[Bill S (OP)]

When scientists, such as David Bohm, and authors, such as Michael Taylor describe the Universe as a hologram I very much doubt that they are suggesting that some other-worldly being is projecting laser images with an incredibly gigantic projector to produce what we experience as the Universe.  I suspect that it would be more appropriate to say that the three-dimensional images we can produce with laser technology are as near as we can come to producing an effect that, to some extent, mimics the way in which our Universe works. 
Is this how others would interpret the situation, or am I missing something?  Perhaps it is just a "crack-pot" idea.

[CPT ArkAngel]

It is a highly speculative subject but a very interesting one...

In the perspective of a quantized universe and the Theory of Information, it is appealing to think we are in a kind of matrix. Anything in 3D can be represent in 2D.

Does anyone see a possible link between Quantum entanglement and a possible holographic universe? This quantum entanglement is so strange... Matter vs Antimatter...

Could there be a quantum entangled Antimatter Universe to our Matter Universe? Black holes could be the doors to this Universe (they could be common to both Universes...). Maybe a backup copy. [:0] Just for fun...

[CPT ArkAngel]

Maybe our consciousness is interacting with both Universes and the double interaction makes us perceive our Universe in 3D....

[JP]

What cosmologists mean when they use the holographic principle is that the information about a region of space can be encoded on a surface bounding that region of space.  I believe the idea comes from black holes, where all the information about the black hole appears to be at its event horizon, since we can't see into the black hole itself.  I don't know much more about this, however.

Optical holograms basically work by encoding information about the 3D behavior of light onto a 2D sheet.  Aside from the similarity in dimensions, the two ideas use completely different physical principles and are unrelated.  The naming of the holographic principle is unfortunate, since it leads to a lot of confusion.

[yor_on]

you can take a look at Bekenstein bound

It’s about the amount of ‘information’ possible to retrieve from the surroundings, for example, of a speeding star-ship. The information retrieved has to be less than a forth of the visible area expressed in Plank lengths. So what happens if you ask more ‘questions’ measuring, than there are answers in that ‘area’ well, either the area ‘grows’ or some of the answers that was there before disappear/change.

What’s surprising about the theorem is that it only discusses an ‘area’. It doesn’t matter if you treat it as a cube filled with ‘states’’, like molecules bouncing inside a jar. You can make that jar as ‘deep’ as you like as I understands it. As long as the area facing you is the same, the ‘information amount’ will be the same, meaning that the jar contain no more information depending on depth. Thinking three dimensionally we can see that that can’t be right, right The bigger the jar the more molecules bouncing and interfering with each other, and the more ‘states’ there should be.

But it's what Hawking built his Black hole interpretation on. When it comes to the holographic principle to me it's whether it's building on 'discrete events' or not that matters, and if it does how they see what is 'before' a holograph. The difference between The holographic principle and String theory is that String Theory seems to build on the idea of a 'canvas' on where you paint the 'strings, loops' etc. That is an 'background'. And I believe the holographic principle builds on itself being the 'background'.

To understand that we need to consider what came 'first', and also how we define 'events'. And that has, at least to me, to do with Planck size. That's the border where anything 'beneath' becomes meaning less physically. You can have a 'holographic universe' ignoring what comes beneath I suspect, but I rather not.

So which ever one you choose, I think one border that's very real for us will be Planck size.

===


The Bekenstein Bound, Topological Quantum Field Theory and Pluralistic Quantum Field Theory  By Lee Smolin. He's really cool

[CliffordK]

If the universe was a hologram, then wouldn't that necessarily mean that you would have to have some kind of a control center with predictive capabilities. 

So, for example, if two rocks orbiting Saturn were to collide, you should be able to build a predictive model of how they will bounce apart, if they will crumble, etc.

On Earth, however, you have LIFE.
Which, is wonderfully unpredictable.

I suppose that gets you to the question on whether you have true free-will.

Then how are you going to deal with physics?  For example MASS. 

Is mass real in your hologram?  Or are you artificially creating the perception of the effects of mass and acceleration?

If you determine that Mass, Acceleration, Momentum, E=MC², etc are all real.  Then you would have to also conclude the actions of the objects in the system are independent of the projection system.

And, there is fundamentally no difference between what would be projected, and what exists independently.

I believe the Universe is defined as everything that is observable from Planet Earth, and is essentially considered to be a sphere around earth with our planet the center of it.  While it may be inappropriate to define the Universe to extend beyond the stars and galaxies that we are capable of observing, such a definition including only what is near earth is flawed. 

However, if you believe in the "big bang", then there is the question of what existed before the big bang, or outside of the big bang.  And whether there were other "big bangs" elsewhere.  And, if the big bang occupied no space...  what was here before here was here?

[yor_on]

Here's an introduction to The holographic principle. from Uppsala university in Sweden.
==

Reading it makes me wonder a little, maybe I'm wrong believing it to be applicable to a whole SpaceTime? There seems to be some limitations to the Bekenstein bound.

"Sad to say though, it has its limitations. In Sec.2.1, the conditions Bekenstein specified for the validity of his bound was not stated explicitly. The system under consideration must be of constant, finite size, have limited self-gravity and no matter components with negative energy density can be available. A system which satisfies these conditions will be referred to as a Bekenstein system."

I will need to ponder, a lot )

[CPT ArkAngel]

thank you Yor on for the reference!!!

[granpa]

if the universe is a hologram then
every object is 'spread out' over the whole hologram and therefore
everything interacts instantly with everything else.

[yor_on]

This might bear a relevance to the discussion?
Can we really be holograms?
 

Yeah I know, can't a man change his mind?
And no, I'm not sure if the holographic principle is the exact same as my view
But I will try to see.

[yor_on]

Read this and see what you think

New Evidence of a Holographic Universe.

What I'm having trouble with is the 'smearing effect'. I do think our universe a analogue one, not 'discrete events'. But it have to be a size-thing to me, with what we call 'discrete states' coming to be at Plank size, or slightly over? And what better than 'emergences' to describe the transitions?

Nota bene: If 'distance' is something different from what we experience it 'normally' though, as shown by SpaceTime elasticity then the question might be moot?

[yor_on]

It's kind of fun if it was this way, then everything we do and deem as waves etc are 'projections' and a hologram is our 3-D projection inside our 3-D projection. Also it is a proof of the possibility of creating 'intelligence' by light. Makes my head ache this one.

Should mean that we can create a 'infinity' of 3-D projections inside each other, all 'communicating' with each other as but all 'isolated'. But so weird

What makes it weird is the 'discrete states' we are defined from, if we were a hologram then I would expect us to use other ways of 'moving' communicating, even 'eating'. Why would a hologram evolve to SpaceTime?
==

And what is 'death' inside a hologram?

[Bill S (OP)]

If the universe was a hologram, then wouldn't that necessarily mean that you would have to have some kind of a control center with predictive capabilities.

As I said in my OP, I find it difficult to believe that the holographic principle is intended to imply that that some other-worldly being is projecting laser images with an incredibly gigantic projector.  However, it seems reasonable to look at some of the features of holograms and ask if they might equate to features of the cosmos. (I prefer to use "cosmos" because it is not subject to the sort of interpretation found in CliffordK's post, above).
For example:

if the universe is a hologram then
every object is 'spread out' over the whole hologram and therefore
everything interacts instantly with everything else.

This could be paraphrased as: if the cosmos is infinite then every object is every other object and interacts instantly with everything else.
Obviously, that is not what we perceive in our Universe, but that may be due to our restricted view of things. Perhaps the holographic principle could teach us something about infinity.  

[CPT ArkAngel]

Or something about finity... Like the Planck's length maybe...

[Foolosophy]

How can the Universe be anyting BUT the Universe?
 []

[CPT ArkAngel]

Our Universe is the dimensions we are interacting in. There may be other dimensions inaccessible for us unless maybe one day we a find a way. For example, we could share the time dimension but not space with a parallel Universe (maybe one space dimension and time are shared, etc...). The whole universe would still include all dimensions, so you are right in a way. We just have to be on the same page...

[Bill S (OP)]

Or something about finity... Like the Planck's length maybe...

Could you expand on this a bit, please.  I'm not clear about the link between Planck's length and infinity.

[CliffordK]

Thanks for the links on the hologram, although I must admit that I didn't catch everything.

One would note from the Daniel Domert paper:

Worth stressing though, is that we did not use the holographic principle to describe nature. We have very successful theories that describes our world, such as general relativity and quantum field theory.  In these theories the holographic principle is far from manifest.

So, are we just parasites on the perfect Universe hologram?  Do the inorganic rings of Saturn behave in an organic way on a small scale?  Are they included?  What about the gas storms of Jupiter?

While the "holo-world" theory might simplify some things, for other things it introduces an extraordinary amount of complexity.

Let's consider the idea of projecting the 3-D space filling model of our universe onto a 2-D spherical shell, or perhaps a number of discrete points on that shell. 

First of all, you would need to come up with some new constructs such as holo-rays to project the hologram, and holo-media to interact with the holo-rays. 

How fast do these holo-rays travel?  I'd postulate that they would have to travel faster than the speed of light, if not instantaneously.  Furthermore, if they were projected from multiple projection points, then the projection points would also have to have instantaneous communication.  Can they project light, traveling at the speed of light, originating from a point source within the holo-universe, and being absorbed (or reflected) by other materials.

We view distant objects in the past...  our view of Andromeda is about 2.5 million years old...  however, timing of the present (everything around us) is critical and would be difficult to generate remotely, right down to the necessary disjunctions in time represented by the puff of smoke from a starter pistol at a race being necessarily followed by the sound it makes.

If I'm 5'10" in real life, how big am I in the holo-projector?  Trillions of light years in size?  Thank God I don't loose a finger when I'm typing on the keyboard...  or perhaps that is the true reason I keep hitting the wrong keys.  The fingers were just projected in the wrong place!!! 

That brings up another point.  Our current interpretation of astronomy is that Earth is not in a single constant place in the universe, but rather Earth is spinning on its axis.  It is orbiting around the sun, which in turn is orbiting around the Milky Way, which in turn is hurtling through space.  And, of course, each system has numerous wobbles due to gravity interactions of all other components in the system.  All very complex movements to represent externally from the system.

Gravity, while whatever generates it may not be well understood, its impacts are clearly documented.  Why do all celestial objects bigger than say our moon take on roughly a spherical shape?  Those smaller than our moon take on random shapes?  Can the spherical shell holo-projector account for that?  But, then we look at our earth and discover that it isn't a sphere, but it clearly has a bulge in the middle from centrifugal/centripetal force.  And, it doesn't travel in a circular or an elliptical orbit, but rather its orbit is perturbed by every other planet in the solar system.

Everything one considers seems to add complexity to the holo-model.

I would postulate that the only way one could truly represent the complexity of our universe with a holo-model is if the model was projecting a representation of the actual universe, in which case the question is whether we were living in the original or the copy.  If we exist in the original, then it is irrelevant how many times copies are projected.

[CPT ArkAngel]

About the Planck Length, it is defined as the smallest length beyond which Relativity Theory cannot be validated. According to Quantum Gravity and the Holographic Principle, this would be the basic quantum length for modeling every particles after a unified Quantum Theory. The Planck Length could define a kind of elementary pixel containing a defined maximum information density (or energy density). Our Universe would be made of finite elements...

The Holographic Principle, as i understand it, says that the third dimension of space may be an illusion.

One way to get out of the matrix could be to jump in a black hole... in an act of faith...[:0] []

[granpa]

If the universe is a hologram then every object is 'spread out' over the whole and interacts with everything else instantly.

If at a deep enough level everything interacts with everything else instantly then at that level the speed of light would be infinite.
Hence there would be no trouble reconciling relativity with quantum mechanics.