The Universe
as a hologram
Pribram's theory also
explains how the human brain can store so many memories in so little space. It has been
estimated that the human brain has the capacity to memorize something on the order of 10
billion bits of information during the average human lifetime (or roughly the same
amount of information contained in five sets of the Encyclopaedia Britannica).
Similarly, it has been
discovered that in addition to their other capabilities, holograms possess an astounding
capacity for information storage--simply by changing the angle at which the two lasers
strike a piece of photographic film, it is possible to record many different images on the
same surface. It has been demonstrated that one cubic centimeter of film can hold as many
as 10 billion bits of information.
Our uncanny ability to
quickly retrieve whatever information we need from the enormous store of our memories
becomes more understandable if the brain functions according to holographic principles. If
a friend asks you to tell him what comes to mind when he says the word "zebra",
you do not have to clumsily sort back through some gigantic and cerebral alphabetic file
to arrive at an answer. Instead, associations like "striped",
"horselike", and "animal native to Africa" all pop into your head
instantly.
Indeed, one of the most
amazing things about the human thinking process is that every piece of information seems
instantly cross- correlated with every other piece of information--another feature
intrinsic to the hologram. Because every portion of a hologram is infinitely
interconnected with every other portion, it is perhaps nature's supreme example of a
cross-correlated system.
The storage of memory
is not the only neurophysiological puzzle that becomes more tractable in light of
Pribram's holographic model of the brain. Another is how the brain is able to translate
the avalanche of frequencies it receives via the senses (light frequencies, sound
frequencies, and so on) into the concrete world of our perceptions.
Encoding and decoding
frequencies is precisely what a hologram does best. Just as a hologram functions as a sort
of lens, a translating device able to convert an apparently meaningless blur of
frequencies into a coherent image, Pribram believes the brain also comprises a lens and
uses holographic principles to mathematically convert the frequencies it receives through
the senses into the inner world of our perceptions.
An impressive body of
evidence suggests that the brain uses holographic principles to perform its operations.
Pribram's theory, in fact, has gained increasing support among neurophysiologists.
Argentinian-Italian
researcher Hugo Zucarelli recently extended the holographic model into the world of
acoustic phenomena. Puzzled by the fact that humans can locate the source of sounds
without moving their heads, even if they only possess hearing in one ear, Zucarelli
discovered that holographic principles can explain this ability.
Zucarelli has also
developed the technology of holophonic sound, a recording technique able to reproduce
acoustic situations with an almost uncanny realism.
Pribram's belief that
our brains mathematically construct "hard" reality by relying on input from a
frequency domain has also received a good deal of experimental support. It has been found
that each of our senses is sensitive to a much broader range of frequencies than was
previously suspected. Researchers have discovered, for instance, that our visual systems
are sensitive to sound frequencies, that our sense of smell is in part dependent on what
are now called "osmic frequencies", and that even the cells in our bodies are
sensitive to a broad range of frequencies. Such findings suggest that it is only in the
holographic domain of consciousness that such frequencies are sorted out and divided up
into conventional perceptions.
But the most
mind-boggling aspect of Pribram's holographic model of the brain is what happens when it
is put together with Bohm's theory. For if the concreteness of the world is but a
secondary reality and what is "there" is actually a holographic blur of
frequencies, and if the brain is also a hologram and only selects some of the frequencies
out of this blur and mathematically transforms them into sensory perceptions, what becomes
of objective reality?-->
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