HoloDynamic Compression: Mapping Miracles into the Machine

Years ago I was part of a project to write software that would help translate human languages via computer, such as English to Spanish . On the level of a single word the project was pretty straightforward, simply translating a word at a time using a computer search through a cross-language database. On a more complex level there was the problem of translating phrases and sentences. On a still more complex level there was the problem of translating concepts and context. All approaches to these problems involved more and more elaborate methods of breaking up sentences, phrases, and words along with more elaborate methods of computer searching. I began to wonder, "Is there actually a way to convey MEANING in computer logic itself?". Not as a mapping of words in one language to words in another language but as an embedding of meaning in the computer bit patterns in and of itself OUTSIDE THE WORDS. Was there a a way to have a string of bits contain images and concepts as complex and varied as, "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" or "Danger: Radiation"? The problem was nothing less than mapping mind into the machine.

I began to think about how concepts occur in the mind as a sentence or thought comes to mind. I noticed that the more I thought about a sentence like "My dog lay on the green grass" the more concepts and images seemed to come to mind. At first I just saw a dog on the grass, but as I thought more many ideas and concepts and thoughts began to unravel. I started thinking about the color of the sky in the image, about dogs I had seen in the past, how it felt to walk barefoot in the grass. More and more "information" seemed to come forth from the meaning of the sentence. It was as if the information had been "compressed" in the original thought and was being decompressed in the flow of thoughts in my mind. Perhaps the mind does some type of "data compression", I thought, similar to the kind of data manipulation that can be done to store words and images in a smaller number of bytes than their original form. This, of course, was with an awareness that what is occuring in the mind and brain must be an infinitely more sophisticated type of data compression, far beyond looking for repeated patterns and removing them as most of these compression schemes do.

At this point I spent several years pursuing "the holy grail" of data compression. An algorithm that would create a breakthrough in the art of data compression that would change how information was stored. I felt that this would somehow "validate" my initial queries about how the mind worked by acheiving some success in the commercial and material world. I gave up pursuing mapping mind to machine and went through several iterations of commercial research ventures toward the eventual goal of producing this grail. I felt like I could always return to the higher concepts of mind and machine after my success was achieved. My compression scheme was a unique one. The process I used began with data that had ALREADY BEEN COMPRESSED by simpler methods, using techniques like those mentioned in the previous paragraph. When data has already been compressed it is much like a random "alphabet soup" generated from the original data. In taking out much of the pattern in the original data you are left with data that is unpatterned and almost all gibberish. I say almost all gibberish. I thought that if you spoke the right "language" that some of this gibberish could be translated into words. The idea was that if you could produce enough words then the data could be compressed again using one of the previously mentioned simple methods. Then you could start the process all over again. The language that I sought to use to "translate" the gibberish was built on patterns in the most complex object in mathematics, the Mandelbrot set.

Unfortunately, or so I thought at the time, none of the methods proved successful enough for a commercially viable venture. So, as often happens in life when one has setbacks, I was forced to really look at what I was doing. I began to think about the goal I had moved away from years before. Was there a way to convey meaning in computer logic? I looked at some of the work that had been done in neural networks over the years I had been consumed by my data compression quest. Although the field seemed very interesting and some remarkable and interesting work had been done, something was lacking. In my limited knowledge of the field it seemed like these devices modeled the brain BUT NOT THE MIND. The hardware was similar to brain but the software fell far short of anything approaching mind. Was there a way to even approach this?

During this time I began to read books concerned with what as come to be called "new age" thinking. One of which was(of course!) "The Celestine Prophecy". Having been trained in the sciences(physics) I was then led to look at articles and books having to do with the "new physics" which attempts to link science with many new age concepts. One of these books was "The Holographic Universe" by Michael Talbot. It was an amazing book. The book synthesizes theories about the holographic nature of the universe in a framework that attempts to explain much of the mysteries of the mind, paranormal phenomenea, and metaphysics. The basic idea behind the book is that the universe has a holographic structure where, like in a hologram, every part contains the information of the whole. Furthermore, in this connectedness to the whole time and space are nonlocal, that is remote events are connected to each other and the future, past and present as well. Mind(which is also connected to the universal hologram or "superhologram") acts as a type of interpeter of the superhologram to create what we know as "everyday reality". Sometimes we can get glimpses into or even affect the underlying superhologram and that is when "miraculous" or supernatural events seem to occur.

My original question now expanded itself in light of these new concepts. Now the question became, "is it possible to map MIRACLES into the machine?". Let me explain what I mean by this question. The fact is that as I type this document the things that I am thinking at this time at this place are affected by things in the room, by my past and present(and future?), by things outside the room, etc. In this way this document is connected to everything in the universe in its creation and existence. In its own way, this document, or any form of data for that matter, provides a glimpse into the underlying pattern that created it. In its own way this document is a "miracle" because if one figures out the probability of my creating this exact document at this time in this place the probability is almost zero, yet I AM CREATING IT. It is not like creating objects out of thin air or moving objects with your mind, or raising the dead, but just as miraculous in its own way. This document is miraculous in its uniqueness, which is connected to everything involved in its creation.

So how does the miracle of creating this document come about? If I examine my feeling about the creation of this document it is as though there is an "essence" in my mind out of which this document flows. It is almost as if this essence is the unique "seed" that spawns this document. But this feeling is vague and hazy at best and is built on my own introspection. Is there a way to objectify and quantify this essence? If one looks at the words in this document there is certainly nothing unique in the individual words(at least I don't think I've used words that are that uncommon!). If one looks at the phrasings in this document one sees a little more uniqueness but its not like most of the phrases I am using are exceptionally uncommon. If one looks at the sentences still more of the uniqueness of this document comes to light but its far from a miracle. Finally one reaches the conclusion that one has to somehow quantify all the words in the document in their unique connectedness to express this document's true miraculous uniqueness. If one could do this then it would at least be a beginning toward quantifying the "essence" of this document. Furthermore, if one could express this quantity as a number or a numerical process then the essence of this document could be mapped into bits in a computer. The idea of mapping miracles into the machine would begin to take shape.

So how does one begin to quantify the "essence" of this document? I thought back to my earlier introspections about concepts "decompressing" out of my mind. I began to think about what this document would be if I compressed it using some data compression utility. Much of the redundancy in the document would be removed and what would be left would be a description of this document that was just a stream of bits(no words). Wasn't this closer to the essence of this document? What if it were somehow possible to keep compressing this document down to 100 bytes, 50 bytes, 1 byte, and finally to 1 bit. It would certainly be a miracle but would this one bit reflect the essence of this document? The answer is no, one bit could not represent this document because 1 bit only has two states, 1 or zero and that is far from reflecting the enormous complexity of states(concepts, phrasing, words, etc.) that must reside in the essence of this document. One bit in and of itself could not reflect this document's essence but if it were somehow linked to a process which allowed this degree of complexity then IT WOULD BE POSSIBLE.

What form would such a process have to take? In years past I had constructed data compression techniques that attempted to search through the infinite complexity of patterns in the Mandelbrot set looking for patterns in previously compressed data. The problem with these techniques were twofold. First, no matter how clever my searching for static patterns was it always took too long. Secondly, it was very difficult to find patterns "close enough" to those reflected in the uniqueness of any one document. So I needed to come up with a data compression scheme that would one, somehow lessen the search time by dynamically "adapting" to the patterns in the data being compressed and two, would somehow interact with the underlying patterns in the data being compressed to create this adaptation.

In a hologram, light from every point in an object interacts dynamically with light from every other point in the object to create an inteference pattern which is recorded on film. The underlying patterns in the entire object are caused to interact with each other to create this adaptive pattern which is recorded in every point in the hologram. In a similar vein I have recently begun to explore possible compression techniques that use every byte of a data stream interacting with every other part of a data stream to adaptively create HOLODYNAMIC COMPRESSION. I hope to post some very preliminary results in the near future. What could result is not only a powerful compression technique, useful in and of itself, but also a powerful technique for looking at underlying patterns in seemingly "random" data. Such a technique could be used for looking at seemingly hidden patterns in any type of data be it be brain waves or weather data. Studies by Jahn and Dunne seem to have shown that even average people have the capability of manipulating random numbers generated by a computer in a small but statistically significant way. Perhaps such a technique a could be used to "amplify" these slight patterns to create a direct MIND-COMPUTER LINK. Who knows?

So is this a beginning to mapping the unique miracles of underlying structure into the machine? Only time and mind will tell. It seems like many things in science and the "new science" are coming together in a search for the underlying structure of all things, a search that must include mind and consciousness in this structure. Maybe this can act as a tool in that endeavor. Even if it does not, just the fact that you are reading these words and thinking about it has moved this search a little closer to becoming a reality.

For a general outline of the tenets behind HoloDynamic Compression see Principles of HoloDynamic Compression.

To see an outline of the preliminary research on HoloDynamic compression read Data Rings in HoloDynamic Compression. To see some preliminary (non-technical)results see First Pass HoloDynamic Compression of Chaotic Data.

My research into HoloDynamic Compression has led to the general study of HoloDynamics. See Fundamental Concepts of HoloDynamics.

The ideas and concepts linking mind and metaphysics in HoloDynamics and HoloDynamic Compression have resulted in software with practical applications. See Holoentropy and Multipass HoloDynamic Compression: Steps to a Prototype.

More information on HoloDynamic Compression will be available shortly. Presentations on HoloDynamic Compression are available if you are visiting Maui or if arrangements can be made for a presentation at your site. Questions, comments, collaborations, all are welcome with Aloha!

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