I think, therefore I hologram

Apparently, all the universe is a hologram: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126911.300-our-world-may-be-a-giant-hologram.html?full=true. Including us. And all the nice things out there like puppies and ice cream (though I always suspected something as bland as vanilla couldn't have much real substance to it). But let’s keep in mind this is coming from the man who, in my childhood, helped perpetuate myths about corpulent, Communist gift-dropping arctic elf dictators and bunnies who squeeze out chocolate eggs and feel compelled to stash them in secret places.

What’s clear from this article is that my dad has either had a ground-breaking insight into the nature of space and time, or that he’s highly qualified to write for Star Trek. With little modification, direct quotes become lines that would look snugly at home on the page of a Next Generation script: "[Captain,] It looks like GEO600 is being buffeted by the microscopic quantum convulsions of space-time," says [Lieutenant Commander] Hogan. (The holographic principle would also explain why Captain Picard can get away with saying things like “On the holodeck, even a holographic bullet can kill.” Indeed, good Captain, it is the only sort that ever has).

Yet it seems to me that there’s something terribly dangerous in revealing that we’re all living inside a giant hologram, that it may be best to put holographic noise back in its scientific pandora’s box (or at least to turn down the volume). For if it was an existential struggle to find a point to it all before, how much more so now that we discover that we’re really just holographic reflections within a giant, cosmic limited-edition Topps trading card? (or a “Pringle,” to which I think one physicist cited in the article compares the universe). Indeed, one conceivable consequence of letting the holographic principle go public seems to be the possibility of a sudden, overwhelming surge of global apathy. If it’s all just a bloody hologram anyway, why should I go to work tomorrow?