What is Reality in a Holographic World?

Abstract

The nature of a holographic world is described. This scientific description of the world is based upon the assumptions of modern theoretical physics. These natural assumptions are inherent in any unified theory, such as string theory, and in any theory of the creation of the world, such as inflationary cosmology. At their most basic level, these are the assumptions of the equivalence, uncertainty and action principles, along with the second law of thermodynamics. Any world consistent with these fundamental principles is easily shown to be a holographic world. The mathematical consistency of such a holographic world also implies something about the nature of consciousness. If that mathematical consistency is followed to its logical conclusion, in the sense of the Gödel incompleteness theorems, this scientific description of the world also has something to tell us about the nature of reality. What this scientific description of the world tells us about the nature of reality is compared to what mystics have told us about reality throughout human history.

A holographic description of the world is an observer-centric description that satisfies the covariant entropy bound of the holographic principle. In such a world, consensual reality is not a single objective reality, but many entangled worlds that share information with each other, each defined on its own viewing screen, and each observed from its own point of view. The self-concept is understood in terms of the encoding of information on the viewing screen, and the expression of personal will and universal will is understood in the sense of the flow of energy. The nature of the Self is understood as a presence of consciousness that arises at a focal point of perception, while the perceivable world arises on a viewing screen. In a nondual sense, the Source of any such world, and the Source of any individual consciousness, is understood as a void of undifferentiated consciousness.