the Philosophy

"It turns out that an eerie type of chaos can lurk just behind a facade of order - and yet, deep inside the chaos lurks an even eerier type of order."

Douglas Hofstadter

 

The philosophical engine behind The Hologram can sometimes be difficult to explain in few lines and to a broad audience. I will try to take a walk in the park the better way I can. I will discuss briefly three aspects: 1) the theory of the Holographic Universe (or Bohm's interpretation of quantum mechanics), 2) The state of contemporary physics, and 3) Deterministic Chaos.

The first aspect I want to discuss briefly is the Holographic Universe. This was a theory proposed in the 20th century by David Bohm, a scientist and philosopher. He proposed that the universe was really a projected holographic image. This meant that our reality would be non-local (which explains certain observed phenomenons, like the EPR Paradox and the Double Slit Experiment) and that the definition of the Whole Universe is in all of its parts. The implications of a holographic universe are more food for a metaphysical and poetic discussion than for a scientific one. Unfortunaly, the theory of Bohm is weak, so we can't rely on it the way as it is and we'll have to move on to new theories. Although, the philosophic implications of having a non-local and holistic universe is important and is still hotly debated today.

Snakes, by M.C.Escher

Our reality being non-local means that time and space are not continuous, but discreet. Particles could 'jump' somewhere else and do other strange acrobacies, faster than light and they could even turn back or forward in time. Which, in fact, are phenomenons observed. And as we go by, the heap of these strange quantum phenomenons grows and we need more and newer theories, I mean, concrete theories, to glue up the world of these quantum weirdnesses and the world of macroscopic effects. And that's what theoretical physicists have been doing, trying to find a Theory that would explain everything in the known universe. There are few Theories Of Everything(TOE), and the ones which exist are either incomplete or ones that cannot be proven at the moment (like the M theory of the superstrings). I defend that to form a TOE, we need a new mathematical language. Some proponents of the M theory agree with this. Things are getting so complex, that our current mathematical language is starting to break down just to describe the fundamentals of contemporary physics. But I do also believe that we need not only new mathematics, but also a new philosophy.

This brings me to the next theme: Deterministic Chaos. When I put these two words together, some people laugh and think I'm insane. Well, Deterministic Chaos doesn't come from my head and, in fact, is a mathematic field that focus on the study of chaotic systems and fractals. So, what are chaotic systems and fractals? For this I wil quote a physicist:

"(...)Of all the dimensions we use to look at physical objects, the most important ones are space and time. Let us look first at chaos in space. An object which is chaotic in space is called a “fractal”. There are many possible definitions of the word fractal. A very loose and general definition is this: a fractal is a geometric figure that does not become simpler when you analyze it into smaller and smaller parts. Which implies, of course, that it is not smooth." - Chaos, Complexity and Entropy - Michel Baranger

I couldn't said it better myself. Most natural systems are fractals. The weather, chemical reactions, the shoreline of an island, snowflakes, mountains, the human body, evolution of a population, economics, etc. And if you analyse these systems in detail, you'll find other systems within them and the more you analyse them, the more you'll find odd behaviours. But all these chaotic systems have certain common properties: 1) they are iterative 2) are self-similar and 3) possess individual states that are unpredictable and truly random, yet a greater order of the whole system can be known and described (that's what is referenced in Hofstadter's quote in the beginning of this article).

Being iterative means that the system depends on all the past states. For example, the most known example of this property of chaos is the weather system. Any condition yesterday can influence how the weather will behave today, but also the conditions yesterday were influenced by the day before and so one. On the end, the weather today can be influenced by its state a hundred years or a thousand years ago, it doesn't matter.

While iteration is a simple concept, Self-similarity can be strange to any person who never heard of chaos before. Let's just say that all chaotic systems, as unpredictable as they may be, can somewhere in time and space, show patterns similar to those of the whole system, or at least similar patterns within the system. That is self-similarity. For example, an atom is not equal, but similar to a star. Tree trunks are not veins, but they are shaped in very similar ways to those of blood veins in your body and they can be described by the same non linear and iterative systems with a certain modification of constants.

So, the chaos I am speaking about here does not mean disorder, that concept only exists in the eyes of someone or something that cannot see the full scope of chaos. I am not talking about mere unpredictable behaviour born out of sensitive initial conditions either (that was a semi-classic notion). I am talking about a kind of very clear determinism that arises from a system, that yes, is very sensitive to initial conditions and has unpredictable middle results, but in the end, also displays infinite kinds of order and can be understood and fully described. If you had a very powerful computer that was calculating the iterated function system(IFS) I'm showing above (yes it looks like wheat leaf) and if you were to zoom in on any part of it, you would find the exact entire leaves but smaller, infinitely. Each of those points are also entire leaves, but unperceptible due to the zoom level of the image (and due to the fact that in a computer, a calculation must be limited).

I am not arguing here that our universe will repeat exactly in all degrees of zoom or order, it may be much more complex than that (or deceptively simple), but this is how in theory the universe might work. Forget what you know about Euclidean space and Continuous Time, Chaos is the future.