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Study reveals substantial evidence of holographic universe

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Re: Study reveals substantial evidence of holographic universe

#181

Post by stephftw »

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.

I dunno. Every time I talk to a child, an "insatiable drive" for information is exactly how I would describe their state of being. Picking up speech, social norms, fine motor control, reading, writing, learning to identify physical danger and risk, and even the speed and fluidity I see when children learn to use technology (especially compared to some adults) makes me think that insatiable information gathering (and trying to apply that information and get new pieces) is extremely foundational. The drive and necessity to do so doesn't necessarily remain as intense as we mature, but that doesn't mean the capacity to do so isn't still there for folks who wish to apply it.

Re: Study reveals substantial evidence of holographic universe

#182

Post by stephftw »

bykovich wrote: post #116
RonanTheGrey wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why is it conceited to say that the a culture of relentless information pursuit has been an objectively good thing for humanity?

I guess I'm not sure what "obsessive pursuit of information" means in this case. Is it continuing to seek better explanations even when current ones serve a purpose adequately (ie, the principle of fallibility)? Is it that once new explanations are available people we seek to apply those explanations to other domains and create further information?

I'd argue that both of those examples are positive practices that have resulted in better quality information and expanded valuable applications of that information.

I cannot see the progress that humans have made since the scientific revolution and write those improvements off as non-objectively positive things. Earth is not naturally hospitable to our form of life, and our ancestors suffered through extremely short, brutal, and unpleasant lives due to that. It is only through the pursuit of information (obsessive pursuit even, in the sense that we needed a large amount of information that is both reliable and expandable to apply meaningfully) that most humans live lives where we don't die from things like starvation, exposure to the elements, treatable diseases and so forth. New problems have certainly been introduced by the application of gained knowledge, but those problems will never be solved by not pursuing more (and better) answers.

Less information is never better than more information, and societies which advocate most liberally for the pursuit of information have reliably produced better conditions for their people than those which do not.

Re: Study reveals substantial evidence of holographic universe

#183

Post by mileycyrusXOXO »

pc2g4d wrote: post #129
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!

Pascal in "Pensees" used this perplexing notion to argue for the reality of the soul. Interesting to see people grappling with these ideas through the centuries: "And what completes our incapability of knowing things, is the fact that they are simple, and that we are composed of two opposite natures, different in kind, soul and body. For it is impossible that our rational part should be other than spiritual; and if a…

How does one save comments? I would like to read up further on Pensees.

Re: Study reveals substantial evidence of holographic universe

#184

Post by grzm »

mileycyrusXOXO wrote: post #183
pc2g4d wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pascal in "Pensees" used this perplexing notion to argue for the reality of the soul. Interesting to see people grappling with these ideas through the centuries: "And what completes our incapability of knowing things, is the fact that they are simple, and that we are composed of two opposite natures, different in kind, soul and body. For it is impossible that our rational part should be other than spiritual; and if a…

How does one save comments? I would like to read up further on Pensees.

You can click the "favorite" link in the comment header. Note that favorited comments are public: anyone clicking through your profile can also see which comments you've favorited, if that matters to you.

Re: Study reveals substantial evidence of holographic universe

#185

Post by stephftw »

captain_crabs wrote: post #85
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…

That sounds a little like "The Principle of Mediocrity" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediocrity_principle)

If so, think you're selling humans a bit short. Our capacity isn't really all that limited. As long as we are able to continuously apply new information to gain better insights into reality, we will improve. Maybe we are woefully behind other some other beings out there, but that doesn't mean we'll never get there. Our capacity for exceeding our physical limitations (ex, we can detect neutrinos despite having no ways to see them through evolutionary abilities) and create new physical realities (the coldest known temperature measured is not somewhere else in the universe, it's in a physicist's lab) shows that we are still on a path towards understanding so much more than we do today.

Re: Study reveals substantial evidence of holographic universe

#186

Post by dgfgfdagasdfgfa »

drdeca wrote: post #169
dgfgfdagasdfgfa wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's clearly a right-wing site. Or at least they seem to rant against "leftist" scientists. http://www.science20.com/kevin_m_folta/the_scicomm_challenge...

I wouldn't think being "right wing" would be sufficient to explain using the phrase "jewish elite". Like, can we not treat "the people who say things like 'jewish elite' " and "people who are right wing" as being the same group? I mean, I'm not saying they don't have an overlap ( It is probably true that P(a person is right wing | they say stuff about "the jewish elite") > P(the person is right wing) ), but I'm conce…

Ahh, you're completely right, it's a lazy phrasing.

Re: Study reveals substantial evidence of holographic universe

#187

Post by fennecfoxen »

dgfgfdagasdfgfa wrote: post #144
brianberns wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The top article on that site at the moment is about the "Jewish elite". WTF? http://www.science20.com/sascha_vongehr/scientists_for_donal...

It's clearly a right-wing site. Or at least they seem to rant against "leftist" scientists. http://www.science20.com/kevin_m_folta/the_scicomm_challenge...

> It's clearly a right-wing site.

... It's clearly a collaborative site with hundreds of authors, at least two of whom are right-wing authors, who have presumably got to the top being controversial and attracting attention from outside the normally quiescent community of readers talking about entropic gravity, thus convincing the algorithms their content is worth showcasing.

HERETICS, THE LOT OF THEM! BURN THE DATA CENTER WITH FIRE!!!

Re: Study reveals substantial evidence of holographic universe

#188

Post by edem »

anigbrowl wrote: post #119
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 intern…

Howard Phillips Lovecraft I presume?

Re: Study reveals substantial evidence of holographic universe

#189

Post by marcosdumay »

bsaul wrote: post #151
marcosdumay wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Laymen "easy" language makes everything harder to understand. The holographic principle means that if you take a sphere somewhere, the amount of entropy you can push there grows with r^2, and not with r^3 like you'd expect.

Thanks a lot. I've just watched susskind talk on the universe as a hologram ( https://youtu.be/2DIl3Hfh9tY ), and it didn't occured to me until i read what you just said simply that the holographic principle meant you could actually push less stuff / bits in a black hole by growing it, than you first thought if you compared it to a volume growing. So that meant information was stored on its surface (r^2), and not ins…

Keep in mind that IANAP.

The information stored is proportional to the surface, not volume.

But also, the holographic principle applies to more than black holes. At any volume, the maximum information you can put there is proportional to r^2. That applies to all the volumes inside the volume you just measured... what means that a volume can not be completely full (a weird case of apparent non-locality).

An hologram is a better analogue to it than information being stored on the surface because, outside of black holes it apparently isn't all on the surface. (I guess for the black hole information loss problem, information being in the surface or in a hologram don't make much difference.)

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