131–140 of 197 posts
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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Until and unleas.a theory is falsified and revealed to be an incomplete model, there is no way to differentiate the "mathematical tool" from the "underlying reality" case, since any theory that works without qualification is, by definition, a model which is not detectably distinguishable from being the underlying reality.
So is holographic universe theory expected to work without qualification (thus being indistinguishable), or is it more of a temporary patch that nobody believes is correct, but works better for one area, and worse for others? Newton's model of gravity works well enough for approximation at human scales, but is flawed enough that you don't use it for astrophysics or microscopic realms.
If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, is it a duck? What if it's really something indistinguishable from a duck, but not actually a duck? What does that even mean? Our concept of "duck" is inextricably connected to our perception of it. A "duck" does not exist in the way we envision it, if we do not envision it.
So backing up to your question again, does this theory (or any other theory) explain everything about the universe, or is it more of a temporary patch that nobody believes is correct, but works better for one area, and worse for others? The latter. All models are the latter. The truth is unknowable.
As the parent says, to the extent that the model predicts our observations, it is consistent with reality. Many other models are also consistent with reality. This model may be simpler in some ways and less simple in others. If it is simpler in all ways and has predictions that are consistent with reality, we will use it in preference to other models.
Having said all that, I have no idea in which areas it is simpler, in which areas it is more complex and in which areas it conflicts with our observations.
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…
Your talking poetically, or metaphorically, not scientifically I assume?
This shows how philosophy is rather important when trying to come to an understanding. Different philosophy can result in different theory of explanation and different direction of model building.
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 intern…
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 dime…
http://www.science20.com/sascha_vongehr/scientists_for_donal...
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…
You are awake, walking around a basketball gymnasium, it's 100x100x100ft. A nice, large room. All other details preserved as well. Surely, our little brains can't contain a 100x100x100ft gymnasium; our little heads would explode trying to fit something so large into it. Yet, when we dream, we are perfectly capable of revisiting this large room in our mind, full spatial properties preserved.
While there are many encoding strategies, looking at how the brain encodes information (or a more simplistic neural network), this gives, in my opinion, a good intuition as to how distance and spatial properties can both differ and relate between two "universes".
You can also observe that our final "view" of the gymnasium is just the surface of the complex underlying thought-structure of the brain. We very much, on a daily basis, only see the surface of what is a very very complex process going on inside the brain.
Perhaps, one may even call that a projection.
Question, from someone who does not understand the Holographic universe idea: If 'true', is the holographic universe 'merely' a mathematical tool that helps us solve problems, or is it a description of an objective reality, and the universe is 'really' a 2D surface, and our 3D perception is somehow illusory? I understand this is partly a philosophy of science question, but would be interested to hear an expert opinio…
Imagine performing a molecular dynamics simulation. Your simulation occurs in a 3D box, and if you visualize it, it looks three dimensional, but the way the information processing works is that you have a list of atom coordinates stored next to each other in one dimensional RAM. It's kind of the same thing with the holographic idea. Information locality is 2D (information is "near" other information as if it were on…
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…
Perhaps a bit of a tangent, but another way I have always perceived relative distances measurements is with the following analogy: You are awake, walking around a basketball gymnasium, it's 100x100x100ft. A nice, large room. All other details preserved as well. Surely, our little brains can't contain a 100x100x100ft gymnasium; our little heads would explode trying to fit something so large into it. Yet, when we dream…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So is holographic universe theory expected to work without qualification (thus being indistinguishable), or is it more of a temporary patch that nobody believes is correct, but works better for one area, and worse for others? Newton's model of gravity works well enough for approximation at human scales, but is flawed enough that you don't use it for astrophysics or microscopic realms.
No model accurately represents reality. I think people have this idea that if I have 2 different theories that predict exactly the same thing, that one of them is right and another is wrong. This is exacerbated by a misunderstanding with Occam's razor. It is popular to believe that given those 2 theories, the simpler one is correct. This is not necessarily the case. The simpler one is simpler and therefore a better m…
It's like having a model that says "quack-like sound == duck". It's wrong. We know it's wrong. It may be useful when looking at birds, but it's 100% wrong when your hard drive produces the noise.
Of course it's a spectrum, but some of the things we hang on to and use are known to be false in a large way but still useful.