The Metaphysical is the New Real

[ginnie]

Electrons sometimes communicate with each other instantly even if they are billions of miles apart. It doesn't matter whether they are 10 inches or 10 billion miles apart. This was discovered in 1982 at the University of Paris by a research team led by physicist Alain Aspect. This breaks the time barrier: Einstein's tenet that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light.

University of London physicist David Bohm argues that at some deeper level of reality such communicating particles are not individual entities, but are actually extensions of the same fundamental something. He believes that Aspect's findings imply that the universe is actually a gigantic and splendidly detailed hologram.

We like to categorize what we see and have experienced, of course, but according to the holographic paradigm, all our distinctions are artificial.

Working independently in the field of brain research, Stanford neurophysiologist Karl Pribram has also become persuaded of the holographic nature of reality.

The brain is able to translate the avalanche of frequencies it receives from our five senses—sight, sound, touch, hearing, and taste—into the concrete world of our perceptions. Encoding and decoding frequencies is precisely what a hologram does best. 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 is a lens and uses holographic principles to mathematically convert the frequencies it receives through the senses into our perceptions.

The most interesting aspect of Pribram's holographic model of the brain is what happens when it is put together with Bohm's theory. If the concreteness of the world is but a secondary reality and what is "out there" is actually a holographic blur of frequencies, and if the brain is also a hologram, selecting some of the frequencies out of this blur and mathematically transforming them into sensory perceptions, what becomes of objective reality? Put quite simply, it ceases to exist.

As the religions of the East have long upheld, the material world is Maya, an illusion, and although we may think we are physical beings moving through a physical world, this too is an illusion.

We are really receivers floating through a sea of frequency in the super-hologram.

This striking new picture of reality, the synthesis of Bohm and Pribram's views, has come to be called the holographic paradigm. A small but growing number of researchers believe it may be the most accurate model of reality science has arrived at so far. It may solve mysteries, psychological and otherwise, that have never before been explainable by science.

With the phenomenon of telepathy, for example, it is now much easier to understand how information can travel from the mind of individual 'A' to that of individual 'B' at a distance. Maybe we should stop thinking of such phenomena as "bizarre."

Perhaps we only agreed on what is "there" or "not there" because of what is now called consensus reality. Consensus reality is formulated and ratified at the unconscious level, where all minds are infinitely interconnected.

In a holographic universe, as Pribram has pointed out, even random events would have to be seen as based on holographic principles and therefore determined. Synchronicities or meaningful coincidences suddenly make sense.

Aspect's findings have certainly opened the door to new ways of seeing things and take much of the sting out of the stigma of being metaphysical. As concrete objects are shown to be a sort of interference pattern, the metaphysical is the new real.

Extracted from text written by an anonymous author at http://www.stumbleupon.com/s/#2oRiKk/www.thelovinggod.com/2007/09/holographic-paradigm.html/

 

[meng]

The intricate web of Maya antimatter, and all which sticks to it.

 

[ginnie]

Maybe meng is a Zen Buddhist hologram, so succinct was that last post . . .

 

[fkegan]

The universe used to be a set of Crystal spheres turned by some single gear.

Then it became a clockwork, then an explosion.

The brain used to be a cooling radiator, then a telegraph, then a storage battery operating a telephone exchange, then a computer and now a hologram.

Overall, folks seem to enjoy taking their current technology and projecting it as the essence of what Reality must be all about.

In the first few years of the 20th century, the general desire to reject the pompous claims of the 19th century gave rise to Einstein's fame. The papers he wrote in those early years remain the leading theories of 'modern' physics. But they don't quite work, even within their own insights. The universe is expanding, but it is also not-infinite. Light is a particle called the photon, but its also a wave and a paradox. Molecules exist in physics as well as in chemistry (from the century before) but they also don't have real structure--that dissolves with further deep analysis.

The one thing none of these theories, including telepathic holograms don't quite manage is to recognize that the medieval Scholastic claim that all knowledge is already known in the synthesis of the Bible and the University science curriculum isn't true. We don't already know everything worth knowing.

Holograms are concrete technology that demonstrate science theory now can not fully explain light images. They are not the proof that the universe is fully known and conveniently expressed in the latest concrete technology.

What are we really, really? Buddhist metaphysics takes the view we are ignorant overwhelmingly and from that ignorance we are afraid and from that fear we invent all sorts of expectations, narratives and notions that gratify us until they are knocked about by the flux of reality and then cause us suffering.

Better to accept the human reality of ignorance and limitation, deal with the fear and suffering and then you can enjoy the latest novel theories as interesting, temporary narratives of what folks know today and will not believe tomorrow.

Frank

 

[ginnie]

Hungry Hologram

Overall, folks seem to enjoy taking their current technology and projecting it as the essence of what Reality must be all about.

Holograms are concrete technology
Frank

Yes, holographic technology is very concrete and it also seems to require massive amounts of money. I was also thinking that the theory of holograms doesn't explain why I get hungry.

Laser BEANS, anyone? It's lunchtime here and I am a hungry hologram.

Nevertheless, I do appreciate the efforts some people in various branches of science are making to chip away at our fears of hidden processes.

Just the other day I was talking with my sister-in-law on the phone. I said, "I have a good intuitive sense about that."

"Don't use that word intuition," she responded. "People will think you don't know what you're talking about."

Ignorance and fear make what seems to be a brick wall of obstruction. Many people feel reassured by scientific explanations. That's really the only reason I am interested in them. They expand my useful vocabulary.

 

[meng]

click your heels 3x and repeat after me: I know what reality is.

 

[meng]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IlHgbOWj4o



Can a man be secure in a place that he can't explain to his satisfaction, or will he flee to Maya?

It's poetry in motion
And now she's making love to me
The spheres're in commotion
The elements in harmony
She blinded me with science
"She blinded me with science!"
And hit me with technology

"Good heavens Miss Sakamoto - you're beautiful!"
I -
I don't believe it!
There she goes again!
She's tidied up, and I can't find anything!
All my tubes and wires
And careful notes
And antiquated notions

But! - it's poetry in motion
And when she turned her eyes to me
As deep as any ocean
As sweet as any harmony
Mmm - but she blinded me with science
"She blinded me with - with science!"
She blinded me with -

 

[heylise]

Aspect's findings have certainly opened the door to new ways of seeing things...

This is what I liked most about the whole story Ginnie posted. It is what I like about science.

To me science is a weird word, as if something exists that is called science and can act and think. Similar words are 'state', 'taxes', 'church' and so on. They don't really exist, they are a bunch of people who do something you can define as belonging in the category of science/state/whatever. One is a genius, another a con, a third a dedicated worker, lots of different personalities.

In all those categories there are people who do something special. Many scientists are like amazed kids discovering the world. When I read about it, I feel their wonder and I am part of that little – or big - new space they discover. Part of their delight.

I don't adopt every new find as the final solution. For me they are steps on an incredibly interesting path. No idea if it goes to a 'real' end, where everything will be solved. Hope not! I hope these enthused people go on and on finding new things, discarding other things, rediscovering them again. I hope everyone will do that, big things, small things, it is one of the reasons why life is so exciting.

 

[ginnie]

Outside Consensus Reality

Yeah, I liked the video.

I am viewed by my family members and by my friends and colleagues as someone who is not making her life decisions along rational lines, because I use the I Ching. I don't care what people think, because Yi is my friend, and I couldn't hope for a better one.

I think I might be holding a grudge against those who rejected me, either in the past or within the last couple of weeks. Last night, even.

Currently, I am in danger because I am too alone where I live. Yi has pointed this out to me many times. So I am aware that bridges need to be built.

Several decades ago, people used the word serendipity. After Carl Jung's foreword in the W/B edition, the word he coined, synchronicity, has come into wider and wider usage. On the side of every UPS truck, for example, is painted these words: "Synchronizing the world's commerce," or something like that. You had better believe that the creative individuals who devise all these slogans, logos, and advertising campaigns are heavily into the I Ching -- and any other source that will connect them with the creative unconscious. And so the look, feel, shape, and texture of our whole world changes . . . as people's minds change.

 

[Sparhawk]

An anthropomorphic robot is an example of concrete technology but is also a metaphorical representation of a human being. Pointing to the "concrete" tree usually misses the forest behind it. Accepting our inherent limitations never stopped interested people from seeking knowledge. Quite the contrary, I'd say, even if the quest isn't perfect or close to ever finishing it. Is perhaps the issue with proper taxonomy and the use of analogies to express ideas? When proper terms for theories haven't yet been coined, the usual fall back is to use known analogies and metaphors that approximate the expression of the idea behind the new theory.

 

[rodaki]

We like to categorize what we see and have experienced, of course, but according to the holographic paradigm, all our distinctions are artificial.

and although we may think we are physical beings moving through a physical world, this too is an illusion.

unpolished thoughts . .
I think it is really intriguing to see how scientific thought reaches a point where it almost collides with itself in paradox (I say this in a well-meaning way . .)
but I find it very hard to believe that these moments can alter the structures along which science -and a science-based society- operates . . beyond the working minds there is a whole network of power and science (just like religion before it) is often just a vehicle for the continuation of the same -which seems to always come in the form of some new definitive revelation

I think it's better to tread lightly where there's too much talk of big change
. . or maybe I'm too much of a skeptic here . . .

 

[meng]

Pointing to the "concrete" tree usually misses the forest behind it.

Almost my exacts words earlier today.

The only thing which can "connect the dots" from our eyes to the tree, and what continues on (and on) behind the tree, is our creative imagination and our cognitive ability to tie it together. We simply aren't (yet?) equipped to really see what is all around us.

His disciples said to him, "When will the kingdom come?"
Jesus said, "It will not come by waiting for it. It will not be a matter of saying 'here it is' or 'there it is.' Rather, the kingdom of the father (the Creative principle) is spread out upon the earth, and men do not see it." ~ Gospel of Thomas

 

[ginnie]

We simply aren't (yet?) equipped to really see what is all around us.

No doubt about that. But they say the veils between the dimensions are becoming thinner and thinner . . .

 

[pantherpanther]

No doubt about that. But they say the veils between the dimensions are becoming thinner and thinner . . .

Visible matter makes up only 4% of the cosmos. The other 96% referred to as “dark matter” and “dark energy” is a major puzzle in astrophysics. An international team of astronomers hypothesizes in the October 1, 2009, journal Nature that dark matter might not exist and that what holds galaxies together is a different gravity on extragalactic scales. Co-author Benoit Famaey, Ph.D., astronomer at Universities of Bonn and Strasbourg, says that “dark matter seems to ‘know’ how visible matter is distributed. They seem to conspire with each other such that the gravity of the visible matter at the characteristic radius of the dark halo (the radius within which the volume density profile of dark matter remains approximately flat) is always the same (across wide range of galaxies). This is extremely surprising since one would rather expect the balance between visible and dark matter to strongly depend on the individual history of each galaxy.”

Macrocosom, microcosom... "As above, so below"...

"A human being is a spirit. But what is spirit? Spirit is the self. But what is the self? The self is a relation that relates itself to itself or is the relation relating itself to itself in the relation."
(S. Kierkegaard,“Sickness Unto Death” )

"....But, it will be urged, it is impossible that solely from the laws of nature considered as extended substance, we should be able to deduce the causes of buildings, pictures, and things of that kind, which are produced only by human art ; nor would the human body, unless it were determined and led by the mind, be capable of building a single temple. However, I have just pointed out that the objectors cannot fix the limits of the body's power, or say what can be concluded from a consideration of its sole nature."
(Spinoza ,"Ethics")

 

[pantherpanther]

University of London physicist David Bohm argues that at some deeper level of reality such communicating particles are not individual entities, but are actually extensions of the same fundamental something. He believes that Aspect's findings imply that the universe is actually a gigantic and splendidly detailed hologram.

The above was quoted, but Bohm (not quoted) went on to say:

Although Bohm concedes that we have no way of knowing what else might lie hidden in the superhologram, he does venture to say that we have no reason to assume it does not contain more. Or as he puts it, perhaps the superholographic level of reality is a "mere stage" beyond which lies "an infinity of further development".

 

[meng]

That's why we stick to it. So that we don't become nothin'. h30

 

[pantherpanther]

That's why we stick to it. So that we don't become nothin'. h30

"The Metaphysical is the New Real" ? How real is Maya to you or me? The
Buddha must be smiling . Without Maya to work with , he couldn't have
become a Buddha. He studied Maya and learned how to use it for himself - as we also can. He gave some fine lessons on how to do so. So have others.

 

[meng]

"The Metaphysical is the New Real" ? How real is Maya to you or me? The
Buddha must be smiling . Without Maya to work with , he couldn't have
become a Buddha. He studied Maya and learned how to use it for himself - as we also can. He gave some fine lessons on how to do so. So have others.

True, that.

This Wilhelm 52 quote has always seemed important to me in the way it distinguishes a path of renunciation (of Maya) to a path of cooperation with this marvelous phenomenon.

While Buddhism strives for rest through an ebbing away of all movement in nirvana, the Yi Jing holds that rest is merely a state of polarity that always posits movement as its complement.

 

[meng]

Panther, I'm glad you mentioned the 4% matter, and the disputed remaining 96%. The best way I've heard it described was that antimatter is the scaffolding upon which matter hangs. This is where the visual "web of Maya" metaphor fits so clearly. In that sense, the stars are literally hung in the sky upon antimatter. And of course, so are we.

An effigy of Maya is lit up across this planet each year with Christmas trees. The ornaments hanging upon the scaffolds. Perhaps this urge comes from a deeper and broader well of awareness.

 

[pantherpanther]

What an interesting analogy. I had not associated "dark matter" so clearly with the Web of Maya or Tree of Life.

Some cultures, as in Eastern Europe, have a tradition of upside-down Christmas trees. That seems meaningful, too, if one ponders the Tree of Life teachings of several traditions.

In some Buddhist teachings, "nirvana " = "samsara". Who knows whether the Buddha taught it and,if so, to whom?

"Embracing the one," shou-i or shou-yi, for Taoists, is about seeing the whole; then, when considering how someone functions in the world, it becomes more about wu wei wu, or action and non -action. You are aware not only of the forest, but simultaneously of each individual tree .

The awareness of movement (and "transition") is required, as you suggest."

Shou-yi has a parallel in Buddhism to the Doctrine of Interdependent Origination, which states that everything is interconnected--nothing exists in and of itself.

 

[meng]

Some cultures, as in Eastern Europe, have a tradition of upside-down Christmas trees.

In some Buddhist teachings, "nirvana " = "samsara".

What's the meaning of an upside-down tree? And, how to they get ornaments to hang up? lol

Striving for nirvana is samsara, but nirvana is the absence of striving.

 

[meng]

Wilhelm's 60 commentary speaks to my own position on the matter, though I take issue with his freehand use of "morality", as though it were some fixed order or thing. I prefer the word "ethics", as it is a personal holding rather than a dogma. Possibly Wilhelm intended a broader meaning than I've interpreted, in fairness.

A lake is something limited. Water is inexhaustible. A lake can contain only a definite amount of the infinite quantity of water; this is its peculiarity. In human life too the individual achieves significance through discrimination and the setting of limits. Therefore what concerns us here's the problem of clearly defining these discriminations, which are, so to speak, the backbone of morality. Unlimited possibilities are not suited to man; if they existed, his life would only dissolve in the boundless. To become strong, a man's life needs the limitations ordained by duty and voluntarily accepted. The individual attains significance as a free spirit only by surrounding himself with these limitations and by determining for himself what his duty is.

In relation to the moral sphere it means the fixed limits that the superior man sets on his actions- the limits of loyalty and disinterestedness.

 

[meng]

Some cultures, as in Eastern Europe, have a tradition of upside-down Christmas trees. That seems meaningful, too, if one ponders the Tree of Life teachings of several traditions.

In Kabbalah, the Jewish mystical tradition underlying Judaism and Christianity, two different Tree of Life symbols are used: one is upside-down and the other right-side-up. The original Tree of Life emanates out of the divine world of unity and is depicted as upside-down, with its roots flowing from the divine place of unity and infinite light. The trunk and branches reach down towards us, penetrating the worlds of spirit, psyche, and physical existence. This is said to be the Tree of Emanation, which flows downward from the source. The other Tree of Life symbol flows upward, back towards the source, with roots in the ground and branches growing up to the sky. This is the Tree that the initiate climbs to return to the source and is the Tree of evolution or initiation. It is the initiate's responsibility to evolve and awaken, climbing the Tree and penetrating the worlds of psyche, spirit and divine unity, reconnecting with the divine source.

http://www.treeoflifeteachings.com/tree/

 

[pantherpanther]

http://www.treeoflifeteachings.com/tree/

Oy! The Taoist teachings are not mentioned, among some others, yet Taoism has diagrams similar to Kabbalah's "emanation" and "evolution" 'Trees' : Wu Chi T''u (evolving) and T'ai Chi T''u (emanating), for example.

I wonder how the upside-down Christmas tradition came about in Europe? Some esoteric school in Bulgaria or elsewhere? Then again, the waltz came from Sufi schools, and dervish dances also have movements that teach the two directions - emanation and return

 

[pantherpanther]

meng wrote: Striving for nirvana is samsara, but nirvana is the absence of striving.


The Lady of Compassion, Kwan Yin is striving on her scale. We have Mahayana and Theravada Buddhists and the Greater and Smaller vehicles, on our scale.

Then, there are the Ten Oxherding pictures in Zen, where there is finally a return to the world.

A teacher I knew once said , "After the Ressurection, what next?."

Perhaps it's also what you referred to as an "ethical" question, in another context .


-p

 

[meng]

The Lady of Compassion, Kwan Yin is striving on her scale. We have Mahayana and Theravada Buddhists and the Greater and Smaller vehicles, on our scale.

Whether a Bodhisattva who has mastered the Six Perfections of generosity, ethics, patience, effort, concentration, and wisdom, strives or not is not something I can answer. I mean, if God created the world in just 7 days, how hard did he schlep? And if a thousand years is like a day, should he complain if I'm a little late? And if he owns the cattle on a thousand hills, what, he should worry?

 

[pantherpanther]

Relativity

There's a line in K Hulme's Undiscovered Country describing the gaze of African lions ... 'like they are longing for us to move up.'

 

[meng]

Hey, my dog looks at me that way all the time. But it's true, cats are the true junzi.

 

[pantherpanther]

The intelligence in the animal kingdom is amazing. Birds can see in four colors ,including the ultraviolet spectrum. Dogs sense of smell varies from 15,000 to 100,000 times greater that man's .That's like sniffing a drop in a swimming pool. They have classed 100 dog breeds for intelligence - border collies came first.
Today's NYTimes:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/weekinreview/01kershaw.html?em=&pagewanted=print
Good Dog, Smart Dog
By SARAH KERSHAW
"Life as a Labradoodle may sound free and easy, but if you’re Jet, who lives in New Jersey, there is a lot of work to be done.
He is both a seizure alert dog and a psychiatric service dog whose owner has epilepsy, severe anxiety, depression, various phobias and hypoglycemia. Jet has been trained to anticipate seizures, panic attacks and plunging blood sugar and will alert his owner to these things by staring intently at her until she does something about the problem. He will drop a toy in her lap to snap her out of a dissociative state. If she has a seizure, he will position himself so that his body is under her head to cushion a fall.
...over the last several years a growing body of evidence, culled from small scientific studies of dogs’ abilities to do things like detect cancer or seizures, solve complex problems (complex for a dog, anyway), and learn language suggests that they may know more than we thought they did.
Their apparent ability to tune in to the needs of psychiatric patients, turning on lights for trauma victims afraid of the dark, reminding their owners to take medication and interrupting behaviors like suicide attempts and self-mutilation, for example, has lately attracted the attention of researchers. "

Cats have been my teachers. I had a very large Siamese who might
have been a warrior cat in the 10th century, or maybe a Lohan - a mystery.
Once I played a sound recording of a sacred movement from a film - the chanting accompanied the movement. The first time he heard it, he went
off to another room by himself when it finished and chanted it from memory -with feeling.
A neighbor who had two kittys let them out at times. My cat could manage to
hold both down together flat with his paws and alternately remove fur with his paws. But when a neighbor was given a four-week old kitten he immediately adopted it and as it grew taught it a system of martial arts.
One method was to walk around it in a circle and have the kitten attack
and get squashed. He owned me and made it clear to others.

 

[meng]

Awesome.

There's strong denial within the scientific community that any of which you've mentioned can be considered intelligence, that it's merely learned behavior. Much is, of course, but to say that there's no actual cognition taking place is just ridiculous. Well balanced pets tend to be lots smarter than they let on, which is a sign of mastery.