Shufflebrain

In chapter 8, when we were optically simulating calculations, I demonstrated that identical phase-dependent memories can be produced both a priori and a posteriori. Thus one principle we can infer directly from hologramic theory is that the ancient argument between rationalists and empiricists (i.e., whether ideas are innate or learned) is a phony issue in the quest of mind-brain. On the one hand, we can use learning rates to evaluate memory from but can't define or reduce the hologramic mind to learning and experience. Conversely, the question of whether nature or nurture or a combination of both create(s) a given memory is something we have to establish from empirical evidence, not a priori with our theory. Yet the empirical evidence contains many surprises that often appear contradictory and preposterous in the absence of a theoretical explanation. Let's consider two examples: language and social behavior.

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Until about thirty years ago, nothing seemed less innate and more dependent on experience than the grammars of human languages. Yet one fundamental tenet of contemporary theoretical linguistics is that all human languages develop from common, universal, a priori rules of syntax.[30] Since many specific languages and cultures have emerged and developed in total isolation from others, yet exhibit common rules, those rules must be present at birth, so the reasoning goes.

If we accept the latter idea, does it necessarily follow that the genes determine grammar? Maybe. But in terms of constructing a phase code, there's at least one other possibility: imprinting during interuterine life. It this sounds wacky, consider the fact that the behavior of ducklings can be profoundly influenced by sounds they hear while still unhatched, in the egg.[31]

We, as fetuses, receive sonar vibrations set up by our mother's voice and her heartbeat. The rhythm of the heart and the resonance of the human vocal apparatus share common features independent of culture, and the modulating effects of the human body would be the same whether Mom lives on Madagascar or Manhattan. Now, I'm not asserting that this heart-beat hypothesis is correct. Hologramic theory really doesn't provide the answer. But it would be very useful to know if interuterine experiences can set the stage for the development of language. Science aside, imagine what a poet could do with the idea that language has its genesis not in our embryonic head but in the hearts of our original host.

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A sizable and controversial body of literature exists on the language capabilities of gorillas and chimpanzees. [32] Some critics of the idea define human language in such a way that, by definition, the sign language and symbolic capabilities exhibited by apes are 'behavior,' not 'language.' Hologramic theory won't resolve the controversy. But if a gorilla and a man encode and transform the same phase spectrum, they hold a similar thought, whether its the sensation of an itchy back or the statement, "I'm famished!" Still, if we invoke the hologramic principle of dimension and also admit the existence of local constants, we would not reduce the ape's and the man's behaviors to "the same thing."

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Turning to social behavior, nothing seemed less learned and more instinctive to the experts of a generation ago than the social behaviors of nonhuman animals. Herds, coveys, packs, bands, prides, schools....tend to exhibit rigid, stereotypic order, showing the same attributes today as when the particular strain of the species first evolved. But much evidence of social ambiance within animal groups has come to the fore, especially since Jane Goodall's work with chimps and George Schaller's studies of mountain gorillas put ethology on the map in the 1960s.[33] One study I'm particularly fond, by an ethologist named Gray Eaton, involved a troop of Japanese monkeys.

Eaton had relocated from southern Japan to a large fenced-in field in Oregon. Social behavior in these animals is highly structured with a dominance order among females as well as males. At the top of the entire troop is the co-called alpha male, which a collaborator of mine, Carl Schneider, use to call, "the Boss." What makes for the Boss? Is he the monkey with the sharpest fangs, quickest fists, meanest temperament, highest concentration of blood testosterone? In Eaton's troop, the Boss was a monkey known as Arrowhead. And nobody messed Arrowhead. Nobody!