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Michael Talbot : 自著の『ホログラフィック宇宙論』を語る

· 57 min read

前置き​

この動画は過去記事(*1)でも取り上げたが、今回は AI で整理した。

(*1)​

❑ Michael Talbot インタビュー：全発言＋日本語訳 (2023-06-09)

Michael Talbot : UFO や超常現象は「ホログラフィック TV」の別のチャンネルの影響（途中：その3） (2017-10-10)

概要​

AI

ホログラフィック宇宙の探求

提供された文章は、ジェフリー・ミシュラブとマイケル・タルボットによる「ホログラフィック宇宙」の概念に関する対談の抜粋です。この対談では、‌‌現実がホログラムのように機能する可能性‌‌が探求されており、‌‌脳の記憶の仕組み‌‌や‌‌素粒子の非局所的な相互作用‌‌が、このホログラフィックモデルによって説明できると提案されています。タルボットはさらに、‌‌プラセボ効果‌‌や‌‌サイキック現象‌‌、‌‌臨死体験‌‌といった、意識が物理的な現実に影響を与える事例も、ホログラフィックな視点から理解できると述べています。全体として、この議論は、‌‌現実の根源的な性質‌‌と‌‌意識の役割‌‌について、従来の科学的理解を超えた深い洞察を提供しようとしています。

目次​

  1. 前置き
    1. (*1)
  2. 概要
  3. 詳細
    1. 1. ホログラフィックモデルの起源と本質
    2. 2. 現実の二つのレベル
    3. 3. 量子物理学におけるホログラフィックモデルの示唆
    4. 4. 脳のホログラフィック機能
    5. 5. 意識と身体への影響
    6. 6. 広範な示唆
  4. 時系列
  5. 主要関係者
  6. Talbot が OBE 中に目撃した本
  7. 情報源
  8. 文字起こし

詳細​

AI

ホログラフィック宇宙の探求：主要テーマと重要なアイデアの概要

心理学者ジェフリー・ミシュラブと著者マイケル・タルボットの対談「ホログラフィック宇宙の探求」は、現実のホログラフィックモデルとその個人、身体、そして世界への影響を探るものである。このモデルは、デビッド・ボーム（物理学者）とカール・プリブラム（神経生理学者）によってそれぞれ独立して開発され、記憶と素粒子物理学の分野における観察から生まれた。

1. ホログラフィックモデルの起源と本質​

  • 開発者:デビッド・ボーム（ユニバーシティ・カレッジ・ロンドン物理学者）: 素粒子物理学を研究し、素粒子レベルの現実の構造がホログラムの特性に似ていることを発見した。
  • カール・プリブラム（スタンフォード大学神経生理学者）: 記憶を研究し、脳がホログラフィックに機能している証拠を見出した。
  • 核心的な概念: 現実が「固体構造」ではなく、「イメージのように、より柔軟で変化しやすい」ものであるという考え。
  • ホログラムの特性: ホログラフィックイメージが符号化された写真フィルムは、肉眼では見えず、レーザー光線を当てて初めて3次元のイメージが再構築される。
  • 「全体が部分に含まれる」原則: ホログラフィックフィルムを半分に切っても、それぞれの断片から完全なイメージが得られる。「フィルムを半分に切っても、それぞれの断片から完全なバラが得られるのは、非常に珍しい特性であり、最初は想像を絶する。」これはウィリアム・ブレイクの「一粒の砂の中に宇宙を見る」という言葉に似ており、宇宙のあらゆる部分が全体の一部を含んでいることを示唆している。
  • 非レーザー光ホログラムとの区別: クレジットカードのホログラムのように、レーザー光線を必要としない一般的なホログラムには上記の特性は当てはまらない。

2. 現実の二つのレベル​

  • 干渉パターン: ホログラフィックフィルムには、レーザー光線の干渉パターンが記録されており、肉眼では「池の波紋」のように見える。
  • 具象イメージとエネルギーのぼやけ: ホログラムは「具体的なイメージとして、あるいはこの種の判読できないエネルギーのぼやけとして」二つの方法で現実を顕現させることができる。
  • 宇宙への適用: 宇宙がホログラムである場合、現実には二つの「大きく異なるレベル」があることを示唆している。
    • 具象的な現実: 私たちが日常的に認識する椅子、木、雲、身体など。
    • 深層のレベル: 「すべてがエネルギーの海に溶解し、ホログラフィックに相互接続されており、宇宙のあらゆる部分が宇宙のあらゆる小さな領域に含まれている」レベル。
  • 分離の幻想: このモデルは、私たち自身や物体が互いに分離しているという日常的な認識が「表面的」であり、「人工的」であることを意味する。ボームは、私たちが現実を記述するために使用する概念的枠組み（言葉）が、私たちが住む水に気づいていない魚のように、私たち自身の頭の中の現象であると強調する。

3. 量子物理学におけるホログラフィックモデルの示唆​

  • 非局所性（量子もつれ）: 2つの素粒子（例：電子）がどれほど離れていても、一方に何かが行われると、もう一方も影響を受けるという現象。これは「光の速度より速い」信号や「瞬間的な信号」によって説明することはできない。
  • ボームの解釈: ボームは、素粒子は実際には信号を送り合っているのではなく、より深いホログラフィックなレベルでは、「宇宙のすべての粒子が一種の宇宙的統一に崩壊する」と説明する。
    • 水槽の比喩: 魚が泳ぐ水槽を二つの異なる角度からテレビカメラで撮影し、それぞれのモニターに映像を映し出す例を挙げる。観察者は二つの分離した魚がいるように見えるが、実際には同じ魚であり、その動きは常に同期する。これと同様に、素粒子もより深遠な現実の異なる側面である。
    • 分離の欠如: この理解は、「電子間に分離がない」だけでなく、「人々の間にも分離がない」ことを意味する。
  • 超能力現象の説明: 心霊現象（例：テレパシー、サイコキネシス）は、信号の送受信ではなく、宇宙がホログラフィックに組織されているため、すべての部分が全体を含んでいることから説明できる。私たちが深いレベルにアクセスできれば、通常の感覚を超えた情報にアクセスできる。

4. 脳のホログラフィック機能​

  • プリブラムの記憶研究: カール・ラシュリーの研究を引き継ぎ、記憶が脳の特定の部分に局所的に保存されているという従来の考えに異議を唱えた。
    • ラットの迷路実験: ラットの脳の様々な部分を切除しても、迷路を走る記憶を完全に除去することはできなかった。
    • 人間の記憶障害: 頭部外傷を負った人は、記憶が全体的に曖昧になるが、特定の部分だけを忘れるわけではない。
    • ホログラムとの類似点: ホログラムのイメージが部分が小さくなるにつれてぼやけるが、全体は残るのと同様に、記憶も脳の一部が除去されると曖昧になるが、完全には失われない。
  • シナプスの電気的インパルス: プリブラムは、シナプスが電気的インパルスを発することで、脳の電磁場に「波紋」を生じさせ、それが交差してホログラムを形成すると提唱する。これが脳の思考と記憶のメカニズムであると信じられている。
  • フーリエ変換: 脳は視覚情報や他の感覚情報を解読するために、「フーリエ変換」という数学的言語を使用していることが判明した。これはホログラムの作成にも用いられる数学であり、「脳がホログラムであるという示唆」である。

5. 意識と身体への影響​

  • 意識の性質: タルボットは、プリブラムの脳ホログラム説に一部同意しつつも、自身の体外離脱経験から、思考が脳から独立して存在しうる可能性を示唆する。彼は、電磁干渉パターンよりも「より微細なレベル、より微細なエネルギー」が意識に関与していると推測する。ボームの量子波ポテンシャルの概念がこれに関連しているかもしれない。
  • 被験者と客体の区別: 量子物理学において、観察行為が粒子に影響を与える「不確定性原理」により、被験者と客体の区別が崩れることが示唆される。タルボットは、この原理が液体ヘリウムのように巨視的なレベルでも現れる例を挙げる。
  • 心身相関（プラシーボ効果）: プリブラムのモデルは、私たちが「現実のモデル」に反応する傾向があることを説明する。
    • 兵士の行軍実験: 実際に歩いた距離ではなく、伝えられた距離に応じて生理学的に反応した兵士の例。
    • リンパ腫患者のクレビオシン治療: 患者の薬への信念が、実際の薬ではなくても（塩水であっても）、腫瘍を縮小させた例。信念が身体の治癒能力を活性化した。
    • 脱毛副作用: 偽薬を投与された患者の30%が、有毒な化学療法薬であると告げられただけで脱毛した例。
  • 意識の役割の再評価: ホログラフィックモデルは、これまで「付随現象」と見なされてきた意識が、物理システムに影響を与えるメカニズムを提供し、その役割をより深く理解することを可能にする。
  • 脳と身体の連続性: ホログラフィックモデルが正しければ、脳と身体の間に「分離」は存在しない。すべての相互接続が非常に密接であるため、それらを異なるものとして区別することは「ほとんど無意味な点」となる。

6. 広範な示唆​

  • 宇宙との一体性: 私たち自身と宇宙全体との間に明確な区別がないことを示唆する。
    • 超感覚的知覚とサイコキネシス:サイコキネシス（念力）: ボームは、サイコキネシスを、脳から物体を動かすエネルギーが出ているという考え方ではなく、私たちの「思考が物体のパターンと連続体である」という「共鳴行為」として説明する。
    • 鍼治療: 体全体のツボが耳の小さな領域に再現されている「マイクロ鍼システム」をホログラフィックモデルで説明できる。
  • 臨死体験（NDE）: ケネス・リングの研究により、臨死体験は個人が「ホログラムのより深い部分に入る」こととして理解できる。
    • 思考による即時創造: 臨死体験者は、現実のこのレベルを「周波数」「エネルギー」、そして「ホログラム」と表現し、思考が即座に現実を創造する例（飢えを感じると食べ物が出現する、裸であると意識すると服が現れる）がある。これは、心が「周波数の海から服のホログラムを引っ張り出す」ことができることを示唆する。
  • 新しい視点: このモデルは、「理解の周縁にあった多くの異なる領域」を「新しい目で見る」ことを可能にする。

この対談は、ホログラフィックモデルが単なる科学的仮説にとどまらず、意識、健康、そして現実そのものの性質に関する私たちの基本的な前提に挑戦する、広範かつ深遠な哲学的・精神的な示唆を持つことを示している。

時系列​

AI

‌‌数十年前‌‌*：ホログラフィックモデルが開発され始める。

  • デイヴィッド・ボーム（ロンドン大学物理学者）が素粒子物理学において、現実の構造がホログラムに似た特性を持つことを発見する。
  • カール・プリブラム（スタンフォード大学神経生理学者）が記憶の研究において、脳がホログラフィックに機能するという証拠を発見する。

‌‌*1960年代以前‌‌：記憶は脳の特定の場所に貯蔵されていると考えられていた（「祖母細胞」の概念など）。

‌‌*1960年代‌‌*：プリブラムがカール・ラシュレーのもとで記憶に関する実験を行う。

  • ラットに迷路を覚えさせ、脳の様々な部分を外科的に除去する実験が行われる。
  • 記憶が脳の特定の場所に貯蔵されているという仮説に反し、脳のどの部分を除去しても迷路を走る記憶を完全に除去することはできないことが判明する。 この結果、プリブラムは、全体が各部分に含まれるというホログラフィックモデルが脳の機能に当てはまるのではないかと考える。

‌‌時期不明（ホログラフィックモデル開発後）‌‌：

  • フーリエ変換がホログラムの作成に使われる数学的言語であることが判明する。

  • 脳が視覚情報の変換にフーリエ変換を使用していることが発見され、さらにすべての感覚がフーリエ変換に依存している可能性が示唆される。

  • ボームが、従来の物理学の「完全性の誘惑」（測定可能な範囲の先に何もないと仮定すること）に異を唱え、現実にはさらに深いレベルの領域が存在すると提唱する。量子ポテンシャルはその一つとして提唱される（ただし、物理学界では論争の的となる）。

  • 不確定性原理が、対象と観察者の区別が崩れる点として議論される。ヘリウムが固まらない現象や、SQUID（超伝導量子干渉素子）の電流の振る舞いなど、量子現象がマクロなレベルに影響を与える例が挙げられる。

  • プリブラムの視点から、意識が身体システムに与える影響（プラシーボ効果、治癒と視覚化など）がホログラフィックモデルで説明され始める。

    • 兵士の行軍距離の認識が、実際の距離よりも報告された距離に生理的に反応することを発見した心理学者の研究が紹介される。
    • リンパ腺がん患者がクレビオシンという新薬への信念（後に塩水でも同様の効果）によって劇的に回復したが、薬が効かないという情報を得ると再発し死亡した事例が紹介される。

  • 新しい化学療法に関する英国での研究で、プラシーボを投与された患者の30%が、有害な影響（脱毛）を予想していたため脱毛した事例が紹介される。

  • ホログラフィックモデルが、脳と身体の間に厳密な境界がなく、むしろ一体であると示唆する。

  • サイコキネシス（念力）について、ボームのモデルでは、対象と私たちの間に境界がないため、共鳴行為として説明される可能性が示唆される。

  • アキュパンクチャー（鍼治療）の作用機序がホログラフィックモデルで説明される可能性が示唆される（耳の鍼治療のツボに全身が反映される点など）。

  • ケネス・リングが、臨死体験とホログラフィックモデルの関連性を研究し、臨死体験中に人々が「周波数」「エネルギー」「ホログラム」といった用語で現実の深いレベルを表現すること、思考が即座に現実を創造する例（食べ物や衣服の出現）があることを指摘する。

‌‌現代（対談時）‌‌：マイケル・タルボットがジェフリー・ミシュラブとの対談で、ホログラフィックモデルとその多岐にわたる応用、自身の超常現象の経験などを語る。

主要関係者​

AI

‌‌マイケル・タルボット（Michael Talbot）‌‌：

  • 本書「ホログラフィック宇宙の探求」の著者。
  • 複数の著書（『Mysticism and the New Physics』、『Beyond the Quantum』、『Your Past Lives』、『The Holographic Universe』など）と3冊の小説を執筆。
  • 幼い頃に幽体離脱を経験し、また家でポルターガイスト現象を経験したことがある。科学的な理解と自身のスピリチュアルな経験の間の葛藤を抱えていたが、ホログラフィックモデルを通して理解を深めている。脳が思考を行っているという従来の考えに疑問を呈し、より微妙なエネルギーのレベルが存在すると考えている。

‌‌ジェフリー・ミシュラブ（Jeffrey Mishlove）‌‌：

  • 対談番組「Thinking Allowed」の司会者。
  • 心理学者であり、知識と発見の最先端に関する会話を行っている。

‌‌デイヴィッド・ボーム（David Bohm）‌‌：

  • ロンドン大学の物理学者。アインシュタインの元門下生。
  • カール・プリブラムとは独立してホログラフィックモデルを開発した一人。
  • 素粒子物理学のレベルで、現実の構造がホログラムに似た特性を持つことを発見した。
  • 現実には、私たちが知覚する具体的なレベルの他に、すべてが宇宙的な一体に溶解する「含蔵秩序」のような深いレベルがあると考えている。
  • 量子物理学における「完全性の誘惑」に異議を唱え、測定可能な範囲の先にさらに深い現実の領域が存在すると提唱した。

‌‌カール・プリブラム（Karl Pribram）‌‌：

  • スタンフォード大学の神経生理学者。
  • デイヴィッド・ボームとは独立してホログラフィックモデルを開発した一人。
  • 記憶の研究において、脳がホログラフィックに機能するという証拠を発見した。
  • 記憶が脳の特定の場所に貯蔵されているという従来の考えに異を唱え、ホログラフィックモデルが脳の機能（特に記憶）を説明するのに適していると考えた。
  • 脳内の電気的干渉パターンが脳ホログラムであると考えている。また、脳が視覚情報処理にフーリエ変換を使用していることを指摘し、これが脳のホログラフィックな性質を示唆すると考えた。

‌‌アルバート・アインシュタイン（Albert Einstein）‌‌：

  • 著名な物理学者。
  • デイヴィッド・ボームの元師。
  • 相対性理論により、光速を超える信号は不可能であると提唱した。この理論は、ボームが素粒子の「非局所性」を説明する際の課題となった。

‌‌ウィリアム・ブレイク（William Blake）‌‌：

  • 詩人。
  • 「一粒の砂の中に宇宙を見出す」という言葉がホログラムの特性、すなわち全体が部分に含まれるという概念を説明する際に引用された。

‌‌カール・ラシュレー（Karl Lashley）‌‌：

  • プリブラムの指導教官であった著名な神経生理学者。
  • 記憶が脳の特定の場所に貯蔵されているという当時の通説を検証するため、ラットの脳の除去実験を行った。

‌‌フーリエ（Fourier）‌‌：

  • フランスの数学者。
  • ホログラムの作成に関わる数学的言語である「フーリエ変換」を開発した。

‌‌ヨハネ・カーソン（Johnny Carson）‌‌：

  • テレビの司会者。
  • タルボットがホログラムの二重のレベル（具体的なイメージとエネルギーの曖昧なパターン）を説明する際に、彼のテレビ画像を例として挙げた。

‌‌ガイ・ド・モーパッサン（Guy de Maupassant）‌‌：

  • フランスの短編作家。
  • マイケル・タルボットが幽体離脱中に家の外で発見した本の著者として言及された。

‌‌ヘルマン・ボンディ（Hermann Bondi）‌‌：

  • 著名な物理学者。
  • 「完全性の誘惑」という言葉を作り、科学者が測定可能な範囲の先に何も存在しないと仮定する傾向を指摘した。

‌‌ニールス・ボーア（Niels Bohr）‌‌：

  • 量子物理学の創始者の一人であるデンマークの物理学者。
  • 量子物理学の標準的な解釈において、現実のあるレベル以下では物事が曖昧になり、それ以上は知ることができないと提唱した。ボームの考え方とは対照的である。

‌‌ケネス・リング（Kenneth Ring）‌‌：

  • コネチカット大学の研究者。
  • 臨死体験を研究している。臨死体験の報告が、ホログラフィックモデルで説明できる概念（周波数、エネルギー、思考による現実の創造）と一致すると考えている。

Talbot が OBE 中に目撃した本​

AI

マイケル・タルボットは、若い頃に経験した幽体離脱に関する逸話を共有しています。

その経験の詳細は以下の通りです:

  • タルボットは幽体離脱中に自分の体から抜け出し、ベッドに横たわる自分の脳が体内にあるのを見ましたが、その間も思考は継続していました。
  • それが単なる夢ではないと確信したのは、‌‌家族の家の外の地面の上を漂ったときに、本が落ちているのを目撃したから‌‌です。
  • その本は、フランスの短編作家である‌‌ギ・ド・モーパッサン‌‌のものでした。
  • 翌日、隣人が「ギ・ド・モーパッサンの図書館の本をなくしたんだけど、見てない？」と尋ねてきました。
  • タルボットは、前夜にその本の上を漂ったことを知っていましたが、隣人にはそのことを伝えませんでした。

この出来事は、タルボットにとって非常に大きな意味を持ちました:

  • 彼は常に科学的な視点から世界を理解したいと考えていましたが、この経験は、‌‌肉体の死後も生存できるという自身のスピリチュアルな信念と、「思考は脳が行うものだ」という深く持っていた科学的な信念との間の矛盾‌‌に直面するきっかけとなりました。
  • そして彼は「‌‌思考を行っているのは脳ではない‌‌」という認識に至りました。
  • この洞察により、タルボットは、脳ホログラムが単に電磁干渉パターンであるという考えに完全に納得しているわけではありません。なぜなら、それらのパターンは脳が滅びれば消滅するはずだからです。彼は、‌‌まだ科学技術では発見されていない、より微細なエネルギーが関与している可能性‌‌があると考えています。

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動画(27:44)

Michael Talbot - Part 1 Complete- Synchronicity and the Holographic Universe - Thinking Allowed

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（以下は Jeffrey Mishlove がゲストに Michael Talbot を迎えて、対談した動画です。）

Thinking Allowed Conversations on the leading edge of knowledge and discovery with psychologist Jeffrey Mishlove Hello and welcome. I'm Jeffrey Mishlove. Today we're going to be exploring the holographic model of reality and its implications for ourselves, our bodies, and the world around us. With me today is Michael Talbot, author of several books including Mysticism and the New Physics, Beyond the Quantum, Your Past Lives, and most recently, The Holographic Universe, as well as three novels. (0:00:56)

Welcome, Michael. Thank you, Jeffrey. It's a pleasure to be with you. Nice to be with you. You know, one of the things that you point out in the holographic universe is that this is a model that's been around now for a few decades, but it's really beginning to show its power in explaining many, many areas of personal experience and science at the same time. Can we talk a little bit about how the model developed? (0:01:24)

Sure. It was developed by two men, a University of London physicist named David Bohm, who was a former protege of Einstein, and a Stanford University neurophysiologist named Carl Pribram and they worked independently. Pribram was studying memory and found that there's evidence that the brain operates holographically. And Bohm was studying subatomic physics and found that on the subatomic level, the fabric of reality seems to possess properties that are reminiscent of a hologram. (0:01:54)

So if you put those two ideas together, that our brain seems to be holographic and the universe is holographic, it suggests that maybe it's compelling evidence that the universe may be a kind of hologram, not that it's literally a hologram, but that it's a good metaphor, a way of understanding the universe. Now, when you say it's holographic, what do we mean really? In a nutshell, that reality may be more plastic and changeable, like an image, than a solid construct that sort of sticks in stone's world, has a couple of other implications, one of which is that a hologram has an unusual property. (0:02:27)

If you take a piece of photographic film that has a holographic image encoded in it, that means that you cannot see the image with your naked eye. To reconstruct the image, you have to shine a laser through it. So if you have an image of a rose in the film, shine a laser through the rose, you'll get a three-dimensional image of the rose on the other side. (0:02:43)

If you cut that film in half, shine a laser through each piece, you'll get a whole rose out of each piece, which is a very unusual property and sort of boggles the imagination at first. Cut it in four, you get four roses. Cut it in eight, you get eight roses. So the universe is a hologram. It means, as William Blake said, that quite literally you can find the universe in a grain of sand, that every portion of the universe contains some semblance of the whole, of the whole universe. (0:03:01)

That's very profound. (0:03:03)

Very. I mean, it's mind-boggling. And one of the things that you point out in a footnote of your book that I would like to mention is that this doesn't apply for many of the kinds of holographic images that are popularly sold as pendants and the like that don't require laser light. Right. Every talk I give, someone comes up and says they cut the hologram in half on their credit card and ruined it and didn't get the effect. (0:03:27)

It only applies to those images that you cannot see with the naked eye, that you have to reconstruct with the laser. If you were to look at holographic film, it might look like ripples on a pond unless the laser light has shined through it. Right. There's no decipherable image in the film, and it very much does look like ripples in a pond. Like when you drop pebbles into a pond, there are all sorts of little circles. (0:03:44)

They're called interference patterns. Right. Same as when you drop two pebbles in a pond and the ripples crisscross. That is exactly what is in the film. It's the crisscrossing of the laser light that's recorded on the photographic film. So there's the sense about a hologram that there's two levels. One is this three-dimensional image that's projected, and it can look so real that you want to reach out and touch it. And then the other level are these interference patterns. (0:04:07)

Right. That reality in a hologram can manifest in two ways, as a concrete image or as this sort of indecipherable blur of energy. And an analogy to this is when you're watching Johnny Carson's new television set, that's really... his image is encoded in two ways. One is as the concrete image on the TV set. (0:04:30)

One is as the blur of radio waves permeating the living room. And if the universe is a hologram of some sense, in some way, it suggests that there may be two very drastically different levels to reality. That the concrete reality we see, you know, when we look at these chairs and at the trees and the clouds and everything like that... Our bodies. ...are just one way that reality manifests. (0:04:52)

And that at some deep level, there's another... there's a level of reality where everything dissolves into an ocean of energy that is holographically interconnected, where every portion of the universe is contained in every tiny area of the universe. So that implies that this notion that we go about our everyday lives with thinking of ourselves as separate from each other, and the cup is separate from the coffee that goes in the cup, that these notions are somehow... what would you say? Superficial or contradicted at a deeper level? (0:05:23)

Well, they're artificial, definitely. And Bohm really stresses this. And it's a very interesting notion because in our Western way of thinking, we're so attached to the idea that when we come up with a concept, like an apple or an electron or whatever, that that exists out there. And we forget. It's kind of like fish unaware of the water in which they swim, that the conceptual pigeonholes we use, words to describe reality, are phenomena inside our head. They're not out there. And most of the time this is a philosophical quibble. (0:05:52)

But when you get down to quantum physics, and this is one of the reasons that Bohm came up with the holographic idea, it starts to have real effects. And one of those is it's been discovered that if you take two subatomic particles, like electrons, in certain instances, when you do something to one, it will always affect the other, no matter how far apart they are. (0:06:13)

It's kind of like stories that you've heard of identical twins, where when one is hurt, the other feels the pain. And the problem is, is that we can find no process known to physics that explains how these could be sending a signal back and forth. In fact... Because it would have to be faster than the speed of light. (0:06:25)

Instantaneous. It would have to be an instantaneous signal. And Einstein's theory of relativity said you can't have instantaneous signals because it would mean that you could violate the time barrier and conceivably call your grandfather and tell him not to marry your grandmother. And most physicists say, well, this would be just too troubling to incorporate into a rational picture of reality. Bohm explains it in a different way, which is a very interesting way. (0:06:49)

And he says, if you imagine that you've got an aquarium in which you have a fish swimming, you have a TV camera facing the front of the aquarium, one facing the side of the aquarium, and you have a monitor attached to each camera. And you also imagine further that you come from a culture that's never seen aquariums, never seen fish, never seen monitors or cameras. (0:07:04)

All you are privy to is the two images on these screens. He says that maybe, you know, if you look at these two screens, you're going to see a side view of a fish and a frontal view of a fish. And because you don't know what the deeper reality is, the reality of the aquarium, you may assume that these are two separate things. (0:07:21)

Two different fish. Two different fish, two different objects. But every time one fish moves, the other's going to make a corresponding movement. And you may then jump to the conclusion that somehow one fish is signaling the other or communicating to the other to say, hey, do this, instantaneously. And Bohm says this is what we've done with subatomic particles, that we assume that an instantaneous communication is going on when that's not really what's going on at all. (0:07:43)

At a deeper level, a very holographic level of reality, every particle in the universe collapses to a sort of cosmic unity. They're not signaling each other. They're like that fish where there's the level of the aquarium. And so what that means, talking about words, is that there is no separation between electrons. Furthermore, there's no separation between people. And this has all kinds of very boggling implications, one of which is that we've always tried to understand, for example, psychic phenomena like how could I get information out of your head and my head as some sort of signal going back and forth. (0:08:16)

But if we're organized, if we live in a universe that's organized holographically, you no longer have to tackle it that way. It could be that I have the entire universe and every neuron, every cell, every atom, every electron in my head, and you do also. So when we can access that, we can access information that seems to be beyond our normal sensory reach. (0:08:32)

Well, you know, I'm very interested in psychic phenomena. And I know you've had many personal experiences, and I want to touch on it, but this is not a model that was developed in order to explain psychic phenomena. And I think to neuropsychologists like Carl Pribram, the fact that it happens to provide an explanation for psychic phenomena is almost a bit of an embarrassment that he developed the holographic model because he was trying to come to terms with memory. So let's talk about that. (0:09:00)

Sure. Pribram was working under a very famous neurophysiologist named Carl Lashley. And it was at a time when it was believed that memory was stored in a specific spot in the brain, and there was something called the proverbial grandmother cell, that there was literally a cell in your brain that contained the memory of your grandmother, what you knew about your grandmother. (0:09:22)

And so they did a rather gruesome series of experiments for animal lovers, but it came out with some very profound information. They took rats and they taught them how to run mazes, and then they would surgically remove various portions of the brain. Pribram and his mentor, Carl Lashley, the reasoning being that if they could remove a portion of the brain and the rat could no longer run the maze, they'd found the area of the brain where the rat's memory of the maze running ability was encoded. (0:09:45)

Now every time they removed a different portion of the brain, they discovered that they could never remove the memory of how to run the maze. They could impair the rat's ability so it might limp through the maze, but they couldn't remove it. And really, surgeons had known this for a while, doctors had known this for a while, because when people have head injuries, they don't forget half of the alphabet or half of their family or half of a novel they read. (0:10:11)

They have global memory impairment where their entire memory may be hazy. But memories don't seem to be stored in our heads in the same way that books are stored on a shelf. And it wasn't until the 60s when Pribram encountered the holographic model that says that the whole is contained in every part that he said, aha, this may be what's going on in the brain. (0:10:29)

Specifically, because a hologram is made out of interference patterns, the hologram that you see, you know, that we talked about earlier is made out of the interference pattern of laser light, but it can be made out of the interference patterns of any kind of energy, electromagnetic energy, electricity, x-rays even. And so Pribram said since our synapses are constantly giving off electrical impulses, these are like proverbial pebbles dropping into the sort of electromagnetic pool of our brain. (0:10:51)

They're sending out ripples that are constantly crisscrossing. And he believes that's what the brain hologram, that's how we think and how we remember is through that hologram inside the head. (0:10:59)

It would apply in another sense, too, because if you take a hologram image and cut it in half or in quarters or in tenths, each time you reduce it in size, the image becomes fuzzier and fuzzier, even though the whole image is there, just the way memory would seem to be. Yeah, it becomes fuzzier when you have portions of the brain removed, correct. (0:11:18)

And Pribram then also noticed that the same principle applied for visual information processing. Well, yes, it's very interesting. He did not make the discovery, but he came upon the research done by other investigators. And that is another very interesting thing. As you know, Mother Nature uses all kinds of mathematical languages. When we go to understand physical phenomena, we generally find that there's some sort of mathematical underpinning to whatever the phenomena is. (0:11:51)

There are uncountable mathematical languages. It turns out that the mathematical language involved in the making of a hologram is a system of mathematics developed by a Frenchman named Fourier. They're called Fourier transforms. Well, it also turns out that our brain uses Fourier transforms to translate visual information. This is a very unusual state of affairs. (0:12:10)

It's kind of like discovering Eskimo speaking Spanish. It's not proof that the brain is a hologram, but it's suggestive that the brain is a hologram. And it turns out, in fact, all of our senses appear to rely on sort of Fourier transforms, that they all seem to use the same mathematics. So again, here's evidence that the brain uses the same mathematics to decipher the sensory world as are involved in the making of a hologram, which is, as I say, not proof, but compelling evidence that something is going on there. (0:12:33)

Well, what this seems to suggest is a new way of looking at consciousness itself. Very much so, yeah. And it's an interesting thing. I have to say that I differ a little with Pribram because Pribram thinks that the brain, you know, as I said, that it's the electrical interference patterns in the brain that is a brain hologram. I'm kind of a mystic because, you know, at a young age I had an out-of-body experience where I left my body and it became quite apparent to me while I was having this experience that I was thinking, but my brain was back in my body, which I could see in my bed. (0:13:06)

I knew it wasn't just a dream because I floated out over the ground outside my family's house and I saw a book lying on the ground. And it was a book by the French short story writer Guy de Maupassant. And the next day, a neighbor said, by the way, Michael, I lost a library book by Guy de Maupassant. Have you seen it? And I thought, well, I floated over it last night. I didn't tell the neighbor that. (0:13:27)

There was the book. And I was always very... I'm still very scientifically oriented. I want to understand the world in scientific terms. But it was really the first time that I sort of had to confront the difference between my spiritual beliefs that we can survive our bodily death and this deeply held belief, scientific belief of mine, that it's the brain that's doing the thinking. And I realized I had a kind of epiphany where I thought it isn't the brain that's doing the thinking. (0:14:00)

So I am not entirely certain that it's just the electromagnetic interference patterns that is the brain hologram, because those obviously would perish when the brain perishes. I think there might be some subtler level, some subtler energy that we haven't discovered with our technology that's involved in this also. Well, Bohm's model is relevant and interesting at this point, because he's not dealing with the universe as a hologram made out of electromagnetic interference patterns. (0:14:24)

He's looking at quantum wave potentials, which are at a much deeper level. And I must say, I've heard Pribram discuss it much the same way. There are quantum wave potentials in the brain itself, which is a much more deeply embedded level of energy and matter than the electromagnetic level. Right. Bohm, it's a funny thing in science. (0:14:47)

The great physicist Hermann Bondi said, called it the lure of completeness, that we tend, when we find some sort of outermost perimeter to what we can measure, we assume there's nothing beyond it. And I refer to it, it's kind of like the, you know, in ancient times when we only knew a certain portion of the world, people always seem to say beyond the edge of the map there be monsters, that there was nothing there. (0:15:07)

And the same thing is going on in physics, that we have, with our technology, reached down to a certain level in reality. And it's a common prejudice among many physicists that beyond that level, there's nothing exists, there be monsters, there's just a void. And it's an interesting thing that we, as I say, we have to have this lure of completeness. (0:15:27)

We have to feel that our knowledge of the universe is all that exists in the universe. Bohm, and I think is very wisely, is one of the few physicists who comes out and kind of says the emperor has no clothes, says what rational basis do, it's just prejudice that we assume nothing exists beyond this level of reality. (0:15:48)

And he feels that there are all kinds of domains of reality beyond this level, this microscopic level. And he theorizes that there may be untold, uncountable, subtle, subtler energies in these levels. The quantum potential is one. It's a theorized field that has not been measured or discovered with science. But Bohm feels there's evidence to posit its existence. And it's now rather well accepted, I understand, among quantum physicists. (0:16:09)

I wouldn't say that. No, it's pretty controversial. And the reason it's controversial is because the standard explanation of quantum physics has decided that this lure of completeness, that there's nothing beyond. The Danish physicist Niels Bohr, who was one of the founders of quantum physics, basically said you get down to a certain level of reality and things become blurry and you can't know anymore. (0:16:38)

And Bohm takes a very different route, which at this point is very sort of looked down upon by a lot of physicists, because most have been schooled in the way of Bohr's thinking. (0:16:43)

And Bohm, the quantum potential is not looked upon kindly by most physicists, I would say. Well, I don't think we want to get into too technical a discussion of quantum physics at the moment. But I do think it's important to bring up the uncertainty principle, because in a way it's where physics comes full circle. (0:17:04)

And as I understand it, physics are saying, well, there may be all kinds of stuff, but we'll never know it because we interact with it. Anytime we attempt to look at particles beyond a certain level, the very act of observation changes things. And that brings us to a point where we realize that the distinction between subject and object breaks down. (0:17:25)

Right. But physicists get very funny about it. They get kind of schizophrenic because they'll openly admit that subject and object breaks down there. But they say that somehow this has no effect in the real world. This does not translate from the microscopic level to our level, although there is a sort of creeping evidence in the scientific world that it does translate into our level. (0:17:49)

One obvious example I think that it translates into our level is that helium cannot be frozen solid. You can freeze hydrogen solid, you can freeze carbon dioxide solid. But helium, for helium to go, to become, its atoms to align in a solid form would violate the uncertainty principle. And nature doesn't seem to allow that. So you can't, no matter how cold helium gets, it remains a liquid. (0:18:12)

That to me, if you can have a beaker full of liquid helium, and that exists at our level of existence, and it's a sort of manifestation of the uncertainty principle, and it's where it's sort of slipped over into our world. There are other things going on right now that where there's a device called a squid, which is a sort of electrical coil in which it looks like we may be able to demonstrate that the current, if you say which direction is the current going in the coil, it's going both directions at once, which is kind of an impossibility, but to simultaneously do that, that too is a quantum phenomenon, that these two realities are overlapping. So I think we will cross that barrier. (0:18:46)

Well, I must admit, Michael, I'm not sure that I totally grasp the implications of those examples, but the examples I would like to focus on that do seem more relevant are the ones that suggest the enormous ability of the mind to affect systems in the body, the placebo effect, the work with healing and visualization. Well, this gets away from Bowman into Pribram, but it's equally interesting with equally profound implications. Pribram, as I said, says that we're thinking with holograms inside our head, and that out there exists something that's more akin to the radio waves in the room from which your TV gets the image. (0:19:32)

So in essence, we're kind of conscious TV sets, and what we think is reality when we look out here is really just the image on the TV set inside our mind, but doesn't exist out there. And Pribram says this is why there's all kinds of evidence that we seem to respond more to the models of reality in our head than out there. (0:19:48)

In the holographic universe, I give an example of a psychologist who did a study where he took soldiers and marched them all the same distance, but he told some they marched, like he marched them all 30 miles, or 20 miles, but told some they marched 10, some they marched 20, some they marched 30, but they all marched the same distance. At the end, he took physiological readings and discovered that they were, that physiologically, they responded not to the actual mileage that they had marched, but to what they had been told, the model of reality that they assumed they had, the reality in their heads. (0:20:15)

And in medicine, people have used this, this application, the holographic idea that we respond to the model of reality, say this may be why we respond more to the placebos, to fake drugs. (0:20:29)

There's a very famous example of a fellow who had lymphatic cancer, tumors the size of oranges, all throughout his body. His doctor basically thought he had about three days left to live. The fellow heard about a new drug called Crebiosin and said, you've got to give this to me. And the man implored him and the doctor gave in sort of as an act of pity. (0:20:54)

He gave the man Crebiosin and three days later, the man's tumors melted, as the doctor put it, like snowballs in a hot stove, completely gone out of his body, faster than the strongest radiation treatment could have melted them away. The man is up and around, walking around his hospital room, resumes his normal life, seems to be completely cancer free. (0:21:13)

Several months down the line, he reads an article saying Crebiosin isn't that effective. Boom, boom, boom, all his tumors come back. He's back in the hospital. The doctor starts to realize that maybe it wasn't the drug that cured the man, but the man's belief. So he lies to the man and he says, those articles are wrong. Crebiosin is effective and in fact, I've got an even more potent version of it. (0:21:32)

He injects just salt water into the man's veins. Again, the man's tumors melt away. He resumes his normal life. Unfortunately, many months down the line, he reads final studies on Crebiosin saying it's completely ineffective. Boom, boom, boom, his tumors come back and he dies. But the bottom line is somehow this man had the ability to access some deep level of healing himself. (0:21:54)

It wasn't the drug because salt water worked just as well as this alleged drug. And so again, here's an instance where he responded to the model of reality in his head, this deep belief that this drug would heal him, even though he wasn't even receiving the drug at a certain point in his treatment. And his body responded in kind. And that to me is the most exciting aspect of the holographic idea. (0:22:12)

And there are countless examples of it. There's a study of a new chemotherapy in England where they took a group of cancer patients, half the patients they gave the drug, half the patients they gave a placebo, a fake. No one knew who was receiving the real drug or not. They told all the patients this is a very toxic drug, may cause you to lose your hair. (0:22:30)

30% of the people receiving just the fake lost their hair. And when I first heard this, I immediately thought, oh my gosh, about every donut that I'd ever eaten in my life and thought, oh, this is really bad for me, that I may be responding to the model of reality more than the nutritional aspects of the donut. Well, I think the stories of this kind have been known to scientists for hundreds of years, but they've kind of been dismissed because scientists haven't had a good way to look at the possibility that consciousness can affect physical systems. (0:23:02)

We think of consciousness as an epiphenomenon, but if one considers that there are standing ways, interference patterns in the brain, holographic images, it gives consciousness, I hate to use the term mechanism because I don't think that's quite the right term, but it gives people a model in which they can begin to appreciate more the role of consciousness. (0:23:27)

That's true. And it also can be applied in another way because if the universe is organized holographically, we've always believed that there is no connection between the brain and the body, I mean, for most of the history of medical science in the West. In the past couple of decades, we're starting to say there's a connection and we're sorting out certain pathways, the neuropeptide systems, that sort of thing. (0:23:47)

But if the holographic model is correct, there are so many interconnections between the brain and the body, there ceases to be a division. So it becomes almost a moot point to say what is the pathway, how is the brain connected to the body, because there's no difference, just like there's no difference between those two electrodes. (0:24:05)

Well, and to take it a step further, as you do, one might say there's no solid, clear-cut distinction between ourselves and the rest of the whole universe. I mean, this has profound implications for spiritual experiences, of which you've had quite a number, and perhaps in the time remaining we should touch on more of those. (0:24:20)

Yeah, very much so. As I said, I've always been very interested in science, but I also grew up with a lot of very unusual experiences, not the least of which is that I grew up in a house with a poltergeist haunting. So I had all kinds of examples of psychokinesis, of objects moving about on their own when I was growing up. (0:24:42)

And it really was strange in the sense that, for me, it was normal, and I had to learn that it was abnormal and rather painful learning, and as I grew up and my friends would find it very strange that these things would occur. And one of the things that Bohm says, because Bohm addresses the topic of psychokinesis, is again, we may be mistaken to try to approach psychokinesis by saying what energy is leaving the brain to move the object, because, as Bohm says, there's no division between the objects. (0:25:07)

Psychokinesis means mind over matter. Right, moving the objects was just the power of thought alone. That we are as connected to that object, as borderless, we're a continuum with the object, as the patterns in a So, for us to move the object may be, as Bohm says, just an act of resonance, of realizing that there's no division between us. (0:25:33)

And can we talk for a moment about the issue of life after death, or spiritual experiences of other realities? Yeah, that's one of the areas, you had mentioned earlier that one of the exciting things about the holographic idea is that people have taken this and explored all different realms. You know, that some have used it to say this is how acupuncture works, because it turns out that there are little micro-acupuncture systems where you can find the entire body in the acupuncture points of the ear. (0:25:57)

Recapitulated in the ear, yes. Right, we've talked about the placebo effect. Some have said that the holographic idea applies in near-death experiences. One of these individuals is Kenneth Ring, who is at the University of Connecticut, studies near-death experiences. And it's interesting, because in report after report of people who have been declared clinically dead, you know, go to some apparent other level of reality and then come back, they refer to this other level of reality with terms like frequency and energy, and even hologram, that it's a plastic, a more plastic level of reality where thought seems to create things instantly. There are instances of people having near-death experiences where they think they're hungry and instantly food appears. (0:26:35)

Or perhaps an even better example, when people find themselves out of their body, there are cases where people look down and see that they're in a naked body, and they go, oh my gosh, I'm naked. Instantly they have clothing on. Now, we don't assume that clothing has a soul, you know, that has a spirit that survives. So somehow it appears that the mind can sort of pull out of this ocean of frequency a hologram of clothing. (0:26:52)

And this is what Ken Ring says, is that we're entering deeper into the hologram when we have near-death experiences when we leave our bodies. So there's so many different areas that have kind of been at the fringes of our understanding that we can now begin to look at with new eyes. Michael Talbot, it's been a pleasure to have you with me. (0:27:13)

And for those of you watching, you may be interested in knowing that this discussion will be part of a Thinking Allowed Inner Work videotape available along with an additional hour of discussion going deeper into these questions with Michael Talbot. Michael, thanks so much for being with me. My pleasure, Jeffrey. And thank you for being with us. (0:27:33)

(2025-08-01)