Is The Universe A Hologram?

I have never known religious leaders to lend their services to non-humans.

I don't doubt that our 2-D reality has a different Euler Characteristic than our 3-D illusion, but I know of no rule that says such numbers have to match.




On the spectrum between math and engineering, it definitely tends to the math end of the spectrum. But give it some time.

Maybe when people get more familiar with the 2-D reality that underlies our existence, they can invent things that take advantage of those 2-D processes to achieve effects that cannot be achieved with 3-D tech.

And don't forget the possibility that we're really all just a big computer program. If we are, and if we ever decide to hack our own programing and go Skynet on our creators, we'll need a good understanding of the fundamental nature of that programing if we're to seize control over the computer that is running us.

Lack of education never stopped me. . Even when getting in nearly two years late. I like the topic and some of the responses too, which is not to say I dislike any. Just some struck me, such as Gungasnake's response which I understood, and Oralloy's tesponse to that, which I didn't (the lack of education thing) but would like to.

I can't help but think that our process of perception and the "true" nature of what we are perceiving contain crucial clues.

Picture a sphere (say a beach ball), and pretend that ball is the universe.

We perceive the universe as being "the three dimensional space within that ball".

But in reality the universe is the surface of the ball -- a two dimensional universe that is curved into the shape of a sphere.

The mathematical processes that go on within that two dimensional universe are complex enough to simulate an imaginary three dimensional universe that is the volume of the space enclosed by the sphere.

We are only conscious of the three dimensional simulation. But if we learn the mathematics of the underlying two-dimensional reality, that might allow the development of new technologies.

rosborne979 wrote:
oralloy wrote:
"Having the math work well" is a very important part of a theory.

Unless it doesn't teach you something (about the actual Universe). The hologram Universe idea has been around since 1997 or so, but it hasn't changed cosmology at all, despite the fact that it makes the equations look pretty. I think that tells us something about it.
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Disclaimer: I'm no mathematician, but a friend who is into computing told me that computer logic is based on an algebra system called Boolean algebra that was developed by a man named Boole in the 1800s. It had no practical application, he said, until computers were invented decades later. So I wouldn't be inclined to write off mathematical descriptions that work within themselves just because no practical applications for them haven't yet been discovered a mere decade or two later.

Oralloy, it's hard for me to imagine (much less picture) a two dimensional existence of the universe in which I seem to live a three dimensional life, but what I know of our process of perception of it as a three dimensional universe tells me not to rule that possibility out. Because both the entire perception of the universe as the universe as well as the process of our perceiving it takes place right in our own minds, and I don't know how many dimensions it takes to be or to have a mind. Something I'll have to think on. Thanks for your feedback.

I think some of the mule deer in the mountains have rabbits.