Advaita, Consciousness and Quantum Physics Revisited

[jim kowall]

I received this recent email from jose

Hi James!

I just found your article Advaita, Consciousness and Quantum Physics. I’m very interested in this topic. For more than forty years I have been researching about a spiral, fractal, holographic, toroidal and entropic-syntropic pattern in the evolutionary dynamics, that leads to a point of Singularity —Omega— in two centuries and reveals the essential non-duality of energy and consciousness in the universe.

I'm sending you a link to my work Beyond Darwin: The hidden rhythm of evolution, a resume of this transdisciplinary research: http://byebyedarwin.blogspot.com/p/english-version_01.html. (Here you can find versions in Spanish and English and optional PDF in both languages). I specially suggest you take a look at Addendum 7: Entropic-syntropic evolution (where I highlight the resonance between my research and the Transactional Interpretation of Quantum Mechanic by John G. Cramer and Ruth E. Kastner) and Addendum 8: The evolutionary dance of Emptiness (where it is proposed how fundamental non-duality generates, instant after instant, the entirety of the universe).

All the best,

José

Here is my reply

Hi Jose

It seems my approach is somewhat different than yours, although at some level they may be equivalent. I accept the recent research findings of quantum gravity that are explored at Stanford (Lenny Susskind), the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study (Juan Maldacena), Berkeley (Raphael Bousso), and the Kavli Institute in Santa Barbara. I'm particularly interested in matrix models (non-commutative geometry) as proposed by Tom Banks. What unifies all these approaches is the idea of the holographic principle as the most fundamental principle of physics, more fundamental than the principle of equivalence underlying the idea of gravity or the idea of unitary time evolution underlying all quantum field theories and particle physics. My approach is purely one of giving an interpretation to the holographic principle, and in this regard it is similar to the approach Amanda Gefter took in her recent book Trespassing on Einstein's Lawn, where she tried to make logical sense of the holographic principle. I've taken the logical argument farther than Gefter took it to make it consistent with the idea of non-duality and the testimony of enlightened beings, particularly Nisargadatta Maharaj. Much to my amazement, I've discovered that this logical argument is completely consistent with what enlightened beings say about the nature of reality in the sense of the concept of non-duality, which I would summarize as non-dual awareness (best understood as a void of undifferentiated consciousness) as the source of everything, which not only includes the perceivable world, but also the central point of view of the individual consciousness of the observer of the perceivable world. In the language of Advaita Vedanta, the void is Brahman and the observer is Atman. The perceivable world is being displayed on a holographic screen, like the projected and animated images of a holographic virtual reality movie, and is being perceived from the central point of view of the observer. That holographic screen arises as the observer's event horizon due to its own accelerated motion. The observer's event horizon becomes its holographic screen when the horizon encodes qubits of information (hence the idea of a matrix model). I accept the idea of qubits of information encoded on a holographic screen as the fundamental dynamical degrees of freedom for a holographic world along the lines of the recent Nobel prize being awarded for research in quantum entanglement. The laws of physics (for gravity, electromagnetism and the nuclear forces) naturally arise in that holographic world as thermodynamic equations of state when things are near thermal equilibrium, as has nicely been demonstrated by Ted Jacobson. In effect, the observer is creating its own quantum computer (due to its own accelerated motion that gives rise to its event horizon that becomes its holographic screen when qubits of information are encoded on its horizon), and that quantum computer is what gives rise to the appearance of the observer's own computer-generated holographic virtual reality world. The laws of physics are like the computational rules that govern the operation of the quantum computer when things are near thermal equilibrium. The idea of multiple observers (each present at the central point of view of its own holographic screen) sharing a consensual reality naturally arises when those holographic screens overlap like a Venn diagram and share information. This nicely resolves all the observational paradoxes of quantum theory, like the Schrodinger cat/Wigner friend paradox and the paradox of spooky action at a distance. More importantly, it gives a natural scientific explanation for the nature of spiritual enlightenment as described by enlightened beings like Nisargadatta. The observer's accelerated motion is always relative to the motionless void. When that accelerated motion comes to an end in an ultimate state of free fall, the observer's holographic world disappears from existence from its own point of view and the observer's individual consciousness, present at the central point of view of its own holographic world, dissolves back into the undifferentiated consciousness of the void like a drop of water that dissolves back into the ocean. This state of dissolution into non-dual awareness is how the experience of enlightenment is described by all enlightened beings.

With regard to the idea of evolution, I'm perfectly happy with the idea of Darwinian evolution as currently understood in terms of natural selection and the survival of the fittest body, which at least to some degree has a thermodynamic explanation. From my point of view, all evolution takes place in the observer's own holographic virtual reality world. Consciousness does not evolve. The individual consciousness of the observer, present at the central point of view of its own holographic world, can only be present to observe the events of its own holographic world, or that individual consciousness can return to its source of pure undifferentiated consciousness in an ultimate state of free fall that results in the dissolution of individual consciousness into the unlimited and undivided nothingness of undifferentiated consciousness.

A complete exploration of these ideas can be found on my website:

https://scienceandnonduality.wordpress.com/2022/12/14/the-underlying-truth-of-you-and-the-story-of-reality/

[jim kowall]

Hi Jim!

Thank you very much for your tasty mail and for the three articles that you attached to me! Rest assured that I will read them with great interest.

I tell you the story. More than four years ago, I read some texts on a page titled Science and Nonduality that I found fascinating. One of them, entitled It's All in the Mind, I liked it so much that I transferred it to Spanish with the Google translator, I downloaded it on paper and I still keep it in the folder of articles of great importance. I wanted to contact the author, but since I couldn't find his name anywhere, I wrote the following email to the Science & Nonduality website of Maurizio and Zaya Benazzio:

Dear friends,

I just read the article The Internal-External Connection: Source to Cosmos, published on October 26 at https://scienceandnonduality.wordpress.com/ . I'm fascinated! I have a huge interest in contacting the author of this work. His name does not appear anywhere. Could you, please, give me his name from him and his e-mail address from him to be able to comment with him on the enormous coincidences between my research on the universal evolutionary dynamic and the content of the aforementioned article?

I await your news with great interest. My biggest congratulations to everyone for your wonderful web!

All best,

José

Maurizio answered me like this:

Dear Jose 

This site has nothing to do with us...:-)

Not sure who it is writing that stuff (and I wish to put no judgment of it is good or bad) but surely has nothing to do with our org. Someone is using our name without our permission…

Love, M.

I think I've finally found the author, right? I'm in luck!

You say in your email that “Consciousness does not evolve”. I fully agree with you that consciousness itself does not evolve at all, but that statement must be completed by saying that the actualization of that consciousness in the manifested world does evolve depending on the complexity of the entities or organisms with which it is successively identifying.

As I see it, any materialist approach—including Darwinism and neo-Darwinism—is completely unable to explain the progressive emergence of consciousness through the evolutionary process, and likewise unable to explain the evolutionary pattern that my research shows. The key to all this is that the emergence of phenomena in the universe is not only a function of the initial conditions —energy pole—, but also depends on a final attractor —consciousness pole—. This subject-object polarity (consciousness-energy) is nothing more than the dual expression of fundamental non-duality, as affirmed by the great wisdom traditions. And, precisely, taking this idea into account, I believe that our respective approaches are essentially compatible, since, as you affirm, “The consciousness of the observer arises from the same ultimate reality from which the physical universe arises.” [The bolds are mine]. That is the central key of my proposal!

I strongly invite you to take a look at Addendum 7 and, above all, at Addendum 8 —I am attaching you both addenda—, because there you will be able to know my approach to how fundamental Emptiness is creating, instant after instant, the entire evolutionary holographic universe.

Regarding your suggestion about possible debates on the nature of reality, I have to tell you that I can't participate in them because I don't know English —everything I read and write in this language (this email included) I do it through from Google translate—and, on the other hand, since I'm not a physicist, I could hardly debate with you on this ground. In any case, I will be happy to answer you by email any question you want to ask me.

Another thing! I'd like to contact Amanda Gefter as well, but I can't find her email address anywhere. Could you provide it to me?

The next few days I will read with great interest the articles that you have attached to me. I'm sure I'll have a lot of fun with them! If I have any suggestions to make when I finish them, I'll get back to you.

A very cordial greeting,

José

Hi Jose

My initial reaction to your response is I agree with everything you say!

First point: Consciousness does not evolve because undifferentiated consciousness is timeless and unchanging in nature. That's the nature of the void. It's the primordial nature of existence. It is what exists when everything else disappears from existence. It is what exists when time comes to an end. Time in the sense of a dynamically curved space-time geometry, as formulated in Einstein's theory for gravity, only exists at the level of a holographic world, which is best understood in terms of a computer-generated virtual reality world, like depicted in the Matrix. The undifferentiated consciousness of the void is what timelessly exists when that holographic world disappears from existence. There's nothing mysterious here. It's what happens each night when we fall into a deep sleep and we become aware of nothing. The only tricky part in the sense of becoming spiritually enlightened is remaining aware of our own being as we fall into the void and as everything else disappears. A holographic world always disappears from existence from the central point of view of its observer as the observer enters into an ultimate state of free fall. The only tricky part is for the observer to remain aware of its own individual being, present at its own individual point of view, as that individual being dissolves back into the undivided being of the void. While the undivided being of the void is timeless, the individual being of the observer is always present now, in the present moment. That's why present moment awareness is an essential condition for becoming spiritually enlightened.

Second point: There is only an illusion that the individual consciousness of the observer evolves prior to becoming spiritually enlightened. The more accurate characterization of this process is a devolution. The problem is personal self-identification. As you correctly point out, all perception occurs in a subject-object relation, where the observer is the nature of the subject, which can also be called the Self, and its object of perception is the emotionally animated form of a person that appears as the central form of information in its own holographic world. That personal central form of information is always emotionally animated relative to all other forms that appear in that world. Personal self-identification only occurs because the observer feels emotionally self-limited to that personal form as the observer perceives the emotional energy that animates that personal form relative to all other forms, which creates the dualistic illusion of self and other. In reality, the observer is nothing more than the individual consciousness present at the central point of view of its own holographic world, but when the observer emotionally identifies itself with its emotionally animated personal central form, it is as though this personal form is the subject in the subject-object relation of perception, which creates the dualistic illusion of self and other. This dualistic illusion is only created because of feelings of emotional self-limitation to a personal form as emotions are expressed that animate the form of the person. The problem is the expression of emotions, which at the level of Darwinian evolution are all survival emotions that defend the survival of the body in the sense of the survival of the fittest body. That's how emotions evolve. They defend the survival of the body. In a very real sense, we are all prisoners of our Darwinian conditioning, which doesn't just occur over a single lifetime, but over millions of life-times. Emotions evolve to defend the survival of the body. That's what the survival of the fittest body is all about. Once we emotionally identify ourselves with our own body, we're screwed. We feel compelled to defend the survival of our own body as though our existence depends on it. That's how we're conditioned by Darwinian evolution. The way this works is through the pleasure-pain principle and the expression of fear and desire. We are constantly pursuing pleasure as we express desire and avoiding pain as we express fear in order to defend the survival of our body, which we do as though our existence depends on it. That's what keeps us emotionally self-identified with the emotionally animated personal form of our body.

The only way we can break-free from our Darwinian conditioning is if we stop expressing self-defensive and self-limiting emotions, which is not an evolution, but a devolution. That's why we have to surrender to divine will and give up the expression of our own personally biased self-defensive individual will, which in reality only defends a personal illusion of what we really are in the sense of a personal self-concept. In addition to surrendering to divine will, we also have to sever emotional attachments. When we sever an emotional attachment to something, it feels like something dies inside because part of our emotionally energized, mentally constructed, body-based personal self-concept dies away when we stop caring about that thing and that thing becomes dead to us. Our self-concept is always constructed in an emotional relationship between our body and some other thing. Ultimately, we have to sever our emotional attachment to the personal form of our own body, which is like the central character in the holographic virtual reality movie that we're watching from our own point of view at the center of that holographic world. When we stop caring about the life our character appears to live in that world and sever the emotional attachment to our own character, our character becomes dead to us. That's how we cut the knot of personal self-identification and stop emotionally identifying ourselves with the emotionally animated form of a person. When we sever the emotional attachment, we're able to step out of the world we perceive and see that world from the outside as our consciousness rises to a higher level. We see that world like a movie that we're watching as all the animated images of the movie are projected from the movie screen to our own point of view in the movie audience outside the screen. We see that the person we mistakenly took ourselves to be is only the central character of the movie. We see that the whole thing is an illusion and is imaginary in nature. When we see the illusion as an illusion, we naturally lose interest in paying attention to an illusion. That's when we can really withdraw our attention away from the illusion and look within. When we withdraw our attention away from the illusion, we also withdraw our investment of emotional energy in the illusion that emotionally animates our character in the illusion. When we totally withdraw our attention away from the illusion, we withdraw all energy away from the illusion. That's when our own motion as a moving point of consciousness relative to the motionless void comes to an end and we enter into an ultimate state of free fall. If we remain aware of our own being while we fall into the void and as our own holographic world disappears from existence from our own point of view, our individual being, present at the central point of view of our own holographic world, dissolves back into the unlimited and undivided being of the motionless void, like a drop of water that dissolves back into the ocean. Individual consciousness dissolves back in the nothingness of pure undifferentiated consciousness.

If you carefully read I Am That by Nisargadatta, you'll see these are exactly the instructions that Nisargadatta gives for how to become spiritually enlightened. Spiritual enlightenment is the nature of awakening from the dream. After spiritual enlightenment, one also awakens within the dream. One becomes aware of one's Self as a moving point of consciousness at the center of one's own world. One sees how the motion of one's Self is animating all the images of one's own world, like the images of a movie. One sees how the light of consciousness, emanating from the central point of view of one's own Self, is projecting and illuminating those images. One sees how one's Self perceives those images as the images are reflected from a screen back to one's Self. One sees all of this from the darkness, emptiness and silence of the void.

Third point: I've spoken with Maurizio at the Science and Nonduality Conference several times and have tried to explain the holographic principle to him, but this is like talking to a brick wall. This is very odd since the whole original motivation for the Science and Nonduality Conference was to fulfill Nisargadatta's final wish that his teachings be given a scientific basis, and the holographic principle is the natural scientific basis for Nisargadatta's teachings. The holographic principle, properly understood in terms of the consciousness of the observer, gives a perfectly good scientific explanation for these teachings, and there is absolutely no inconsistency or logical contradiction. The problem as I see it is that people speak out of both sides of their mouth, or as the Native Americans put it, people speak with a forked tongue. People say that they want to know the answer, but if that means they have to accept that their own ego is an illusion of what they really are, they really don't want to know the answer. Ego will believe any logical contradiction it has to believe in order to defend the survival of its own illusory existence. If the holographic principle threatens the survival of that illusory existence of ego, then the attitude of ego is, let's not look at the holographic principle.

Fourth point: I communicated with Amanda Gefter several years ago, but she was very resistant to the idea of understanding the nature of consciousness in terms of the undifferentiated consciousness of the void (Brahman) as the source of the individual consciousness of the observer (Atman) at the central point of view of its own holographic world. This is odd since her whole thesis was based on the idea of the observer, which she correctly identified as an accelerated frame of reference that gives rise to an event horizon that acts as the observer's holographic screen when information is encoded on the horizon. This is also odd since her final conclusion was that nothing is ultimately real. This is also odd since she worked closely with her father, who is a Buddhist, and Buddhism accepts the ultimate reality of nothingness. My impression is that like most scientifically minded people, she is completely hung up on the idea of physicalism, and is not willing to attribute any spiritual aspect to the nature of reality. For the physicalists, there is no reality except for physical reality. The idea of a spiritual reality is anathema to them. This of course is just another one of the logical contradictions ego will use to defend its own illusory existence. The physicalists are unwilling to concede that spiritual reality is the reality of consciousness, which is beyond the physical reality that it perceives. Again, this is very odd since Gefter's understanding of the holographic principle is perfect, which tells us in no uncertain terms that the consciousness of the observer can never be reduced to something that it can observe in its own holographic physical world. That physical world is always defined by the way information is encoded on the observer's event horizon that arises from its own accelerated motion. The observer can only be understood as the perceiving consciousness present at the central point of view of its own holographic world, which is defined on a holographic screen that delineates the bounding surface of that holographic world. You can't collapse the boundary of that world into the central point of view and still have a world. All attempts to reduce the consciousness of the observer to something the observer can observe in its own holographic world only result in the logical contradiction of a paradox of self-reference. At some level, Gefter understood this when she wrote her book, but for some reason, most likely the irrational reluctance that all physicalists have to the idea of a spiritual reality beyond the physical world, which bubbles up from the resistance of ego, she was unwilling to take the next step and draw the obvious conclusion that the source of consciousness is beyond the perceivable physical world that consciousness perceives.

If it's OK with you, I'd like to make these conversations public, which in some sense, serves the purpose of a debate and allows other interested people to chime in and make their own comments. There's real value in making this kind of knowledge public. I know of no other way to whittle away at the resistance of ego.

Jim

[jim kowall]

Hi Jose

My thoughts on Addendum 7:

As best I can tell, all of your analysis is based on the conventional formulation of quantum theory and quantum field theory in terms of unitary time evolution. You are only including the advanced waves of Feynman-Wheeler with the retarded waves in order to connect the past to the future in an inextricable way. The problem as I see it is that this approach can never include the effect of gravity, since as formulated by Einstein's field equations, gravity is the dynamical curvature of a space-time geometry, which can never be understood in the sense of unitary time evolution, which is only a valid concept in gravity-free Minkowski space, where there is a notion of time translation invariance. In other words, gravity is not consistent with quantum theory as conventionally formulated. This is why you have to go beyond the idea of unitary time evolution to the holographic principle, which does not suffer from this logical contradiction. How would you re-express your ideas in terms of the holographic principle?

My thoughts on Addendum 8:

I really have no problem with anything you're saying here, except to again point out the contradiction between the unitary time evolution of quantum theory and the dynamically curved space-time geometry of gravity. How would you re-express these ideas, not in terms of point particles that exist and move through the space-time geometry of a universe, but in terms of qubits of information encoded on a holographic screen? You really can't talk about a holographic world unless you can explain the nature of the hologram, which Bohm never did. Bohm seems to have been completely oblivious to the work of Wheeler and Bekenstein. The poles that you describe, between an observer and its object, between consciousness and energy, need one more ingredient, which is information, hence the role of qubits encoded on a holographic screen. This is where you need to include some sort of discussion of the holographic principle. The big mystery of course is how we get from the non-dual reality of the void to the dualistic reality of an observer and its holographic world. I don't think this mystery is solvable in a scientific sense except to say that in some mysterious way the undifferentiated consciousness of the void differentiates itself into the point of view of the observer whenever that point of consciousness begins its accelerated motion relative to the motionless void, which gives rise to the observer's event horizon that becomes its holographic screen when qubits of information are encoded on the horizon. The reverse process of that accelerated motion coming to an end in an ultimate state of free fall is a bit easier to understand in the sense of the dissolution of that individual point of consciousness into the undifferentiated consciousness of the void, like a drop of water that dissolves back into the ocean.

Other than my suggestion that you incorporate the holographic principle into your discussion, I basically agree with everything you say. This is really a tremendous piece of work that pulls together a large number of threads. You only need to add one more critical ingredient, which is the nature of information. Instead of talking about quantum fields, as in the Wheeler-Feynman theory of the advanced and retarded potentials of electromagnetism, you need to talk about information at the level of qubits. Maybe an Addendum 9?

Jim

Hi Jim!

Thank you very much for your very interesting emails and your articles! I intended to answer you when I had read all those texts completely, but, although I have only reached page 50 of the titled The Underlying Truth of You and the Story of Reality, I am so fascinated with your work that, before finishing reading everything, I would like to tell you right away my enthusiasm for the load of highly suggestive ideas that you propose and for how pedagogically you expose them despite their complexity. There are some technical nuances that I am not able to fully grasp, but your insistence on highlighting the key points of your proposal makes the article much easier to read. My best congratulations on this marvelous overview of integral reality, Jim!

From my point of view, everything I'm reading seems to me to be very much in tune with the conclusions of my evolutionary research. The problem that you pose with the "effect of gravity"... for me, who is not a physicist, is beyond my ability to understand. You speak of "unitary time evolution"... according to my proposal, time is illusory and everything happens instant after instant, in an eternal Now... is this not acceptable?...

As I understand things, based on both experiential and theoretical research on non-dual reality, the foundation of everything transcends and includes the partial perspectives of objectivist monism (materialism) and subjectivist monism (idealism), that is, it is subject-and-object simultaneously and in an undifferentiated way, or, more exactly, is “prior” to that polarization. The origin of the manifested universe is simply the apparent dualization of the non-dual in the form of the poles of energy and consciousness. The information, according to this approach, would only be the interaction between these two poles, from the very originary moment, which would gradually increase, instant after instant.

You say: “Maybe an Addendum 9?”. Ha!, ha!, ha!, just yesterday I had the crazy idea of adding an Addendum 9… with the only content being a link to your Science & Nonduality page!...

As I see that, apart from your powerful theoretical approach to non-duality, you are also interested in its experiential aspect, I invite you to take a look at the PDF of the Non-Dual Evolution text that you can find at the head of my blog: http://byebyedarwin.blogspot.com/p/english-version_01.html. It has three chapters. The first is basically the article Beyond Darwin and the 8 Addenda, the second deals with the philosophical implications of my evolutionary research from a non-dual perspective, and the third is an invitation to the reader to experientially discover that non-dual foundation that originates and welcomes, from moment to moment, the totality of manifested reality. These last two chapters are literal translations of some sections of my book Siendo nada, soy todo (Being nothing, I am everything) —published in Spanish by Ed. Dilema in 2007—, of which you can find the PDF at the head of the Spanish version of my blog.

Ah!, of course!, you can publish my texts and my emails in the way that you consider most appropriate. Try not to be too cruel to me!

Thanks for everything! Congratulations on everything! I will continue to read your articles with great interest…

Hi Jose

Thank you for the kind words of your reply.

I have a few more comments about your Addendums.

I agree that everything happens now, in the present moment, since the observer only exists in the present moment. Spiritual awakening always begins with the observer becoming aware of its own existence, which is its sense of being present, in the present moment. The whole point of focusing attention on the now, with present moment awareness, is to become aware of our own being as a presence of consciousness.

I agree the perception of time is an illusion, but as is clear from your work, you want to understand how that illusion is created. We have the impression of an unchangeable past and an undetermined future, but even at the level of classical Newtonian physics, the future is determined by the past, since once you know the initial conditions, it's possible to calculate the final conditions in a deterministic way. At the level of quantum theory, we have to assume an initial condition and a final condition and then sum over all possible paths that connect the initial condition to the final condition. Each path is weighted with a probability factor given in terms of the action as P=exp(iA/h), where the action is given in terms of kinetic and potential energy as an integral over dA=dt(KE-PE). The wave-function of quantum theory arises from this probability factor. The time variable in the integrand is the time variable assumed for unitary time evolution of the wave-function. The classical path is understood as the path of least action. This formulation not only applies to the ordinary quantum theory of particle physics, but also to quantum field theory. In QFT the sum over all possible paths that connect an initial condition to a final condition includes virtual particle-antiparticle pairs, where the antiparticle has a negative energy and frequency, E=hf, and so can be understood as a particle that moves backwards in time. This is where the idea of advanced and retarded waves comes from. At the level of QFT, the future is as much determining the past as the past is determining the future.

I like the idea that the future determines the past as much as the past determines the future, and that in some sense, the future and the past are both illusions of perception since everything is observed now, in the present moment, which is where the observer exists. In the sense of an illusion, I would say that both the future and the past are imaginary in the same sense that the projected and animated images of a movie are imaginary. This of course brings us to the problem of how to understand a holographic world, which is also imaginary in the same sense as the projected and animated images of a movie.

The bottom line is that the space-time geometry of a holographic world is also imaginary, since it only arises from the perception of images projected from an observer's holographic screen to its central point of view. The images of that world are forms of information that are reducible to qubits of information encoded on the screen, and which are animated in the flow of energy. The problem with understanding the nature of that space-time geometry is the problem of understanding gravity as the dynamical curvature of that space-time geometry.

This is where the idea of gravity conflicts with the idea of unitary time evolution that underlies quantum theory. Quantum theory can only be formulated in the gravity-free Minkowski space of special relativity, where there is a notion of time translation invariance. This notion breaks down in a dynamically curved space-time geometry with gravity. This breakdown of time translation invariance in a curved space-time geometry with gravity is best exemplified by event horizons, like the event horizon of a black hole.

There are several ways to see this. The first is Hawking radiation. At the event horizon of a black hole, virtual particle-antiparticle pairs appear to separate as observed by an external observer. The separated particle is radiated away from the event horizon toward the external observer and appears to become a particle of thermal radiation that carries positive heat energy, while the separated antiparticle falls into the black hole and carries negative energy that reduces the mass of the black hole. This is a separation of positive and negative frequencies as in the separation of advanced and retarded waves. This separation of virtual particle-antiparticle pairs at the event horizon gives the event horizon an apparent temperature as observed by the external observer. On the other hand, for a freely falling observer that falls through the event horizon, there is no Hawking radiation, which only appears to exist for the external observer that must accelerate away from the event horizon with an acceleration equal and opposite to that of gravity to maintain its stationary position outside the event horizon. The paradox we have to resolve is how Hawking radiation can appear to exist for the accelerated external observer but not for the freely falling observer.

The other way to demonstrate the breakdown of the observer's space-time geometry at an event horizon is with the Planck length as the smallest possible measurable distance scale. The way we measure the size of things is by scattering light off of them, as with a microscope. The smaller the thing, the smaller wavelength of light we need to use. Since energy is related to wave frequency as E=hf, and wave frequency is inversely proportional to wavelength, the smaller the thing, the larger the energy of the light we need to use. At some point, we focus so much energy into such a small region of space, we create a black hole. If we focus even more energy into even a smaller region of space, we only make the black hole bigger with a larger event horizon. The length scale at which the black hole must form is the Planck length, which is the smallest distance scale we can ever measure since nothing is observable beyond the limits of the event horizon.

This is how Jacob Bekenstein discovered holographic entropy. Bekenstein imagined throwing a single photon, which is a quantum of electromagnetic radiation, and for which we know nothing about except for its polarization state, into a black hole. This photon carries a single qubit of information in terms of its right handed or left handed polarization state, which is like a spin variable that can only be observed to spin up or spin down. When this photon is added to the black hole, the event horizon of the black hole increases in surface area by about one Planck area. It is as though the surface area of the event horizon is covered with Planck area size pixels, each of which encodes a single qubit of information.

This explains why the Planck length is the smallest distance scale that can ever be measured. A Planck size black hole is the smallest event horizon that can be created, which encodes a single qubits of information, which is the smallest amount of information that can ever be measured.

The Hawking calculation for the apparent temperature of the event horizon of a black hole as observed by an external observer and the Bekenstein calculation for the holographic entropy of a black hole tie together in terms of the laws of thermodynamics. At thermal equilibrium, the equipartition of energy tells us that every fundamental dynamical degree of freedom carries the same amount of the thermal energy given in terms of temperature as E=kT, and that entropy is given in terms of the number of dynamical degrees of freedom as S=kn. Bekenstein showed the dynamical degrees of freedom for the black hole are qubits of information encoded on the event horizon, with one qubit encoded per Planck area size pixel, and so the black hole's holographic entropy is proportional to the surface area of the event horizon. Hawking showed the observed temperature of the event horizon is proportional to the acceleration of gravity with which an external observer must accelerate away from the event horizon to maintain its stationary position outside the event horizon. The laws of thermodynamics simply say that a decrease or increase in the surface area of the event horizon, which corresponds to a decrease or increase in the number of qubits of information encoded on the event horizon, either corresponds to the radiation of Hawking radiation away from the event horizon or to the addition of photons of electromagnetic radiation to the black hole, which either decreases or increases the mass of the black hole in terms of the thermal energy carried by that radiation, which is proportional to the observer's acceleration. This thermodynamic addition and subtraction process always occurs in an integral number of qubits because the radiation also carries information in terms of qubits.

That's the nature of a holographic world, where the fundamental dynamical degrees of freedom for that world are qubits of information encoded on an observer's holographic screen that arises as its event horizon due to the observer's own accelerated motion. Point particles that appear to occupy position coordinates in space and to move through space over the course of time in that world can always be reduced to qubits of information encoded on the observer's own holographic screen. Even the space-time geometry of that holographic world can be reduced to qubits of information encoded on the observer's holographic screen.

The holographic principle explains the nature of the observed effects of gravity as the apparent dynamical curvature of the space-time geometry of an observer's holographic world, which can always be reduced to qubits of information encoded on the observer's own holographic screen that arises as its event horizon due to the observer's own accelerated motion. The problem is this explanation is not consistent with the idea of unitary time evolution that underlies the conventional quantum theory and QFT of particle physics, since in a curved space-time geometry with gravity, there is no notion of time translation invariance. We really can't connect the present moment to a distant past or far-away future with the advanced and retarded waves of QFT because the positive and negative frequencies of those waves are separated at an event horizon.

That's why I'd like you to reformulate your ideas about entropic-syntropic evolution, not in terms of a QFT based on the incorrect assumption of unitary time evolution, but in terms of the holographic principle. My guess is that you can't do this, at least not in terms of a distant past and a far-away future. My own ideas about syntropy (the order of coherent organization) as a counter-balancing effect to entropy (the disorder of thermal disorganization) is that coherent organization naturally arises in a holographic world, moment by moment, as a natural result of quantum entanglement due to the entanglement of qubits of information encoded on an observer's holographic screen, which are the fundamental dynamical degrees of freedom of that holographic world. Coherent organization of form is a moment by moment process that arises from quantum entanglement because all the qubits of information for that holographic world are entangled.

The flip side of this way of understanding coherent organization is that observation is never really a local phenomena. That's why the idea of local realism, which is inherent in our mistaken ideas about particle physics, and which seems to be violated in the phenomena of spooky action at a distance, is not a valid concept. Observation is never really a local phenomena, but rather a holistic phenomena that encompasses an observer's entire world as the observer makes observations of its own holographic world.

The observer itself can only be understood as the perceiving consciousness present at the central point of view of its own holographic world, which is always defined on the observer's own holographic screen that arises as an event horizon due to its own accelerated motion. The observer's event horizon becomes its holographic screen when the horizon encodes qubits of information. That information is always entangled in the sense of quantum entanglement, and so everything perceivable in that holographic world is inherently connected to everything else. Coherent organization of form naturally arises from the tendency of entangled qubits of information to align together over a sequence of events, which occurs moment by moment.

The key to understanding the nature of observation in a holographic world is that observation is never a local phenomena. There is only an illusion that the form of a person that appears in the observer's own holographic world can make a local observation of that world. In reality, all observations are non-local and are made by the observer at the central point of view of its own holographic world. Observation always occurs in a subject-object relation, where the observer is the subject and its objects of perception not only include forms of information in its own holographic world, but that world in its entirety. This not only resolves the paradoxes of spooky action at a distance, but also those of Schrodinger's cat and Wigner's friend.

As I've previously mentioned, there is only a consensual reality shared by multiple observers, each present at the central point of view of its own holographic world, when the respective holographic screens of all the different observers overlap like a Venn diagram and share information.

In terms of non-dual reality, all of this is happening in the nothingness of the void. Each observer, present at its own individual point of view, is arising in that nothingness as the observer's individual consciousness is differentiated from the undifferentiated consciousness of the void. The accelerated motion of each observer is always relative to the motionless void, which is how each observer's event horizon arises that becomes its holographic screen when the horizon encodes qubits of information. Just as the void is the source of the observer, the void is also the source of the energy that underlies the observer's accelerated motion that gives rise to its event horizon and the source of the information encoding on the observer's event horizon.

If I can quote you back to yourself:

"According to my proposal, time is illusory and everything happens instant after instant, in an eternal Now...As I understand things, based on both experiential and theoretical research on non-dual reality, the foundation of everything transcends and includes the partial perspectives of objectivist monism (materialism) and subjectivist monism (idealism), that is, it is subject-and-object simultaneously and in an undifferentiated way, or, more exactly, is “prior” to that polarization. The origin of the manifested universe is simply the apparent dualization of the non-dual in the form of the poles of energy and consciousness. The information, according to this approach, would only be the interaction between these two poles, from the very originary moment, which would gradually increase, instant after instant."

I agree.

Jim

[sharon]

This email was sent to the wrong email address. There is no one named Jim here.

Sharon

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[jim kowall]

Hi Jim!

Thank you very much, once again, for your kind mail and for your fantastic explanations about the holographic universe! Your pedagogical presentation of the subject has allowed even a complete layman in these matters like me to glimpse a few ideas of enormous interest.

I loved it when you say: “My own ideas about syntropy (the order of coherent organization) as a counter-balancing effect to entropy (the disorder of thermal disorganization) is that coherent organization naturally arises in a holographic world, moment by moment, as a natural result of quantum entanglement due to the entanglement of qubits of information encoded on an observer's holographic screen, which are the fundamental dynamical degrees of freedom of that holographic world. Coherent organization of form is a moment by moment process that arises from quantum entanglement because all the qubits of information for that holographic world are entangled.” Or also when you state: “The flip side of this way of understanding coherent organization is that observation is never really a local phenomenon. That's why the idea of local realism, which is inherent in our mistaken ideas about particle physics, and which seems to be violated in the phenomenon of spooky action at a distance, is not a valid concept. Observation is never really a local phenomenon, but rather a holistic phenomenon that encompasses an observer's entire world as the observer makes observations of its own holographic world.” Or when you insist: “That information is always entangled in the sense of quantum entanglement, and so everything perceivable in that holographic world is inherently connected to everything else. Coherent organization of form naturally arises from the tendency of entangled qubits of information to align together over a sequence of events, which occurs moment by moment.” Or, of course, when you state: “The key to understanding the nature of observation in a holographic world is that observation is never a local phenomenon. There is only an illusion that the form of a person that appears in the observer's own holographic world can make a local observation of that world. In reality, all observations are non-local and are made by the observer at the central point of view of its own holographic world. Observation always occurs in a subject-object relation, where the observer is the subject and its objects of perception not only include forms of information in its own holographic world, but that world in its entirety.” And when, finally, you hold that: “In terms of non-dual reality, all of this is happening in the nothingness of the void. Each observer, present at its own individual point of view, is arising in that nothingness as the observer's individual consciousness is differentiated from the undifferentiated consciousness of the void. The accelerated motion of each observer is always relative to the motionless void, which is how each observer's event horizon arises that becomes its holographic screen when the horizon encodes qubits of information. Just as the void is the source of the observer, the void is also the source of the energy that underlies the observer's accelerated motion that gives rise to its event horizon and the source of the information encoding on the observer's event horizon.” My research fully aligns with all these ideas! I think I'm going to have no choice but to seriously think about writing an Addendum 9: Holographic Evolution in the future!

For now, I have finished reading your wonderful article The Underlying Truth of You and the Story of Reality, which I found very inspiring. The final pages, with texts by various non-dualist masters, are truly luminous. Above all, the abundant and tasty bouquet of phrases from the book I Am That by Nisargadatta (and Maurice Frydman) that are real pearls! I will continue reading your articles in the coming days, to soak myself in holography from every pore and… let's see what happens!

I would like to talk to you about some ideas that I have been thinking about while reading your article.

There are some non-dualist teachers —or, rather, idealistic monists— who have a very negative view of the manifested universe, claim that the world of finitude is a pure error resulting from ignorance, and their claim is to escape from this world of the finite forms to return to the joyful original plenitude. As I understand it, on the contrary, the universal manifestation, far from being a lamentable error, is nothing less than the fascinating progressive unfolding of the infinite potentiality of the non-dual foundation. It is the creative, dazzling and inexhaustible artifice of the unmanifested Emptiness to contemplate itself in infinite ways!

The trick of this self-creative game is very simple. It is enough that the fundamental Emptiness, which is simultaneously subject and object in an undifferentiated way, unfolds these two aspects according to a basic polarity of energy and consciousness, thus generating an illusory distance between both poles with endless balances between both facets. The spectrum thus created runs the full range of archetypal levels from the potential energy (Shakti) of the original pole to the pure consciousness (Shiva) of the final pole. The thousand-year-old Hindu psychophysiology, and in a very special way the tantric tradition, has synthesized this archetypal spectrum through the chain of chakras, each one of which is defined by a certain sound vibration and by a characteristic activity: Muladhara (matter / survival), Svadhistana (life / sex), Manipura (power / desire), Anahata (love / compassion), Vishuddha (expression / creation), Ajna (intelligence / understanding), and Sahasrara (spirit / enlightenment). The Hindu tradition also affirms that the totality of this spectrum of seven levels in which the flow of energy-consciousness is stabilized, manifests itself, at least, in three different envelopes: biological, psychological and intellective.

My research on the pattern of evolution and development, both in human phylogeny and ontogeny, has revealed the presence of a harmonic fractal pattern in the unfolding of the successive levels of stratified stability that mark the evolutionary ladder. It has been surprising for me to see how this long spectrum of evolutionary levels fits with total precision to the scheme of chakras and envelopes proposed in the Hindu tradition. If you are interested in this subject, I invite you to take a look at my Beyond Darwin article and, especially, the section entitled Regarding the chakras.

I am telling you all this because in your article, echoing the classic Darwinian approach, you make repeated references to "the survival of the fittest body" as the dynamic element of the evolutionary process. It is obvious that the survival instinct of the physical body is the most basic element of all this process, because, obviously, if the organism does not survive, it will not be able to evolve in any way. In this same sense, in the scheme of the chakras the characteristic of "survival" corresponds to the cycle of muladhara, the initial stage to be developed in the progressive emergence of life. But —look carefully— from there, there are many other facets that yearn to unfold, as indicated by the series of chakras, and that, one after another, will play the central dynamizing role in each of the successive evolutionary stages, in the biological, mental, intellective and spiritual fields. Ultimately, the evolutionary process, by successively unfolding and integrating the entire spectrum of potential levels of stratified stability of energy-consciousness —from the originary pole of objective energy to the final pole of subjective consciousness— is attempting to manifest in the world of the forms the non-duality of subject and object that characterizes the fundamental Emptiness. In summary, evolution is not a mere error resulting from ignorance or an exclusively material and meaningless process, but rather, on the contrary, it is the fascinating artifice of the Void to contemplate its invisible original face in a grand symphony of pixels, in a wonderful holographic mosaic.

Enjoy the spectacle!

Hi Jose

Of course I agree with you. If I can quote Jed McKenna:

Why is nothingness better than somethingness? Why is unity better than duality? Why is truth better than the lie? Why is the infinite better than the finite? Why is awake better than dreaming? Our fragile little bubbles are what let us float around in the infinite, able to enjoy the experience of somethingness-good and bad-where only nothingness exists. The bubble is a magnificent amusement park and leaving it is a damn silly thing to do unless you absolutely must.

The dreamstate is a big amusement park and I would never encourage anyone to try to escape. That would be as absurd as suggesting that you commit suicide for your own good.

Enlightenment is literally the biggest nothing of all time. Enlightenment is life-negative. Spiritual enlightenment is pointless and meaningless, and should only be sought by those who have absolutely no choice in the matter.

The thing one leaves isn’t just the prison of self but self itself, so the freedom thus won is something of a booby prize.

McKenna never recommends awakening from the dream. McKenna recommends awakening within the dream, which he calls the Integrated State. It can also be called the born-again experience. One dies in self-identification with the body and is reborn to a spiritual identity. This naturally happens when one surrenders to divine will. One comes into alignment with the normal flow of things and feels connected rather than disconnected and personally self-limited. One also expresses right actions and experiences expressions of creativity, like the stuff that we're writing about. This is the highest level of spiritual evolution that a person can ever have while that person continues to live a life and the dream (life is but a dream) continues to be dreamt. Surrender leads directly to awakening within the dream.

This is how McKenna describes awakening within the dream:

To surrender is to relinquish the illusion of control, which initiates the death part of the death/rebirth process, which is the transition from the bondage of the womb-like Segregated State to the freedom of the ever-expanding Integrated State. No faith or belief is required to accomplish this act of surrender, only clear-seeing. When one begins to understand ego and fear for what they really are, this process becomes as easy and natural as dropping a heavy weight.

Surrender follows naturally from seeing what is.

The person who arrives at this point is not the person who goes beyond. In this process, resistance is conquered and non-resistance takes its place; acceptance, recognition, surrender. The segregated self is slain and the integrated self is born. To the onlooker it looks like one thing becomes the other, but to the participant it is quite unmistakably the end of one thing and the beginning of another. The necessary letting go is itself a kind of death. It is the primary death/birth process, and nothing proceeds until it happens.

We are both protagonist and antagonist in this conflict, both attacker and defended. We can't win by fighting. The very thing that fights, that resists, is the thing we seek to overthrow. Only by vanquishing ego can we prevail. Only in surrender can we find victory. This is the part so few get, and fewer get beyond. If you want to say all religions and spiritual teachings share a core truth, it can only be this: Surrender is victory.

Ego is obstruction, surrender is flow. Surrender is the basis and precursor of growth. There is no growth possible within egoic constraints, only the illusion of growth. Once we free ourselves, we come into alignment.

There is only one possible objective, you must die to be reborn, and to do that begin the process of thinking clearly and freeing your thoughts from emotion-dense clouds of self-limiting belief.

Nothing else means anything. No amount of knowledge or understanding or spiritual experience could be of any value if you're still stuck in the segregated state. You have one goal, die to the flesh and be born of the spirit.

On the other hand, to awaken from the dream, you have to kill your own ego, which leads to the destruction of your own Self in the sense that the Self is the individual consciousness present at the center of its own world. Awakening from the dream destroys the Self in the sense that the individual consciousness of the observer dissolves back into the nothingness of undifferentiated consciousness. Bernadette Robert's book The Experience of No-Self gives a very good description of this experience. As McKenna says, there's nothing to be desired about it:

How can you want nothing? Words ascribed to the Buddha are often fraudulent, but there's one very clear exception: "Truly, I have attained nothing from total enlightenment". It's not so much that he didn't gain anything as that he did gain nothing.

With every step we leave behind that which we move beyond.

A step begins with seeing and understanding. That seeing and understanding becomes the very thing that destroys the thing seen and understood. But it doesn't end there. Just because you killed something doesn't mean you killed your attachment to it. Seeing the thing is the beginning of killing the thing, and killing the thing is the beginning of detaching from it.

Every step is a loss and as long as there's more to lose, there are more steps to take. Everything is lost. Nothing is gained.

The way you kill your ego and destroy your own Self is by severing emotional attachments. That's why Arjuna fell down and refused to give the order to launch the war in the Bhagavad-Gita when he saw that war would kill everyone and everything he loved. That war would destroy his world. That war is a war you fight against your own Self. Winning that war is the same as dying, first at a personal level and then at an individual level. Severing emotional attachments is the nature of this dying process. Everything has to become dead to you, including your own personal character in the world you perceive, and even that world. You have to stop caring about it all, which is what it means to sever all the emotional attachments. When Arjuna saw this, he refused to give the order to launch the war. He only got up and gave the order because he saw that everything he was emotionally attached to and loved was an illusion. You can only awaken from the dream when you see the illusion as an illusion, lose interest in paying attention to the illusion, and totally withdraw your attention away from the illusion. Severing emotional attachments is the process of rising to a higher level of consciousness and directly seeing the illusion as an illusion. It's also the process of dying and destroying your own Self and your own world.

Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.

I added a few more paragraphs to our discussion and put them into a pdf document:

The nature of Hawking radiation is telling us that only an accelerated observer can observe something in its own holographic world. Only the accelerated observer observes Hawking radiation. The freely falling observer observes no Hawking radiation. Hawking radiation only appears to exist for the accelerated observer due to separation of virtual particle-antiparticle pairs at the accelerated observer's event horizon. The virtual particle-antiparticle pairs are created out of nothing and normally annihilate back into nothing in a short period of time due to quantum uncertainty in energy, but at the event horizon they can appear to separate from the perspective of the accelerated observer. Since their total energy is zero, the virtual antiparticle must carry an equal but opposite amount of negative energy as the positive energy carried by the virtual particle. When these virtual particles appear to separate at the event horizon, the positive energy that's radiated away from the event horizon turns into thermal energy, while the negative energy that falls into the black hole decreases the mass of the black hole.

In terms of the holographic principle, these radiated and absorbed particles can always be reduced to qubits of information encoded on the event horizon of the black hole. If we think of the event horizon of the black hole as a holographic screen that encodes qubits of information, the apparent radiation and absorption of energy from the event horizon of the black hole is like the projection of images from the observer's holographic screen to its accelerated point of view outside the screen. The radiated and absorbed particles are forms of information that can be reduced to qubits of information encoded on the observer's holographic screen. If we generalize this idea from a black hole to an observer's own holographic world, then the form of everything the observer can observe in its own holographic world is a form of information that can be reduced to qubits of information encoded on the observer's holographic screen, which arises as an event horizon due to the observer's own accelerated motion. These forms of information are projected like images from the observer's holographic screen to its own accelerated point of view outside the screen as the observer perceives the images. There really is nothing inside that holographic world since that world only consists of projected images. Even the energy that animates the projected images can be understood as arising from the energy of the observer's own accelerated motion.

That's how I understand the nature of the (imaginary) illusion.

PS: Feel free to include this document on your website if you like.

Hi Jim!

Thank you very much for your very interesting email, for the lucid texts of Jed McKenna and for your clarifying explanation on the nature of Hawking radiation!

I believe that the great contribution of the Mahāyāna tradition has been, precisely, the understanding that the ultimate reality is not a pure Emptiness that denies the world of forms, but, on the contrary, the radical non-duality of Emptiness and the forms, as stated in the Heart Sutra: “Form is Void; the Void is form"... which, I believe, would be in great harmony with the trinitarian approach in the Christian tradition: the Father would be the unmanifested Emptiness, the Son would be his formal image and the Holy Spirit would be the dynamic reciprocal love between the Father and the Son…

Changing the subject, I wanted to tell you about an intriguing issue that I've been trying to unravel for a few years. Deep down, it has to do with the sense —or nonsense— of evolutionary dynamics. As you explain in your article, from a materialistic perspective the future of the expansion of the universe is none other than heat death... and full stop. From the non-dualistic approach in which I develop my research, the issue has other more suggestive implications. If you have taken a look at the core of the Beyond Darwin article, you will have been able to see how, both in human phylogeny and ontogeny, a very precise harmonic-spiral-fractal pattern is revealed in the unfolding rhythm of the successive evolutionary levels of the spectrum of energy-consciousness that punctuate the entire process. All trajectories have a vertiginous rhythm at their origin (A), they gradually slow down as they move towards a certain level of the spectrum and, from there, they accelerate the process again until reaching, again, vertiginous speeds when they approach the final moment (Ω).

Last year, two Big History scholars —Leonid Grinin and Andrey Korotayev—edited a book called Evolution: Trajectories of Social Evolution, published both in print and online by Uchitel. I was invited to write one of the chapters and here you can find the result: https://www.sociostudies.org/upload/sociostudies.org/book/evol_8_en/08_Faixat.pdf . The title is Non-Dual Singularity. I copy the Abstract:

“Abstract

The Universe emerged in a violent Singularity —basically of energy— generating vertiginous transformations. Later, due to cooling, the emergence of novelties slowed down gradually. After the formation of the solar system and the subsequent emergence of life on our planet, the rhythm of creative transformations began to increase progressively, first through biological evolution and, later, through human development and expansion of civilizations. Currently, the emergence of novelties is again dizzying and everything seems to indicate that we are fast approaching another imminent Singularity —basically of consciousness— of infinite creativity.

In this paper we propose that both Singularities —A and Ω— are nothing but the polar expression of the fundamental Void always present, ‘prior’ to its apparent dualization as energy and consciousness. The initial and final Singularities would not be, in this way, but the points of exit from and entry to this eternally self-evident non-dual Emptiness that, instant after instant, manifests itself in and as the world of forms.”

A few years ago, I learned that American researchers Saul Perlmutter, Brian P. Schmidt, and Adam G. Riess had won the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics for their work on the accelerating expansion of the universe through observations of distant supernovae. When I saw the shape and chronology of the global trajectory resulting of the expansion of the universe... I immediately realized the complete parallelism with the shape and chronology of the global trajectory of the evolutionary process of the "macrocosm" revealed in my research!... The tipping point between the deceleration and acceleration phases of the universe —approximately 9 billion years after the Big Bang, or, put another way, about 4.5 billion years before today— was completely in line with what was revealed in my research on the rate of evolution!... Was this a mere coincidence or did the matter have a deeper meaning?...

Four years ago, reading the book Cosmometry by researcher Marshall Lefferts —from Nassim Haramein's team— I found the following paragraph on page 120:

“Additionally, both Haramein and cosmologist Jude Currivan propose that there is an informational aspect of universal expansion, wherein the total information content of the universe is constantly increasing, thus requiring a growing volume of pixelated spacetime within which to accommodate this informational evolution.”

And, at the bottom of that same page, I could also read:

“In a personal conversation with me, Currivan elaborated that in every Planck-scale moment the universe adds another set of information that is encoded into the expanding field of spacetime, and that the expansion of space and flow of time is evolution, without which there would be no evolutionary experience of consciousness.”

At that moment I had the sensation of having finally found the long-awaited explanation for the "mysterious" parallelism found between the accelerated expansion of the universe —demonstrated by Perlmutter, Schmidt and Riess— and the accelerated unfolding of the evolution of consciousness that is becoming revealed in my research. Needless to say, I immediately raised the issue with both Marshall and Jude... but they didn't get back to me about it...

You can imagine the enormous illusion that reading things like this in your article has made me these days: “The universe can only expand and cool due to the accelerated expansion of space that arises from the expression of dark energy, which allows the universe to expand in size and cool as the cosmological constant transitions to a lower value and the observer's cosmic horizon increases in radius. That's also how more qubits of information are encoded for the universe as the observer's cosmic horizon increases in surface area.” (The bolds are mine.) Fantastic! Fantastic! It seems that the manifested reality is not objective or subjective but subject-objective. It seems that the evolution of consciousness and the expansion of the universe, far from being two independent phenomena, are two sides of a single process… the dual appearance of the non-dual timeless ever-present Self-evidence!

I put the question to you, Jim! From your point of view, do you think what I'm suggesting makes any sense or is it complete nonsense? So that you visualize the matter a bit, I am attaching you some illustrative images of this synchrony, taken from my research, from the cover of a book by the Big History scholar Akop Nazaretyan and from the internet.

Will they give us the Nobel Prize for this finding?... ha!, ha!, ha! 

All the best,

Hi Jose

This is a lot to respond to!

In terms of the holy trinity, I agree that the Father is the void (the unmanifested Emptiness), the Son is the projected and animated image (of a person that appears in the world), but that the holy spirit (the spirit of God) is the observer (the consciousness present at the center of its own holographic world). The key point that clarifies this interpretation is that the observer's own holographic world is defined on its event horizon (that arises due to the observer's own accelerated motion relative to the motionless void) when the horizon encodes qubits of information.

This is the only way that quantum theory can be reconciled with relativity theory. In terms of Advaita, the Father is Brahman, the holy spirit is Atman and the Son is the Avatar.

This is how Nisargadatta describes the creation of the observer's world:

To be born means to create a world around yourself as the center.

You are that point of consciousness.

By your movement the world is ever created.

Stop moving and there will be no world.

The problem of the cosmological constant transitioning to a lower value really does not have a scientific explanation in terms of the holographic principle. This is why cosmologists are stuck on the mistaken idea of inflationary cosmology (based on QFT), which cannot be a fundamental explanation since QFT cannot be fundamental, but can only have the limited validity of a thermodynamic equation of state. If you really take the holographic principle seriously (as I do) then there is no scientific explanation for why the cosmological constant transitions to a lower value. Each such transition would in effect be a new big bang event. The only real explanation is that it's God's will. In some mysterious way, the void resets the cosmological constant to a lower value whenever God's will decides to make that change. There is also nothing that stops God's will from restarting the whole thing all over again. That's why at the end of the day, the normal flow of things and energy in a holographic world can only be attributed to God's will. Of course, the scientific community (firmly entrenched in the mistaken idea of physicalism) will never accept a spiritual explanation, but as far as I can see, there is no other possible explanation. In the words of Sherlock Holmes, when you've eliminated everything that is impossible, whatever remains, no matter how implausible it seems, must be the truth.

There are just some things that can never be explained.

[jim kowall]

Hi Jose

One last comment about your last email.

If I can quote you again:

"It seems that the manifested reality is not objective or subjective but subject-objective. It seems that the evolution of consciousness and the expansion of the universe, far from being two independent phenomena, are two sides of a single process… the dual appearance of the non-dual timeless ever-present Self-evidence!"

The only difference in the way I see things is that consciousness itself does not evolve. To the extent there is an evolution, this evolution only applies at the level of personal self-identification, as in whether the individual consciousness of the observer, present at the center of its own holographic world, emotionally identifies itself with the emotionally animated form of a person that appears in its world. Those emotional expressions arise from the motion of the observer's own point of view relative to the motionless void. The evolution of consciousness is not about consciousness itself, but only about the motion of consciousness. When the observer's consciousness is under the sway of Darwinian evolution, it expresses self-limiting emotions that create feelings of self-limitation to the emotionally animated form of a body and it emotionally identifies itself with that personal form as though its existence depends on it. If the motion of consciousness comes into alignment with the normal flow of things, as happens in a state of surrender, the observer awakens within the dream. If the motion of consciousness comes to an end, as happens in an ultimate state of free fall, the observer awakens from the dream. Evolution is not really about consciousness, but the way emotional energy is expressed.

[jim kowall]

Hi Jose

I have a few more comments to make about the so-called evolution of consciousness.

You're correct to make the link between the expansion of the universe and evolution, not in the sense of the evolution of consciousness, but only in terms of the evolution of the expression of emotional energy. At the level of Darwinian evolution, emotional energy is expressed to defend the survival of the body in terms of the coherent organization and self-replication of the form of the body in a recognizable way over a sequence of events, which is how the coherently organized form of the body is emotionally animated as the body appears to survive. At the level of the survival of the fittest body, that's what the expression of fear and desire are all about. The expression of emotions is inherently linked to the expansion of the universe because the dark energy that's inherent in the expansion of space is the primordial positive energy that underlies the expression of all other kinds of energy, like emotional energy. As the universe expands, dark energy is transformed into all other kinds of energy. This naturally happens through a process of spontaneous symmetry breaking, like the Higgs effect that turns dark energy into mass.

The expression of positive dark energy is always counterbalanced by the negative potential energy of gravitational attraction so that the total energy of the universe can add up to zero, as is confirmed by observation. With unification of the fundamental forces, we understand that the attractive energy of the electromagnetic and nuclear forces that hold atoms, molecules and all macroscopic objects together, like a biological body, all arise as various aspects of gravity. In this way, the evolution of a biological body at the level of the expression of emotions can be traced back to the evolution of an expanding universe, which naturally happens as the cosmological constant transitions to a lower value and the observable universe expands in size. It is therefore correct to say that all of evolution is inherently linked to the expansion of the universe. In terms of the holographic principle, the universe is a holographic world. Everything observable in that world is a form of information that can be reduced to qubits of information encoded on an observer's holographic screen that arises as its event horizon due to its accelerated motion. Those forms are projected like images from the observer's screen to its central point of view and are animated in the flow of energy that arises from the observer's own accelerated motion. In a very real sense, that holographic world is an illusion, just like the projected and animated images of a computer-generated virtual reality. The whole thing begins with the observer's own accelerated motion, which can ultimately be traced back to the dark energy of the accelerated expansion of space.

Evolution is never about consciousness itself, but only about the way the animated and projected images of the illusion undergo change. Only the illusion changes and evolves. Consciousness is. Consciousness is the nature of being, which is our own being that we only become aware of with our own sense of being present, the sense of I-Am-ness. That sense of being a presence of consciousness that exists in the present moment at the center of our own world is the only true thing we can ever know about ourselves.

We only become aware of our own individual being at the level of the Self, which is the individual consciousness present at the center of its own world, when we awaken within the dream. This naturally happens in a state of surrender as the motion of the Self comes into alignment with the normal flow of things. We become aware of our own individual being even as we continue to perceive the illusion of our own world from the central point of view of that world. Individual only refers to our own individual point of view. When we awaken from the dream, which naturally happens in an ultimate state of free-fall as the motion of the Self comes to an end, the illusion of our own world disappears from existence from our own point of view and our individual being dissolves back into the nothingness of pure undivided being, which is referred to as No-self.

The experience of self and other is only possible in the illusion. At the ultimate level of truth, there is no self and there is no other because there is only undivided nothingness.

There is only an illusion that consciousness evolves due to the nature of emotionally driven personal self-identification. The coherently organized form of a person can appear to evolve even as that form self-replicates its form in a recognizable way. The expression of emotional energy that allows for that self-replication of form and that emotionally animates the form can also appear to evolve. Consciousness does not really evolve because consciousness cannot be reduced to any form that it perceives or to any expression of emotional energy it perceives, but consciousness can emotionally identify itself with an emotionally animated form it perceives. The coherently organized self-replicating form can evolve and the expression of emotions that allows for that self-replication of form and that animates the form can evolve. Consciousness only perceives that evolution, both at the level of perceiving the form and at the level of perceiving the emotional energy that animates the form. When the expression of emotions is self-limiting in nature, as occurs with the expression of fear and desire that underlies Darwinian evolution and the survival of the fittest body, consciousness feels emotionally self-limited to the form as it perceives the expression of emotions that animates the form, which leads consciousness to emotionally identify itself with the form. Once consciousness emotionally identifies itself with the form, it feels compelled to continue to defend the survival of that form through the expression of self-defensive emotions as though its existence depends on it. The expression of the self-defensive emotions of fear and desire is how the vicious cycle of the emotional self-identification of consciousness with form is perpetuated. This vicious cycle of emotional self-defense and emotional self-identification is how consciousness has become conditioned by Darwinian evolution and natural selection to emotionally defend the survival of the form of its body, which it feels compelled to do as though its existence depends upon it.

The emotional self-identification of consciousness with the form of its body is delusional in the sense of a false belief that consciousness believes about itself. Consciousness believes that it is its body, which is patently false, since the form of its body is something that it perceives in its own world. Consciousness believes a false belief about what it is, and is deceiving itself about what it is by believing that false belief about itself. This false belief that consciousness believes about itself is the nature of the personal body-based self-concept that is mentally constructed and emotionally energized in its own mind. When its personal self-concept is constructed in its mind, consciousness believes this false belief about itself and deceives itself into believing this false belief about what it is. It deceives itself into believing that it is the personal form of its body. The only thing that makes this false belief believable is the expression of self-defensive emotional energy that makes consciousness feel emotionally self-limited to the emotionally animated form of its body. The expression of that self-defensive emotional energy is how it has become conditioned by Darwinian evolution to believe this false belief about what it really is.

The only reason this is possible is because perception always occurs in a subject-object relation. The true nature of the subject is the individual consciousness of the observer present at its own individual point of view at the center of its own holographic world. The nature of its object of perception is the central form of its emotionally animated body that appears in its holographic world. That personal central form is always emotionally animated relative to all other forms that appear in its holographic world. When that emotional animation is self-defensive in nature, as occurs with the expression of fear and desire, the observer feels self-limited to the emotionally animated form of its body as it perceives those self-limiting emotional expressions and emotionally identifies itself with its body. The experience of self and other is only possible when the observer emotionally identifies itself with the personal form of its body that is emotionally related to other forms. That's the nature of personal self-identification, which has nothing more to do with the true nature of consciousness than an emotional feeling that it perceives.

Only the emotional feelings consciousness perceives can undergo an evolution, not the true nature of what consciousness is. The beingness of consciousness does not evolve, since the ultimate nature of the existence of consciousness is timeless being, which is the ultimate nature of existence. All you can say about it is that it is. It does not change or evolve. The observer that perceives its own holographic world from its central point of view is always present in an eternal now, which is a reflection of that timeless being.

When the observer awakens within its dream, which naturally occurs in a state of surrender, the observer can only know itself to be a spiritual presence of consciousness at the center of its own world. When the observer awakens from its dream, which naturally occurs in an ultimate state of free fall, the observer can only know itself to be the undifferentiated consciousness of the void. The observer only knows this about itself after it returns to its state of awakening within the dream. During the ultimate state of awakening from the dream, there is no observer because the individual consciousness of the observer dissolves back into the undifferentiated consciousness of the void. In that ultimate state of dissolution, there is no experience of self and other. All is One.

One last important point. Concepts can only appear in the illusion of a holographic world. Like everything else that appears to exist in a holographic world, all concepts can be reduced to the information that's encoded on a holographic screen that bounds that holographic world and the energy that flows through that holographic world. Just like the projected and animated images of a computer-generated virtual reality, all concepts are being displayed on a holographic screen as the observer at the central point of view of its own holographic world perceives them. This means that only the virtual reality of a holographic world can be conceptualized. Ultimate reality cannot be conceptualized except in terms of negation as absolute nothingness, which is why we call it the void. At the ultimate level of the timeless being of ultimate reality, there are no concepts. The idea of being a Self with individual being is a concept. Nisargadatta calls the idea of being a Self, with the sense I-Am, the first concept. That's why it's possible to say that when delusion is destroyed, which destroys all concepts including the self-concept, we can see that it never really existed. Ultimately only undivided nothingness exists.

This is how Nisargadatta describes the journey of awakening:

There is no journey to Supreme reality. One is undeceived only.

You mentioned in a previous email that enlightened beings see creation as a mistake, but that's not exactly how they see things. Enlightened beings do not see creation as a mistake. Enlightened beings see ego as a mistake. Ego is the epitome of selfishness and self-defensiveness with its insane desire to express personally biased individual will and control everything with its delusional and futile efforts to deny death that arises from its fear of death and non-existence. Ego is the abomination, the violation of God's will. If you can live in a state of surrender to God's will and free from ego, then creation is not a mistake because it's not personal. The person is just the central character in the virtual reality movie you're watching from your own point of view. Stop emotionally identifying yourself with your character in the movie, which naturally stops happening in a state of surrender to God's will, and none of it is personal. The virtual reality movie appears to come into existence as a spontaneous expression of creativity by God's will. The true nature of what you are, your being, is nothing but consciousness, which at the ultimate level of existence is undivided, unlimited, timeless, and never ceases to be. That pure nothingness of being, which is the ground of being and the ultimate nature of reality, is what you really are. The virtual reality movie is unreal and has no being.

In the immortal words of the Bhagavad Gita:

The unreal has no being; the real never ceases to be.

I have a few last thoughts about your description of the evolution of consciousness in the sense of one's ascension up the levels of chakras. Until the highest possible level is reached, I would describe this ascension as an awakening within the dream that can only result from one's surrender to divine will. Surrender allows one's own motion to come into alignment with the normal flow of things. When one comes into alignment with the expression of divine will, one naturally vibrates at a higher and purer frequency. This is easiest to understand in terms of the motion of the Self (Atman) relative to the motionless void (Brahman). The Self is the point of observing consciousness at the center of its own holographic world that undergoes accelerated motion, which gives rise to its event horizon that becomes its holographic screen when qubits of information are encoded on its horizon. The energy of that accelerated motion is given in terms of the observer's acceleration, a, relative to the motionless void and the Unruh temperature as E=kT=ħa/2πc. In quantum theory, E=hf, and so it's possible to express this energy in terms of the observer's own frequency of vibration given in terms of its acceleration.

When one surrenders to divine will, one's expression of energy comes into alignment with the normal flow of things. As I've previously mentioned, the normal flow of energy through one's own holographic world can be understood in terms of the cosmological constant transitioning to a lower value, which results in the observer's cosmic horizon increasing in radius due to a decrease in the rate at which the expansion of space appears to accelerate away from the observer's central point of view. In terms of the holographic principle, this transition can only be understood as an expression of God's will. There is no other possible explanation consistent with the holographic principle. When one surrenders to God's will, one is vibrating at the highest possible level.

When one expresses one's own personally biased individual will, one fails to surrender, which I would describe as the essence of the selfishness and self-defensiveness of the ego that only creates an obstacle or emotional disturbance in the normal flow of things. These expressions of ego interfere with the normal flow of things and create vibrations at a lower level. When one surrenders to divine will, one puts one's trust in divine will to sort out what is for the best and accepts that expression of divine will as for the best every moment, no matter what appears to happen in that moment. In the sense of health and happiness, surrender is the only path that leads to the manifestation of the best of all possible worlds. That doesn't mean that pain, illness and disease won't occur even in a state of one's surrender to divine will, but the path of the ego can only make things worse for oneself as one interferes with the normal flow of things.

In this sense, I would describe the process of one's ascension up the levels of chakras to be the result of one's surrender to divine will. One awakens within the dream as one does nothing at a personal level. In a state of surrender to divine will, one can only know oneself to be a presence of consciousness at the center of one's own world. One no longer feels emotionally disconnected and self-limited to the central form of a person that appears in that world, but feels connected to everything that appears in that world. One becomes aware of one's own being as that presence of consciousness, which one becomes aware of through one's sense of being present as one observes that world.

One's ultimate ascension is to awaken from the dream, which is a result of one's willingness to do nothing at an absolute level. When one's own motion relative to the motionless void comes to an end in an ultimate state of free fall, one's own world disappears from existence from one's own point of view. If one remains aware of one's own being as one falls into the void and everything else disappears from existence, one's individual being, present at the central point of view of its own world, dissolves back into the nothingness of pure undivided being like a drop of water that dissolves into the ocean. One's perspective ascends to the highest possible level of awareness, which is the perspective of the darkness, deepness, emptiness and silence of the void. When one perceives one's own world again, one not only perceives that world from a higher level of consciousness, like the projected and animated images of a movie that one perceives from one's own point of view as those images are displayed on a movie screen, but one also perceives the animating and projecting motion of one's own Self.

This perspective is perfectly described in the Tao Te Ching:

In the silence and the void

Standing alone and unchanging

Ever present and in motion

I do not know its name

Call it Tao

Returning is the motion of the Tao

It returns to nothingness

It leads all things back to the great oneness

Ever desireless, one can see the mystery

Ever desiring, one can see the manifestations

These two spring from the same source

This appears as darkness

Darkness within darkness

The gate to all mystery

Nisargadatta describes essentially the same thing:

To be born means to create a world around yourself as the center.

You are that point of consciousness.

By your movement the world is ever created.

Stop moving and there will be no world.

The totality of all mental projections is the Great Illusion.

When I look beyond the mind I see the witness.

Beyond the witness is infinite emptiness and silence.

For the path of return naughting oneself is necessary.

My stand I take where nothing is.

To the mind it is all darkness and silence.

It is deep and dark, mystery beyond mystery.

It is, while all else merely happens.

It is like a bottomless well, whatever falls into it disappears.

Falling into the void in an ultimate state of free fall is the nature of passing through the gateless gate as described by Mu-mon:

The great path has no gates

Thousands of roads enter it

When one passes through this gateless gate

One walks the universe alone

Awakening is never really about doing something. You awaken within the dream when you do nothing at a personal level. You awaken from the dream when you do nothing at an absolute level. It's your own desire to do things that's your obstacle to awakening. That's why awakening can only occur in a state of surrender to divine will.

Surrender is not something that you can do. Surrender is what happens when you've done everything that you can do and you've failed to awaken. In that failure you feel helpless, hopeless and in despair. In that despair you give up trying to do things. Only when you feel that despair and give up all your efforts to do things can you surrender.

You surrender when you give up your desire to control things. You have to give up your self-defensive, personally biased desire to be in control. You have to stop expressing fear and desire in your efforts to pursue pleasure and avoid pain, which only defends the survival of your body. You have to stop defending yourself and stop expressing your own personally biased individual will. Ultimately, you'll come to see that you're only defending the survival of a personal illusion of what you really are, which is the illusion of being a personal form that appears in the world you perceive. The timeless existence of the true nature of what you really are, which is nothing but consciousness, needs no defense, and so it's possible to say that surrender follows naturally from seeing what is.

When you surrender, you just watch as you allow events to play out in the normal way. You just watch from your own point of view as events play out in the normal way, like the projected and animated images of a movie you're watching that's being displayed on a movie screen. In a state of surrender, you're no longer directing the events of the movie. When you surrender, your attention is focused only on the now of the present moment. You enter into a state of present moment awareness. In terms of awakening, the whole point of surrendering and bringing yourself to this state of present moment awareness is so you can do nothing at a personal level. You have to do nothing so you can turn your attention away from the events of the world you perceive, look within, and bring yourself into focus as you focus your attention on your own sense of being present. You have to become aware of your own beingness and presence. You have to know yourself to be a presence of consciousness at the center of the world you perceive that exists now, in the present moment. That's where you have to stabilize the focus of your attention before you can awaken. You have to center yourself, bring yourself into focus and be with yourself in the present moment, which is the eternal now of your timeless being.

As soon as you do something, you develop an identity and self-image as a person who does things. Whatever you do, that's your identity. That's how you emotionally identify yourself with the emotionally animated form of a person who does things. The very act of doing things and being emotionally invested in the outcome of those actions is how you identify yourself with a personal form and develop a personal self-concept. Those personal actions are self-defensive in nature as they defend the survival of that personal self-concept. It really doesn't matter what you do. Conceptualizing things and writing about your concepts and explanations is as self-defensive and self-image constructing as anything else you can do. You develop a personal self-image as a conceptualizer of things. That's the inevitable result of doing things. As soon as you do something, you become a person who does things. That's the nature of self-identification. When you do something, you become somebody who does things. If you want to be nobody, you have to become willing to do nothing, which means you have to want nothing.

This is how Nisargadatta describes being nobody:

Do nothing. There is nothing to do.

Just be. To be, you must be nobody.

You make yourself mortal by taking yourself to be a body.

That which is alive in you is immortal.

Chuang Tzu says essentially the same thing:

The man of Tao remains unknown.

Perfect virtue produces nothing.

No-self is true self,

And the greatest man is nobody.