Semantic Feedback and Holographic Time Machine

In previous texts I have posited the idea of a biological mechanism of History. There is a missing element in that equation, though; an important cog in that mechanism: semantics. We are not only our genetic information, we leave records, unlike any other living organism (unless further research finds that such a feature is not unique to us). That means that human beings that live today have available to them semantic information from the past, beginning with cave paintings up to books, to internet pages and movies and music. Which leads to the corollary that we combine genetic and semantic information. But semantic information comes from individuals that had their own genetic information and were exposed to their semantic information in their times. It should be clear that as genetic information combines and progresses, semantic information is fed back into the system. It should follow naturally that semantic information can display exponential growth. It is clear that this process allows the building of accumulated knowledge through generations, and in an accelerating pace, which is demonstrable, which is also true for information that runs counter to knowledge, meaning obscurantism, a process that also hardly need arguing when religious fundamentalism is rampant at such a stage of our development as a species. It should be added that prior to the advent of writing transmission was oral: linear and not fed back.

That should take us a step further. For that I will briefly expose a concept that, even though it is not needed here, and consists of speculative theoretical Physics, affords at least an apt image for my reasoning. It comes from Rosen's paper "A Neo-Intuitive proposal for Kaluza-Klein Unification": universe is building itself constantly, the very dimensions, or dimensionality, of the universe are being built as it progresses; cosmogony did not take place "at the beginning", it is ever unfolding. By his reasoning, universe starts as a provisional zero-dimension point and a provisional, ever-forming, time dimension; when that point has infinite density, a provisional one-dimensional line begins to form, along with another provisional time dimension; that leads to infinite density in the line, then to a provisional two-dimensional plane that reaches infinite density, and then to a provisional three-dimension space and provisional time, which we experience. Quantum gravitation theory works with the absence of a time dimension and non-continuous space, but maybe those two ideas might be reconciled eventually; all we need here is the idea that space-time is emergent, which is common to both. The conclusion is simple: if three-dimensional space is being built, a past state of the universe, in a definite point in time, is two-dimensional, because only a plane was "complete", or at least it can only be captured in a two-dimensional image. That is clear for a photograph, but is also true for a text (or movie or written music): that goes with Jakobson's theory of the two axis of language (metaphoric and metonymic).

All that complicated stuff leads us to back where we began. If History is an unfolding biological-semantic mechanism, how do we know the past? Can we predict the future? Let the future alone for a while, but knowing the past obviously depends on the amount of information we can grasp (to discuss the Theory of Information as applied to Physics as applied to History is a good hint for further exploration to lie ahead). Here I introduce the concept of a hologram: a two-dimensional image that carries three-dimensional information. In order to build a hologram, one needs several "pictures" from several perspectives. In order to have a hologram of the past, one obviously needs pictures, or texts, from several perspectives. That is why History is told by the victors: controlling the master narrative is tantamount to controlling power. We cannot tell truth about colonization if we listen not to the natives, which should be obvious. But semantic information is not the only one available; genetic information can tell a lot about the past, if only it were not always the white-European "man" researching how "primitive" populations evolved. It should be easy to see how ruling elites in Latin America are of European ascent - no microscope is needed, actually. So maybe Biology and Language and History should hang out more often.

What about the future? Basically the same is true: predictability comes from availability of data, in this case we need a set of holographic pasts to recognize patterns. Just as in meteorology, which deals with "chaotic" processes itself, we need good models and solid data. Of course in a competitive, capitalist, hierarchic society, such calculations would serve perpetuating power (and that process would be fed back too!), but I have stated that an egalitarian society is inevitable, or rather a certain thinker that used this concept of "calculating the future" has stated that; you all know his name. I have also stated elsewhere that prophecies and oracles could be taken serious as symbolic narratives that arise from observation of the celestial bodies and consumption of consciousness-altering substances. It is striking to me that Greek myth predicts the toppling of Zeus, that Old Testament predicts Armageddon, and Maya prophecy predicts some kind of end of the world to take place (and exactly in the period we are living). Nevertheless, after all these digressions, my hope is that we reach this new age of egalitarianism and simply stop being so analytical; that we let life flow. Until then, we live one day at a time and try to enjoy the ride.