed to be about, alas it wasn't.

Re: Study reveals substantial evidence of holographic universe

#88

Post by hosh »

remir wrote: post #77

It's crazy to think we are the universe observing and trying to understand itself. Matter organised in a certain way is able to observe itself? How weird is that!

Non-dual philosophies, such as transcendental non-dual Shaiva Tantra is based around that.

Re: Study reveals substantial evidence of holographic universe

#89

Post by jayajay »

patcon wrote: post #71

I've recently been thinking on how our human definition of intelligence might relate to holographic principles, particularly in regards to information theory. We are small creatures, but our networks -- our brains and societies -- represent the most complex information-encoding geometries we've yet seen in the universe. And I see the way that our curiosity reaches upward in scale, documenting the far corners and fold…

> And we capture this knowledge and bring it into our tiny space, information encoded in structures along the skin of this rock floating in space.

Hey, this is imaginative, even if it's armchair philosophy. Seems like you are thinking that the holography principle is self-similar at many scales.

Re: Study reveals substantial evidence of holographic universe

#90

Post by fennecfoxen »

blincoln wrote: post #51

Possibly dumb question, but I know my niece is going to ask me about this, and I'd like to be able to give her a solid response: does this mean that most distances within our universe are illusory? If not, why not? To expand on that thought a little bit, with a hologram, the projected object is an illusion, and can be made to appear to move at arbitrary speed by e.g. rotating the projection apparatus. On a larger sca…

I don't think so. The holographic universe a "projection" in the sense that the information can be thought of as living on the boundary of a given space, with the maximum entropy / information contained therein proportional to the boundary's surface area (on a quantum level, a bit is a measurement of area). But this isn't super shocking if you're aware of the idea of "light bubbles" (the generalisation to three dimensions of a light cone) which already describe the limits of how information in a region of space can propagate.

Distance was already an illusion, insofar as it represents a non-unique projection of a spacetime using purely relativistic techniques. :) But the speed of light isn't going to be got around by any of these models. If anything, the models will explain this limit better.

POSTSCRIPT:

I recommend the Hammock Physicist as a random physicist who can explain concepts like this at just the right level of detail for the HN audience. http://www.science20.com/hammock_physicist

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