Excerpt from The Invisible Landscape - Chapters 3 and 4

The following is an excerpt from the book The Invisible Landscape, copyright Terence and Dennis McKenna. I feel it is a very, very important chunk of text. Apologies to anyone trying to read this from a mobile device, the PDF was formatted in a way that didn't transfer well to the limited width of the smartphone screen.

"CHAPTER 3 - Organismic Thought

The progress of science is, like all other creative activities of human intel-
ligence, a groping toward pattern—toward the accumulation of assigned
pattern for the coordination of observed details and toward the uncover-
ing of novel pattern and the consequent introduction of novel details.
This tendency toward synthesis, toward the apprehension of ever more
complex and inclusive orders of pattern, appears to be a fundamental
quality of human thought. It is characteristic of aesthetics, philosophy,
and religion, as well as of science. Understanding consists of the assimila-
tion of patterns encountered in the external world, and insofar as under-
standing progresses, it is the assimilation of novel forms of pattern and the
modification of previously perceived patterns that such novel patterns in-
troduce. One of the chief resistances to this progressive penetration of un-
derstanding is the dogmatic tendency to adhere to orthodox modes of
assigned pattern when confronted with novel details that call for a re-
ordering of understanding. In the case of science, one can point to the
persistence, in our conceptual models, of the Newtonian doctrine of con-
crete material entities possessing the properties of simple location; where-
as the order of pattern revealed by quantum physics allows for neither
concrete endurance nor simple location at its most basic levels. On the
opposite end of the scale, one can point to the doctrine of relativity, which
has shown that space and time must be regarded as properties of each
other, yet one generally continues to characterize space in terms of the re-
lationships of Euclidean geometry on any scale short of the cosmic. Still
another example can be cited in the scientific assumption of the suffi-
ciency of purely physicochemical properties to explain the fact of living
organisms and, by extension, the fact of mind.

To carry on its empirical investigations, science must embark on this
methodological license of abstracting certain sets of facts from the totality
of patterned relationships of which those facts are a part. As long as these
assumptions are understood for what they are, as a set of ad hoc hypothe-
ses employed for the purpose of characterizing a given phenomenon, that
is, purely for the sake of methodological convenience, then science en-
counters no difficulty. It is when science proclaims the adequacy of a
given order of pattern to characterize all levels of organization that it runs
into philosophical difficulties, for then it extends the methodological ab-
stractions used to characterize a phenomenon to sets of phenomena that
may in actuality exhibit patterns of a quite different order. It is to the
philosophical consequences of this methodological inconsistency of sci-
ence that this chapter is addressed. We intend to examine in some detail
the philosophical problems raised by scientific methodology; we will at-
tempt finally to tentatively suggest the fundamentals of a metaphysics that
is consistent not only with the pursuit of scientific abstraction but also
with the apprehension of the world as it impinges on us as living, sensing,
minded organisms.

Alfred North Whitehead, in Science and the Modern World (1967, p. 7),
states: Every philosophy is tinged with the coloring of some secret imagi-
native background, which never emerges explicitly into its chains of rea-
soning. For science this intuitive speculation consists in its assumption of
the knowability of the world, in its belief that every event can be corre-
lated with its antecedents in a definite manner exemplifying general prin-
ciples. This assumption, that in nature there is a secret, and that that
secret can be unveiled, forms the unconscious metaphysical assumption
behind all research. This scientific faith was not the creation of science it-
self but was inherited from the insistence of Greek and Scholastic philoso-
phy on the rational order of nature, on the belief that nature conducts
itself according to inexorable, orderly laws. This view in Greek cosmology
is found in the conception that all things in nature tend toward a definite
and proper end; while in Scholastic philosophy, it is reflected in the in-
stinctive tone of faith centered upon the rationality and scrutability of
God. Every detail of nature was conceived as supervised and ordered; the
search into nature could only vindicate the faith of centuries. Though the
tacit philosophical creed of science is embodied in these antecedent ratio-
nal traditions, the way was paved for the rise of science itself by a turn
away from theoretical contemplation toward an interest in nature for its
own sake, the observation of concrete, irreducible facts. In this aspect,
modern science arose out of a reaction against the abstract rationalism of
Scholasticism. What could not be demonstrated, what was not apparent
to observation, was inadmissible as evidence in the scientific worldview.
And yet the belief that the diversity of irreducible and stubborn facts was
harmonizable into an intelligible, rational order arose not as a result of
empirical observation, but out of faith in the order of nature.

In the light of these mixed origins of modern science—its instinctive
belief in the rationality of nature, coupled with its insistence on the obser-
vation of irreducible facts—it is interesting to consider the role of induc-
tion in science. When one observes, one also selects; a pure observation
deals only with a particular set of conditions giving rise to a particular
phenomenon. When one extrapolates the particular observation to the
whole set of phenomena exemplifying similar conditions, this is induc-
tion. An entire class of phenomena has been characterized on the basis of
a limited sampling of such phenomena. By this process of induction, sci-
ence thus arrives at a formulation of general conditions that characterize
not only the particular entity or occasion under investigation but also any
other real or theorized occasion or entity that satisfies the postulated gen-
eral conditions. This process of framing abstract postulates that bear a ref-
erence to no particular occasion or entity (and, in consequence, enters into
the description of all such occasions) reaches its height in mathematics.
The characterization of number, for example, five, does not depend on
whether you are referring to five apples or five minutes; it can be impar-
tially applied to either, regardless of the intrinsic differences of apples and
minutes. Pure mathematics exists in the realm of pure abstraction; all it
asserts is that reason insists that if any entities whatsoever have any rela-
tions that satisfy such-and-such purely abstract conditions, then they must
have other relations that satisfy other purely abstract conditions.
To the extent that science seeks to explain the mechanism of physical
phenomena with mathematically expressible laws, it reduces the data of
concrete observation in particular events to the status of pure abstrac-
tions. The abstractions existed antecedently to the physical phenomena
they were found to describe. The complex of ideas surrounding the peri-
odic functions had to be worked out, as pure mathematical theory, before
their relations to such physical phenomena as the motion of a pendulum,
the movements of the planets, and the physical properties of a vibrating
string could be discerned. The point is that as mathematics became more
abstract, it acquired an ever-increasing practical application to diverse
concrete phenomena. Thus, abstraction, characterized by numerical oper-
ations, became the dominant conceptual mode used to describe concrete
facts.

In the process of induction, one extrapolates given characteristics of a
particular past; one does not extrapolate general laws except on the basis
of an assumed rationality of nature. The introduction of mathematics
into the scheme supplies the nature of the data to be searched for in obser-
vation, namely, measurable quantities. In physics, this emphasis on mea-
surable elements reached its satisfaction in the Newtonian concepts of
mass and force. Mass was conceived as a constant property inherent in all
material bodies in measurable amounts, whether that body was at rest or
in motion, and that remained inherent in the body from one moment to
the next, for as long as the body endured. Force was defined as mass times
acceleration, and hence refers primarily to bodies in motion. It is impor-
tant for our purposes to note that there is in these laws the tacit assump-
tion of the self-identity of a material body in both space and time; a body
is the same body whether it is at point A or point B or any point between
them. Similarly, the body remains fully itself in its transitions through
time and at any instant, however short, of time. The material is said to
have the property of simple location; that is, it can be said to be definitely
here in space and here in time, without reference to any other region of
space or time. But this notion raises difficulties for induction, for if in the
location of configurations of matter through a stretch of time there is no
inherent reference to any other times, past or future, it immediately fol-
lows that nature at any period does not refer to nature at any other period.
Accordingly, induction is not based on anything that is inherent in nature.
The order of nature cannot be justified by the mere observation of nature,
for there is nothing in the present fact that inherently refers to either the
past or the future.

This doctrine of simple location has a further consequence for science
in that it explains physical phenomena in terms of the interaction of ma-
terial entities in space. To the scientific mind of the seventeenth century,
physical phenomena, including the phenomenon of a living organism,
were understood as a manifestation of the interaction of material entities;
the world consisted of physical bodies having mass, location, and locomo-
tion, such entities having these properties as essential qualities. But other
qualities exist, which normally enter into observations of a phenomenon,
but which are suppressed by the purely physical description that admits
only of mass, location, and motion. We refer to such secondary qualities
as color, or roundness, or scent, or texture. These qualities were not con-
sidered inherent in the entities themselves, but as arising out of our appre-
hension of phenomena and having no existence apart from apprehension.
Such qualities were in fact considered to be products of the mind alone:

. . . But the mind in apprehending also experiences sensations
which, properly speaking, are qualities of the mind alone. These
sensations are projected by the mind so as to clothe appropriate
bodies in external nature. Thus the bodies are perceived as
with qualities which in reality do not belong to them, qualities
which in fact are purely the offspring of the mind. Thus nature
gets credit which should in truth be reserved for ourselves: the
rose for its scent: the nightingale for his song: the sun for his
radiance. The poets are entirely mistaken. They should address
their lyrics to themselves, and should turn them into odes of
self-congratulation on the excellency of the human mind. Nature
is a dull affair, soundless, scentless, colourless; merely the hurrying
of material, endlessly, meaninglessly.

However you disguise it, this is the practical outcome of the
characteristic scientific philosophy which closed the seventeenth
century. (Whitehead 1967, p. 54)

This abstraction of the secondary qualities from the primary ones of
physical bodies had the unfortunate effect of creating a dualism between
mind and nature. Nature became identified with matter and its move-
ment, whereas mind, believing, suffering, perceiving, but not interfering,
was conceived as existing apart from the external nature that it observed,
described, and measured. Yet to the extent that mind is in nature, it is a
product of nature. Mind is a quality proceeding from living organisms,
and organisms are regarded by mechanist science as arising from the blind
interactions of undirected matter; both life and mind become in this view
simply the outcome of the random interactions of matter over a vast scale
of time. Any apparent meaning to this process, any type of evolutionary
advancement or value or purpose, is simply a projection of the observer;
in itself, nature is intrinsically blind, without purpose, meaning, or value.
This was the philosophical paradox that modern science, based on induc-
tive abstraction, led itself into: confronted with a universe both lifeless
and devoid of mind, how to explain the apparent intelligibility of nature
and the fact of living organisms.

The preceding discussion has tried to point out that in science certain
axiomatic, a priori assumptions accompany any exercise of scientific
methodologies. Though we have by no means exhausted the list of such
assumptions, we have hopefully pointed to some of the major ones: the
implicit faith in the knowability and the rationality of nature, a legacy to
science of Greek metaphysics and medieval Scholasticism; the utilization
by science of the inductive method, and the twofold assumption of this
use—that observation of representative concrete phenomena can lead to
the formulation of abstract, general laws, and the assumption of the rele-
vance of past events to present and future events; the assumption of the
sufficiency of interactions of material entities having simple location in
giving rise to nature, and proceeding from this assumption, the exclusion
of mind as a causative factor in the universe, and the consequent exclu-
sion of value and teleology from nature. That science makes these as-
sumptions in the exercise of its methodology is not our criticism; they are
necessary for the pragmatic practice of science. In the absence of such
self-imposed limitation, the practice of science would be impossible. Our
criticism is that these assumptions are not made explicitly, with the un-
derstanding that, of course, they are philosophically arguable; they are
made merely in the service of methodological convenience. Instead, in
the greater number of cases, no attempt at philosophical justification is
made; the tacit assumptions of science are left unstated, to be inferred by
the philosopher. Because the methods of science work, because they can
produce results, science feels no need to concern itself with philosophy.
The progress of science in recent years, that is, primarily since the turn
of the century, has unlocked vast new areas to human understanding. It
has revealed novel orders of pattern in nature that not only went unde-
tected and unsuspected by the science of an earlier day but also have ne-
cessitated almost the complete restructuring of the scientific worldview.
We have in mind such discoveries as relativity, with its non-Euclidean
topology, and quantum theory, with its notion of the discontinuous na-
ture of matter and energy. Yet, in the face of these novel orders of pattern,
whose explication was spearheaded by scientific methodology itself, other
areas of science, not concerned directly with investigating such areas, have
continued to carry the burden of outmoded, false conceptions as intrinsic
components of their epistemological equipment.

In the following section of this chapter, let us focus attention on one
area of classical scientific assumption, the notion of materialism, and see
in what ways this notion finds itself in need of revision in the light of
modern quantum theory. Then let us apply our revised concepts to those
two stumbling blocks of classical materialism, organism and mind, to see
if we have come any distance toward framing a set of epistemological
principles that are both supportive of scientific investigation and truer to
our everyday apprehension of the world.

One approach to the quantum theory can be found in the assumption
that an electron does not continuously traverse its path in space, but in-
stead appears at discrete positions in space for successive durations of time:
It is as though an automobile, moving at the average rate of thirty
miles an hour along a road, did not traverse the road continuously;
but appeared successively at the successive milestones, remaining
for two minutes at each milestone . . .

But now a problem is handed over to the philosophers. This
discontinuous existence in space, thus assigned to electrons, is
very unlike the continuous existence of material entities which we
habitually assume as obvious. The electron seems to be borrowing
the character which some people have assigned to the Mahatmas
of Tibet. These electrons, with the correlative protons, are now
conceived as being the fundamental entities out of which the
material bodies of ordinary experience are composed. Accordingly,
if this explanation is allowed, we have to revise all our notions of
the ultimate character of material existence. For when we pene-
trate to these final entities, this startling discontinuity of spatial
existence discloses itself. (Whitehead 1967, pp. 34—35)

The problem can be overcome if we accord to matter the same vibra-
tory character that we apply to light and sound. The adoption of this vi-
bratory picture of matter is going to necessitate the drastic revision of our
ideas of simple location. One recalls that a unit of matter having simple
location does not require a given period of time in which to manifest its
essential identity—it is fully itself even if the period of its endurance is
subdivided indefinitely. Similarly, subdividing the space of the material
entity does divide the volume, but its elements are conceived to retain
their essential spatial continuity. Note that in this view the passage of
time is conceived of as accidental, rather than essential; that is, the pas-
sage of time has nothing to do with the character of the material. If we
adopt the vibratory description of matter urged by quantum theory, time
becomes of the essence of the material. In an analogous way, as a note of
music is nothing at any instant, but requires its whole period in which to
manifest itself, so the vibratory entity of a primordial unit of matter re-
quires a definite period of time, however small, for the expression of its
essential nature. Another consequence arises as well: Quantum theory
tells us that the electron, the basic unit of matter, does not have continu-
ous spatial existence, but discrete points of manifestation (quanta) in
space. Now, at first sight, this view seems much less in congruence with
our everyday experience than the old classical notion of simple location in
space. After all, we perceive all around us objects that seem to have conti-
nuity both in space and in time; are we then to believe that such appar-
ently solid entities are actually vibratory processes? That such a view is
actually more true to experience, in that it opens the way to explain those
other commonsense elements of experience, organisms and minds, we
will try to show next. However, one feature of the quantum view can be
immediately pointed out; that is, that matter ceases to have simple loca-
tion, mass, and locomotion as primary qualities; these become as refer-
ent to the synthesis of a perceiver as such secondary qualities as color,
texture, or noisiness. Thus, either matter no more has primary qualities
than it does secondary qualities and is in itself without quality, or the sec-
ondary qualities are just as real as the primary ones and are there to be
perceived by the mind.

Thus, in the quantum view, the notion of material entities having form,
a discrete and fixed spatial configuration, and endurance, a continuous sus-
tenance through time, yields to the notion of process, a dynamical act of
continuously evolving becoming. Material entities assume the character
of an event; apart from process, there is no being. A thing is what it is by
virtue of the serial unfolding of pattern through time; if one attempts to
isolate an object at a single, nontemporal instant, apart from the instants
preceding and following it, the object loses its essential identity. The object
requires a self-defined, indivisible epoch for its realization; its reality is
defined by the unity of the various processes that enter into its makeup. It
is the process of unfoldment of the various components of an entity, gath-
ered into a prehensive unity, that we experience as the sense object; it is not
the components themselves that we experience as the sense object, but our
unified prehension of these unfolding components. Thus, nature becomes
a structure of evolving processes, and space and time the locus of the unifi-
cation of these processes into sense objects. It is ridiculous, therefore, to ask
if color is less real than, say, spatial location; color is one ingredient in the
process of realization; it enters into the unified prehension of an event, and
apart from prehension, there is no realization.

There is a further consequence derivative of this notion of nature as a
unity of processes. This is that the modal ingression (realization) of an
event into space-time bears a relation to past events, to contemporary
events, and to future events. An event in itself is a unity of processes, but
in combination with other events, past or present or future or all three,
the event becomes one process in the unity of a still larger event. Thus the
mode of ingression of any given event is subject to the influence of its an-
tecedents, its contemporaries, and its descendants, which are in turn in-
fluenced by still other events, and so on. The unity of process that is an
event therefore incorporates the influence of all events; each event mirrors
within itself every other event. Insofar as a given event is considered apart
from other events, which participate in its unity in making it just that
event and no other, our understanding of the event remains incomplete.
The total unity of an event can only be understood with reference to the
totality of process, that is, to the whole of nature. Thus, in this view, a way
is cleared not only for the implicit reference to past events to be found in
the formulation of scientific laws but for our own psychological unity of
memory, immediate realization, and anticipation.

Let us see if this definition of an entity as an evolving process can shed
light on the problem of organisms. One recalls that an entity is a unity
of processes requiring a given, indivisible span of time, or epoch, for its re-
alization. The duration of an epoch can vary for different entities, de-
pending on the complexity and number of processes entering into their
realization. An electron or a mu-meson require a very short epoch for
their realization, on the order of picoseconds; a mayfly requires a some-
what longer epoch, on the order of forty-eight hours; a human or an ele-
phant require an epoch of fifty to a hundred years for their realization,
while a universe requires an epoch on the order of tens of billions of years.
The point is that each of these entities requires its full epoch to realize it-
self as a unified totality of process. Its full identity as a realized actuality
depends on its full epoch of evolving becoming. It is nothing at any one
of its instants; it is itself only when taken in its unified totality of succes-
sive instants.

Thus, identity, for any actual entity, consists of a unity of ongoing
process, a unity that incorporates into its present aspect conditioning in-
fluences of its past and the anticipation of its future. In a living organism,
this immediate experience of ongoing process becomes identifiable with
its notion of self; that is, its awareness of itself, its selfhood, becomes
synonymous with its experience of dynamical process. To clarify this, let
us state what the selfhood of an organism does not consist of. Selfhood
does not consist of its identification with the material bodily components,
for its material components are continually being effaced and replaced
with others by the process of metabolism:

. . . the material parts of which the organism consists at a given
instant are to the penetrating observer only temporary, passing
contents whose joint material identity does not co-incide with the
identity of the whole which they enter and leave, and which sus-
tains its own identity by the very act of foreign matter passing
through its spatial system, the living form. It is never the same
materially and yet persists as its same self by not remaining the
same matter. Once it really becomes the same with the sameness
of its material contents—if any two time slices of it become, as
to their individual contents, identical with each other and with
the slices between them—it ceases to live; it dies. . . (H. Jonas
1966, pp. 75-76)

We see, then, that for the organism not only does identity persist in
material change but it depends on this material flux. This is what is meant
by the statement that its selfhood is derived from its experience of itself as
a process. Its self-awareness does not apply to a material structure, but to
an event-structure. The event-structure, the process in question, is the
persistence and development of bodily form in the face of material flux.
For in the case of living organisms, form is not determined by material
substrate:

. . . viewed from the dynamic identity of the living form, the
reverse holds: the changing material contents are states of its en-
during identity, their multiplicity marking the range of its effec-
tive unity. In fact, instead of saying that the living form is a
region of transit for matter, it would be truer to say that the
material contents in their succession are phases of transit for
the self-continuation of the form. (Jonas 1966, p. 80)

Thus, the selfhood of the organism is identified with the dynamical
persistence of form, a process.

It can be seen, then, that organisms exhibit an outward orientation to-
ward a twofold transcendent horizon: toward the horizon of the outer
world as the source of material for the sustenance of its form and toward
the horizon of the future into which it is ever on the verge of extending by
its existence as a continuous process of becoming. But life also must be
characterized by an internal horizon, a self-integrating identity of the
whole, spanning the succession of ever-vanishing substrata. There is no
way of inferring this internal horizon from external characterization alone;
it must derive from our own immediate experience of the organic mode of
being. But it is the only way by which the self-integrative persistence of a
metabolizing organism can be explained. The mode of realization of an
inorganic entity can be explained by its external relations alone, but the
persisting self-identity calls for forms of process transcending mere exter-
nal relations.

Thus, the self-integrative persistence of the special form of process that
is an organism is characterized by an internal horizon that is indicative of
its possessing the quality of mind. Therefore, any view of the organismic
process that strives for completeness must take account of mind as a factor
entering into the process. If, then, mind is an element of the total process
comprising an organism, is it possible to explain the fact of organisms
without reference to the influence of mind? This amounts to saying, does
mind enter into the organism as a causative element in its existence, or is
this merely attributable to physical interactions? One can see that since
the states of mind do enter into the total plan of the organism, it follows
that it affects each subordinate component of the process, until the small-
est subordinate components, for instance electrons, are affected:

Thus an electron within a living body is different from an electron
outside it, by reason of the plan of the body; the electron blindly
runs either within or without the body; but it runs within the
body in accordance with its character within the body; that is to
say, in accordance with the general plan of the body, and this plan
includes the mental state. (Whitehead 1967, p. 79)

We have been examining heretofore some of the methodological as-
sumptions of science and have found, particularly with reference to the
classical notion of material, that many of these assumptions have a limited
application. The notion of material entities having simple location and
indefinite temporal divisibility, while apparently congruous with (some)
aspects of our daily experience, turns out to have the character of an ab-
straction when our observations focus on the minutest levels of submolec-
ular organization. We have found the characterization of material entities
as vibratory epochal processes to be more consistent with the discoveries
of quantum mechanics and have found that this model also opens the way
to the explanation of organisms and mind.

Perhaps we have arrived, then, at a point where we can suggest a basic
reformulation of the metaphysical basis of science. This suggestion is, first,
that science consider the event as the ultimate unit of natural occurrence,
and second, that in seeking to analyze the component elements of an
event, it should look for primary organisms rather than material parts. For
there is in nature virtually nothing that exhibits the classical attributes of a
material; nature is a process of processes, and processes within processes.
Accordingly, the analysis of nature should concern itself with the analysis
of aggregate processes into primary processes. Biology is concerned with
the larger processes that are organisms, whereas physics concerns the smaller
processes, which are likewise organisms, in that they experience a reference
to things past, immediate, and future. For the primary organisms, we ob-
serve this relation as a factor in its external aspects; for ourselves, we ob-
serve it as an element of our psychological field of awareness. But if we
experience, in experiencing ourselves as process, our essential relatedness to
other processes in other times and places, are we justified in denying this
experience to other, primary organisms? Is it not more affirmative to as-
sume that, in some sense, a primary organism, being a dynamical process,
is aware, or experiences itself as process and, to the extent that it does,
possesses itself an internal horizon? Of course, this question can never be
resolved by science, focusing as it does only on the external aspects of a
process. It seems reasonable, however, to postulate an element of mind,
that is, an internal horizon, as basically intrinsic to even the simplest pri-
mary organism. This postulate allows for the reintroduction of value and
teleology into nature. Clearly, nature appears to our common sense to have
purpose and value; it seems to evolve from simple to more complex, from
primitive to more advanced, from less conscious to more conscious. In-
deed, it appears to have direction, and it seems to have purpose, which
guides it in that direction. Yet, we are asked by science, in the face of all ev-
idence, all reason, and all intuition, to regard nature as purposeless, mean-
ingless, and valueless. If we admit mind as an aspect of even the most
primary organism, however, this vast complexity suddenly takes on an
added meaning; a new and deeper sublimity replaces that sense of baffling
futility and waste with which a blind universe confronts us.


---

(Note: Anyone who is seeking more information about the Holographic theory I presented in my Sync Book article, look no further than this next chapter. - Tommy)

Chapter 4
Toward a Holographic Theory of Mind

A philosophy of life comprises the philosophy of the organism and the philoso-
phy of mind. This is itself a first proposition of the philosophy of life, in fact
its hypothesis, which it must make good in the course of its execution. For the
statement of scope expresses no less than the contention that the organic even
in its lowest form prefigures mind, and that mind even on its highest reaches
remains part of the organic. (Jonas 1966, p. 1)

The central, in some ways the final, question in any philosophy of organ-
isms, which seeks to be complete, is the question of mind. Any thorough
explication of the phenomenon of life must face squarely the problem of
the existence of mind and must explain its qualities adequately in terms
that do not beg the question; that is, it cannot seek to understand the
nature of mind in physicochemical, reductionist terms. The insufficiency
of such an approach will inevitably betray itself, for just as the operations
of organisms cannot be reduced to the physicochemical properties of the
matter that composes them because they impose boundary conditions on
the incorporated matter in such a way that the operation of the material
organic system as a whole transcends the boundaries of physics and chem-
istry, so the same holds for mind on the next hierarchical level of organiza-
tion. It exhibits qualities peculiar to itself, such that it is not simply
reducible to events occurring in the organic matrix from which it arises, al-
though it certainly includes those events in the conditions of its organiza-
tion and functioning. This amounts to saying that mind is more than the
sum of its parts, just as the fact of a living organism is more than the sum
of its atoms and molecules and their interactions; in each case, an adequate
explanation must have recourse to a more comprehensive hierarchical level
of organization than the physicochemical level, in the case of organism,
and than the organic level, in the case of mind. The existence of an organ-
ism or of a mind imposes boundary conditions on the next lower level of
organization. Organisms and minds incorporate and yet transcend such
lower levels (M. Polanyi 1968).

The hierarchical structuring of organisms and minds implies that mind
cannot be totally explained through organic structure, having as it does
principles of organization that transcend the organic level; still, a problem
remains to be dealt with, that of the nature of the relationship between
mind and its physical matrix, a brain. That the organization of the mind
does partially reflect the physical organization of the brain can be seen by
anyone willing to accept the evidence of experimental neurophysiology.
The questions still to be answered are: What is the nature of the physical
interface of brain and mind? Where is this interface found in the neural
structure? and How does the organization of the brain reflect the organi-
zation of the mind? In recent years, neurophysiology has come a consider-
able distance toward answering these questions, particularly through its
discovery of the apparently holographic nature of brain-mind organiza-
tion. In this chapter, we intend to examine this holographic principle of
neural organization by outlining the state of empirical discoveries to date
in this area of research. Finally, we will venture some philosophical specu-
lations intended to suggest that the holographic structure of mind may
simply reflect, on one hierarchical level, a principle of organization pres-
ent at all levels in nature.



Holography is a young science whose enormous potential is only now
beginning to be explored, although its principles were first discovered acci-
dentally, in 1947, by Dr. Dennis Gabor in trying to design improvements
for the electron microscope. It was not until the advent of lasers, which
provided a coherent, concentrated light source, that the technology be-
came available that could implement the principles (cf. Pennington 1968,
pp. 40-49). Conventional holography is a technique for making lensless,
three-dimensional photographs, whose basis is fairly simple. A low-
intensity laser beam is passed through a semiopaque mirror, causing part
of the beam to pass through the mirror and illuminate the object to be
photographed. This light is then reflected from the object onto a photo-
graphic plate in front of the object. Simultaneously, the other part of the
beam is reflected off a series of mirrors such that it falls on the photo-
graphic plate at an angle to the beam reflected from the object (see fig. 1).
This convergence of the two beams of coherent light creates an interfer-
ence pattern that is recorded on the photographic plate. The image that is
recorded on the photographic plate, which is called the hologram (Gr.
Holos, whole), bears little resemblance to the object photographed; it is
merely a record of the interference pattern of the two intersecting beams.
When this hologram is reilluminated using a single, unsplit laser beam,
however, a unique phenomenon occurs: Floating in empty space just
beyond the illuminated hologram is a fully three-dimensional replica of
the object originally photographed. Such a holographic image does not
merely give the illusion of three-dimensionality; it is as three-dimensional
as the original object, can be viewed from any angle, will exhibit parallax
with other objects or holograms, and can be photographed with a conven-
tional camera. It is, in fact, indistinguishable from its original model by
vision alone and can only be so distinguished by passing one's hand or
other material object through the image to reveal that it is composed of
what in physics is called a standing waveform, an apparently motionless
arrangement of photons.

Holograms exhibit several other unique properties of particular rele-
vance to our discussion to follow. For instance, what are called volume
holograms have an as yet untapped potential for information storage. An
image can be recorded onto the hologram in the conventional manner de-
scribed; the plate can then be tilted slightly with respect to its recording
laser beams and the image of a second object reexposed onto the same
plate without disrupting the previously recorded image. The hologram
can then be decoded at angle I to yield an image of the first object, or at
angle 2 to yield the second object. A large number of separate objects can
thus be coded into a single hologram and replayed by illuminating the
hologram from the proper angles.

Another peculiar quality of holograms is that because the hologram
records a set of interference patterns, this pattern is distributed equally
and ubiquitously throughout the holographic plate, such that any part of
it embodies the whole image. In a conventional photograph, each point
from the scene corresponds to one point in the photograph; in a holo-
gram, each point is diffused to many points in the holographic plate.
Thus, one can take a hologram and tear it in half and then shine a laser on
one of the halves; the resulting image will be a reconstruction of the entire
object; if one then tears it into quarters and illuminates one of the quar-
ters, the result is still the same: The total image can be reconstructed from
any fragment of the hologram, right down to the very smallest chip of
the plate. In theory, a fragment of a hologram will yield a total image of the
object without significant loss of resolution unless the fragment is so small
as to approach the size of the wavelength of the illuminating beam. In
practice, however, the coarseness of the photographic emulsion will cause
a loss of detail considerably before this level is reached, so that while a
total image can be reconstructed from even a very small chip of a holo-
gram, if the chip is too minute, the image will be lacking in detail. Only
the details will be lost, however; the essence of the entire message will re-
main to the last. Similarly, if the hologram is layered (two or more im-
ages are recorded in the same hologram), each one of the images will be
preserved intact throughout each part of the hologram matrix.

We can thus distinguish two features of holography that make it unique
as an information storage device: The first is that any one of its parts is
equal to the sum of its parts, because the message is reduplicated ubiqui-
tously throughout every part of the hologram. If we had to formulate this
into a geometrical axiom, we would say that all points are cotangent. The
second feature is that the hologram records the essence of an object, and
thus, repeated superimposition of essences supplies the details, the particu-
larities, of the object when the total hologram is illuminated.

To understand the applicability of holographic principles to the organi-
zation of the brain, it is necessary to talk about memory. One of the para-
doxes of memory storage is that a person is born with practically all the
neurons that he or she will ever possess; whereas growth of normal tissue is
caused by cell division, the nerve cells do not divide, and, moreover, will
not regenerate if damaged, although the axon of a nerve cell can regenerate
provided the cell body containing the nucleus is undamaged. The problem
facing scientists investigating memory and learning has been one of under-
standing how the brain can store memories and learned information with
apparently no alteration of neural organization; how can new information
be stored in the brain in the absence of nerve-cell reproduction? The prob-
lem has been a baffling one for scientists searching for engrams, or memory
traces, some evidence of a neural reorganization corresponding to a stored
input of information.

This paradox was partially resolved by Karl Lashley (cf. Lashley 1950,
pp. 454-482) when he demonstrated that under certain conditions of pro-
longed or repeated stimulation, the nerve cell can multiply its production
of nerve fibers, thus creating new synaptic junctions without actual repro-
duction of the cells. This can occur in the following manner: The nerve
cells ordinarily are surrounded and prevented from growing new fibers by
encasing cells called glia. It has been found (Pribram 1971a, p. 471), how-
ever, that electrical stimulation of a nerve synapse triggers the production
of specific molecules of RNA, which have been found to cause (or at least
to be correlated with) heightened metabolic activity of the glial cells, thus
encouraging them to divide; the tip of the neuron fiber is then free to grow
between the daughter glial cells to form new contacts with the neurons be-
yond it. In this way, the synaptic microstructure can be modified by expe-
rience; an interrelated set of such modified neuronal synapses can
constitute the neural engram, the encoded memory trace. The result of
this process is that the brain develops a kind of neural model of the envi-
ronment, a spatiotemporal pattern of organization against which inputs
are constantly matched.

One aspect of the neuronal storage process had still to be understood.
Granted that an input of new information elicited the production of
a new set of neural junctions, which when restimulated decoded itself as a
memory or learned behavior, the question yet remained as to whether
there was a one-for-one correspondence between each part of the memory
or perception, or was the memory and/or perception distributed equally
throughout every part of the synaptic microstructure? In other words,
does one nerve cell, for instance, comprise some fragment of the total ex-
perience, one bit of information that will be lost to the whole if that
nerve cell is damaged? Or does each and every part of the synaptic en-
gram simultaneously contain all bits of the whole experience? Experi-
ments performed by Lashley, in which large areas of the cerebrum of rats
were destroyed without significantly impairing learning or recognition,
indicate that the latter case is the truer one. Lashley found that, while in-
tensity of recall was in proportion to the mass of the brain, nothing short
of removal of the entire cerebrum could interrupt recall altogether. Thus
he was led to postulate the principles of mass action and equipotentiality
in his theory of memory: Intensity of recall depends on the total mass of
the brain, but memory is recorded ubiquitously throughout the cere-
brum. Here, at last, we begin to gain a glimpse of the relevance of holog-
raphy in neural organization. As in a hologram, the meaning—stored
memory or learned information—appears to be stored ubiquitously
throughout the cerebral matrix rather than to be caused by the interrela-
tionship of separate parts. This is the implication, at least, of experiments
in which the disruption of the electrical field of the brain, using alumi-
num hydroxide cream, failed to impair pattern discrimination, while sur-
gical removal of large sections failed to impair memory, learning, or
recognition. (Pribram 1971b, p. 47f.)

These experiments appear to demonstrate that memories and learned
behavior have multiple representation in the cortex; in other words, the
information is stored redundantly in the neural matrix so that removal or
disruption of part of the cortex will not distort the message stored in an-
other part. Redundant storage, however, is still not equivalent to holo-
graphic storage. The redundant system can be compared to a stack of
several hundred photocopies of the same message; when part of the stack
is removed, the message still resides in the rest of the stack. Ablation of the
cortex is analogous to removing part of the stack of pages. If, however, we
took the stack of photocopies, threw them up in the air, tore some into
fragments, and glued them back together at random, the conventional
message, even though redundant, would be disrupted; but if we had per-
formed this operation on a stack of holograms, no amount of random
shuffling, tearing, and repasting would disrupt the message, because the
entire message resides in each of the parts and does not depend on the re-
lationship between parts. If the brain truly is capable of storing informa-
tion in a holographic fashion, not only would it be unaffected by cortical
ablation, but it should not be disrupted by a random rearrangement of its
anatomy. Experiments involving just such an anatomical shuffle of parts
were carried out by Dr. Paul Pietsch, using cortical sections from salaman-
ders. The theory was that such shuffling of cortical parts would not dis-
rupt normal salamander behavior if the holographic theory were true:

In more than 700 operations, I rotated, reversed, added, sub-
tracted, and scrambled brain parts. I shuffled. I reshuffled. I sliced,
lengthened, deviated, shortened, opposed, transposed, juxtaposed,
and flipped. I spliced front to back with lengths of spinal cord, or
medulla, with other pieces of brain turned inside out. But nothing
short of dispatching the brain to the slopbucket—nothing
expunged feeding! . . . The experiments had subjected the holo-
graphic theory to a severe test. As the theory predicted, scrambling
the brains anatomy did not scramble its programs. Meaning was
contained within the parts, not spread out among their relation-
ships. If I wanted to change behavior, I had to supply not a new
anatomy, but new information. (Pietsch 1972, pp. 46, 48)

The clincher to these encouraging results came when Pietsch trans-
planted the brain of a tadpole to the cranium of a salamander. While the
salamander is a traditional predator on the tubifex worm, the tadpole is
symbiotic to it, using its sucker mouth to remove algae from the flanks of
the tubifex without harming it. Pietsch found that the salamander with the
transplanted tadpole brain mimicked the tadpole, and in more than eigh-
teen hundred trials, the salamander did not once attack the tubifex: The
transplanted herbivorous brain had carried its holographic set of peaceful
behavior patterns right into the salamander's cranium. Vindication of the
holographic theory of information storage was complete.

Two questions remain to be answered. Granting that the cerebrum can
store information in a manner analogous to holographic storage, then
what mechanism in the brain can function in the role of the interference
pattern set up by the two encoding laser beams in normal holography, and
what mechanism functions in the role of the single decoding beam used
for retrieval of the holographic image?

The key to answering the first question lies in the understanding that
holography does not depend on the physical presence of light waves.
Holograms have been constructed from sound waves and even infrared
waves. R. W. Rodieck (cf. Pribram 1969, p. 77) has shown that the mathe-
matical equations describing the holographic process match exactly what
the brain does with information, and computer simulations of holo-
graphic storage have been carried out on the basis of the equations (con-
volutional integrals and Fourier transformations) alone. It is not the
presence of physical waves, as such, that is needed for making a hologram,
but rather an interference pattern, a ratio of harmonic relationships:

The question remains: how can interference effects be produced
in the brain? One can imagine that when nerve impulses arrive
at synapses (the junction between two nerve cells), they produce
electrical events on the other side of the synapse that take the
form of momentary standing wave fronts. Typically the junctions
made by a nerve fiber number in the dozens, if not hundreds.
The patterns set up by arriving nerve impulses presumably form a
microstructure of wave forms that can interact with similar micro-
structures arising in overlapping junctional contacts. These other
microstructures are derived from the spontaneous changes in
electrical potential that ceaselessly occur in nerve tissue, and from
other sources within the brain. Immediate cross-correlations
result, and these can add in turn to produce new patterns of nerve
impulses.

The hypothesis presented here is that the totality of this process
has a more or less lasting effect on protein molecules and perhaps
other macromolecules at the synaptic junctions and can serve as a
neural hologram from which, given the appropriate input, an
image can be reconstructed. (Pribram 1969, p. 77)

The long-known functional areas of the brain, such as Broca's area
(speech cortex), the visual cortex at the back of the brain, or the auditory
cortex at the sides, may function as the mechanism for reconstruction of
a stored neural hologram to yield a memory, perception, or thought. These
areas are known to have a function in various modes of behavior and per-
ception, and for many years it was thought that they were storage sites re-
lating to specific functions such as speech, vision, hearing, and so on. In
the holographic theory, these centers would act not to store information,
but rather as processing stations for the encoding and recalling of pro-
grams from the holographic storage areas of the cerebral cortex. Thus,
these functional centers could operate in the role of the reconstructing
laser beam; whether the memory or perception was experienced visually,
auditorily, tactually, or as some combination would depend on what cen-
ters were activated in reconstruction, a process that would be equivalent to
using lasers of different wavelengths in reconstruction.

What kind of neural mechanism plays the role of the coherent
light source to make and display holograms? Perhaps a kind of
coherence results from the anatomical fact that the retina and
visual cortex are linked by many thousands of fibers arranged in
parallel pathways. Or it could be that the nerve cells in the visual
channel achieve coherence by rhythmic firing. Still another possi-
bility is that coherence results from the operation of the variety
of detectors that respond to such simple stimuli as the tilt of a line
and movement. . . (Pribram 1969, p. 77)

It is not possible to outline entirely the present state of experimental
and theoretical evidence centering on holographic neural organization.
Many areas of uncertainty still exist in current research that, it is to be
hoped, will yield to scientific understanding in the near future. One such
area is split-brain research, focusing on investigating the brains operation
when the corpus callosum, the intermediary pathway between the left and
right cerebral hemispheres, has been severed. Certain results of this research
suggest that each hemisphere records only specific kinds of information, a
finding that would tend to contradict the holographic theory of ubiquitous
storage; other theorists suggest that this may only indicate unequal access
to information in the right hemisphere, rather than unequal storage. A de-
finitive answer awaits further research. There is no doubt that other objec-
tions could be leveled at the holographic theory that have not been met by
us as laypersons. It seems clear, however, that the principles of neural orga-
nization do bear some significant similarities to holography, although it
would of course be presumptuous to claim that holography explains all as-
pects of brain organization. No such claim is made here; we seek only to
provide a basic understanding of the (probably) fundamental role played
by holographic structuring in the present picture of neural organization.

The interested reader should examine Karl Pribram's Languages of the Brain
(1971) for the current status of holographic theories of brain function.
Let us now turn to the more philosophical and speculative aspect of
this theory of mind. Granted that holography reflects in part the structure
and organization of the brain, and granted also that the brain and its
structure will in part reflect the nature of the mind arising from it, it fol-
lows therefore that the mind itself must in some sense be holographically
structured. The questions we must ask then are: (1) In what sense is the
mind holographically structured, and (2) why should it be so structured?



Let us illustrate the first question with a diagram representing mind-
world interaction. We can represent this interaction by two overlapping
circles, or realms, which we designate as A and B (fig. 2). Circle A
represents the physical world. Circle B represents the mind; this is the
seat of thoughts, will, creativity: in short, circle B comprises the experi-
encing self, which, through the brain-body liaison, makes its causal pres-
ence felt in the external world. We can think of circle B as existing in the
temporal dimension; it is a process developing through time, much in the
way that a piece of music develops through the temporal process of being
played. The realm where the two circles overlap, which we call C, forms
the region of interface between the physical world and the mind. Realm
C corresponds to the brain-body system; it forms the pathway by which
the mind receives information (perception), and also the mechanism by
which it responds to its perceptions. The comparison to holography that
this suggests can be made through analogy; the brain-body system repre-
sented by realm C is comparable to the physical apparatus necessary for
generating a hologram; the brain in this analogy is equivalent to the ex-
posed holographic plate; the body, with its afferent and efferent path-
ways, acts as the laser system, both receiving (perceiving) information and
encoding this information into the neural holographic plate. Realm B, in
this analogy, the realm of states of consciousness, is then comparable to
the actual holographic image, the standing wave form of ongoing aware-
ness. Circle A, which includes external reality and the subjectively experi-
enced state of the body, forms the subject, which becomes encoded
through receptors and afferent pathways into the neural holographic
plate, where it is then reconstructed as part of realm B, that part of
realm B representing its model of the external world. So far, this anal-
ogy lacks the notion of temporal flux. The interactions between the mind
and the body, and through the body with the external world, consist of
dynamic processes. The analogy with holography is more accurate if we
think of the process as a holographic movie rather than as a static, frozen
image. In this dynamic version, the neural hologram (the brain) is con-
tinually exposed and reexposed to the changing environment, thus en-
coding a constantly shifting set of interference patterns that are read out
as a temporally unfolding hologram, that is, the mind, with its constantly
shifting model of reality and associated thoughts, memories, images,
and reflections.

The holographic capacity of the mind for ubiquitous storage of infor-
mation can be seen most readily in the phenomenon of imagination. We
can imagine all of the universe or any part of it and thus can say that the
mind contains all of the physical world, that is, that the mind is a holo-
gram of external reality. This concept has been anticipated by the al-
chemists in their notion of man as microcosm, and also in the symbol of
the alchemical monad (cf. Jung 1952, pp. 103-104, 370), a synonym for the
Lapis Philosophorum, that part in which the whole may be found. Refer-
ence might also be made to the central axiom of Hermeticism, the Hel-
lenistic philosophical system that is the forerunner of alchemy: What is
here is everywhere; what is not here is nowhere (cf. Jung 1952). This is a
formula for a holographic matrix.

The complex symbol systems of alchemy are but one example of a
property that seems to characterize mind in general; that is, its tendency to
construct symbolic totality metaphors. The constructs of the mind are, by
and large, couched in symbols; even raw sensory data is seldom experi-
enced without symbolic interpretations, associations, and judgments. This
tendency of the mind to symbolize, to organize experience into meaning-
ful, coherent pattern is indicative of its ceaseless effort to somehow en-
compass reality, to construct a suitable model of self and world. This
quality of mind is seen best of all, however, in the dynamics of uncon-
scious processes, in dreams, vision, and trance; indeed, the individuation
process in Jungian psychology represents an attempt by the unconscious to
construct a totality symbol that both encompasses and defines the self and
the world in relation to the self. Jung has shown in numerous works (cf.
1952, 1959) the important role played by mandala symbolism as a means
for expressing the underlying order of psychic unity and totality. This
property of symmetrical, mandalic organization is found universally in all
artifacts of human thought, from the most abstract metaphysical systems
to the commonest objects of everyday use, and it, indeed, appears to be in-
trinsic to the organization of the psyche. May not this proclivity of the
mind to elaborate symbolic totality metaphors be reflective of the holo-
graphic structure of the psyche?

The unformed archetypes of the collective unconscious may be the
holographic substrate of the species' mind. Each individual mind-brain
is then like a fragment of the total hologram; but, in accordance with
holographic principles, each fragment contains the whole. It will be re-
membered that each part of a hologram can reconstruct an entire image,
but that the details of the image will deteriorate in proportion to its frag-
mentation, while the overstructure will remain. Out of this feature of
holography arises the quality of individual point of view and, in fact, in-
dividuality itself. If each mind is a holographic medium, then each is
contiguous with every other, because of the ubiquitous distribution of in-
formation in a hologram. Each individual mind would thus be a repre-
sentation of the essence of reality, but the details could not be resolved
until the fragments of the collective hologram were joined.

We have seen that the construction of an immaterial corpuscular stand-
ing waveform image from the physical substrate of the holographic plate
is closely analogous to the generation of the mind from the holographic
cerebral substrate. We will mention some other qualities of a hologram
that indicate its suitability as a model of mind. One example is the recon-
struction of a hologram using nonvisible light; this is perfectly possible
and in the mind would constitute an unconscious content. Another inter-
esting quality of holograms is that they can be constructed using laser
beams reflected from two objects, which then interfere on the holographic
plate; when the hologram is then reilluminated using one beam, both ob-
jects appear. Thus we can say that holographic matrices have the property
of associative recall.

The list of examples could be extended; however, these should illustrate
our point—that the mind itself, as well as the brain from which it arises,
does, to some extent, exhibit holographic qualities. Let us now venture to
speculate how and why this might be so.

Confronted with certain holographic qualities as a feature of both
mind and brain, it seems reasonable to ask whether holographic principles
are found on other levels of organization. We can find this most appar-
ently in the organismic realm, in the fact of the ubiquity and redundancy
of DNA. We refer to the fact that DNA seems to store information holo-
graphically, in that the nucleotide sequence of the molecule is identical in
every cell of a given organism. The DNA from one cell theoretically con-
tains all the information necessary to regenerate the entire organism. It is
due to the presence of certain inductors (notably RNA) that DNA
makes some cells into skin, others into nerves, and still others into mus-
cles, and so on. Thus, on the organismic level, also, we note the ubiquity
of genetic information, but also that each cell reads only some part of
the DNA-hologram, though the entire message is there.

When we descend to an even more basic level of organization, the
atomic level, the holographic metaphor is not so readily apparent. We are
essentially asking whether a holographic structure underlies the nature of
external reality itself. If this could be shown, it would explain why holo-
graphic structure is reflected in the organization of DNA, the brain, and
mind. We find that we have been preceded in our speculations by Leib-
niz, in his concept of the cosmic Monad (cf. Leibniz 1890, pp. 218ff).
Leibniz argues that the universe is a plenum, and that it is composed of a
simple substance that is everywhere and alike in all its parts, and that it
is by virtue of the affectations and interactions between these parts, or
monads, that distinctness and particularity arise:

. . . Each monad, its nature being representative, nothing can limit
it to representing only a part of things; although it may be true
that this representation is but confused as regards the detail of the
whole universe, and can be distinct only in the case of a small part
of things, that is to say, in the case of those which are nearest or
largest in relation to each of the monads—otherwise each monad
would be a divinity. It is not in the object, but only in the modifi-
cation of the knowledge of the object that monads are limited.
They all tend confusedly toward the infinite, toward the whole,
but they are limited, and distinguished by their degrees of distinct
perceptions . . . (Leibniz 1890, pp. 223, 226-228)

Leibniz is saying that each monad is identical to every other monad,
differing only by its perspective, its relation to the whole, that is, to
other monads, each of which mirrors every other. A similar idea is en-
countered in Whitehead's concept of the extensive continuum, which
he characterizes as a relational complex in which all potential objectifica-
tions find their niche. This extensive continuum can be conceived as the
set of all possible relationships, both actual and potential, both of all ac-
tual and of all potential entities. The extensive continuum therefore
... expresses the solidarity of all possible standpoints throughout the
whole process of the world. It is not a fact prior to the world; it is the first
determination of order—that is, of real potentiality—arising out of the
general character of the world (Whitehead 1967, p. 82). The extensive
continuum can thus be viewed as a holographic matrix of all potentiality.
Only a finite number of potentialities ever become realized as actual enti-
ties, in the same way that a holographic plate in which multiple images
have been stored at different orientations can be decoded at some an-
gles, but not at others:

In the mere continuum there are contrary potentialities; in the
actual world there are definite atomic actualities determining one
coherent system of real divisions throughout the region of actual-
ity. Each actual entity in its relationship to other actual entities is
in this sense somewhere in the continuum, and arises out of the
data provided by this standpoint. But in another sense it is every-
where throughout the continuum; for its constitution includes the
obj ectifications of the actual world and thereby includes the con-
tinuum; also the potential objectifications of itself contribute to
the real potentialities whose solidarity the continuum expresses.
Thus the continuum is present in each actual entity, and each
actual entity pervades the continuum. (Whitehead 1967, p. 83)

Quantum theory gives a view of the underlying substructure of reality
that is quite consistent with the holographically structured metaphysical
models of Leibniz and Whitehead. The particulate concept of matter has
been superseded by the idea that the atom is both wave and particle, both
continuum and actual entity. Bohr was the first to show that the electron,
the basic subunit of matter, could not be considered to have a spatiotem-
poral location (around the nucleus of an atom, for example), but instead
had to be mathematically approached as a cloud of probability: The free
electron possesses a mass coincident with the entire universe, and its oc-
currence at a given space-time locus is a function of extreme possibility,
not of definable position. This quantum concept of the electron is strik-
ingly reminiscent of the Leibnizian monad, that is both here and every-
where at once. Under the quantum theory, each quantum of matter is
both wave and particle and pervades the universe; there is no solid matter
as such, but only probability densities in the continuum, interference pat-
terns created by the interaction of quanta that, to the synthesizing percep-
tual mechanism in the brain-mind, appear as objects— actual entities
—rocks, tables, people, stars, and so on. Thus, a holographic image of re-
ality is reconstructed by the brain-mind from the underlying substrate of
concrescences of probability. Note the similarity here to the potentiality of
Whitehead's extensive continuum.

Would such a model of a holographic extensive continuum be inconsis-
tent with the theory of relativity? If all points reflect every other point,
and if all points are cotangent, as implied by a holographic theory of a
quantum-monad, then how can the relativity of space-time be preserved?
The objection is overcome if we postulate that space-time exists within each
monad (quantum); thus, each wave-particle would have relativistic effects
operating within it. A collection of such quanta (a galaxy, for instance)
would also have relativistic effects, resulting from the superimposition of
the space-time events occurring in each of its monadic parts. Remember
that in a holographic monadology not only does each part mirror the whole
but the whole (or any fragment thereof) mirrors each part; thus, we would
expect relativistic effects on all levels, from the quantum to the cosmic.

The example of hierarchical cosmic sub-structures (Wilson 1969)
shows that levels may be distinguished by a characteristic time or
frequency, which is to say that each level is temporally closed. This
suggests that the propetties of space and time are closure proper-
ties of structures, bringing to mind the basic idea of Leibniz that
space and time have no independent existence, but derive from
the nature of structures. Einstein's equivalence of dynamics and
geometry contained in his field equations (e.g., matter and density
determines spatial curvature) is also consistent with Leibniz's view
and a departure from the Newtonian idea that all structure exists
within an independent framework of space and time. It may then
be that from the various closures and partial closures of structures
and systems, we infer the descriptions we call space and time . . .
(Whyte et al. 1969, p. 55)

We can see that while relativity would operate in each monad, and in
the universe as monad, the extensive continuum of potentiality would
exist outside of space-time in a fifth Einsteinian dimension. Space-time,
and the relativistic effects arising therefrom, would exist as properties of
actual entities existing in the extensive continuum, but the continuum it-
self, underlying the configurations of three dimensions, would exhibit the
quality of simultaneity, as, in some sense, the holographic matrix of po-
tentiality would make all times simultaneous.

Let us now summarize the factual and speculative ground we have covered
in our holographic theory of mind. We began by noting the special quali-
ties of holography and went on to illustrate that the organization of the
brain seems to be in part holographic. We have introduced evidence which
suggests that the mind itself is holographic in quality and to that extent re-
flects its neural substrate. We have speculated that this holographic struc-
ture of the mind may proceed from the fact that holographic principles
operate on many structural levels; the ubiquity and redundancy of DNA
in organisms was mentioned as an illustration of this. We found that holo-
graphic principles might also be applied to the structure of reality itself by
virtue of the quantum nature of matter, whose wave-particle qualities sug-
gest a holographic monad. Finally, we saw that such a holographic model
of reality did not violate the laws of relativity if it were postulated that the
monadic substrate existed in a fifth Einsteinian dimension, that is, a fourth
spatial dimension. We are not prepared to assert the truth of our specula-
tions over other models of reality, recognizing that all such models are ulti-
mately constructs of the human mind, each no truer than any other.
Nevertheless, a holographic picture of mind and of external reality has en-
hanced our understanding of both."