Manaan and me - breakfast conversation on Upanishad and Quantum physics

My son Dr Manaan is what I call an “ancient mind in a modern world” because of his interest and knowledge of ancient scriptures and its logical and rational understanding in the contemporary context. On the other side, my approach is more scientific, especially the co-relation between spirituality and quantum physics.

We have some interesting conversations, from our different perspectives. Thought of sharing one that we had some days back. 

Some weeks back, we had attended a meeting in which one of the guests spoke about a shloka from Ishavasya Upanishad that says: -

ॐ पूर्णमदः पूर्णमिदं पूर्णात्पूर्णमुदच्यते।

पूर्णस्य पूर्णमादाय पूर्णमेवा वशिष्यते॥

“Origin of all things is whole or complete; 

This entire creation that has come from that origin of all things is also whole or complete; 

From that whole, the whole has come; 

Even though the whole has been taken away;

the whole still remains unaffected.”

Next morning, over breakfast, I could see that Manaan was ruminating, “Papa, the origin of existence is obviously complete, but if we take out a part from it, it should become incomplete. Logically, if one removes a component from a car, the car will become incomplete. But Isa Upanishad says that in spite of removing a part, the part will be complete and so will the car. Sounds illogical”.

Generally, his questions stump me, but this time I was ready. “This shloka reminds me of the theory of the holographic Universe,” I said. “Many scientists including David Bohm and Karl Pribram were dissatisfied with the standard “Theory of Everything” and its inability to explain all phenomenon encountered in quantum physics. They postulated a theory that said that we all live in a “Holographic Universe”.

A hologram is a three-dimensional image produced when a single laser light, is split into two separate beams. The first beam bounces of the object and then when the second beam is allowed to collide with the reflection of the first, the resulting interference pattern is recorded into an image.

Example: If a piece of holographic film containing the image of the apple is cut in half and then illuminated with a laser, each half will still be found to contain the entire image of the apple. Even if the half is divided again and again, the entire apple can still be reconstructed, from each small portion.  Every small fragment of the piece of holographic film contains all the information recorded in the whole. Hence the whole creates everything and whatever is created is also a whole. At any given point, nothing is incomplete but always complete in a holographic film.

This was precisely the feature that got Pribram so excited for it offered at last a way of understanding, not just the Universe, but even the workings of the brain. What process is involved in the interconnection of all portion of the brain? There is clear evidence that the process is neither chemical nor electrochemical. After deep research, it was postulated that the interconnection was effected by means of a force field extending over the appropriate region of space. Hence Keith Floyd proposes that a "holographic model of consciousness" makes such brain processes as memory, perception and imagine clearly explainable. 

A famous experiment showed that even when 98% of a rat’s brain was removed, it could retrieve and process memories – meaning that memories were not dependent upon physical brains. 

Manaan had discussed the holographic Universe and holographic brain with me multiple times, but he had not thought about the co-relation of this Isa Upanishad verse and the holographic Universe.

 “That’s right”, he exclaimed excitedly, “ All this and more shows to us beyond doubt that all that we view as “out-there” or nature is actually all in the human body. Pribram points out that when we look at a person, the image is really on the surface of our retinas. Yet we do not perceive the person as being on our retina. We perceive them as being in the “world-out-there.” Similarly, when we stub our toe we experience pain in our toe. But the pain is not really in our toe. It is actually a neuro-physiological process that manifests as our experience, all of which is internal, and fools us into thinking that some are internal and some are located beyond the confines of our brain”.

This is exactly what the Upanishads refer to. It says that the entire cosmos is within the individual and not “out-there.” We perceive patterns of waves interfering with one another and we construe it as “out-there.” The brain produces a hologram which we perceive considering it to be a reality which exists separate to our own selves while there isn't really a reality except our Self. 

Does the Upanishad point directly towards a Holographic Universe? Does it explain that even though a part is removed from the whole, both – the part and the source still remain the whole?

For those interested in further reading and viewing

Do we live in a hologram?

https://plus.maths.org/content/do-we-live-hologram

Is the brain holonomic?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holonomic_brain_theory

Video about holographic Universe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klpDHn8viX8&vl=en

Video about Holograpic show

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjRb6u_PQwQ

An interesting Ted Talk
https://www.davidicke.com/article/472566/holograms-projected-onto-brain-help-replace-lost-senses

Book to read
Mysticism and the new physics - Michael Talbot