Holograms

Last but not least, we reach our physicist David Bohm. Bohn possesses something of the folds of Leibniz with his Wholeness and the Implicate Order:

…a new notion of order, that may be appropriate to a universe of unbroken wholeness. This is the implicate or enfolded order. In the enfolded order space and time are no longer the dominant factors determining the relationships of dependence or independence of different elements. (31)

Understanding many of the structures in Kabbalah in their psychological register contributes to this overcoming of space-time as the determining factor of various relationships. Consequently, wholeness beyond the mathematical concept, runs aground in the relationship between Holy and wholly. In Bohm’s typical style he points out that:

It is instructive to consider that the word ‘health’ in English is based on the Anglo-Saxon word ‘hale’ meaning ‘whole’: that is, to be healthy is to be whole, which is, I think, roughly the equivalent of the Hebrew ‘shalem’. Likewise, the English ‘holy’ is based on the same root as ‘whole’. All of this indicates that man has sensed always that wholeness or integrity is an absolute necessity to make life worth living. Yet, over the ages, he has generally lived in fragmentation. (32)

The defragmentation of the self and the universe spells the end to the subject-object split. For Bohm: “Thus, one can no longer maintain the division between the observer and the observed….” (33) All of the structures we have surveyed from R’ Chaim Vital allude to the underlying oneness of God or better yet, the underlying oneness of Godliness, the world and the human being. The Great Chain is constructed out of the letters of essential Divine name Havayah (which means Being or ultimate Reality). Worlds and cosmology, the powers of the soul and the unfolding of human consciousness are unfolded within the letters of this name as well. In short, the nature and function of the name Havayah eclipses the observer-observed distinction even in its initial molding of it (i.e. distinct levels or links in the chain that are nonetheless part of a single word or connected structure [the chain itself]).

In response to all the metaphors involving light in kabbalistic literature, it is worth examining some of the special properties that light commands (particularly when it comes to the constitution of holograms):

To indicate a new kind of description appropriate for giving primary relevance to implicate order, let us consider once more again the key feature of the functioning of the hologram, i.e., in each region of space, the order of a whole illuminated structure is ‘enfolded’ and ‘carried’ in the movement of light. (34)

If the light carries the hologram then Ayin Sof or endless light reflects the whole of the hologram. Likening the Torah to light would appear to imply that the Torah itself is a hologram.

To generalize so as to emphasize undivided wholeness, we shall say that what ‘carries’ an implicate order is the holomovement, which is an unbroken and undivided totality. In certain cases, we can abstract particular aspects of the holomovement (e.g., light, electrons, sound, etc.), but more generally, all forms of the holomovement merge and are inseparable. Thus, in its totality, the holomovement is not limited in any specifiable way at all. It is not required to conform to any particular order, or to be bounded by any particular measure. Thus, the holomovement is undefinable and immeasurable.

To give primary significance to the undefinable and immeasurable holomovement implies that it has no meaning to talk of a fundamental theory, on which all of physics could find a permanent basis, or to which all the phenomena of physics could ultimately be reduced. Rather, each theory will abstract a certain aspect that is relevant only in some limited context, which is indicated by some appropriate measure. (34)

This explains how a specific discourse or interpretation evokes only some aspects set relief and not the totality of the sprawling complex system with its myriad of details. Sure to doom any practical venture, the weight of the details becomes meaningful only in specific contexts when those particular details rise up as relevant (as Bohm would say).

Shifting shape without tearing mirrors the functionality of quasi-autonomous players freely flowing in a giant fluid. Like the swirls and whirlpools of the river, these complex patterns are the emerging of a new substratum from within a greater picture. They act out without breaking the nuptial bonds that gave them life in the first place. They mirror the stream within the stream as an inflection and fold.

Finally, whether by fold or fractal, hologram or interinclusion, the “infinitely complex task is set before us”:

As we have seen, when something is organized holographically, all semblance of location breaks down. Saying that every part of a piece of holographic film contains all the information possessed by the whole is really just another way of saying that the information is distributed non-locally. (35)

As interpreters we can read in many directions across space and time to fuel the Lurianic from Leibniz and Leibniz from the Lurianic, from Mandelbrot to Bohm and beyond, the old is very old and very new.

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