Shufflebrain

A moment ago when we were talking about simple waves, I pointed out that we can figure out the values of an unknown parent wave if we know the phase and amplitude of the other parent and of the daughter. Why couldn't we do the same with an unknown compound wave? Why couldn't we, say, introduce a known simple wave, measure the phase and amplitude spectrum of the new compound wave, and then derive the unknown amplitudes and phases? It might take a long time, but we could do it, in theory. In fact, the holographer's reference wave is a kind of "known." The reference wave is a relative known in that its phase and amplitude spectra are identical to those of the object wave before the latter strikes the scene and acquires warps. The holographer's "known" results from coherency, from a well-defined phase relationship between the interfering waves. But the phase and amplitude spectra in the object wave upon reacting with those of the reference wave will completely determine the outcome of the interference. And the results of that interference, when transferred onto the hologram plate, create the hologram.

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When dealing with waves, theoretical or physical, it is critically important to remember their continuous nature. True, the physicist tells us that light waves are quantized (come in whole units, not fractions thereof), that filaments emit and detectors absorb light as photons, as discrete particles. We can look upon the quantized transfer of lights as the emission or absorption of complete cycles of energy. But within the particle, the light wave itself is a continuum. And when we do something to a part of the continuum, we do it to all of it. If we increase the radius of a circle, the entire circle increases, if it remains a true circle. And we can see the change just as readily in a wavy plot. Also, the change would affect the outcome of the union of that cycle with another cycle. If we change, say, the Fourier coefficients on the second cosine wave in a series, we would potentially alter the profile of the compound wave. And the effect would be distributed throughout the compound wave. For, again, the components do not influence just one or two parts of the compound wave. They effect it everywhere.

The continuous nature of waves is the soberly scientific reason for the seemingly magical distributive property of Leith and Upatniek's diffuse hologram, wherein every point in the object wave front bore the warping effects of every point in the illuminated scene.

As I've mentioned numerous time, relative phase is the birthmark of all holograms and thus the central issue in hologramic theory of memory. Remember that phase makes a sine wave a sine wave and a cosine wave a cosine wave-- once there's any amplitude to work with. We can come to the very same conclusion for the compound wave: the amplitude spectrum will prescribe how much, but the phase spectrum will determine the distribution of that amplitude spectrum. Thus our profiles, yours and mine, are as recognizable on the surface of a dime as they would be on the face of Mount Rushmore. And your profile is uniquely yours, and mine, because of unique spectra of phase.

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In this chapter, we have examined waves in the ideal. For only in the ideal can we free our reason from the bondage of experience. We are about to extend our thoughts into the hologram. Using reason, we will ease our minds into an abstract space where phase information lies encoded. This space is most often called Fourier transform space. The entry fee for crossing its boundaries is the Fourier transform (the equation I mentioned earlier in this chapter), the yield of Fourier analysis. We make the journey in the next chapter.

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chapter eight

Ideal Mind

IN THE LAST CHAPTER, we learned some of the basic vocabulary of hologramic theory. Now we begin the of constructing a language from those elements, a process of assembling vehicles to convey brand new thoughts about the university within the brain. In this chapter and the next, we will raise questions about the mind that no one could have articulated a relatively short time ago. Let me forewarn the reader, though, that our answers will not assume the form of

the

physiological mechanism,

the

chemical reaction,

the

macromolecule,

the

genes,

the

cellular responses. As hard as it is to swallow, hologramic theory actually denies the assumption implicit in questions that demand the answer as bits of brain.