When a tree falls in the forest
And there’s no one around to hear it,
Does it make a sound?

No, for there is no ear to turn
The sound waves into sound.

Nor is there a smell, for there is no nose
For the odorous molecules to attach to,
Nor has it any color, for there is
No retina to decode the light frequencies.

What does it look like, then?

It doesn’t look like anything,
For there is no brain to put it all together
By detecting form, color, texture,
Size, taste, smell, or vision.

Since the entropy of a black hole is known
To depend on the surface area of
The event horizon and Not on its volume,
Then our third dimension Might Be a projection.

A projected illusion, as in a hologram,
May still be used as it were really there
Since we can make sense of it, so to speak,
But, in truth, the third dimension may not exist.

Thus, apparently separate particles,
Like created photon pairs,
Copy the other when one is changed,
Because, in truth, they are still
The same thing in the projector room.

If the universe is holographic,
Then the tree in the forest,
Whether seen or not,
Is, at heart, an interference pattern
Brought to life only when we tune it in.

This is the mystery of the realness
Of sleeping dreams revealed:
We tune in to the interference patterns,
Whether awake or asleep,
To bring alive the reality projected.

Everything connects to everything else
Through overlapping interference patterns,
And so nothing is so separate at all, as it seems,
But is one large all-encompassing whole.

Memory, too, seems to be holographic,
Residing everywhere in the brain,
Every piece associated with others related,
Instantly broadcasting all the connections.

Every part of a hologram contains the whole,
The whole universe contained within
A grain of sand, all eternity within a moment,
The universe rumbling when an electron vibrates.

We are part and parcel of everything—
We are the cosmos; we are life; we are love;
We are all that is; we are the creator
Of the dance as well as the dancer.

Whether the past is recorded and accessible
As part of the holographic whole is not known
Or whether the other two dimensions are
Projected, as well, but perhaps we shall see.

This then is the secret of the universe,
Knowing of that which underlies all reality:
Fundamental, absolute, indestructible,
Omnipresent, indeterminate, but all pervasive.

Why absolute and fundamental?

Because it is made of one piece—itself,
And therefore indestructible, and eternal, too,
And makes up all that there is, everywhere.