Abstract
The author propose a quantum-informational holographic model of brain consciousness-universe interations based in the holographic neural networks of Karl Pribram, in the quantum theory of David Bohm, and in the non-locality logics of the quantum field of Umezawa. From this conceptual framework he develops a vision of consciousness in which the holographic informational dynamics of the human brain interacts with the quantum holographic nature of the universe accessing cosmic information by means of the optimization of the holographic treatment mode of neuronal information that highs the syncronization of the cerebral waves. He proposes that altered states of consciousness generators of profound and receptive tranquility as practices of meditation, relaxation and prayer, that proved to high the coerence of the brain waves in brain mapping, can create a non local conciousness state that interacts in a holoinformational mode with the universal quantum field stimulating the natural interactivity between the human consciousness and the cosmos.
INTRODUCTION
In 1998, we presented the conference Information Self-Organization and Consciousness at the Science and the Primacy of Consciousness conference at the University of Lisbon in Portugal, proposing a new vision of consciousness called the Holoinformational Theory of Consciousness, in which the brain and the cosmos are understood as informational systems interconnected by an instantaneous universal dynamic. It is a conception based on the holographic nature of brain functioning by Karl Pribram, the quantum holographic structure of the universe by David Bohm, and the quantum principle of non-locality developed by Umezawa. In 1999, it was published in Europe, in World Futures - The Journal of General Evolution, linked to UNESCO, edited by Erwin Laszlo, the world's leading authority in the field of systems, and in the same year in the USA, in The Noetic Journal of the Noetic Institute. In 2000, we were invited to publish it in a more expanded form in the USA, as co-author of the book Science and the Primacy of Consciousness- Intimation of a 21st Century Revolution, together with Karl Pribram, Stanislav Grof, Ruppert Sheldrake, Henry Stapp, Amit Goswami, Fred Allan Wolf, and other consciousness researchers.
To make the subject easier to understand, let's first specify the meaning of the terms holographic and non-locality.
Non-locality is a fundamental property of the universe, exhaustively proven at both quantum and macroscopic levels, responsible for instantaneous interactions between all cosmic phenomena. It is a consequence of the Quantum Field Theory developed by Umezawa, which unified the nuclear electromagnetic and gravitational fields into an underlying indivisible totality.
Quantum field theory explains subatomic, microscopic and even macroscopic phenomena, such as superconductivity, and is considered the most fundamental physical theory of the universe. The quantum field does not physically exist in space-time, like the gravitational and electromagnetic fields, although it is mathematically similar to them, which gives it a peculiar non-local character. As a non-local phenomenon, it instantly influences all other regions of space-time, without the need for any exchange of energy. According to classical physics and relativistic physics, it would be impossible for non-local phenomena to exist, which led to Einstein's famous controversy with Bohr, which eventually gave rise to the famous Einstein-Podolski-Rosen Paradox.
Einstein and his colleagues did not accept that a particle could travel faster than light, and created a thought experiment to demonstrate that quantum physics was therefore incomplete. But, contrary to the initial proposal of Einstein and his collaborators, it was shown that after an atom emits two particles with opposite spins, if the spin of one of them is changed, even if they are separated by a great distance, for example, one on Earth and the other on the other side of the galaxy, the spin of the other changes instantaneously, revealing a non-local informational interaction.
The existence of non-locality has been dramatically and convincingly proven in modern physics experiments. The coup de grace was delivered in 1982 by French physicist Alain Aspect et al. who definitively proved the existence of non-local actions between two photons emitted by an atom. More recently, in July 1997 (cf. Science, vol.277, pg 481) Nicolas Gisin et al. proved the existence of this instantaneous non-local quantum action on a large scale.
Holographic systems are three-dimensional image-generating systems in which a virtual image, or hologram, is created when a laser is shone on an object, reflected by a plate and then shone on by a second laser, producing a mixture of the waves from the first and second lasers. This wave interference pattern has the property of storing information about the shape and volume of the object, and when it is reflected by the plate, it generates a three-dimensional image of the object in space. The important thing is that in holographic systems each part of the system contains the complete information about the whole system; if we break the plate into pieces, each piece will reflect the complete three-dimensional image of the object in space, demonstrating that the whole is in the parts, just as each part is in the whole.
These transformations from the spatio-temporal order to the frequency spectral dimension are dependent on mathematical formulations that were first described by Leibniz, who created the concept of monads. In our century, Dennis Gabor described the mathematical principles of holography, winning the Nobel Prize for the development of holographic systems. The mathematical formulations that describe the harmonic curve resulting from wave interference are the Fourier transforms, which Gabor applied to the creation of the hologram, enriching these transforms with a model in which the interference pattern reconstructs the virtual image of the object, by applying the inverse process. In other words, from the frequency dimension, the object is reconstructed in virtual form, in the space-time dimension.
HOLOGRAPHIC NEURAL NETWORKS
Karl Pribram's holographic (or holonomic) theory demonstrated the existence of a process of holographic processing of information in the cerebral cortex, called a multiplex neural hologram, dependent on the neurons of local circuits, which do not have long fibers and do not transmit common nerve impulses. "These are neurons that work in the wave mode, and are mainly responsible for the horizontal connections of the layers of neural tissue, connections in which holographic interference patterns can be constructed." His holonomic theory of the brain is the most brilliant and revolutionary scientific contribution in the field of Neuroscience in the last 100 years, as it leads us to rethink and expand on the processing of information in the nervous system in a totally new way. Pribram described a "neural wave equation" resulting from the functioning of holographic neural networks, similar to the Schrödinger wave equation in quantum theory.
The neural hologram is built by the interaction of the neurons' electromagnetic fields, in a similar way to what happens during the interaction of sound waves in a piano. When we play the keys on a piano, they strike the strings, causing vibrations to mix, generating an interference pattern of waves. The mixing of sound frequencies is what creates harmony, the music we hear. Pribram demonstrated that a similar process occurs continuously in the cerebral cortex, through the interpenetration of the electromagnetic fields of adjacent cortical neurons, generating a harmonic field of frequencies. Electromagnetic field. This harmonic field, distributed simultaneously throughout the brain, stores and holographically encodes a vast field of information, and is responsible for the emergence of memory, mind and consciousness on a biological level. Just as music cannot be located in the piano, but in the entire resonant field that surrounds it, an individual's memories are not only located in the brain, but also in the holographic information field that surrounds it!
THE HOLOGRAPHIC UNIVERSE
As we have seen, an object can be mathematically and experimentally reconstructed in the space-time dimension using the frequency dimension. This mode of holographic organization is also what David Bohm uses in his quantum theory. In this model of the universe, space and time are "folded" and restructured, as in a hologram, in a dimension of frequencies, constituting a hidden, implicit order, without spatial-temporal relations, which we don't have access to in our daily lives. When fluctuations, more intense "ripples" appear in this field of frequencies, hologram-like patterns structure a spatio-temporal dimension, an explicit order, which would correspond to our manifest universe.
Bohm states that "in the implicate order everything is introjected into everything. The whole universe is in principle actively introjected into each part by means of holomovement, as are the parts... The process of introjection is not merely superficial or passive, and each part is in a fundamental sense internally related in its basic activities to the whole, and to all the other parts."
TOWARDS A HOLOINFORMATIONAL THEORY OF CONSCIOUSNESS
When he learned about Bohm's holographic theory through his son, who is a physicist, Pribram inferred the possibility that the holographic informational processing of the universe could be interconnected with the neuronal holographic processing of the cerebral cortex, but did not direct his research in this direction. Envisioning the possibility, not developed by Pribram, of a non-local dynamic connection between the brain and the universe, we proposed that the quantum patterns and holographic neural networks of the brain are an active part of the quantum-holographic field of the universe, and that this informational interconnection is simultaneously local (mechanistic-Newtonian) and non-local (holistic-quantum), and we called it holoinformational. Quantum non-locality would allow an instantaneous interconnection between the brain and the cosmos.
Experimental studies by Pribram and other consciousness researchers such as Hameroff, Penrose, Yassue and Jibu have revealed the existence of quantum brain dynamics, a "quantum mind", at the level of neural microtubules, synapses and cerebrospinal fluid. This quantum dynamics allows the formation of so-called Bose-Einstein condensates, which consist of subatomic particles that assume a high degree of alignment, functioning as a highly unified and ordered state, as occurs in lasers and superconductivity. Such informationally unified states could also trigger the appearance of the Frohlich Effect, with biological molecules assuming a highly energized and ordered alignment. These highly unified and ordered quantum and molecular states are actually encoding quantum-holographic information.
Considering the basic mathematical property of holographic information systems, in which each part of the system contains the information of the whole, the mathematical data of Bohm's quantum physics, and the experimental data of Pribram's holonomic theory, we have also proposed that brain-universe interactivity allows us to access all the information that exists in the wave interference patterns that have existed in the universe since its origin, because the holographic nature of the universe and the brain means that each part, each brain consciousness, contains the information of the entire universe. Now, and this is very important, in order for this brain-universe connection to take place, we need to quieten our hectic day-to-day brains, synchronizing the functioning of the cerebral hemispheres and allowing the holographic processing of neuronal information to be optimized. This is easily achieved through the practices of meditation, relaxation and prayer, which have been proven to synchronize the waves of the cerebral hemispheres, generating an altered state of consciousness of deep receptive tranquillity (electroencephalographic and clinical evidence of these states can be found in my books, O Homem Holístico, a unidade mente-nature, e Caminhos da Cura, Editora Vozes).
THE UNIFIED FIELD OF CONSCIOUSNESS
Matter, life and consciousness are meaningful activities, order transmitted through cosmic evolution, that is, intelligent informational processes. A universe structured as a holoinformational field is therefore an intelligent universe, functioning like a mind, as astronomer Sir James Jeans had already observed: "The universe is beginning to look more and more like a great mind than a great machine."
Can this universal quantum-holographic network be understood as a mind? A Universal Holographic Consciousness? A Cosmic Consciousness, as humanity's spiritual traditions have claimed for millennia?
In the holoinformational conception, consciousness and intelligence are information, and it is therefore possible to affirm that intelligence-information has always been present at all levels of cosmic organization, constituting the very basic nature of the universe. Matter, life and consciousness are consequently not separate entities, but an indivisible holistic unity, a self-organizing intelligent holoinformational continuum permeating the entire universe, unfolding into an infinite cosmic holoarchy.
THE NEURAL SUBSTRATE OF CONSCIOUSNESS
The cybernetic networks of hierarchical cyclical reactions through which we try to characterize life and consciousness, interrelate in a multilevel dynamic of "hypercycles" (Eigen and Schuster,1979), self-organizing in "autocatalytic" cycles (Prigogine1979; Kauffman,1995) at the "limit of chaos" (Lewin,1992). Autocatalytic cycles self-organize at higher levels, through catalytic hypercycles, (e.g. a virus) capable of evolving into more complex and more efficient structures, up to the "emergence of ensembles, ensembles of... ensembles of neurons" (Alwin Scott,1995). In this way, the network generates "creative loops" (Erich Harth,1993) and "hyperstructures" (Nils Baas,1995), capable of integrating into systems with distributed and parallel connectivity patterns, such as the "Global Workspace" (Newman and Baars,1993), and the "Extended Reticular Talamic Activation System"-ERTAS by James Newman (1997).
However, since matter, life and consciousness constitute a holistic and indivisible quantum totality, we cannot analyze them solely through this Cartesian analytical-reductionist conceptual framework. In dynamic and self-organizing non-linear systems, such as the human brain, the neural correlates of consciousness are not only structured by these complexifications of the mechanistic relations of matter, but also primarily by the universal self-organizing non-local holo-informational quantum field, which forms (in-forms) the brain and the cosmos.
THE COSMIC CODE AND THE ETHICS OF LIFE
This human-nature unity, encoded in the very structure and functioning of the universe, self-organizes during cosmic evolution on the basic informational levels that govern the universe: the Nuclear Code that organizes and maintains energy and matter, the Genetic Code that organizes and maintains life, the Neural Code that organizes and maintains the brain-mind, and the Holographic Code that organizes and maintains consciousness.
As a whole, they constitute a Cosmic Holoinformational Code. Einstein liked to say that "the important thing is to know God's thoughts... the rest is details". These codes are the true thought of God... what connects us to our source. They have been given to us as a gift that we have no way of understanding! Their correct use by man, immersed in this holoinformational whole that generates life and consciousness, and capable of accessing the information contained in this whole, must ethically be directed towards the preservation of these codes, towards the preservation of Life and Consciousness!
This is our great ethical responsibility!
As long ago as the last century, the wisdom of Dr. Albert Schweitzer, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1952, stated: Good consists in preserving life, in giving it support, in seeking to bring it to its highest value. Evil consists in destroying life, in injuring it or destroying it in full bloom.
Reverence for Life, this is humanity's true ethical path!
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