HOLOGRAPHY as a metaphor
| Collection | International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics |
|---|---|
| Year | 2004 |
| Vol. (num.) | 2(1) |
| ID | ◀ 1565 ▶ |
| Object type | Epistemology, ontology or semantics |
A way to represent a whole as a network of connected and more or less redundant elements, allowing simultaneously for specialization and a global coherent behavior.
The brain is now widely supposed to have an holographic organization.
A. HAUAN, J.A. JOHANNESSEN and J. OLAISEN characterize this metaphor as follows: “… the whole is enclosed in its parts: More specifically, if a holographic picture is broken into pieces, any single piece, when enlarged, will display all images of the original picture, although maybe somewhat blurred. As a consequence, the ”whole“ could conceivably be reconstructed through a thorough analysis of any of the constituents parts” (1992, p.1057).
The metaphor implies that, within a system, any element should have (and in biological and cultural system, have indeed, as genes, memes, or mindscapes) at least a kind of historical imprint of the global identity of the system.
The holographic metaphor is as old as 19th Century's Arnold BÖCKLIN's “Public opinion” engraving that shows a gigantic dragon made of a multitude of similar dragonlets collectively self-organized in the suited way to ensure self- similarity between the micro- and the macro level.