The Pribram Bohm Holoflux Theory Of Cons

A TOPOLOGICAL APPROACH TO THE HARD PROBLEM OF CONSCIOUSNESS: THE PRIBRAM–BOHM HOLOFLUX THEORY by S.R. Joye BSEE, MA, PhD © 2021 S.R. Joye i ABSTRACT The Pribram-Bohm holoflux theory, a model describing the topology of consciousness in the universe, is presented here to address the issue posed by David Chalmers in his “hard problem of consciousness.” The theory emerges from an integral evaluation of evidence drawn from two sources: (1) the holonomic mind/brain theories of Karl Pribram, (2) the ontological interpretation of quantum theory by David Bohm. From their work emerges the holoflux theory, after a term proposed by Karl Pribram to express the flow characterized by David Bohm as the “holomovement,” a two-way flow of consciousness between the explicate order and the implicate order. This hypothesis supports both local and non-local phenomena in the observable cosmos. Sheldrake’s theory of morphic resonance and Ervin László’s holofield theory are examined and shown to be congruent with the holoflux theory. László’s postulated existence of two domains or dimensions of cosmological architecture, an “A-dimension” equivalent to Bohm’s implicate order and an “M- dimension,” equivalent to Bohm’s explicate, space–time material domain. Sheldrake’s morphic resonance biological forms are described as products of a Fourier transform-like process between these same two domains. Concluding remarks support the congruence of the Pribram–Bohm topological model with other major paradigms of consciousness, including those elaborated by Chalmers, Lilly, Block, and Teilhard de Chardin. © 2021 S.R. Joye ii CONTENTS A Topological Approach to the “Hard Problem” of Consciousness ....................... 1

Introductory Summary of the Model ...................................................................... 7 Superposition of Consciousness: The Fourier Transform ...................................... 8 Karl Pribram’s Holonomic Mind/Brain Theory: The Frequency Domain ........... 12 The Limits of Space: From the Edge of the Universe to Planck’s Constant ......... 16 Pribram’s Spectral Density Flux and the Implicate Order .................................... 19 Cosmology and the Implicate Order ..................................................................... 24 How Space–Time is Projected from the Holoplenum .......................................... 25 Digital Clock Limits of the Universe and Laminated Spacetime ......................... 27 LASER Holograms vs the Holoplenum ................................................................ 29 The Holofield Theory of Ervin László .................................................................. 31 Conclusion: Speculative Solutions to the Hard Problem of Consciousness ......... 39 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Three Psychonauts: Allen Ginsberg, Timothy Leary, and John C. Lilly 3 Figure 2. John Cunningham Lilly (1915–2001) ..................................................... 4 Figure 3. The Pribram-Bohm Holoflux Model ....................................................... 7 Figure 4. The Fourier Transform and Inverse Transform .................................... 11 Figure 5. The Fourier Transform Diagram ........................................................... 15 Figure 6. Cosmic Uroboros of Multiverse M-Theory. ......................................... 17 Figure 7. Scale of Space Scales: The Boundary at the Bottom of Space ............. 18 Figure 8. David Bohm and Karl Pribram in Prague, June 1992. .......................... 20 Figure 9. Topology of Perception in Pribram’s Diagram ..................................... 22 Figure 10. Alchemical Depiction of the Uroboros (1478) .................................... 26 Figure 11. Topology of a Holoplenum of Holospheres ........................................ 27 Figure 12. Speculative Solutions to the Hard Problem of Consciousness ............ 40 © 2021 S.R. Joye iii I have caught life. I have come down with life. I was a

wisp of undifferentiated nothingness, and then a little peephole opened quite suddenly. Light and sound poured in. Voices began to describe me and my surroundings. Nothing they said could be appealed. –Kurt Vonnegut, Deadeye Dick (1982) A Topological Approach to the “Hard Problem” of Consciousness Perhaps the most widely debated issue in consciousness studies can be found encapsulated in the phrase “the hard problem of consciousness,” first articulated in 1995 in an essay by David Chalmers, in which he discusses consciousness as experience. A product of our digital age, Chalmers understandably conflated experience with information processing, but questionably suggested that it is information processing that gives rise to experience: The really hard problem of consciousness is the problem of experience. When we think and perceive, there is a whir of information processing, but there is also a subjective aspect ......... Why should physical processing give rise to a rich inner life at all? It seems objectively unreasonable that it should, and yet it does. If any problem qualifies as the problem of consciousness, it is this one.1 Chalmers here places the cart before the horse if he really means to say that consciousness arises from information processing. That would make consciousness an epiphenomenon, something that arises from what he calls the “whir of information processing.” What he seems to be addressing in 1995 is the 1 Chalmers, “Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness,” 5. 1 hard problem of mind, rather than the hard problem of consciousness. More recently, however,

Chalmers suggests that consciousness may not be derivative and may be seen as “fundamental,” in the same sense as physics regards space.2 Like epiphenomenalism, other assumptions restrict the range of contemporary approaches to consciousness research, and may accordingly be similarly misleading, for example 1.) the assumption that the word consciousness is limited specifically to “human consciousness,” and 2.) the assumption that consciousness is a phenomenon exclusive to the space-time continuum. Understandably, such assumptions have arisen due to a widespread fascination with hardware, and in particular the hardware of the brain, fostered by an approach to science which limits itself to measurements which can be observed in space-time. Thus epiphenomenalism has become mainstream, reinforced by such statements as the following, found in the Nobel Laureate neuroscientist Gerald Edelman’s conclusion to his book, A Universe of Consciousness, where he observes: Consciousness while special, arose as a result of evolutionary innovations in the morphology of the brain and body. The mind arises from the body and its development; it is embodied and therefore part of nature ....... We have argued throughout this book that consciousness arises from certain arrangements in the material order of the brain.3 If the word consciousness in Edelman’s quote could be replaced with “the mind,” or “human mental cognition,” the observation might be less problematic, 2 3 Chalmers, The Character of Consciousness. Edelman and Tononi, A Universe of Consciousness, 215–19. 2 but to state that consciousness arises from the brain is questionable. This paper holds the opposite view, that

the human mind, mental cognition, arises from consciousness, that they are not the same thing. Nor is consciousness necessarily limited to space, or restricted in time, or exclusive to humans. Descriptions of mystical and religious experiences handed down in every culture provide strong evidence that there exist modes of consciousness that can be explored beyond normal waking thought; all traditions offer deep prayer and contemplation as doorways to experience beyond space and time.4 Additional evidence is close at hand—the universal nightly human experience of dream states—which seem not to be a product of normal time, space, or mental cognition. In contemporary culture, evidence is provided by psychonauts (fig. 1).5 Figure 1. Three Psychonauts: Allen Ginsberg, Timothy Leary, and John C. Lilly 4 5 Bellah, Religion in Human Evolution, 148. Psychonaut, "a sailor of the soul” (from the Greek ψυχή psychē ["soul", "spirit" or "mind"] and ναύτης naútēs ["sailor" or "navigator"] ; psychonautics is a research paradigm in which the researcher voluntarily immerses himself or herself into an altered mental state induced by meditation, special exercises, or mind-altering chemicals in order to explore altered states of consciousness and subsequently record descriptions of the experienced states. 3 Highly educated, exceptionally intelligent, and at the outset widely regarded in their respective fields, pioneers of consciousness such as John Lilly have too often been cast into a limbo of disregard (or disrepute) by the more conservative establishment. In the late 1960s, the stigma of working directly with drugs fell suddenly and heavily upon those

who experimented with psychedelics. Figure 2. John Cunningham Lilly (1915–2001) Of these early explorers of consciousness, John Lilly (fig. 2) was clearly the most highly trained in the hard science subjects of physics, mathematics, and electronics, with his Bachelor of Science from Stanford and MD from Dartmouth. Early in his career he developed a passion for exploring modes of communication: It is only rarely that we have experiences that allow us to say that there are possibilities of communication other than those currently represented by the visual image, by the vocal expression, or by the written word.6 In the late 1950s, influenced by his early fascination with communications and electronics (Lilly had built and licensed an early HAM radio station), he obtained funding from the National Science Foundation and set up Dolphin Point Laboratory on the island of St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands to conduct 6 Lilly, The Deep Self: Consciousness Exploration in the Isolation Tank, 100. 4 pioneering research in the field of “inter–species communication.”7 The research protocol involved recording both audio and electromagnetic dolphin/human interaction in a darkened indoor pool, among pairs of human–dolphin bonded subjects. Some of the experiments included sessions in which the human subject ingested measured doses of Sandoz LSD-25 (Delysid). Lilly subsequently applied Fourier domain analysis to the recordings in each frequency band to identify common patterns associated with different categories of information exchange.8 Eventually research funding ran, the US Navy requisitioned Lilly’s dolphins to work on a classified military project in California,

and the research was discontinued. After his dolphin research, Lilly spent subsequent years exploring the effects of LSD–25 and ketamine (categorized as a “dissociative anesthetic”) on both himself and colleagues. Experimental procedure consisted of extended sessions of immersion in isolation tanks of his own design, during which subjects would float in warm saline water in silent, ventilated, light–proof enclosures: I set up experiments using LSD in the solitude, isolation, and confinement tank, floating in the darkness, and silence, freed of all inputs to my body from the external reality. In these experiments, I discovered other spaces, found other maps, and discovered a relatively safe means of going into these places.9 7 8 9 Lilly, The Mind of the Dolphin: A Nonhuman Intelligence. Ibid. Ibid., 266. 5 When LSD-25 became impossible to obtain, Lilly substituted ketamine, a legal drug classified as a “dissociative” due to its reported effect of causing “the mind to separate from the body,” an effect which Lilly found of great use in his isolation tank research. Lilly would self–inject ketamine, then spend several hours immersed in an isolation tank. Emerging from the tank, Lilly would immediately record recollections of his experiences in a log. The following is a typical entry. Everything was happening on such a vast scale that I was merely an observer of microscopic size, and yet I was more than this. I was part of some vast network of similar beings all connected, somehow or other responsible for what was going on. I was

given an individuality for temporary purposes only. I would be reabsorbed into the network when the time came.10 In 1969, Lilly put forth a view of human consciousness as multiple levels of software operating simultaneously. This software (possibly associated with hard–coded DNA) is programmable and re–programmable at the lowest levels, which he calls meta–programs. Humans, both individually and in various grouped sub–networks, have the ability to meta-program their own internal software once they begin to grasp a basic understanding of the software architecture. This ability, to change oneself, to re–program one’s consciousness, to change through understanding, through theoria and praxis, is one of the topics handed down in all cultural traditions and religions, abstracted in many different symbolic languages. It is evident that serious efforts have indeed been made to explore consciousness in order to examine the outlines of an architecture of consciousness first– hand. In support of such efforts, and to counter the epiphenomenalist turn in 10 Ibid., 268. 6 consciousness studies, this paper offers a model of consciousness that builds upon the ideas of the theoretical physicist David Bohm, the neuroscientist Karl Pribram, and the systems theorist Ervin László. A careful consideration of their work reveals the outlines of a noetic science that, for psychonauts, may prove to be the equivalent of the indispensable 14th century rutters, providing a reasonable, practical map of the vast ocean of consciousness revealed to those who have undergone religious, psychotropic, or NDE (Near Death) experiences.11 Introductory Summary of the Model The topological

model developed in this paper can be seen in the diagram, the “Pribram-Bohm Holoflux Model” of fig. 3, where the basic theory is diagrammed as consciousness transforming between non–local and local regions. Figure 3. The Pribram-Bohm Holoflux Model 11 The rutter, a mariner’s handbook of written sailing directions, widely used by navigators and relied upon for commerce in the 14th and 15th centuries, with detailed physical descriptions of shorelines, harbors, islands, channels, notes about tides, landmarks, reefs, shoals and difficult entries, instructions on how to use navigational instruments to determine position and plot routes, calendars, astronomical tables, mathematical tables and calculation rules; retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rutter_(nautical). 7 The Pribram-Bohm hypothesis models consciousness as an energy process, envisions consciousness as “an undivided flowing movement without borders.”12 To the left in the diagram of fig. 3, consciousness is expressed as a spectrum of holoflux energy in the implicate order. This holoflux energy resonates with electromagnetic energy of the same frequencies to the right in the diagram, in the space–time region, or explicate order.13 Viewed from left to right, the diagram reveals spectrums of holoflux consciousness in the transcendental implicate order transforming and translating into “things” and “events” in local space–time, and conversely, viewing the diagram from right to left, information generated by “things” and “events” interacting through space–time events is transforming (folding) back into the implicate order. The process describes a continuing, interconnected cycle. Superposition of Consciousness: The Fourier Transform Common experience would suggest that all consciousness is consciousness of something, such as

the experience of a sound, of an image, of a sensation, of an emotion, of an interior verbal thought, etc. Yet another level of consciousness is apparent, and this is of great significance: that these often occur at what is experienced as the same perceptual moment. Each simultaneous stream of experience remains distinct, yet somehow superimposed upon and integrated with all the others. It is as if consciousness is more than each of these individual 12 13 Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order, 172. Ibid., 159. 8 “experience streams,” per se, but rather some other, higher level panoramic perspective that is able to embrace and somehow comprehend them all, and has the amazing ability to fine tune its own selected focus upon one or more of these streams of awareness while simultaneously dampening and filtering out many others. In signal analysis this stream phenomenon is termed the superposition principle, formalized in 1822 by the French mathematician Jean–Baptiste Fourier, who developed the mathematics of the paradigm (now called “Fourier analysis”) during his search for a mathematical relationship between space-time and frequency.14 Because signals can be perfectly superpositioned and manipulated (filtered, amplified, etc.) within the frequency domain, the Fourier transform equations have become primary tools in physics and engineering for analyzing, synthesizing, and transmitting signals between two domains: 1.) a “space-time domain (td),” and 2.) a “frequency domain (fd).” More than a century after Fourier’s discovery, Norbert Wiener (1894– 1964) made use of Fourier’s transform to model and analyze brain waves.15 Using

Fourier analysis, an approach of great interest to Bohm, Wiener was able to detect unique frequencies, centered within different spatial locations on the cortex, that repeatedly exhibited auto-correlation. Regions on the cortex were identified where 14 15 Feynman, Leighton, and Sands, The Feynman Lectures on Physics, 286. Wiener pioneered a field he named cybernetics, during his work at Bell Labs. 9 specific ranges of frequencies were found to coalesce toward intermediate frequencies, seeming both to attract and to strengthen one another, exhibiting resonance or “self tuning” to amplify and consolidate signals into narrowly specific ranges in the frequency domain (fd).16 His research led Wiener to conjecture that the infrared band of electromagnetic flux may be the loci of “self– organizing systems.”17 We thus see that a nonlinear interaction causing the attraction of frequency can generate a self–organizing system, as it does in the case of the brain waves we have discussed ........ This possibility of self- organization is by no means limited to the very low frequency of these two phenomena. Consider self–organizing systems at the frequency level, say, of infrared light.18 Three years after Wiener’s publication of his work in Cybernetics, David Bohm stressed the importance of Fourier’s equations on the first page of his well– received 646-page textbook, Quantum Theory, where he declares: It seems impossible to develop quantum concepts extensively without Fourier analysis. It is, therefore, presupposed that the reader is moderately familiar with Fourier analysis.19 For purposes of this paper, the basic understanding of Fourier analysis

is simply that frequency vibrations manifest within two distinct dimensions or domains: a space–time domain and a frequency domain. Until recently, physicists 16 17 18 19 Wiener, Cybernetics: Control and Communication in Animal and Machine, 198. Ibid. Ibid., 202. Bohm, Quantum Theory, 1. 10 have conventionally focused exclusively within space–time to conduct their research, considering only space and time as having any ontological reality. Whether there might somehow exist a “real” dimension outside of space–time, or beyond space–time has generally been beyond the purview of the physical sciences. Yet the experienced reality of a region of consciousness beyond space– time is supported by the vast body of first–hand reports generated by religious, mystical, or near-death experiences. In an approach to such experiences, William James, the “father of American psychology,” writes in 1902: The further limits of our being plunge, it seems to me, into an altogether other dimension of existence from the sensible and merely ‘understandable’ world. Name it the mystical region, or the supernatural region, whichever you choose.20 Thus Fourier’s transform equations between the two domains are more than simply mathematical equations, written down as functions in the abstract symbolic language of calculus (see fig. 4). +¥ f (t ) = ò X(F)ej2pFtdF -¥ f (F) = +¥ ò x(t )e- j2pFtdt -¥ Fourier integral transform of a continuous time function into the frequency domain (fd). Fourier integral transform of a continuous frequency function into the time domain (td). Figure 4. The Fourier Transform and Inverse Transform.21 20 21

James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, 441. Stein and Shakarchi, Fourier Analysis: An Introduction, 134–36. 11 These expressions indicate that any function in the timespace domain, 𝑓 𝑡 , can be transformed into and expressed equivalently as an infinite series of frequency spectra functions 𝑋 𝐹 in the frequency domain. The transformation is also possible in the opposite direction, i.e. any arbitrary function in the frequency domain, 𝑓 𝐹 can be transformed into and expressed by an infinite series of time functions, 𝑥 𝑡 . The two domains mirror one another. Beyond pure mathematical considerations, the equations can also be seen as predicting and mirroring cosmic reality, i.e. like Newton’s Law, they can be seen to mirror a cosmological relationship in mathematical terms. The model of consciousness presented in this paper proposes that there is indeed an ontological reality to this other region, and that this region is synonymous with Bohm’s “implicate order,” Pribram’s “holonomic frequency domain,” and Laszlo’s “Akashic holofield.” Karl Pribram’s Holonomic Mind/Brain Theory: The Frequency Domain The neurosurgeon Karl Pribram was one of the first to articulate the idea that the Fourier transform might play a role in brain/mind neurophysics. Pribram spent decades performing laboratory research to gather experimental data in an effort to solve two problems: 1.) to identify the location and mechanism of memory storage (the engram), and 2.) to discover the cognitive mechanism behind visual perception. Pribram arrived at the conclusion that the data revealed evidence of Fourier signal transformations of visual signals from

the rods and cones of the eyes, and that these Fourier patterns could be detected over wide 12 areas of the brain, as fields within the fine-fibered dendritic networks of the cerebral cortex.22 In the mid 1960s, Pribram was inspired by reports of the first optical holograms, and the empirical evidence that holograms could store, retrieve, and process vast quantities of information using resonant photons in high frequency beams. In 1971 he published his new theory, the holonomic brain/mind theory, based upon evidence of the Fourier transform playing a key role in the mind/brain process.23 The theory he put forth proposed that the process of memory, sight, hearing, and consciousness in general, may all may operate holographically, in a transformational process of information-coded-energies flowing back and forth between space-time and the frequency domain via a Fourier transform mechanism. Pribram’s theory was radical and controversial, challenging two prominent paradigms of modern neurophysical research: 1.) the belief that consciousness is an epiphenomenon produced by electrical sparks and the neuronal wiring of the brain, and 2.) the belief that somewhere in the physical brain, engrams of memory are stored, and will be eventually found. Pribram relates a story of a conversation he had at the time, while climbing with colleagues on a hike in Colorado just prior to attending a neuroscience conference in Boulder: We had climbed high into the Rocky Mountains. Coming to rest on a desolate crag, a long meditative silence was suddenly broken by a query 22 23 Pribram, The

Form Within, 82. Pribram, Languages of the Brain: Experimental Principles in Neuropsychology. 13 from Campbell: “Karl, do you really believe it’s a Fourier?” I hesitated, and then replied, “No Fergus, that would be too easy, don’t you agree?” Campbell sat silently awhile, then said, “You are right, it’s probably not that easy. So what are you going to say tomorrow down there?” I replied, this time without hesitation, “That the transform is a Fourier, of course.” Campbell smiled and chortled, “Good for you! So am I.”24 Pribram’s hypothesis was strengthened through a growing appreciation of holography as frequency–superpositioned electromagnetic wave interference.25 Pribram called his approach “the holonomic brain theory,” and postulated the importance of the frequency domain in future research: Essentially, the theory reads that the brain at one stage of processing performs its analyses in the frequency domain . . . a solid body of evidence has accumulated that the auditory, somatosensory, motor, and visual systems of the brain do in fact process, at one or several stages, input from the senses in the frequency domain.26 In Pribram’s theory, a pure frequency domain links with the neuronal tissue of the brain through modulating fields of flux within the fine-fibered dendritic webs of the cerebral cortex regions.27 His paradigm was reinforced at a San Francisco conference during a lecture given by the physicist Geoffrey F. Chew, the head of the UC Berkeley physics department and a former student of Enrico Fermi. Chew presented a conceptual diagram of the Fourier transform

process (fig. 5), which perfectly encapsulated what Pribram had by then become familiar with, the Fourier transform. As shown in the figure, the spectral 24 25 26 27 Pribram, Brain and Perception, xvii. Ibid., 142. Pribram, “What the Fuss Is All About,” 29. Pribram, “Prolegomenon for a Holonomic Brain Theory.” 14 (frequency) domain, located at the left of the diagram, is directly linked to the space–time domain, depicted at the right, bridged by the Fourier transform, operating at the sub-atomic levels predicted by Planck’s constant.28 Figure 5. The Fourier Transform Diagram. Pribram asked Geoffrey Chew where he had obtained the diagram, and was told that he had been given the diagram by his colleague at Berkeley, the physicist Henry Stapp, who himself said he had been given it directly from the British theoretical physicist Paul Dirac (1902–1984), one of the original founders of quantum mechanics. Whatever the origin of the figure, Pribram chose to include the diagram in several future papers. In “Consciousness Reassessed 28 Pribram, “Brain and Mathematics,” 230 15 (2004),” Pribram’s caption to the figure reads, “The Fourier Transform as the Mediator between Spectral and Spacetime.”29 In the diagram, the spectral domain is shown at the left and space–time to the right, with the Fourier transform between them. The diagram became foundational to Pribram’s understanding. It presents a two–way Fourier transform–type process operational at the boundary between the two domains, located in an event horizon termed in the diagram, “The Action: Planck’s Constant.” The Limits of Space: From

the Edge of the Universe to Planck’s Constant The Pribram–Bohm hypothesis holds that the dimensions of space are finite and that space exhibits a limited domain in a quantifiable range. This is consistent with the physics of string theory or M–theory, according to Bernard Carr, Professor of Mathematics and Astronomy at the University of London: The Universe may have more than the three dimensions of space that we actually observe, with the extra dimensions being compactified on the Planck scale (the distance of 10-35 meters, at which quantum gravity effects become important), so that we do not notice them. . . In particular, physics has revealed a unity about the Universe which makes it clear that everything is connected in a way which would have seemed inconceivable a few decades ago. The discovery of dark dimensions through particle physics shakes our view of the nature of reality just as profoundly as the discovery of dark energy through cosmology.30 Carr provides an image (fig. 6) using a cosmological uroboros to illustrate his GUT theory (Grand Unified Theory) to illustrate and compare major scale– 29 30 Pribram, “Consciousness Reassessed,” 8. Carr, Universe or Multiverse?, 10. 16 dependent structural levels of the physical world: “The significance of the head meeting the tail is that the entire Universe was once compressed to a point of infinite density (or, more strictly, the Planck density).”31 The figure also depicts the interconnectedness of the entire universal process in time and space, presenting a grand cybernetic feedback loop

from top to bottom. Figure 6. Cosmic Uroboros of Multiverse M-Theory. Stretching out this circular cosmic uroboric serpent from head to tail we can create a linear scale of scales that spans all of space, from the maximum diameter of the universe itself at 10+27 cm, down to its absolute minimum depth 31 Ibid., 13. 17 of scale, the Planck length limit at 10-33 cm. There, at the very bottom of the linear scale of space scales (fig. 7), we find the transition bounding Explicate Order and Implicate Order. Here, at the bottom bound of the spatial scale, space reaches its end, according to modern physics; but it marks the entry point into Bohm’s “implicate order,” or what Pribram calls the “frequency domain.” Figure 7. Scale of Space Scales: The Boundary at the Bottom of Space. 18 The implications of this diagram are profound. Imagine moving inwardly, from any position in the universe, moving into a spherical bubble, shrinking ever smaller in scale as you move closer to the center at the bottom of the spatial scale, following the radial axis inward, ever shrinking downward, and then abruptly reaching the end of the line at the Planck length limit of space, the locus of a spherical shell 10-35 meters in diameter, below which space has no meaning. You have reached the boundary, the event horizon which separates space from the implicate order. To understand this, we must realize that the classical Cartesian assumption that space is continuous is wrong; there

is indeed a bottom to space, at least according to physics, below which space no longer has meaning. Here there is a discontinuity, as David Bohm explains in describing the granularity of space: What of the order between two points in space? The Cartesian order holds that space is continuous. Between any two points, no matter how close they lie, occur an infinite of other points. Between any two neighboring points in this infinity lies another infinity and so on. This notion of continuity is not compatible with the order of quantum theory ........ Thus the physicist John Wheeler has suggested that, at very short distances, continuous space begins to break up into a foam-like structure. Thus the “order between” two points moves from the order of continuity to an order of a discontinuous foam.32 Pribram’s Spectral Density Flux and the Implicate Order In 1979, Karl Pribram, at that time a Stanford professor attended a conference in Cordoba, Spain, where he met David Bohm, a Professor of Theoretical Physics at London University. 33 During the conference, Pribram soon 32 33 Bohm and Peat, Science, Order, and Creativity, 311–12. Cazenave, Science and Consciousness: Two Views of the Universe. 19 realized that David Bohm’s model of the implicate order and its projection, or extrusion, into space–time was entirely compatible with his own holonomic mind/brain theory. Thus began twenty years of correspondence and dialog between David Bohm and Karl Pribram, and the two soon became personal friends. The photo of them at dinner

together in Prague (fig. 8) was taken by Pribram’s wife, shortly before Bohm’s death in October 1992. Figure 8. David Bohm and Karl Pribram in Prague, June 1992.34 Pribram began to see in Bohm’s theories how the frequency domain flux could unfold into explicate domain waves of encoded information via the Fourier transform, and appreciated Bohm’s description of how information from the explicate may fold back into the implicate in a bi–directional process. Even more intriguing was Bohm’s belief that, “the basic relationship of quantum theory and consciousness is that they have the implicate order in common.”35 34 35 Neville, “Saral and David Bohm,” picture 8. Bohm and Hiley, The Undivided Universe: An Ontological Interpretation of Quantum Theory, 381–82. 20 Pribram was equally impressed with Bohm’s explanation of nonlocality, a major mystery in quantum physics, which Bohm here explains as fundamental to the process of folding and unfolding between explicate and implicate orders, allowing for full superpositioned cohesion of frequency information within the implicate order, and even providing a mechanism for Sheldrake’s theories of morphogenetic fields and morphic resonance: The implicate order can be thought of as a ground beyond time, a totality, out of which each moment is projected into the explicate order. For every moment that is projected out into the explicate there would be another movement in which that moment would be injected or “introjected” back into the implicate order. If you have a large number of repetitions of this process, you’ll start to build up a

fairly constant component to this series of projection and injection. That is, a fixed disposition would become established. The point is that, via this process, past forms would tend to be repeated or replicated in the present, and that is very similar to what Sheldrake calls a morphogenetic field and morphic resonance. Moreover, such a field would not be located anywhere. When it projects back into the totality (the implicate order), since no space and time are relevant there, all things of a similar nature might get connected together or resonate in totality. When the explicate order enfolds into the implicate order, which does not have any space, all places and all times are, we might say, merged, so that what happens in one place will interpenetrate what happens in another place.36 This is in full agreement with Pribram’s contention, supported by the diagram handed down from Dirac, that the boundary or event horizon between the two domains, where the action occurs, is at the Planck length, and where, as Pribram tells us here, spectral density “in-formation” translates into space–-time “ex-formation”: Matter can be seen as an “ex-formation,” an externalized (extruded, palpable, compacted) form of flux. By contrast, thinking and its 36 Bohm and Weber, “Nature as Creativity,” 35–36. 21 communication (minding) are the consequence of an internalized (neg- entropic) forming of flux, its “in-formation.” My claim is that the basis function from which both matter and mind are “formed” is flux (measured as spectral density).37 This flux or spectral

density is for Pribram real, as real as space–time, but it is outside of or beyond space–time. It is in this sense that Pribram made the conceptual leap from considering the Fourier transform as simply a mathematical tool, to a dawning realization that the transform relationship implies the ontological reality of a domain outside of space–time, a transcendent yet ontologically real domain where energy as flux is “measured as spectral density.” An anthropomorphic of the Pribram’s diagram can be seen in fig. 9, where the iris–like lens peering out from the implicate order is maintaining a focus upon and/or projecting a holonomic universe within the explicate order of space–time. The quantum black hole is, in effect, “lensing the cosmos.” Figure 9. Topology of Perception in Pribram’s Diagram. 37 Pribram, “Consciousness Reassessed,” 13. 22 This mirrors Karl Pribram’s 1991 conceptualization, expressed here in Brain and Perception: These two domains characterize the input to and output from a lens that performs a Fourier transform. On one side of the transform lies the space– time order we ordinarily perceive. On the other side lies a distributed enfolded holographic–like order referred to as the frequency or spectral domain.38 Note that the image of an iris in the diagram appears at the edge of the event horizon of a quantum black hole, or implicate order holosphere. The iris symbolizes consciousness looking out from the implicate order into space–time via a Fourier transform lensing process. This approach to a topology of consciousness as something that is

looking out and seeing itself is supported here by the mathematician G. Spencer–Brown: Now the physicist himself, who describes all this, is, in his own account, constructed of it. He is, in short, made of a conglomeration of the very particulars he describes, no more, no less, bound together by and obeying such general laws as he himself has managed to find and record. Thus we cannot escape the fact that the world we know is constructed in order (and thus in such a way as to be able) to see itself. This is indeed amazing. Not so much in view of what it sees, although this may appear fantastic enough, but in respect of the fact that it can see at all ........ But in order to do so, evidently it must first cut itself up into at least one state which sees, and at least one other state which is seen. In this condition it will always partially elude itself.39 38 39 Pribram, Brain and Perception, 70. Spencer-Brown, Laws of Form, 105. 23 Cosmology and the Implicate Order In 1980 Bohm published Wholeness and the Implicate Order, in which he discusses the cosmology of the implicate order. He begins by putting forth a solution to the problem of “zero–point” energy: If one were to add up the energies of all the ‘wave–particle’ modes of excitation in any region of space, the result would be infinite, because an infinite number of wavelengths is present. However, there is good reason

to suppose that one need not keep on adding the energies corresponding to shorter and shorter wavelengths. There may be a certain shortest possible wavelength, so that the total number of modes of excitation, and therefore the energy, would be finite. . . When this length is estimated it turns out to be about 10–33 cm.40 He brings up the school of Parmenides and Zeno, which held that all space is a plenum, supported early in the last century by the hypothesis of an ether.41 Then he describes how there is a “holomovement” in this immense “sea of ‘zero– point energy’,” which is to be understood as a “multi–dimensional implicate order,” and goes on to state: It is being suggested here, then, that what we perceive through the senses as empty space is actually the plenum, which is the ground for the existence of everything, including ourselves. The things that appear to our senses are derivative forms and their true meaning can be seen only when we consider the plenum, in which they are generated and sustained, and into which they must ultimately vanish.42 Bohm summarizes his cosmological essay by proposing that “consciousness is to be comprehended in terms of the implicate order, along with 40 41 42 Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order, 190. Ibid., 191. Ibid., 192. 24 reality as a whole,” but that the implicate order is also its primary and immediate actuality.”43 How Space–Time is Projected from the Holoplenum The model envisions a transcendent mode of

consciousness projecting the spatial cosmos holographically from an infinite plenum or matrix of quantum black holes, each at the limiting Planck length diameter of 10-35 m, located at the very bottom (and center) of space.44 According to orthodox quantum theory, in the implicate order, below the Planck length, space and time do not exist, and yet, according to Bohm: Consciousness (which we take to include thought, feeling, desire, will, etc.) is to be comprehended in terms of the implicate order. . . the actual “substance” of consciousness can be understood in terms of the notion that the implicate order is also its primary and immediate actuality.45 The Pribram–Bohm hypothesis holds that the cosmos is projected outwardly from this holoplenum, from each quantum black hole at the bottom of space, everywhere. Like images arising from pixels on a two–dimensional LCD (liquid crystal display) screen, the holoplenum projects the three–dimensional cosmos in all its glory. Yet during the process not only is radiant energy projecting outwardly from these quantum holospheres, but there is a simultaneous 43 Ibid., 196–97. 44 In ancient Greece, the School of Parmenides and Zeno held that space is a plenum, consisting of an ether that fills all space; Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order, 191. 45 Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order, 196–97. 25 torrent of information–encoded, perhaps gravitational, energies flowing inwardly into the implicate order at the center of each point in space. Mystics have intuited this process in the images of a snake swallowing its own

tail, called the “uroboros” by alchemists (fig.10), found depicted as early as the 14th century BCE in the tomb of Tutankhamun, and often used as a symbolic metaphor for cybernetic feedback in control and communication theory.46 While Wiener coined the term cybernetics, communication engineers would more commonly see this as metaphor for the “feedback loop,” used everywhere in electronic circuit design. The same paradigm also conveys the simple act of “tuning in” (i.e., turning a knob on a radio receiver to change the frequency to effectively “tune in” a station signal), or enjoyed as the audio “feedback” widely associated with the electric guitar recordings of Jimmy Hendrix, feedback which he created by moving his resonating guitar closer to the output speakers. Figure 10. Alchemical Depiction of the Uroboros (1478) 46 Wiener, A Comment on Certain Points where Cybernetics Impinges on Religion. 26 We can imagine the transitional region between the explicate and implicate order as a frothing, turbulent, resonant event–horizon that bounds space–time and the transcendent implicate order. Information flowing inward eventually leaves space–time entropically and flows into the network of quantum black holes, the holoplenum (fig. 11). Information flowing into this region of infinite centers becomes immediately nonlocal, superpositioned, omni– intersecting. The holoplenum of holospheres provides a vast 3D projection field into which space–time is projected by implicate order holoflux. Figure 11. Topology of a Holoplenum of Holospheres. But in addition to this spatial topology, an examination of the transition between time (in the explicate order) and timelessness (in

the implicate order) is in order. How might time communicate with the timeless? What happens at the event–horizon of time? Digital Clock Limits of the Universe and Laminated Spacetime At the heart of quantum theory is the conviction that neither time nor space are continuous, that both are granular. We have thus far established the granularity of space at the Planck length of 10–35 m. What then might be the 27 granularity of time? One approach has been provided by the theoretical physicist John Archibald Wheeler (the originator of the term “black hole”), who, in considering a topology of information in the cosmos, noted that the highest possible clock rate must be limited by the Planck constant in general, and specifically by Planck time, a value below which time can have no meaning according to modern physics.47 Wheeler describes the situation as follows: Space––pure, empty, energy–free space––all the time and everywhere experiences so–called quantum fluctuations at a fantastically small scale of time, of the order of 10–44 seconds. During these quantum fluctuations, pairs of particles appear for an instant from the emptiness of space.48 Given the limit of the smallest interval of time being 10–44 seconds, we can calculate the maximum clock–speed of the universe by determining how many Planck time intervals are possible within one human second: (1 sec / 10–44 sec) = 10+44 Thus it has been proposed that if the universe is found to operate digitally, it may be cycling at its highest possible clock rate, switching

between the explicate order and the implicate order cyclically at a rate of 1044 times per second, or 1044 Hz. This model has been developed in the “Theory of Laminated Spacetime,” by Dewey in 1985.49 The theory accords well with the Pribram– 47 The Planck time, tP is the time it would take a photon travelling at the speed of light to cross a distance equal to the Planck length: 48 49 Wheeler, A Journey into Gravity and Spacetime, 222. Dewey, The Theory of Laminated Spacetime. 28 Bohm hypothesis process, viewing the process as flux extruding into space–time in a series of quantum shells of encoded energy moving out at the speed of light, each shell a brane separated from the next by a spatial gap equal to the Planck length, as described here: I believe the universe to be composed of nothing but shells of electromagnetic particles which the theory of Laminated Spacetime describes as laminae of spacetime.50 LASER Holograms vs the Holoplenum A laser (i.e. LASER: Light Amplitude Stimulation of Electromagnetic Radiation) hologram is an optical image stored and recreated with a single laser beam of coherent, fixed frequency light. Human technology greatly simplifies the creation and replay of a hologram by: (1) using a single beam of coherent photon energy (a single frequency), and (2) illuminating the object from two distinct fixed points in space. An interference pattern forms from the beams of intersecting light impinging upon the three-dimensional planes of the object from different angles, causing

complex shadows which are detected and recorded on the flat detector plane behind the object.51 In nature, however, the situation is vastly richer in complexity: electromagnetic flux interactions in space–time form a highly complex three- dimensional matrix of intersecting shells of every space–time radiation frequency band conceivable, impinging from an infinity of directions. In contrast with the 50 51 Ibid., 95. Pribram, Languages of the Brain, 140–50. 29 human generated holograms of a single frequency taken from two fixed points, each point in space–time actually intercepts the entire frequency flux spectrum flowing into the quantum black hole located at its geometric central “point”. The omnidirectional interactions manifesting among electromagnetic waves of light and every other frequency in the dimensional range of the explicate order are mirrored in the spectral frequencies within the implicate order. There is a resonance between implicate and explicate mediated by mathematical relationships such as the Fourier transform. This process between the explicate and implicate order is skillfully articulated here by David Bohm: The implicate order can be thought of as a ground beyond time, a totality, out of which each moment is projected into the explicate order. For every moment that is projected out into the explicate there would be another movement in which that moment would be injected or “introjected” back into the implicate order. If you have a large number of repetitions of this process, you’ll start to build up a fairly constant component to this series of projection and injection. That is, a

fixed disposition would become established. The point is that, via this process, past forms would tend to be repeated or replicated in the present, and that is very similar to what Sheldrake calls a morphogenetic field and morphic resonance. Moreover, such a field would not be located anywhere. When it projects back into the totality (the implicate order), since no space and time are relevant there, all things of a similar nature might get connected together or resonate in totality. When the explicate order enfolds into the implicate order, which does not have any space, all places and all times are, we might say, merged, so that what happens in one place will interpenetrate what happens in another place.52 Resonance between the implicate and the explicate nudges into existence a cosmic holonomic universe of galaxies, butterflies, and zebras.53 52 53 Bohm and Weber, “Nature as Creativity,” 35–36. Sheldrake, A New Science of Life: The Hypothesis of Morphic Resonance. 30 The Holofield Theory of Ervin László The holofield theory of Ervin László correlates well with the holoflux topology of the Pribram-Bohm implicate/explicate schema, specifically in the postulated existence of two domains or dimensions of reality, an “A-dimension” equivalent to Bohm’s implicate order or Pribram’s frequency flux domain, and an “M-dimension,” equivalent to Bohm’s explicate, space–time material domain.54 A graduate of the Sorbonne and a professor of Philosophy, Systems Sciences, and Future Studies, László had been twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize; his theory postulates that the universe, including human beings,

appears to be “nonlocally” coherent, part of a unified field of consciousness.55 In full accord with John Archibald Wheeler, who held that information is even more fundamental to the universe than energy, László describes an “information field,” which he calls the “A-field,” lying outside of space–time and yet interacting dynamically with material manifesting in space and time.56 In reference to this A-field, or A-dimension, László frequently uses the term Akasha, referencing the Sanskrit word (Ākāśa), described in Vedic texts in India as early as 5,000 BCE, where Akasha is closely associated with vibration.57 In the Vedas its function is identified with shabda, the first vibration, the first ripple beginning 54 55 56 57 László, Science and the Re-Enchantment of the Cosmos, 34–35. László, The Self-Actualizing Cosmos, 44–45. László, An Integral Theory of Everything, 67. Whicher, “Nirodha, Yoga Praxis, and the Transformation of the Mind,” 67. 31 our universe.58 The Akasha has been described by an Indian professor of inorganic chemistry, I.K. Taimni, as a sort of space out of which integrated energy vibrations emanate (e.g., much as holoflux emanates from out of an implicate domain into space–time as electromagnetic waves): There is . . . a mysterious integrated state of vibration from which all possible kinds of vibrations can be derived by a process of differentiation. That is called Nāda in Sanskrit. It is a vibration in a medium called Ākāśa which may be translated as “space” in English. But the conception of Ākāśa . . . is quite different

from that of Science. It is not mere empty space but space which, though apparently empty, contains within itself an infinite amount of potential energy ........ This infinite potentiality for producing vibrations of different kinds in any intensity or amount is due to the fact that at the back of Ākāśa or hidden within it, is consciousness.59 In László cosmology, the full, actual universe is the interaction of the two dimensions, the “A–dimension” (for Akasha) and the “M–dimension” (“M” for “material”). The M–dimension contains that which manifests (i.e., the cosmos, the galaxies in space–time), and is that upon which material science has been focused. The M-dimension can be seen as congruent with David Bohm’s explicate order. László’s other dimension is the A–dimension, his Akashic dimension outside of space–time, which can be identified with Bohm’s implicate, enfolded order.60 According to László, there is continual two-way interaction between the A–dimension and the M–dimension. In a cybernetic cycle, the A–dimension provides updates to the blueprint for manifesting changes occurring in the 58 59 60 Ibid. Taimni, Man, God and the Universe, 203. Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order. 32 timespace M–dimension, while information recording results of these changes flows back into and are recorded within the nontemporal vibrations of the A– dimension.61 In both László’s model and the Pribram–Bohm model can be seen the systems architecture to support Rupert Sheldrake’s morphic field paradigm. Sheldrake describes his own theory of the morphic field’s memory as morphic resonance, and here relates it to the quantum

vacuum field: All morphic fields have an inherent memory given by morphic resonance. Morphogenetic fields, the organizing fields of morphogenesis, are one kind of the larger category of morphic fields, rather like a species within a genus ........ Morphic fields must in some way interact directly or indirectly with electromagnetic and quantum fields ........ Another possible point of connection between morphic fields and modern physics is through the quantum vacuum field. According to standard quantum theory, all electrical and magnetic forces are mediated by virtual photons that appear from the quantum vacuum field and then disappear into it again.62 Sheldrake here states that some sort of memory information, stored in the morphic field outside of space–time, is interacting with electromagnetic fields within space–time. László supports and extends Sheldrake’s model to include a mechanism for morphic resonance, describing it as the effect of a long-term interaction of a species with the A–dimension.63 Here is László’s description of a species-specific pattern acting as a natural attractor for morphic resonance in the A–dimension. 61 62 63 László, The Self-Actualizing Cosmos, 95. Sheldrake, Morphic Resonance: The Nature of Formative Causation, 158. László, The Self-Actualizing Cosmos, 57. 33 The information generated in this interaction is conserved in the A- dimension. The A-dimension is the memory of the M-dimension; it is the manifest world’s Akashic record. The sea of Akashic information includes the species-specific pattern that is the natural “attractor” of healthy functioning in organism. This pattern results from the long-term interaction of a species with

the A-dimension; it is the enduring memory of those interactions; and it codes the generic norms of viable species.64 László here parallels Sheldrake’s description of morphic resonance, describing it as information transfer from a morphic field (A–field) to a living organism (M–field), a sort of information blueprint for the living organism: According to the Akasha paradigm the information that coordinates the functions of a living organism is a specific pattern in the sea of A-dimensional information. This corpus of information governs action, interaction, and reaction throughout the manifest world. It also governs the functions of the living organism. It is a blueprint of normal organic functioning.65 Sheldrake’s morphogenetic field thus mirrors László’s A–dimensional field, but while Sheldrake makes explicit a possible relationship or interaction of morphic fields with electromagnetic fields, László fails the attempt to identify the A–field with any of the current fields known to physicists. Here he states that the “Akashic Field” is, as yet, unknown to the physical sciences: The evidence for a field that would conserve and convey information is not direct; it must be reconstructed in reference to more immediately available evidence. Like other fields known to modern physics, such as the gravitational field, the electromagnetic field, the quantum fields, and the Higgs field, the in-formation field cannot be seen, heard, touched, tasted, or smelled . . . it seems evident that a further field is required. In my 64 65 Ibid. Ibid., 56. 34 previous books I named the universal in-formation field the Akashic

Field.66 László also puts forth in his theory that the A-field is the quantum vacuum itself, that the field is the fundamental energy and information-carrying field, interconnecting all things in and between all dimensions, nonlocally, in a multiverse. László further describes the A-field, which he says is currently unknown to physics, as being a “vacuum-based holofield.”67 But László again declares, as did Bohm, that any such posited field must be firmly rooted in what science already knows about the nature of physical reality: The concept of such a field cannot be an ad hoc postulate, nor can it be an extra-scientific hypothesis. It must be rooted in what science already knows about the nature of physical reality ......... We assume that the interaction of such a field with quanta and quanta-based systems—atoms, molecules, cells, organisms, ecologies, and systems even of cosmological dimension—produces nonlocal interaction within and among them.68 Unfortunately, while László states clearly that his concept must be rooted in science, he provides no clear connection between the A-field and the tenets of modern science, neither through mathematics nor physics, and this leaves his theory incomplete. Nevertheless, László’s intuited metaphor of the A-field being some sort of “blueprint” can be used to explain why evolution is not a random process. If we assume that through some mechanism the arc of the creating cosmos is guided by 66 67 68 László, Science and the Akashic Field, 73. László, Science and the Re-Enchantment of the Cosmos, 34. László, The Self-Actualizing Cosmos, 13–15.

35 information stored in the A-field, then all of the “fine-tuned constants” discovered in our universe, and marveled at by cosmologists, might be more readily explained. If we assume that the A-field contains (and shares) information from billions upon billions of experimental attempts, in previously evolving space–time universes, to create new forms (new forms of particles, new forms of galaxies, new forms of matter, life, and consciousness), then it is the influx of this information collapsing from the A-field into the M-field that produces the exquisitely-tuned constants that are enjoyed in the structure of our particular universe. Such a viewpoint accords well with the recent ideas of the theoretical physicist Lee Smolin, that “for cosmology to progress, physics must abandon the idea that laws are timeless and eternal and embrace instead the idea that even they evolve in real time.”69 László’s theory brilliantly points the way towards a truly new paradigm for material science and future research directions, but it is unfortunate that his use of the Vedic term akasha and the Theosophist term “Akashic record” serves only to undermine his theory among the scientific community. His occasional use of the terms “spiritual” and “yoga” in his essays would seem also to limit the dissemination of his work within a broader scientific community, as seen here: Our bodily senses do not register Akasha, but we can reach it through spiritual practice. The ancient Rishis reached it through a disciplined, spiritual way of life, and through yoga.70 69 70 Smolin, Time

Reborn, 123. László, Science and the Akashic Field, 76. 36 The “Akashic record” is a term invented and widely used by Theosophists in the mid-nineteenth century, in particular by Alice Bailey, in discussing Patañjali’s Yoga Sutras, “The ākāshic record is like an immense photographic film, registering all the desires and earth experiences of our planet.”71 The concept and term “Akashic record” is also frequently found in the early twentieth-century writings of the Austrian philosopher Rudolph Steiner, who identifies the Akashic records to be the source of information obtained through his supersensory perception into the history of the planet.72 Steiner taught a theory, which he claimed to practice himself, through which, by conscious development of latent organs of perception, we can go beyond the ordinary space–time sensory systems into various modes by which we can directly access cosmic memory: Everything which comes into being in time has its origin in the eternal. But the eternal is not accessible to sensory perception. Nevertheless, the ways to the perception of the eternal are open ........ We can develop forces dormant in us so that we can recognize the eternal ......... In gnosis and in theosophy it is called the “Akasha Chronicle.” Only a faint conception of this chronicle can be given in our language. For our language corresponds to the world of the senses .... The one who has acquired the ability to perceive in the spiritual world comes to know past events in their eternal character.73 More recently, the American clairvoyant Edgar

Cayce (1877–1945), known as “the sleeping prophet,” and writing in the mid-twentieth century, also 71 72 73 Bailey, The Yoga Sutras of Patañjali, 78 Steiner, Cosmic Memory: Prehistory of Earth and Man. Ibid., 39. 37 used the term “akashic records” to describe the source of ideas with which he claimed to have connected during his deep trance and sleep states.74 László’s theories find a great deal of support in these writings and traditions outside of the scientific field of inquiry, based as they are upon participatory, experiential data, which is not normally of interest in the material sciences. He is not averse to discussing such participatory experience of his own, and using it to extend his theory: When we enter an altered state of consciousness images, ideas, and intuitions flow into our consciousness that transcend the range of our sensory perceptions. These elements are part of the totality of the information in the cosmic matrix: The Akasha. This information is in a distributed form, as in a hologram.75 The idea of information distributed as a hologram accords well with Pribram’s research-based speculation on holographic memory processes; and, in the following passage, László’s insistence on the importance of the need for understanding the whole, rather than exclusively separate parts, reminds us of David Bohm’s explicate “whole,” connected everywhere by the implicate order: The crucial feature of the emerging view is space and time transcending correlation. Space and time do not separate things. They connect things . . . information is conserved

and conveyed in nature at all scales of magnitude and in all domains.76 74 75 76 Todeschi, Edgar Cayce on the Akashic Records. László, The Self-Actualizing Cosmos, 95. László, Science and the Reenchantment of the Cosmos, 35. 38 László refers to the Akasha field as a “fifth dimension,” and points out that it was seen in ancient culture, much as Bohm views the implicate order, to be the foundational basis of the cosmos: The rishis (seers) of India viewed the deep dimension as the fifth and most fundamental element in the cosmos; they called it by the Sanskrit term Akasha.77 László’s A-field hypothesis indicates that a shift in the material science approach to consciousness is occurring, and a new paradigm may be emerging: a paradigm where information rather than matter is seen as the basic reality, and where space and time, and the entities that emerge and evolve in space and time, are manifestations of a deeper reality beyond space and time.78 Conclusion: Speculative Solutions to the Hard Problem of Consciousness In closing it is of interest to consider correlations with other models of consciousness. Seven feasible correlations have been identified, depicted diagrammatically within the Pribram-Bohm topology, in fig. 12, “Speculative Solutions to the ‘Hard Problem’ of Consciousness.” 77 78 László, The Immortal Mind, 113. Ibid. 39 Figure 12. Speculative Solutions to the Hard Problem of Consciousness. 40 References Bailey, Alice A. Light of the Soul: A Paraphrase of the Yoga Sutras of Patañjali. New York: Lucis Publishing Co., 1988.

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