I am reading about and attempting to discuss the holographic principle, a conjecture in theoretical physics that the three-dimensional universe is a projection of a two-dimensional (i.e., surface area) encoding1. This would imply that all the particles and properties and everything of our universe may be compressed substantially without losing information: reality is a (logical, not literal) projection of a very large bitmap. The theory also could “explain” surprising properties of the universe, such as the discrete (i.e., quantum) nature2 of physics, the origin of gravity, and information density.

Most fixating is the idea that the universe may be regarded as a composition of information. I’ve been obsessed with information, consciously or unconsciously, since I can remember; and, the more I have thought about the nature of reality, the more I have flirted with the conclusion that information is the fundamental problem of existence: processing, encoding, retrieving, organizing, relating, and communicating.

Another thought: In engineering and business applications, numerical analysis is used to approximate solutions to continuous functions; and in scientific theory, continuous functions are used to approximate a discrete reality resulting from the holographic principle. If I’m not mistaken, this would mean that scientific models like the Schrödinger equation may be a little too perfect.

  1. Can anyone explain the holographic principle?
  2. The Fermilab Holometer, “an experiment to measure the smallest intervals of space and time”.