Interesting-ass article.
During the working hours, rendering time is a good chance to catch up on the news. But because most of the news right now is about the holocaust in Gaza, I needed a break from the news. So I found this article:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126911.300-our-world-may-be-a-giant-hologram.html?full=true
I rarely read something simply because somebody told me to, so I'll summarize: It turns out that the universe is actually just some holographic projection from this enormous five-dimensional sphere that lies just outside of the maximum possible distance, comprised of little squares of pure infomation about everything that ever happened. Who knew?
Quantum and spacetime theories can be really weird. Like that really weird kid, you know? Nobody is pretending to understand it all, but this stuff can send you down some pretty interesting rabbit holes. Teleportation, multiple timeframes, and such. But the ultimate message of this article - which I so flippantly revealed up top - really hit home with me.
...you can think of the universe as a sphere whose outer surface is papered in Planck length-sized squares [10^-35m], each containing one bit of information. The holographic principle says that the amount of information papering the outside must match the number of bits contained inside the volume of the universe.
The Planck length is the minimum possible size; there is no greater smallth. But the bright idea that some scientist (I'm sure his name is mentioned in the article) had is this: Because the information is contained on the surface of the sphere, and because there is more volume (the volume being the universe we experience) than surface area in such a sphere, AND because all of the matter is encoded in the information on the surface, despite being projected into the greater volume, ergo this: We can detect the bits because they are blown up to detectable, larger-than-Planck size! The result being that this idea can be experimentally confirmed.
Well, this is exciting to me, at least. I like thinking about the ultimate equity between matter and information, for one thing. Another reason is that I kind of always suspected that everything gets written down somewhere. Have you ever done something meaningless? Like, something that is not going to affect anyone or be known about or noticed by anyone, and possibly not even remembered by you, and certainly not known after you're dead? Like shouting in an empty building, or thinking about moths even though you don't need to?
Yes, you do those things. And when I do, I think to myself, hey, at least it happened. Well, the good news is that it does get written down somewhere. My suspicion was more that it would be in the book that Jesus lets you read at the moment your life ends, but it turns out it was on a sphere encompassing the outer bounds of enormity.
Perhaps this article plays a bit on our tendencies to find causalities - we live in a hologram because of this giant holosphere we just discovered. Oh shit! Well, it turns out our lives are just an elaborate prank, now. Everything you do, you see, you were wrong about - it didn't actually happen, it was just these tiny, tiny squares outside.
I dunno. To me, it seems more reasonable to think of this as another manifestation of what is, and an approach that can lead to some useful realizations. Am I supposed to riot instead, now that we figured this out? This shit is going to happen, this giant sphere that knows about every time you farted and meticulously squirrels that data away in at least as many dimensions as you can count on one hand, no matter whether or how you think about it. I started really figuring out how I place us in this universe around the same time I was first exposed to information science, so stuff like this really clicks with my worldview. How about you - does this rattle your cage at all, or do you find it comforting? Or perhaps very boring? Am I getting worked up about nothing? Or are you missing something?
P.S. I'm moving on Saturday.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126911.300-our-world-may-be-a-giant-hologram.html?full=true
I rarely read something simply because somebody told me to, so I'll summarize: It turns out that the universe is actually just some holographic projection from this enormous five-dimensional sphere that lies just outside of the maximum possible distance, comprised of little squares of pure infomation about everything that ever happened. Who knew?
Quantum and spacetime theories can be really weird. Like that really weird kid, you know? Nobody is pretending to understand it all, but this stuff can send you down some pretty interesting rabbit holes. Teleportation, multiple timeframes, and such. But the ultimate message of this article - which I so flippantly revealed up top - really hit home with me.
...you can think of the universe as a sphere whose outer surface is papered in Planck length-sized squares [10^-35m], each containing one bit of information. The holographic principle says that the amount of information papering the outside must match the number of bits contained inside the volume of the universe.
The Planck length is the minimum possible size; there is no greater smallth. But the bright idea that some scientist (I'm sure his name is mentioned in the article) had is this: Because the information is contained on the surface of the sphere, and because there is more volume (the volume being the universe we experience) than surface area in such a sphere, AND because all of the matter is encoded in the information on the surface, despite being projected into the greater volume, ergo this: We can detect the bits because they are blown up to detectable, larger-than-Planck size! The result being that this idea can be experimentally confirmed.
Well, this is exciting to me, at least. I like thinking about the ultimate equity between matter and information, for one thing. Another reason is that I kind of always suspected that everything gets written down somewhere. Have you ever done something meaningless? Like, something that is not going to affect anyone or be known about or noticed by anyone, and possibly not even remembered by you, and certainly not known after you're dead? Like shouting in an empty building, or thinking about moths even though you don't need to?
Yes, you do those things. And when I do, I think to myself, hey, at least it happened. Well, the good news is that it does get written down somewhere. My suspicion was more that it would be in the book that Jesus lets you read at the moment your life ends, but it turns out it was on a sphere encompassing the outer bounds of enormity.
Perhaps this article plays a bit on our tendencies to find causalities - we live in a hologram because of this giant holosphere we just discovered. Oh shit! Well, it turns out our lives are just an elaborate prank, now. Everything you do, you see, you were wrong about - it didn't actually happen, it was just these tiny, tiny squares outside.
I dunno. To me, it seems more reasonable to think of this as another manifestation of what is, and an approach that can lead to some useful realizations. Am I supposed to riot instead, now that we figured this out? This shit is going to happen, this giant sphere that knows about every time you farted and meticulously squirrels that data away in at least as many dimensions as you can count on one hand, no matter whether or how you think about it. I started really figuring out how I place us in this universe around the same time I was first exposed to information science, so stuff like this really clicks with my worldview. How about you - does this rattle your cage at all, or do you find it comforting? Or perhaps very boring? Am I getting worked up about nothing? Or are you missing something?
P.S. I'm moving on Saturday.