# Where is reality? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 19, 2011, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-reality/603417 "2011-11-19T04:05:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2011, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-reality/603417/21 "2011-11-20T22:15:12Z")
Just on the off chance that anybody wants to quit making fun of the OP: I have heard from some reputable physicist that the universe may be some sort of hologram like entity. The details are so vague in my mind I could hardly attempt explain the theory behind it. Maybe we could speak to that? Or we could just keep making fun of the OP. That’s always classy. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2011, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-reality/603417/22 "2011-11-20T22:36:16Z")
As to the photons in the OP, the best (though unsatisfying) answer that modern physics gives us is that it’s a fallacy to think of a photon as a tiny particle with a well-defined classical position at any given time. Same goes for all the ultimate subatomic “particles” that matter is composed of. Now if you’re wondering how these nebulous quanta can somehow make macroscopic objects whose reality does seem certain, then the best (unsatisfying) answer that modern physics gives us is “Well now, that’s a really good question…” The best advice I have to offer is Quantum Physics != solipsism. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2011, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-reality/603417/23 "2011-11-20T22:54:16Z")
> [@Shakes](#): > > Just on the off chance that anybody wants to quit making fun of the OP: > > I have heard from some reputable physicist that the universe may be some sort of hologram like entity. > > The details are so vague in my mind I could hardly attempt explain the theory behind it. > > Maybe we could speak to that? > > Or we could just keep making fun of the OP. That’s always classy. It has something to do with the universe being a holographic projection where the actual “information” resides on the “shell” of the universe… or something. I read an article not too long ago attempting to explain this, and for a fleeting moment I grasped it somewhen, but now it’s gone. I believe it also predicted that the “resolution” of the quantum realm was grainer than we think now, and that it might open the possibility to detect things we though were on a a much smaller scale. Or something. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2011, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-reality/603417/24 "2011-11-20T22:59:13Z")
> [@](#): > > Just on the off chance that anybody wants to quit making fun of the OP: > > I have heard from some reputable physicist that the universe may be some sort of hologram like entity. > > The details are so vague in my mind I could hardly attempt explain the theory behind it. > > Maybe we could speak to that? > > Or we could just keep making fun of the OP. That’s always classy. Plausible (though I think it might have been recently disproved), but if that were the case, then it would not be possible to express the position of that “real plane” in any way meaningful to us. You can’t just say “it’s ten miles that way”, or anything like that. Trying to ask that question is like being in a video game and asking where, in the game world, the computer’s graphics card is. ---
**Author:** ![David42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5f9b8f/32.png) [@David42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David42)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2011, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-reality/603417/25 "2011-11-20T23:10:44Z")
The idea that I’m not real but just a reflection is absurd. Why I would be aware if I were some kind of reflection makes no sense. This is an absurd hypotheses. Having nothing but someone’s imagination that this is so, it doesn’t even rise to the level of a theory. It might make a cool sci-fi Matrix type movie though. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2011, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-reality/603417/26 "2011-11-20T23:23:06Z")
> [@cmyk](#): > > It has something to do with the universe being a holographic projection where the actual “information” resides on the “shell” of the universe… or something. . . . It seems to be a generalization of the idea – much better supported mathematically – that the “information” that is lost when an object falls into a black hole is not actually lost, but is maintained, somehow, on the surface of the black hole’s event horizon. The information is “holographic” – it is a mathematical summary of the information. The advantage of this idea is that information is never actually lost, which would (I think I’m close to getting this right) otherwise be a violation of one of the treasured laws of thermodynamics. > [@David42](#): > > The idea that I’m not real but just a reflection is absurd. Why I would be aware if I were some kind of reflection makes no sense. This is an absurd hypotheses. Having nothing but someone’s imagination that this is so, it doesn’t even rise to the level of a theory. It might make a cool sci-fi Matrix type movie though. Well, isn’t it also “absurd” that 99.99% of your body is “empty space?” And yet, to the best of our ability to understand it, it’s true. Modern physics has left common sense reeling in the dust. Long ago. To quote Longfellow, “Hardly a Man is Now Alive”…who remembers the day that classical physics died. ---
**Author:** ![David42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5f9b8f/32.png) [@David42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David42)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2011, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-reality/603417/27 "2011-11-20T23:43:48Z")
The idea that I’m not real but just a reflection is absurd. Why I would be aware if I were some kind of reflection makes no sense. This is an absurd hypotheses. Having nothing but someone’s imagination that this is so, it doesn’t even rise to the level of a theory. It might make a cool sci-fi Matrix type movie though. ---
**Author:** ![David42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5f9b8f/32.png) [@David42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David42)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2011, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-reality/603417/28 "2011-11-20T23:51:20Z")
Sorry about the duplicated post there, having connection issues and I thought it hadn’t posted. Now I look like I’m arguing by simply repeating myself. Mods, please remove the second post. thx. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2011, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-reality/603417/29 "2011-11-21T01:36:23Z")
> [@David42](#): > > The idea that I’m not real but just a reflection is absurd. Why I would be aware if I were some kind of reflection makes no sense. This is an absurd hypotheses. Having nothing but someone’s imagination that this is so, it doesn’t even rise to the level of a theory. It might make a cool sci-fi Matrix type movie though. You say this and say this, and yet you still dispute that you’re a reflection that thinks it’s real. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Consensus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3be4f8/32.png) [@Consensus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Consensus)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2011, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-reality/603417/30 "2011-11-21T01:48:28Z")
If the reflection is all we know then that reflection becomes our reality. Do you feel lighter knowing most of your matter is actually empty? ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2011, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-reality/603417/31 "2011-11-21T06:01:16Z")
Here’s a [Wired article](http://m.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/10/holometer-universe-resolution/) about a holographic universe. ---
**Author:** ![DHMO](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecc23a/32.png) [@DHMO](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DHMO)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2011, 9:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-reality/603417/32 "2011-11-21T09:16:57Z")
Noted physicist and author Brian Greene addresses the theory (not original with him, by the way) of a holographic view of reality in his book and PBS NOVA series _[The Fabric of the Cosmos](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/physics/fabric-of-cosmos.html#fabric-of-cosmos)._ The general idea is that as matter falls into a black hole, the information content of the infalling material gets “spread out” on the “surface” of the event horizon. In theory, the information could be “recovered” from the surface using a technique not unlike recovering an image from a hologram. By extension, the information content of our Universe might be “spread out” on its “surface,” recoverable in much the same way, and having similar attributes to a hologram. The limits to the Universe, however, are such that there is no way to “get at” this information in any—even theoretical—way. After this tangential contact with genuine physics theory, the OP spirals into a drug-induced haze of surreality, kind of a Salvador Dali-meets-M. C. Escher. The Dual-Slit experiment is a classic demonstration of the wave/particle duality theory in Quantum Mechanics. It has been explained and confirmed many, many times. To cast the experiment as dealing with the “life” of a single photon goes way beyond the limits of even pseudo-science. By one way of thinking, since time slows down as one’s velocity approaches the “Speed of Light” in a vacuum, and since photons are massless particles moving at light speed, the photon can be generated and travel the entire diameter of the Universe with no time passing in its own frame of reference. To speak of the “life span” of a photon as if it was “alive”, and that the behavior of the photon changes because it “dies”, after traveling the distance across the experimental apparatus of a meter or two, is too woo-woo out there to even address. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2011, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-reality/603417/33 "2011-11-21T23:42:10Z")
Is this the real life? ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2011, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-reality/603417/34 "2011-11-22T00:05:32Z")
I’ve heard the universal hologram is pornographic! ---
**Author:** ![Nancarrow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c37758/32.png) [@Nancarrow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nancarrow)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2011, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-reality/603417/35 "2011-11-22T00:21:02Z")
> [@Esox\_Lucius](#): > > You mean if I don’t look at the moon, the tide won’t come in? Or go out. You can’t explain that. I’m so sorry. ---
**Author:** ![Esox\_Lucius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/848f3c/32.png) [@Esox\_Lucius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esox_Lucius)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2011, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-reality/603417/36 "2011-11-22T05:43:19Z")
😃 Apology accepted, Bill. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![ch4rl3s](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c4cdca/32.png) [@ch4rl3s](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ch4rl3s)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2011, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-reality/603417/37 "2011-11-24T13:53:46Z")
> [@HolographicBill](#): > > So a single photon ‘shot’ through a dual slit board shows up twice, three times??? Don’t know why. See it leave and see it hit but miss its travel? Then when the equipment is moved closer it ‘acts’ normal? No one photon hits the screen in more than one place. There are just places on the screen where the photon is more likely to land and places where it is practically prohibited from landing. And only in firing multiple photons at the screen does that pattern emerge. [QUOTE=DHMO] Noted physicist and author Brian Greene addresses the theory (not original with him, by the way) of a holographic view of reality in his book and PBS NOVA series The Fabric of the Cosmos. [/QUOTE] Watched it. Loved it. It’s on again currently, and I’m watching it again. Agree with everything else you wrote, too. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2011, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-reality/603417/38 "2011-11-24T15:56:04Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > I’ve heard the universal hologram is pornographic! Well, that explains why it expanded so quickly. Like DVD players. ---
**Author:** ![Goosie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@Goosie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Goosie)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2011, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-reality/603417/39 "2011-11-24T19:46:17Z")
Science tells us about physical reality. It cannot tell us about any non-physical realities. Since non-physical realities cannot be investigated by science, they do not exist. End of story. Is this true? ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2011, 8:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-reality/603417/40 "2011-11-25T08:33:51Z")
Define non-physical realities. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-reality/603417.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-reality/603417.md?page=3)