[Paleopsych] pavel--cosmic quorum sensing

[HowlBloom at aol.com]

Pavel—Here’s an article with very  little content that I can see.  But  it 
does have a statement that relates to the work we’re doing together—"There's a 
real conflict between the way  that we're thinking about the  
world right now, which is a very local way  where everything happens  
independently in different regions of space  and the way that we're  
going to have to think  about it," said UC Berkeley physics professor, 
Raphael  Bousso. 
You and I are inching our way  toward an explanation of the way a single 
particle—or a hoard of  particles—converse with and consult the cosmos before 
deciding on their next  move.  We’re working on how the  cosmos evolves via 
sophisticated quorum sensing. 
The rest of the  following article is undermined by the usual epistemological 
problem in  physics.  It says that the universe  must be a certain way 
because this is the best way our math can describe  it.  When will the community of  
physicists and mathematicians finally understand what you do, that our math 
is a  stone tool.  It’s extremely  primitive.  But that doesn’t mean  the 
cosmos is primitive.   
Howard 
The Universe is Only Pretending,  Physicist Says 
Like a Hologram, the Universe  Merely Appears to Have Three Spatial  
Dimensions, Scientists  Infer 
By ALEXANDRA L.  WOODRUFF 
Contributing  Writer 
Wednesday, November 9, 2005 
In quantum physics, nothing is as it  seems. As physicists continue to  
study the universe they  continually run into new questions that shake  
how humans understand the  universe's intricate mechanics. 
UC Berkeley physics professor, Raphael  Bousso, is trying to break down  
the mysteries of the universe  with a concept called the holographic  
principle. Physicists stumbled on  the idea while studying black holes.  
It is a concept, which ultimately  questions whether the third dimension  
exists. 
"There's a real conflict between the way that we're thinking about the   
world right now, which is a very local way  where everything happens  
independently in different regions of space  and the way that we're  
going to have to think about it," said  Bousso in an interview. 
Bousso presented the ideas at a seminar  last weekend called "Latest  
Theories About the Universe and  Its Governing Laws: Theoretical Physics  
Made Easy for the Public" at the  Lawrence Hall of Science to an  
audience of about  100. 
The holographic principle uses the  optical concept of holograms to try  
to visually explain the complex  idea. Holograms are most often used  on  
credit cards and are images that  look three dimensional, but they exist   
on a two dimensional  surface. 
"You have to keep in mind that we're  just using that name as a sort of  
metaphor for something that we're  specifying quite precisely when we're  
talking about how much  information there is relative to certain areas,"  
he said. 
A computer chip is a good way to  visualize the principle. The chip has  
information stored on it in the  form of data, but this isn't the  
information Bousso is talking  about. Information in the holographic  
principle means the entire  collection of matter the chip is made of. 
"One way of quantifying the complexity  of matter is to ask how many  
different states can it be in?  How many things can you wiggle in? How  
many different ways?" Bousso  said. 
It would seem logical that if you  doubled the size of the chip, then  
you could store twice as much  information on the chip. 
"What we've found is that it appears  that gravity conspires against  
that when you really try to store  a lot of information in a special  
region, then once you double that  region you can't store twice as much  
anymore," Bousso  said. 
In other words, if you have a bunch of  grapes in the fridge and have  
all the information including  water content, temperature and anything  
else, you should be able to  create an exact replica of the grapes. 
Physicists have found the information  content doesn't hinge on volume,  
but rather on surface area. An information  increase can only happen on  
a two-dimensional surface and information  density cannot increase by  
volume, a three-dimensional  measurement. 
"The total amount of information that  you can store in the world grows  
only like the surface area of the  region that you're considering," he  
said. 
The discovery ultimately says the  concept shows the third dimension   
could be an illusion because complex  calculations can't prove it  
exists. The recognition is a step of  progress, but Bousso doesn't know  
where it will ultimately  lead. 
"It may be a major step, it may just be  one piece in a very big  
puzzle, but I think it's  definitely progress towards that goal," he  
said. 
Although there is practical way to use  these principles right now,  
Bousso said he and fellow  physicists are driven to understand nature at  
the most fundamental  level. 
Albert Einstein didn't have any  practical applications for his theory  
of relativity when he first  discovered it, but now the concept is woven  
into today's technology with  things like global positioning systems, he  
said. 
"It happens to be true that sooner or  later these types of progress  
have not just had practical  applications, but they really underlie  
almost everything that we can do  technologically today," Bousso said. 
Ultimately, the physicist wants to find  the origins and the  
implications of the holographic  principle. 
He said the principle has given insight  into physics concepts that  
scientists have understood for  years. 
"It gives us a preview of some of the  unifications and the explanatory  
power that the quantum gravity  we're seeking is going to have," Bousso  
said. 


----------
Howard  Bloom
Author of The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the  Forces of 
History and Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind From The Big Bang  to the 
21st Century
Recent Visiting Scholar-Graduate Psychology Department,  New York University; 
Core Faculty Member, The Graduate  Institute
www.howardbloom.net
www.bigbangtango.net
Founder:  International Paleopsychology Project; founding board member: Epic 
of Evolution  Society; founding board member, The Darwin Project; founder: The 
Big Bang Tango  Media Lab; member: New York Academy of Sciences, American 
Association for the  Advancement of Science, American Psychological Society, 
Academy of Political  Science, Human Behavior and Evolution Society, International 
Society for Human  Ethology; advisory board member: Institute for 
Accelerating Change ; executive  editor -- New Paradigm book series.
For information on The International  Paleopsychology Project, see: 
www.paleopsych.org
for two chapters from  
The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History,  
see www.howardbloom.net/lucifer
For information on Global Brain: The  Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big 
Bang to the 21st Century, see  www.howardbloom.net

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