the holographic universe

by michael talbot. this is a fun forray into the grand theory of everything. basically, everything is a hologram acording to physicist David Bohm ("Wholeness and the Implicate Order"): waves interfere with each other to form images, objects, everything. that which we can perceive is the explicate order and that which we cannot is the implicate. the implicate contains the explicate, and the boundaries are also constantly wavering. the interesting thing about a hologram is that every part of the hologram contains all parts of itself. therefore if you take a piece of holographic film and split it in half, the image does not split, but remains as two whole images. the results are quite profound: the normal distinctions we draw don't actually exist. you and i don't exist as separate entities but are just an interference pattern from the same cosmic unity. moreover, time doesn't exist in the linear sense that we think it does, the "past" and "future" are equally accessible as the present.

talbot starts from the interesting results of quantum mechanics (nonlocality, uncertainty, conscious observer effect) and moves on to note findings in not only physics, but neurobiology, dreaming, psychokinesis, near death experiences, out of body experiences, religious miracles, reincarnation, psychic powers, and even ghosts. see? fun! what's more interesting is that people are starting to study things like psychokinesis and the results are startling - it seems that we all have the ability (at least to some degree) to control and effect the world around us with our beliefs and minds.

moreover, there is a bias or trend in science to discount these experiences as not testable or verifiable, which means they are often not studied or simply ignored. it has also been shown that the belief of the scientist running the "new agey" experiments influences the actual results of the experiment. children often experience these "other dimensions" more often than adults perhaps because adults have had so much conditioning as to what "is possible."

some interesting notes:
*an ink drop spun in a glycerine tube undergoes reverse entropy
* stigmata is manifest through deep belief: stigmatists portray wounds on the palms instead of the more accurate location of the wrists. this is likely due to artistic interpretation of crucifiction occuring on the palm.
*when we dream, we typically have access to information that is beyond our waking knowledge (i.e., we can learn new things when dreaming).
*in chinese medicine, the method of mapping the entire body to the foot, or the ear is an example of a hologram
* people being able to see with with the tips of their fingers, ear lobes, tip of the nose, and even, yes, armpits.
* Immanuel Kant's *Dreams of a Spirit-Seer* an account of Swedenborg: "we are constituted by the intersection of two flows: one direct from the divine, and one indirect from the divine through our environment."
* The Conibo Indians of the Peruvian Amazon use of ayahuasca ("soul vine") - a hallucinogenic plant that when taken transports even lay people to exceedingly similar dimensions that the Conibo shamans visit regularly.