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Study reveals substantial evidence of holographic universe

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Re: Study reveals substantial evidence of holographic universe

#111

Post by RonanTheGrey »

bykovich wrote: post #97
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…

I think that the information-mania you describe is a quirk of a certain personality type, not a basic human phenomenon. Information is certainly important to humans, but this omnivorous "insatiable drive" is not, I think, foundationally human, nor universal, nor even necessarily entirely present in the personality type that believes it posses such a drive.

Unfortunately more true than I wish it were.

Re: Study reveals substantial evidence of holographic universe

#112

Post by trhway »

VanillaCafe wrote: post #57

Consider a mathematical spherical construct that contains more than the the r^2 amount of entropy than can be described by the Holographic Principle. What makes that not possible under the theory? What breaks down? Is there a physical analogy for it?

to me it like classical electrodynamics ie. like Gauss's law connecting field on the closed surface with what is inside. The key in classical EM is that EM field is holomorphic, and the gravity in GM seems to be close to that too. So in that sense holographic principle is something like this - integral of information flux taken over closed surface equals the integral of the information [charges] taken over the enclosed volume, and thus the upper limit of r^2 is just being a simple consequence of the equality in the situation of maximum entropy (minimum information) situation of a black hole (with gravity being fully compatible with [and alternatively reformulated through] entropy description a black hole is the ultimate gravitational as well as ultimate entropy state).

Re: Study reveals substantial evidence of holographic universe

#113

Post by colinhect »

platz wrote: post #80
TwoFactor wrote: post #17

It's interesting that to a layman this seems like almost the exact opposite of what string theory proposes dimensionally. Holographic universe theory is stating there are effectively less dimensions, while string theory shows there could be significantly more.

I thought that in order for a holographic universe to exist, then the universe needs to have a non-flat e.g. slightly-curved spacetime; in order to "close the boundary", so to speak. But my understanding is that so far all our evidence shows that spacetime is flat? i.e. we spacetime needs to be an Anti-de Sitter space. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-de_Sitter_space But I didn't think many actually think we live i…

Couldn't the amount of curve within our observable universe be less than the margin of error in our methods of observation?

Re: Study reveals substantial evidence of holographic universe

#114

Post by _0w8t »

wturner wrote: post #86
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.

Freedom of will is completely compatible with fully deterministic world. Just consider that there are many fully deterministic worlds but the one one perceives themselves in depends on freedom of choice.

Re: Study reveals substantial evidence of holographic universe

#115

Post by hooph00p »

ashark wrote: post #95
captain_crabs wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Mix those thoughts with a healthy does of "human values don't necessarily have any relation to alien values, which may be just as incomprehensible to humanity as the true nature of the universe" and you've basically got the Cosmic Horror fiction genre.

and here I was trying to avoid an existential crisis today. There that goes.

Re: Study reveals substantial evidence of holographic universe

#116

Post by bykovich »

RonanTheGrey wrote: post #111
bykovich wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that the information-mania you describe is a quirk of a certain personality type, not a basic human phenomenon. Information is certainly important to humans, but this omnivorous "insatiable drive" is not, I think, foundationally human, nor universal, nor even necessarily entirely present in the personality type that believes it posses such a drive.

Unfortunately more true than I wish it were.

The conceit that the obsessive pursuit of information is necessarily a good is also a quirk of that personality type.

Re: Study reveals substantial evidence of holographic universe

#117

Post by hooph00p »

jcoffland wrote: post #73
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...

This is the right answerer. It pains me that we humans, in our arrogance, do not keep this idea at the forefront of our minds and discussions. I believe far fewer mistakes would be made in science if we more readily accepted our limitations rather than being constantly so enthralled by our own apparent genius. It's not amazing that we amaze ourselves.

I like this mindset.

> It's not amazing that we amaze ourselves.

This realization is super assuring with the complexity of the discoveries broadcast on HackerNews. Sometimes it's overwhelming, but now I can think of it as a sort of... scale.

Re: Study reveals substantial evidence of holographic universe

#118

Post by zamalek »

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…

> [...] why is it not possible to cause objects within our perceived

The universe is currently not in the holographic phase. That is thought-provoking, though. Let's assume that this is plausible. During the holographic phase, the speed limit wouldn't apply. There are a few interesting theories that require FTL during the big bang.

What I find interesting is that the universe went through two very distinct phases and we have two distinct physical theories.

Re: Study reveals substantial evidence of holographic universe

#119

Post by anigbrowl »

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…

Yes, but it's not the case that everything is equidistant. Allow me to illustrate with a simplified example from lower dimensions.

(Warning: pseudoscientific bullshit ahead)

Picture a transparent sphere, covered in tiny dots. Imagine that you live on one of these dots and the others are stars. Now, mark 'your' dot and look around on the sphere to find the dot that is farthest away, on the opposite side. If the internal radius of this sphere is 1 unit, then the distance to that dot (traveling on the surface of the sphere) is pi units. Imagine yourself in Edwin abbott's Flatland, but thanks to relativity you know this flat universe to be finite and bounded, such that if you set out in any direction in a straight line you will eventually arrive back at your starting point.

Now, let's designate that point opposite you on the sphere as the Maximally Distant Star. There's no doubt, no matter what route you take along the surface of the sphere, this is as far as you can go before you begin coming back, if that makes sense. But suppose you were able to transit across the interior of the sphere instead of across the surface. It's still the farther point from you, but by transiting by volume instead of on the surface the distance is only 2 units, or 63% as far as it appears to the surface-dwellers.

Of course, this realization is of little help in figuring out how you as a Flatlander can access that theoretical 'volume' so as to shorten your transition time. If you could, you'd seem to disappear at your existing location (most likely by shrinking down to a point, or possibly seeming to turn inside out, or both) and then reappear at your destination, assuming you hadn't been eaten by the great old ones said to inhabit that forbidden space by famous horror author J. Q. Likecraft.

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