The Intuition Network, A Thinking Allowed Television Underwriter, presents the following transcript from the series Thinking

Allowed, Conversations On the Leading Edge of Knowledge and Discovery, with Dr. Jeffrey ishlove.

THE HOLOGRAPHIC

RAI! with KARL PRI RA"# Ph$D$

J!""#!$ I%&'()!, *h.D.+ &ello and welcome. (ur topic today is the mind,-rain relationship, and my guest is Dr. .arl *ri-ram, professor of neuropsychology at %tanford University, in the Department of *sychology and in the medical school. Dr. *ri-ram is the author of Languages of the Brain and hundreds of articles a-out the mind,-rain relationship. In fact I would say fairly that Dr. *ri-ram is pro-a-ly one of the most influential scholars alive today in pro-ing the mysteries of the mind,-rain relationship. .arl, welcome. .A#' *#I/#A , *h.D.+ Thank you. I%&'()!+ It0s a pleasure to have you here. $ou know, many academic psychologists ,, and perhaps you have some sympathy for this point of view ,, over the years have taken a perspective which laymen tend to laugh at, at times. They claim that the mind doesn0t e1ist. I wonder if you can e1plain that perspective ,, talk a-out what we mean, or what you mean, -y the mind. *#I/#A + 2ell, I don0t like the term the mind, -ecause it reifies ,, that means it makes a thing of ,, something that0s a process. 2e pay attention, we see, we hear. Those are all mental processes, mental activities. /ut there isn0t a thing called the mind. There might -e something you want to call yourself, -ut the mind sort of makes something concrete out of something that0s very multifaceted. I%&'()!+ $et somehow when I0m aware of myself -eing aware, I think, 32ell, that0s my mind that does that.3 *#I/#A + That does that4 that your mind does it. I0d have to think a-out that. I%&'()!+ $ou0re very well known in psychology and in neuropsychology as the developer of the holographic or holonomic model of the -rain. 5an you talk a-out that a little -it, and how it relates to the mind ,, or rather, to the mind,-ody process6 I have to -e on my toes with you today. *#I/#A + $es. The holonomic -rain theory is -ased on some insights that Dennis 7a-or had. &e was the inventor of the hologram, and he o-tained the No-el *ri8e for his many contri-utions. &e was a mathematician, and what he was trying to do was develop a -etter way of making electron micrographs, improve the resolution of the micrographs. And so for electron microscopy he suggested that instead of making a photograph ,, essentially, with electron microscopes we make photographs using electrons instead of photons. &e thought may-e instead of making ordinary photographs, that what he would do is get the interference patterns. Now what is an interference pattern6 2hen light strikes, or when electrons strike any o-9ect, they scatter. /ut the scatter is a funny kind of scatter. It0s a very well regulated scatter. "or instance, if you defocus the lens on a camera so that you don0t get the image falling on the image plane and you have a -lur, that -lur essentially is a hologram, -ecause all you have to do is refocus it. I%&'()!+ 5ontained in the -lur is the actual image. *#I/#A + That0s right. /ut you don0t see it as such. %o one of the main principles of holonomic -rain theory, which gets us into :uantum mechanics also, is that there is a relationship here -etween what we ordinarily e1perience, and some other process or some other order, which David /ohm calls the implicate, or enfolded, order, in which things are all distri-uted or spread ,, in fact the mathematical formulations are often called spread functions ,, that spread this out. I%&'()!+ Now what you0re talking a-out here is the deep structure of the universe, in a way. /eneath the su-atomic level of matter itself are these :uantum wave functions, so to speak, and they form interference patterns. 2ould I -e wrong in saying it would -e like dropping two stones in a pond, the way the ripples overlap6 Is that like an interference pattern6 *#I/#A + That0s certainly the way interference patterns work, yes. I%&'()!+ And you0re suggesting that at that very deep level of reality, something is operating in the -rain itself. *#I/#A + 2ell, no. In a way, that0s possi-le, -ut that0s not where the situation is at the moment. All we know is that the mathematical descriptions that we make of, let0s say, single,cell processes, and the

-ranches from the single cells, and how they interact with each other ,, not only anatomically, -ut actually functional interactions ,, that when we map those, we get a description that is very similar to the description of :uantum events. I%&'()!+ 2hen you take into account that there are -illions of these single cells operating in the -rain. *#I/#A + That0s right. And the connections -etween them, so there are even more4 there are trillions of connections -etween them. They operate on the -asic principles that have -een found to also operate at the :uantum level. Actually, it was the other way around. The mathematics that 7a-or used, he -orrowed from &eisen-erg and &il-ert. &il-ert developed them first in mathematics, and then &eisen-erg used them in :uantum mechanics, and 7a-or used them in psychophysics, and we0ve used it in modeling how -rain networks work. I%&'()!+ %o in other words, in the -rain, when we look at the electrical impulses traveling through the neurons, and the patterns as these -illions of neurons interact, you would say that that is analogous, I suppose, or isomorphic to the processes that are going on at the deeper :uantum level. *#I/#A + $es. /ut we don0t know that it0s a deeper :uantum level in the -rain. I%&'()!+ That may or may not -e the case. *#I/#A + Analogous isn0t :uite the right word4 they o-ey the same rules. It0s not 9ust an analogy, -ecause the work that descri-ed these came independently. An analogy would -e that you take the :uantum ideas, and see how they fit to the data we have on the -rain. That0s not the way it happened. 2e got the -rain data first, and then we see, look, it fits the same mathematics. %o the people who were gathering these data, including myself, weren0t out to look for an analogous process. I think it0s a very important point, -ecause otherwise you could -e -iased, and there are lots of different models that fit how the -rain works. /ut this is more -ased on how the -rain was found to work, independent of these conceptions. I%&'()!+ Independent of any model. *#I/#A + $es, essentially independent of any model. I%&'()!+ %o you0ve got a mathematical structure that parallels the mathematical structures of :uantum physics. Now what does that tell us a-out the mind6 *#I/#A + 2hat it tells me is that the pro-lems that have -een faced in :uantum mechanics for the whole century ,, well, since the twenties ,, I%&'()!+ any parado1es. *#I/#A + And very many parado1es ,, that those parado1es also apply at the psychophysical level and at the neuronal level, and therefore we have to face the same sets of pro-lems. At the same time, I think what David /ohm is doing is showing that some of the classical conceptions which were thought not to apply at the :uantum level, really do apply at the :uantum level. Now, I0m interpreting /ohm4 I0m not sure he would want to agree to my interpretation of what he0s doing. /ut to me that seems to -e what is going on. %o that the schism -etween levels ,, -etween the :uantum level, the su-microscopic almost, su-atomic level and what goes on there, and the classical, so,called uncertainty principle and all of that ,, that all applies all the way along4 -ut you0ve got to -e very careful in ,, how should I put it6 $ou0ve got to apply it to the actual data, and not 9ust sort of run it over. I%&'()!+ To the average layman, why would they -e interested in this6 Is there some significance to people in their everyday lives, or in their workaday worlds, in the -usiness of life6 *#I/#A + %ure, and this is the critical thing ,, that if indeed we0re right that these :uantum,like phenomena, or the rules of :uantum mechanics, apply all the way through to our psychological processes, to what0s going on in the nervous system ,, then we have an e1planation perhaps, certainly we have a parallel, to the kind of e1periences that people have called spiritual e1periences. /ecause the descriptions you get with spiritual e1periences seem to parallel the descriptions of :uantum physics. That0s why "rit9of 5apra wrote The Tao of *hysics, why we have The Dancing 2u 'i asters, and all of this sort of thing that0s come along. And in fact /ohr and &eisen-erg already knew4 %chroedinger talked a-out the Upanishads, and /ohr used the yin and yang as his sym-ol. /ecause the conceptions that grew out of watching the :uantum level ,, and therefore now the neurological and psychophysical level, now that it0s a psychological level as well ,, seem to have a great deal in common with our spiritual

e1perience. Now what do I mean -y spiritual e1perience6 $ou talked a-out mental activity, calling it the mind. That aspect of mental activity, which is very human ,, it may -e true of other species as well, -ut we don0t know ,, -ut in human endeavor many of us at least seem to need to get in contact with larger issues, whether they0re cosmology, or some kind of -iological larger issue, or a social one, or it0s formali8ed in some kind of religious activity. /ut we want to -elong. And that is what I define as the spiritual aspects of man0s nature. I%&'()!+ %ome sense of relationship to the larger cosmos, to the world a-out us. *#I/#A + And that part has this implicate order. It has the e1plicate order, too ,, you know, the ordinary space,time order. I%&'()!+ I want to stop for a second, -ecause you0re using /ohm0s term implicate order, and we haven0t really :uite defined that. *#I/#A + It0s the holographic. $ou descri-ed it very well, with the pe--les. It0s a set of relationships which ,, I%&'()!+ It0s a fu88y picture. *#I/#A + 2ell, yes, and you can talk a-out it in terms of waves, or you can talk a-out it in terms of mathematical matrices which have vectors in them, and so on. $ou can have continuous vectors, or you can have continuous matrices. $ou can have all kinds of relationships -etween. 2hen you look at a photographic plate that has a hologram on it, you can either look at some of the swirls in there, or you can look at the individual grains of silver. %o there are lots of kinds of mathematics, -ut they all fit together, whether it -e %chroedinger0s e:uation, which is a wave e:uation, or &eisen-erg0s more matri1 kind. These are not relevant to the ordinary person, -ut I 9ust want to say it here, -ecause otherwise we get stuck in the wave, as if it were all waves, and that0s too simple. I%&'()!+ /ut what you0re saying, if I can try and simplify it, is that there0s a level of reality at which things are what they appear to -e. I look at you and I see a -ody and a face. That would -e the e1plicate level, where things are what they appear to -e. Then there0s an implicate level, which is 9ust as real, -ut if you were to look at it, it doesn0t look at all like the other. *#I/#A + 2e e1perience it entirely differently ,, as a spiritual aspect of our -eing. This implicate order is also a potential order4 we0re not in it most of the time. 2e had for years this whole idea of the human potential, and I think that0s what we0re talking a-out. I%&'()!+ &uman potential may -e em-odied somehow in the implicate structure. *#I/#A + That0s very nice, yes. 7ood way to say it. I%&'()!+ *rior to the development of :uantum physics and the holonomic model of the -rain, people -ased their notion of who they were and how their minds worked more on the Newtonian classical models of physics, and perhaps in some sense, if they -ought into those models, would tend to deny their spiritual e1periences, or not really feel connected with that part of themselves. 2ould you say so6 *#I/#A + )ery definitely, and that recalls something that De Toc:ueville said. After writing his histories, he said, 3 ay-e I0ve -een interpreting it the wrong way, -ecause I0ve -een doing it in terms of classical mechanics, with cause,and,effect relationships. /ut when the human -eing acts, this is not a cause4 this is a challenge.3 I%&'()!+ &e wrote the -ooks on capitalism and democracy. *#I/#A + Democracy in America, and all. 2hen we act it0s a challenge, and that0s very much a :uantum,type, holographic, implicate,order type idea. #ather than having causality ,, I%&'()!+ It0s moving towards a goal. *#I/#A + No, it isn0t. It0s a challenge, it0s different. oving toward a goal would still -e causal. %ee, we don0t even have a good language to talk a-out all this. It0s a challenge. The whole system can reorgani8e on the -asis of this challenge, and you never find out where the cause is. 2hen we were talking earlier, you said, 32here does the will start63 2ell, it0s a challenge. The whole system does it. There isn0t a start and a midst and so on, -ecause time and space are enfolded, and therefore there0s no causality. I%&'()!+ It0s all 9ust emerging. *#I/#A + It0s emerging, and you can challenge the system, and it will respond in an unpredicta-le

way. I%&'()!+ $ou know, I must say I0m a little -it surprised, -ecause you descri-ed yourself earlier to me as a positivist of sorts, and a -ehaviorist, and in a way the language that you0re using seems very much like the language of the /uddhists, who talk a-out no self, and 9ust process. *#I/#A + No thing. (ne of the chapters I wrote once was 3The Non,sense of No,thing,3 ,, the nonsense of nothing. /ut it0s nonsensory, -ecause senses are lenses, and as David /ohm has said so well, if you take the lenses away you0ve got a hologram. 'enses tend to reify, to o-9ectify and articulate particles. Take the lenses away and you0ve got this distri-uted. I%&'()!+ %o part of our mind,-rain process functions as a lens, then. *#I/#A + 2ell, certainly the senses do, right. I%&'()!+ 2hat a-out the other functions of the mind ,, memory, learning6 *#I/#A + The what6 I%&'()!+ $ou caught me again. It0s such a ha-it. *#I/#A + (ther mental functions. It0s easy to say it without reifying it, especially if you want to -e holistic a-out this. In answer to your previous :uestion ,, 9ust a second if I may interrupt ,, you said I0m a positivist. $ou know, the hard,nosed kind of scientist, in my e1perience, which was the stimulus, response scientists, -ecame very soft after awhile. That was the hardest, hard,nosed kind of science, and the cognitive, which was soft, -ecame the hard,nosed one. And I0m :uite sure that the kind of definitions I0m giving are 9ust as hard as anything that ever was in stimulus,response psychology. I%&'()!+ In other words, at some point it will come to -e seen that if you talk a-out spiritual e1periences ,, if you refer to /uddhists and mystical concepts ,, that can -e taken in terms of very hard core. *#I/#A + 2ell, it0s up to scientists to do this. It doesn0t come automatically. I%&'()!+ )ery rigorous. *#I/#A + 2ell, you don0t want to get into rigor mortis, -ut yes. $ou see, the -eauty of science is that it0s -asically -ased on sharing. Now, the more carefully and clearly I can define something ,, and the reason we want to :uantify is not -ecause we0re interested in :uantities, -ut -ecause then you can communicate and share much more clearly than if you can0t have :uantities. %o all of science is -ased on the notion of sharing, and we need to define things. If some /uddhist tells me, 3I0ve 9ust had a high e1perience,3 or 3I0ve 9ust seen the light,3 and I don0t know what the hell he0s talking a-out, then I can0t share that. /ut if he gets me to have the same e1perience, that -egins to -e science. And if I can make definitions so I can descri-e to you what is going on ,, let0s say the pineal is secreting some su-stance that makes you suddenly flash, or something of that kind ,, then we have some way of sharing this e1perience, which goes deeper than when we0re sort of 9ust stunned -y some-ody saying, 3$es, I0ve seen the light.3 I mean, that may -e 9ust metaphorical, or it may actually -e that they did produce a reaction akin to stimulation of the visual system. And so on and so forth. I%&'()!+ $ou0re raising many issues here. I don0t want to get too off track, though. *#I/#A + 2ell, my point is simply that this -usiness of what0s soft and what0s hard keeps changing. I%&'()!+ That0s a very important point. *#I/#A + y prediction is that the kind of thing we0re dealing with here will -e seen as as solid and as scientific. In the twenty,first century we0ll look -ack at some of the fu88y stuff that was done in the name of -ehaviorism. I%&'()!+ any neuroscientists today ,, it0s almost a1iomatic, when they talk a-out the mind, which they sometimes do ,, they say the mind is sort of located in the -rain. I gather that that way of putting it is totally discordant with your own view of things. *#I/#A + $es. There are lots of different ways of phrasing this. (ne is that mental phenomena are emergent properties of how the -rain works, and so it0s almost like the -rain is secreting vision and mind and all that. /ut may-e a -etter way of talking a-out it would -e to say that mental phenomena arise through the interaction -etween -rain and -ody and the environment and ,, this is what .arl *opper says ,, that whole interactive thing produces an emergent, which we call mind and spirit, and so on. I think that0s a -etter way than 9ust thinking of the -rain secreting it.

I%&'()!+ Now how does this model relate to human potential6 If I want to cultivate my various potentialities, my skills, reach into the implicate order and make some of it more e1plicate, do you have notions a-out that, for learning, for human development6 *#I/#A + 2ell, you said it yourself 9ust now. $ou reach into the implicate order. $ou allow yourself ,, "reud called it regression in the service of the ego, primary process kinds of things, which are more holonomic, more holographic,like. $es, I think that0s the general way that I would say that this is different. The other is imitation, and the kind of thing where we have role models and we take care of ourselves, model ourselves on someone ,, the kind of thing you do in sports, you watch a videotape or something. I%&'()!+ 2ould you say creativity works the same way6 *#I/#A + 2ell, creativity works the same way in the following sense+ that we allow ourselves to get ,, let0s 9ust -e very crude here ,, into this wave form, you know, in a distri-uted system. And this then allows the fluctuations that take place there to create new forms, which in space,time we can0t really do too well. I mean, things are already formed. /ut if we get -ack into this potential, of distri-uted, implicate,type order, then these fluctuations have a chance to reorgani8e this way, or to organi8e new foci of activity. I%&'()!+ And these would take the shape of mental images in our mind6 *#I/#A + /y the time they get to -e mental images, it0s already pretty well set into space,time form. I%&'()!+ 2hat is a mental image, in space,time6 &ow would you descri-e that, as a neuroscientist6 *#I/#A + 2ell, let0s see. I0ve got my image of your face right now, and I also have an image of a person sitting in a chair over there, and a -ig eye looking at me in front, a television eye, with my eyes closed. That0s mental imagery. I%&'()!+ $ou wouldn0t try and tie that to resonant neural patterns6 *#I/#A + (h sure, I0ll -e happy to do that. There are two kinds of mechanism ,, I mean, you can sort of divide things up into twos and threes and so on. /ut if you divide neural activity, you can divide it into propagative nerve impulses on the one hand, and then these slow potentials ,, hyperpolari8ations, steep polari8ations ,, that don0t go anywhere. And they form this holographic,like pattern, and it0s those that I feel ,, and I have some evidence to support this ,, are what we e1perience as images. I%&'()!+ 2ould these sort of -e like standing waves in the mind6 Am I reaching too far here6 *#I/#A + $ou said it ,, 3in the mind3 ,, again. The waves aren0t in the mind. I%&'()!+ %tanding waves in the -rain. *#I/#A + In the -rain. They could -e thought of that way. Again, I use the matri1 analogy as well, 9ust so we don0t get too far into the waves. /ut sure, some kind of standing wave forms that are there temporarily. %ometimes they last longer, and sometimes they are very -rief and we are not even aware of them. /ut the longer they last ,, %herrington had this idea, and he said there seems to -e a reciprocal relationship -etween refle1 and mind4 the more refle1 the less mental, and vice versa. I%&'()!+ (.. That relates somehow to free will also, I gather. *#I/#A + 2ell, there we get into a different set of pro-lems, now. %ure, to some e1tent if you get into your potential mode, then new things can happen. /ut usually free will is conceived of in terms of how many constraints are operating, and we have in statistics a notion of degrees of freedom. I think our will essentially is constrained, more or less. 2e have so many degrees of freedom, and the more degrees of freedom we have, the more we feel free, and we have freedom of choice. I%&'()!+ 2hat can we say, in wrapping the program up, given all these aspects of the mind,-rain system that you0ve descri-ed, how does that relate to, say, the ultimate or the farther reaches of human potential6 *#I/#A + 2ell, I think in the twenty,first century we0re going to -e a-le to do an awful lot that we weren0t a-le to do up to now, simply -ecause science will -e admitted to the spiritual aspects of mankind, and vice versa ,, what has -een segregated for at least three hundred years, since 7alileo, where the spiritual aspects, in 2estern culture at least, have -een sort of relegated over here. *eople have split this, you know. 2e -uild -uildings, and we do surgery, and do all of these things. Then we have a spiritual aspect to ourselves4 we go do that somewhere else. 2hereas now I think these things

will come together, and it will -e perfectly all right for what we today call 3faith healers3 to come and help with reduction of pain and to ease all kinds of things. %o it0ll -e a different world. I wouldn0t even -e surprised if preventative therapies could -e instituted, that deal with controls of ourselves, so we aren0t as prone to get cancers and so on. I%&'()!+ That0s very optimistic. 2ell, .arl *ri-ram, it0s -een a pleasure having you with me. Thank you very much. *#I/#A + 2ell, you0re welcome. It0s -een a pleasure -eing with you too. !ND