Holomovement

INFORMATION SELF-ORGANIZATION AND CONSCIOUSNESS
Towards a holoinformational theory of consciousness
Francisco Di Biase and Mário Sérgio F. Rocha
Dept. of Neurosurgery/Neurology and Computed Tomography SANTA CASA
Hospital (FDB), and Dept. of Electroencephalography and Brain Mapping (FDB),
Dept. of Psychology (MSFR), and Neurosciences Sector(FDB, MSFR), CLÍNICA DI
BIASE*, and UNIPAZ- International Holistic University, Brasília (FDB), and
Post-Graduation Dept., Faculdade de Filosofia Ciências e Letras, FERP - Rio
(FDB).

Key words: Consciousness, information, self-organization, complexity,
non-locality, holomovement.

Abstract
The authors propose a holoinformational view of consciousness wich incorporates
the classical concepts of information, negentropy, order, and organization
(Shannon, Wiener, Szilard, Brillouin), to the theories of self-organization and
complexity (Prigogine, Atlan, Jantsch, Kauffman).This holoinformational view of
consciousness also considers the recents developments of the physics of
information (Zureck, Stonier) with its new concepts of statistical entropy and
algorithmics entropy, the latter related to the number of bits being processed
in the mind of the observer. Such conceptual framework gives a
quantum-informational basis that is integrated to the logics of non-locality, to
the holomovement theory of David Bohm, and to the holonomic theory of brain
function developed by   Karl Pribram. They so  elaborate a synthesis in wich
consciousness is conceived as a non-local flow of meaningful
quantum-informational activity, interacting actively with each part of the
universe through the holomovement. A continuous process of expansion and
enfoldement of the cosmos, connecting in a holistic and indivisible way the
human mind to all  levels of the self-organizing universe.

*Rua Paulo de Frontin 280, Barra do Piraí, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, 27123120
The Tao obscures when we only stare at small fragments of the existence
Chuang-Tzu

Introduction
Models that try to explain the nature of consciousness, whether originary from
the neurosciences, medicine, psychology, physics, philosophy, computer sciences,
or religion, generally share the& cartesian-newtonian paradigm by insisting on
an approach exclusively reductionist, and/or on the dualism mind-matter. Such
reductionism/dualism’s dichotomy has been impairing the grasp of the true
essence of what consciousness is since the seventeenth century.
Hameroff (1994) believes that such dispute “may potentially be resolved by views
wich contend that conciousness has a distinct quality, but one wich  emerges
from brain processes wich can be accounted for by natural science”. As a
solution it proposes a consciousness model based upon the emergence of quantum
coherence in the neural microtubules, which he developed with Penrose (1996).
Models like this one, use a traditional interpretation of quantum mechanics, and
as Clarke shows(1995), “start from a basically quantum-mechanical position but
then impose modifications of the quantum formalism so as to ensure that the net
result  is  basically newtonian ...& strong emphasis is placed on the wave
function as the fundamental object of quantum theory and a “collapse” is invoked
to pass to a newtonian picture. As a result, they are very firmly bound to a
spatial picture.” By transforming the quantum logic into a newtonian logic, they
leave aside the non- locality function , quantum logic’s essence, and the
universe’s fundamental property - and, as we shall see, also consciousness
fundamental property.
Wilber (1997) considers that an integral theory of consciousness should embody
all the essential characteristics of the twelve main schools that study
consciousness, not as an ecleticism “but rather a thigtly integrated approach
that follows intrinsically from the holonic nature of the Kosmos”. Such holonic
nature of the Kosmos is based upon the self-organizing holoarchy described by
Jantsch (1980) that correlates the co-evolutionary interactions amongst the
microevolution of the holons (Koestler, 1967), to the macroevolution of its
collective/social forms. Wilber’s theory, however, leaves open what we consider
the key point in the understanding of consciousness, that is, the way by wich
information, order, negentropy,are transmitted amongst the infinite levels of
organization of the cosmic and brain holoarchy, giving meaning to them. This
common ground capable of integrating consciousness and cosmos in an ordered and
indivisible whole, can only be fulfilled by a holoinformational theory that
takes into consideration the non-local quantum-informational structure of
brain-universe interactions, and be also compatible with the theory of
relativity.
Wheeler (1990) and Chalmers (1995) realized how important the information is in
such context. Chalmers, by stating that information must be considered as an
essential  property of reality as matter and energy, and that “conscious
experience be considered a fundamental feature , irreducible to anything more
basic”. Wheeler, with its famous “the it from bit” concept that allows us to
unite information theory to consciousness and physics: “...every it - every
particle, every field of force, even the space-time continuum itself - derives
its function, its very existence, entirely - even if in some contexts,
indirectly - from the apparatus-elicited answers to yes-or-no questions, binary
choices, bits ”.
A more wide conception of order, organization, information and negentropy
(Wiener, 1948; Shannon, 1949; Szilard, apud Brillouin, 1959) is essential for
the development of a holoinformational model capable of integrating
consciousness to nature.
Leon Brillouin, in his famous theorem, showed the equivalence between
information and negentropy, and Norbert Wiener put this identity on the very
conceptual basis of cibernetics stating that “information represents negative
entropy”, and prophetically enphasizing that “information is information , not
matter or energy”.
Bateson (1972) defines information as “the difference that makes a difference”,
a conception that Chalmers (1996) retakes stating that this is “the natural way
to make the connection between physical systems and informational states”. The
equivalence/identity between order, negentropy and  information, is the way
that allows us to build upon and understand the whole irreducible and natural
flow of order transmission in the universe, organized  in a meaningful and
intelligent informational mode.  In the classical thermodynamic theory,  the
definition of order is probabilistic and dependant on  the entropy concept, wich
measures the degree of disorder of a system, leaving absent, or reducing much,
the immense wealth of natural meanings.
Self-organization and information
For Atlan (1972, 1979, 1983), as well as for us, “entropy shouldn’t be
understood as a disorder measure, but much more as a measure of complexity”(pg.
37, 1979). In order to do this, it is necessary to consider that the notion of
information implies a certain ambigüity, meaning the bit capacity of a physical
system (ex. Shannon), or the semantic content (meaning) conducted by the bits
during a communication. In the information theory, the organization, the order
expressed by the amount of information in the system (Shannon’s H function) is
the information measure that is missing to us, the uncertainty about the system
(cf. Brillouin). Relating this ambigüity, this unexpectedness, to the variety
and the non-homogeneity of the system, Atlan could solve certain logical
paradoxes of self-organization and complexity, widening Shannon’s theory.
Defining organization in a quantitatively formal mode, Atlan showed that the
system’s order corresponds to a commitment between the maximum informational
content (ie, the maximum variety) and the maximum redundancy, and showed also
that the ambigüity can be described as a noise function, or even a time one, if
we consider the time effects as related to the random factors accumulated by the
environment’s action. Such ambigüity, peculiar to self-organizing systems, can
be manifested in a negative way (“destructive ambigüity) with the classical
meaning of desorganizing effect, or in a positive way (“autonomy producer
ambigüity”) that acts by increasing the relative autonomy of a part of the
system in relation to the others, that is reducing the system’s natural
redundancy and increasing its informational content.
Atlan developed this self-organizing theory of complexity for biological
systems. Jantsch studying the evolution of the universe, showed that
cosmological evolution is also a self-organizing process, with the
microevolution of the individual systems (holons) co-evolving towards
macrosystemic collective structures better organized, with  a big reduction in
the amount of these collective systems. This whole self-organizing process
represents, actually, an universal expression of a bigger acquisition of variety
or informational content that, as Atlan demonstrated, is a consequence of a
reduction of redundancy in the totality of the system.
    Ilya Prigogine, Nobel Prize winner, developed an extension of thermodynamics
that shows how the second law can also allows the emergence of novel structures,
and indicates the ways in wich order can emerge from chaos. This type of
self-organization generates dissipative structures that are created and
maintained through the energy’s exchanges with the environment in
non-equilibrium conditions. These dissipative structures are dependants upon a
new order, called by Prigogine   order from fluctuations, which corresponds to a
“giant fluctuation” stabilized by the exchanges with the environment. In these
self-organizing processes the structure is maintained through an energy
dissipation, in  which the energy  displaces itself, simultaneously generating
the structure through a continuous process. The more complex the dissipative
structure, the more information is needed to  keep its interconnections, making
it consequently more vulnerable to the internal fluctuations, which means a
higher instability potential  and  higher reorganization possibilities. If
fluctuations are small, the system accomodates them and does not change its
organizational structure. If the fluctuations reach a critical size, however,
they cause a desequilibrium in the system, generating new intra-systemic
interactions and reorganization. “The old patterns interact between themselves
in new ways, and establish new connections . The parts reorganize themselves in
a new whole. The system reaches a higher order” (Prigogine, 1979).

Consciousness self-organization and information

   Seager (1995) states that consciousness, self-organization and information
connect themselves at the level of semantic significance, not at the level of
“bit capacity”, and that “as the classical theory of information is situated at
the level of  “bit capacity” it would seen unable to provide the proper
connection to consciousness”...and “we can begin to move towards a more radical
view of the fundamental nature of consciousness with a move towards a more
radical view of information”. Seager still reminds us that in the famous
two-slit experiment, and in the “quantum eraser” experiment, what is at stake is
not the bit capacity, but the semantically significant correlation of
information laden distinct physical systems, in a non-causal mode.
   Chalmers(1995) argues that each informational state has two different
aspects, one as conscious experience, and the other as a physical process in the
brain, that is, one internal/intentional and the other external/physical. This
view finds support in the present developments of the so-called “information
physics”, developed by the physician Wojciech Zureck (1990) and others, that
propose that the physical entropy would be a combination of two magnitudes that
compensate each  other: the observer’s ignorance, measured by Shannon’s
statistical entropy, and the disorder degree of the observed system, measured by
the algorythmic entropy which is the smallest number of bits needed to register
it in the memory. During the measurement, the observer’s ignorance is reduced,
as a result of the increase in bit numbers in its memory, remaining,
however,constant the sum of these two magnitudes, that is, the physical entropy.
   In this informational view of the universe, the observer remains included as
part of the system, and the quantum universe changes not because it was directly
influenced by the mind, but because the observer’s mind unleashed a transfer of
information at a subatomic level.  From this all results a  law of conservation
of information, as well as or more fundamental than the law of conservation of
energy. Stonier (1990) also identifies information with the structure and
organization of the universe, arguing that information is the cosmical
organizational principle with a “status” equal to matter and energy.
   In our holoinformational view we propose that what self-organizes
significantly the cosmical evolution is the relationship between the physical
entropy and the universe’s quantum-informational content, through a process in
wich the complexity using the pre-existing informational content reaches each
time higher organizational levels and variety. The complexity in the universe
grows gradually, from gravity and nuclear powers, intensifies with the emergence
of the self-organizing systems of the biosphere, and reachs an almost  infinite
antientropic state of complexity, variety and informational content with the
emergence of the noosphere.
   As we shall see soon ahead, there is a physical theory that has implicit in
its conceptual framework, besides the mechanistic local interactions, a
non-local quantum informational unfolding, that self-organizes matter, life and
consciousness in a meaningful way.
Consciousness’conception as something essential, primary and irreducible is also
found in the consciousness maps, obtained from  thousands of psychotherapeutics
reports and consistent and converging experiences, observed by several
researchers of the medical and psychological areas (Jung, 1959; Grof, 1985;
Moody Jr., 1976; Ring, 1980; Sabom, 1982; Kubler-Ross, 1983; Weiss, 1996). These
researchs works with persons submitted to altered states of consciousness,
through various methods, like hypnosis, relaxation, meditation, holotropic
breathing, near-to-death experiences, etc. Surprisingly, such  maps reveals “an
ontology and a cosmology in which consciousness cannot originate from, or be
explained in terms of any other thing . It is a primordial factor of existence
and from it emerges everything that exist” (Grof, in Capra, 1988).
The replication of these numerous clinical observations by researchers of
notorious scientifical reputation are extremely important data, many  times
despised. It consistently prove an irreducibility of consciousness, being one of
the few non-philosophical, non-religious and non-physical ways that allow us to
investigate and understand directly, “in totum”, the consciousness phenomenon,
in a controled scientifical way. Presently, there are available a series of
psychotechnologies that are usually ignored and/or marginalized by the academic
community, which allow us to use the human mind as a reliable system of
investigation and elucidation of the nature of consciousness, that are passibles
of replication an corroboration.
Nature, information and consciousness
It follows that  a holoinformational and self-organizing theory, capable of
integrating consciousness to the non-local quantum-informational tessitura of
the universe, can solve the question of consciousness nature. We understand like
Weil (1993) that “intelligence’s nature is nature’s intelligence” and like
Atkins (1994) that “consciousness is emergent information itself  at the moment
of its generation, ongoing, self-organizing change in a self/world model”.
Fortunately, there is a physical theory of the universe  that integrates
consciousness as an irreducible dimension of nature in its conceitual framework.
Nevertheless, this  theory has been inexplicably considered in a insufficient
way by the scientifical world, going unnoticed its revolutionary implications
about the consciusness-universe interaction. It is the holomovement theory
developed by the physician David Bohm that mathematically demonstrates the
existence of a hidden, implicit order in the universe, a primary reality.
Matter, life and consciousness (the explicate order),would originate from this
common ground (the implicate order) by means of a  continuous movement of
unfolding and  enfolding of the cosmos called holomovement.
Bohm (1987) states that “in the implicate order everything is folded into
everything. But it’s important to note here that the whole universe, is in
principle enfolded  into each part actively through the holomovement, as well as
the parts. Now this means that the dynamic activity-internal and external- wich
is fundamental for what each part is, is based on its enfoldement of all the
rest, including the whole universe. But of course, each part may unfold other s
in different degress and ways. That is, they are not all enfolded equally in
each part. But the basic principle of  enfoldment in the whole, is not thereby
denied. Therefore enfoldment is not merely superficial or passive but, I
emphasize again, that each part is in a fundamental sense internally  related in
its basic activities to the whole and to all the other parts. The mechanistic
idea of external relation as fundamental, is therefore denied. Of course such
relationships are still considered to be real, but of secondary significance.
That is, we can get approximations to a mechanistic behaviour out of this . That
is to say, the order of the  world, as a structure of things that is basically
external to each  other, comes as secondary and emerges from the deeper
implicate order”.
So, we can say, we live in a quantum universe in which reality is essentially
non-local, and the classical newtonian world with its external local
interactions, emerges as a special case from this deeper quantum order.
According to Bohm (1987), the analogy with the hologram in which each part of
the system is an image of the total object, even if it is a static image that
does not transmit the ever dynamic nature of the infinite unfolding and
enfolding  which at each moment create our universe, is a functional metaphor,
because  “the mathematical laws of the quantum theory that  apply to these
waves, and therefone to all matter, can be seen to  describe  just such a
movement in which there is a continual enfoldment of the whole into  each
region, along  with the unfoldment of each region into the whole again. Although
this may take many particular forms - some known, and  others not yet known -
this movement is universal as far as we  know ”. Bohm calls this universal
movement of enfoldment and unfoldment  “holomovement”.   Bohm  states  that
these laws are also capable of being compatible with the theory of relativity,
and therefore the implicate order is able  to have support from the two most
fundamental theories of modern physics,  the theory of relativity and the
quantum theory. In a posterior development, Bohm postulated the existence of a
superimplicit order, a still more subtle dimension of the universe’s
organization. In this model, a quantum superinformation field of the totality of
the universe would organize the implicate first level in multiple wave-like
structures which would unfold in the explicate order. According to Bohm ( Weber
in Wilber, 1992), “there is a physical model developed by De Broglie that
proposes a new type of field, which activity is dependent upon the information
content that is conducted to the whole experimental field,  which, if extended
to the quantum mechanics, results in the superimplicit order”!
.

Consciousness and non-locality
Adding to its equations a Quantum Potential that satisfies Schrödinger’s
equation,  that  depends on the form but not on the amplitude of the wave
function, Bohm (1993) developed a model in which the quantum potential, carries
“active information” that “guides” the particle along its way. The quantum
potential has inedited characteristics unknown up to then, because differently
from the other nature’s forces, it is subtle in its form, and does not decay
with the distance. Such interpretation allows communication between this “pilot
wave” and the particle, to be processed in a higher speed than the light,
unveiling the quantum paradox of non-locality, i.e., of the instantaneous
causality, fundamental in the holoinformational view of consciousness. Such
paradox, initially proposed by Einstein, who did not believe in the possibility
of a particle to travel more rapidly than  light, is presently known as Effect
Einstein- Podolsky-Rosen, and states that after an atom issues two particles of
opposite spins, if the spin of one of them is altered, even though they’re
separated by a long distance, (for example, one in the Earth and the other in
Mars), the spin of the other changes immediately, revealing an informational
non-local interaction betwen them, and the existence of a subjacent indivisible
cosmic unit.
Information then starts to be understood as nature’s fundamental process,
capable of act changing the structure of the universe since any elementary
particle is united to the whole cosmos by means of a quantum potential.
In 1982, Alain Aspect and col. experimentally proved the existence of these
non-local actions, and more recently, in July 1997 (cf. Science, vol. 277, pg.
481) Nicolas Gisin and col. proved the existence of  this  non-local quantical
informational instantaneous action in large scale.
For Bohm, differently from Bohr, the elementary particles do not have dual
nature wave/particle but are particles all the time, and not only when observed.
Actually, the particle originates from a global quantum field fluctuation, being
its behaviour determined by the quantum  potential “that carries information
about the environment of the  quantum particle  and thus informs and  effects
its motion. Since the information in the potencial is very detailed, the
resulting trajectory is so extremely complex that it appears chaotic or
indeterminist”(D. Peat, 1987). Any attempt of measuring particles properties,
changes the quantum potential, destroyng its information. Actually, according to
Bohm, Bohr had interpreted the uncertainty principle as meaning “not that there
is uncertainty, but that there is an inherent ambigüity” in a quantum system (
apud Horgan, 1996).
    As John Bell (1987) observed, “ the De Broglie-Bohm’s idea seems... so
natural and simple, to resolve the& wave-particle, dilema in such a& clear and
ordinary way, that it is a great mistery... that it was so generally ignored”.
   In the holographic theory, as no field organized the implicate order, it was
consequently linear and difficult to unfold. The implicate order is a wave
function, and the superimplicate order or superior informational field, is a
function of the wave function, i. e., an superwave function that makes the
implicate order,non-linear organizing it in complex and relatively stable
structures. Besides that, the holographic model as a way of organization of the
implicate order was dependent upon the quantic informational potential field,
that did not have capacity for self-organization and transmission of the
information, essential for the understanding of the& genesis and development of
matter, life and consciousness. The superimplicate order fills this need,
allowing the understanding of consciousness energy and matter as expression
varieties of a same holoinformational order.  As a result consciousness would
already have been present since the beginnings of cretion in the various levels
of nature’s unfolding and enfolding .

“Even a stone is in someway alive” (  Bohm )

Towards a holoinformational theory of consciousness

  We saw that  the quantum potential guides by means of active information the
particle alongside its course. This active information that organizes the
particle’s world reveal that the whole nature is holoinformational, that is,
organized in a meaningful way, and this meaning process is crucial to understand
the holoinformational nature of consciousness and intelligence in the universe.
Matter, life and consciousness are meaningful activities, that is, intelligent
quantical-informational processes,  order that  is transmitted through the
cosmical evolution,  originary from a generating holoinformational field that is
beyond our perception limits.
  It follows that an universe structured  as a quantum holoinformational
non-local field full of quantum potential with  meaning  activity, is an
intelligent (informed) universe functioning like a mind, as Sir James Jeans
already had observed. So, as  consciousness has always been present in the
various levels of nature’s organization, matter, life and consciousness cannot
be considered as separated entities, capable of being analised under a
fragmentary cartesian framework.  Actually, it must be better considered as  an
indivisible unity, with all its quantum informational processes interacting by
means of  non-local (holistic), internal, relationships, and simultaneously by
external, local (mechanistic) relations, generating transformation, learning and
evolution capacities. Such view of a holoinformational “continuum”, a
fundamental generating order with a quantum-informational  creative  flow
permeating the whole cosmos, permits to understand the  basic nature of the
universe as an intelligent self-organizing unbroken wholeness, ie, a
consciousness. A kind of  universal consciousness  unfolding  in a “holographic”
way in an infinite holoarchy.
   The quantum-informational fluctuations generated from this universal
consciousness through the holomovement get self-organized on the universe’s
basic informational levels: the nuclear code (cosmosphere), the genetic code
(biosphere) and the neural code (noosphere). Such holoinformational codes, that
is, this order that is transmitted in a meaningful and intelligent way through
all levels of complexity of the universe, is the negentropic self-organization
of the information.
   In this  holoinformational vision of  consciousness the non-local
quantum-informational flow in a continuous holomovement of expansion and
enfoldment, between the brain and the superimplicate order, is the universal
consciousness  self-organizing itself as human mind. The essential
characteristic of quantum non-locality of this dynamic holoinformational
interaction process  makes the question about the  phenomenal quality (qualia)
of concious experience raised by Chalmers (1995) , multicontextual,
multidimensional, relative not only to the observer, but also to the observation
process and to what one observes, that is, to the holographic information of the
whole in question. The level of this informational quality is capable of
increase or reduce, in a phase transition, depending  on the amount of
information contained in the part of the  universal hologram in focus  and on
the relations referential, whether  external (mechanistic) or internal
(holoinformational field) .
   The hard problem of consciousness proposed by Chalmers is only difficult and
problematic in a mechanistic and reductionist cartesian-newtonian context in
which consciousness and universe are considered separated entitities. In a
holoinformational context of internal relations, indivisible and non-local, it
ceases to exist, because the self-organizing sublevels of the universe that get
structured in a mechanistic-local way are understood as secondary manifestations
of the harmonic, holistic and non-local nature of the universal
holoinformational “continuum”. Matter, life and consciousness, are expressions
of this holoinformational field , with fundamental non-local quantum relations,
unfolding  in myriads of possibilities.
   Theoretically this sends us also to the question of the unconscious, which
could be hypothetically understood this way, as a part of the universal
holographic consciousness unfolded in the brain/mind that gets “out of focus”,
gets “obscured”, when it  self-organizes as human consciousness, as in a
hologram, in which the part contains the whole in a less clear way. The
holoinformational consciousness when structured (embodied) in the human brain,
reduces the quality (qualia) of the perception of the unity/totality (holos) of
nature, making these aspects remain usually unconcious, restricting the being’s
consciential field, and limiting it mentally and simbolically. This could
explain the metaphor of Man’s Fall found with several nuances in many spiritual
traditions.
    Matter, life and consciousness, will never be understood by means of a
fragmented and reductionist emergentism view that only considers the external
and mechanistics relations. This is a perception error, already pointed out by
the oriental traditions, thousands of years ago, under the name of  “maya”. As
symbolical beings we can better understand  this process going through the
flower and fruit’s metaphor. We can say the fruit comes from the flower.
However, the fruit is already implicit in the seed, making it impossible for us
to state that it only and essentially comes from the flower. This would be a
reductionism, a perceptive  fragmentation of reality. Actually, not even the
seed originates the fruit. The fruit comes from an indivisible totality, clearly
intelligent and holo-related: sun, rain, earth, air, wind, cosmic rays, seasons,
weather, microorganisms, insects, birds, seed, sap, steam, leaves...“ad
infinitum”, in an irreductible holoinformational order.

Consciousness and the human mind

The cibernetical networks of cyclical hierarchical relations through which we
try to characterize life and consciousness, interrelate themselves in a
multilevel dynamic of “hypercycles” (Eigen and Schuster, 1979), organizing in
“self-cathalitic” cycles (Prigogine 1979; Kauffman, 1995) in the “ edge of
chaos” (Lewin,1992). Self-cathalitic cycles can organize  in higher levels, by
means of cathalitical hypercycles, (e.g. a virus) capable of evolving to more
complex and more efficient structures, until the “emergence of sets, of sets
of... of sets of neurons” (Alwin Scott, 1995). .In this way, the network
generate “creative loops” (Erich Harth, 1993) and “hyperstructures” (Nils Baas,
1995)  integrating themselves in systems with patterns of connectivity
distributed and parallels, as the “Global Workspace” of Newman and Baars (1993)
and the “Extended Reticular-Talamic Activation System”- ERTAS of James Newman
(1997).
   Dynamic non-linear systems like the human brain, with these “neural
correlates” of consciousness are generated not only by such complexifications
of matter’s mechanicistic external relations, but as we already saw, also as a
prime reason by an harmonic unfolding of an indivisible universal consciousness
field.  This holographic inteligent self-organizing field, self-sufficient and
self-referred that continuously creates (unfolds) and recreates (replies)
itself, goes on experiencing continuously new possibilities of existence and
non-existence, in an eternal and ever new unfolding-enfolding cycle. The
Prigogine-Geheniau et al. “self-consistent non big bang cosmology” describes the
main features of this multi-cyclic learning scenario in which the cosmic
evolution is the result of an interaction between the quantum vacuum and the
particles of matter that are synthesized in it. Laszlo (1993) adds to this
scenario “the postulate according to which the quantuum vacuum is the fifth
universal field interacting with matter” stating that “the field acts as a
holographic medium, registering and conserving the scalar wave-transform of the
3n-dimensional configuration spaces assumed by matter in space” (pg 204 ).
This universall fifth field is not inferred from space-time interations like
gravitational, electromagnetic, the strong and weak nuclear forces. In this new
type of field  space and time become implicate, enfolded, as described
matematically by Bohm.  The fifth field is sprectally, holographically
organized, and is made of the energy present in the interference patterns of the
waveforms. The transformations from space-time order to this spectrum dimension
are described by holographic matematical formulations. This  type of
formulations was first described by Leibniz that created the conception of
monads. Dennis Gabor in our century described the  matematical principles of
holography and  defined a quantum  of  information he named logon, a channel
which can carry a unity of communication with the least amount of uncertainty.
       Pribram in his holonomic brain theory proposes that the whole
quantum-informational holographic process interconnecting the brain and the
cosmos that occurs on a subatomic level, simultaneously interacts with a
holographic process of information treatment, the multiplex neural hologram
distributed by the whole brain’s cortex, dependent upon the so-called neurons of
local circuit that do not show long fibers and do not transmit the common
nervous impulses. “They are neurons that work in ondulatory way, and are overall
responsible for the horizontal connections of the neural tissue’s layers,
connections in which holographicoides interference patterns can be built”
(Pribram, 1980). He describes a “neural wave equation” (1991) resulting from the
workings of the brain’s neural networks, similar to the wave equation of the
quantic theory.
    Pribram (1991)  has demonstrated that hiperestimulation of  frontolimbic
forebrain allows primates including humans  to operate in a holistic,
holographic-like mode. The electric excitation of these brain areas  relaxes the
Gaussian constraints, as Laszlo put it. “While during ordinary levels of
excitation of the frontolimbic system signal processing creates the usual
narrative consciousness, when the excitation of this system exceeds a certain
treshhold, conscious experience is dominated  by unconstrained holographic
processes. The result is timeles, spaceless, causeless, ‘oceanic’ sensation.
Pribram found that in these states the nervous system becomes, as he said,
‘attuned to the holographic aspects of - the holograph-like order in - the
universe’(Laszlo, pg 179, 1993).
   We have in the brain a more subtle and less known mind/body relation than the
neurophysiological maps represented by the celebrated Penfield homuncule. The
homuncule reveals only  the spacial relations between the surface of the body
and the brain’s cortex. Actually, the receptor field of the cortical neurons
reacts selectively to multiples sensorial modes making the harmony curves of
adjacent receptors fields to mix as in a piano. In this way the harmony field of
the cortex originates a ressonance as a string instrument. The matematical
formulations that describes the resulting harmony curve are the Fourier
transformations that  Gabor applied in the creation of the hologram enriching
these transformations with a model that can be reconstructed by the application
of the inverse process. That holographic organization is what Bohm calls
implicate order, a model that includes  space and time in its structure as an
enfolded dimension. Functioning in this holograph mode our brain can
“mathematically builds the objective reality” interpreting frequencies originary
from another dimension, from a fundamental order, a holoinformational field
located beyond time and space.
    As the brain has the capacity of function in the holographic non-local mode
as in  the space-temporal local mode, we think that we are dealing here with
Bohr’s  concept of complementarity in the quantum functioning of the central
nervous system.
   The holonomic brain theory of Pribram, and the holographic quantum theory of
Bohm, added with Laszlo’s fifth field contribution quoted above,  shows us that
we are part of something much& greater and vast than ours individual  mind. Our
mind is a subsystem of a universal hologram, accessing and interpreting this
holographic universe. We are  interactive resonants and harmonics systems with
this unbroken self-organizing wholeness. We are this holoinformational field of
consciousness, and not observers external to it. The external observer’s
perspective made us lose the sense and the feeling of unity or supreme identity,
generating the immense difficulties we have in understanding that we are one
with the whole and not part of it.

  “We did not come to this world : we came from it, like the leaves of a tree.
Like the ocean produces waves, the universe produces people. Each individual is
an expression of the whole kingdom of nature, a single action of the total
universe. Rarely this  is, if at any time it is at all, felt by the majority of
the individuals”. Allan Watts

Final Considerations

   Besides outline the fundamentals of a non-local, self-organizing and
holoinformational conception  of consciousness, this  approach also gives the
directions for  understand information as the unifying principle, capable of
connecting consciouness to the universe and to the totality of space and time.
It also allows a better understanding of phenomena and theories related to
consciousness which up to now we could not explain or understand adequately,
such as synchronicities, archetypes, collective unconscious (Jung), unconscious
complexes (Freud), near-death experiences (Moody Jr.), premonitory dreams,
psychocinesia and telepathy (Rhine), morfogenetic fields and morphical
ressonance (Sheldrake), out-cerebral memory (Stevenson), memories of previous
existences (Weiss), amongst others.
   Brian D. Josephson , Physics Nobel Prize , believes that Bohm’s theory of the
implicate order can even lead someday to the inclusion of God in the science
network. We believe that the  holoinformational view of consciousness which has
in Bohm’s quantum theory one of its very foundations, implies in the inclusion
in science’s framework of a Cosmical Consciousness. An Universal Intelligence
that originates, permeates , maintains and transforms the universe, life and
mind, through the holoinformational process.
   Finally, we would like to state that in the cartesian-newtonian reductionist
paradigm, the question about consciousness nature is unanswerable. It can be
useful to unfold new knowledges and generate new questions and answers. However,
the inherent fragmentation to this perspective, obscurs more and more our
understanding of what reality and consciousness are.

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