This review is about 2,400 words long, and takes about 15-18 minutes to read.
Eric Reviews the new book, The Cosmic Hologram: In-formation at the Center of Creation, by Jude Currivan, Ph.D.
Periodically I do book reviews upon client request, as well as for my own research and reference. Since starting the Inception Publishing blog, and driving towards the completion of a couple of other books, I have done fewer book reviews. There’s only so many hours in the week, and I’m pretty much already working all week, every week, so I have put review process on the back burner. However, last week I came across a brand new book, Jude Currivan’s The Cosmic Hologram: In-formation at the Center of Creation, and it looked like it was right up my alley. So, I decided to plow through it for my own education, and produce a review for you in the process. Enjoy!
My Initial Response
Currivan is a scientist by trade, and she definitely writes like one. This book is chock full of citations of studies, books, papers, and theories. She has built an extensive series of references to the studies of scientists in all sorts of fields to exhibit and support her premise that the universe is fundamentally built on information, rather than the matter and energy we have become so accustomed to recognizing as humans.
I respect that method of writing, and if you want to read somewhat of a history of the development of scientific thought over the last hundred plus years, this is a book for you. If that doesn’t sound exciting to you, or even moderately interesting, you might want to skip it. She is reader friendly throughout, even if you have no extensive scientific training, but you will have to be prepared to learn quite a bit of science in the process. I advocate for this, of course, but this may be a rough start if you are a science newbie.
My personal experience of this book was quite the roller coaster. In my work in the training and advocacy of Coherence Verification, I spend an enormous amount of effort getting people to understand that the universe is an entanglement of an information-like process, with matter and energy. In other words, Currivan and I agree on most of the basic facts about reality, with a few exceptions, and so I was anticipating enriching reading that I could advocate to others. This, “everything is information,” idea is novel to most, so I was stoked that someone else was writing about it as well.
Things got bumpy though as I realized that her fundamental premise was incorrect, and that she was making some theoretical leaps that aren’t fully supported by science, or Coherence Verification (CV) research. The most critical breakdown is her conceptualization of the, “Cosmic Hologram.” She conjectures that all information is inherently contained in all aspects of the universe, thus the hologram concept. The concept is not too far off the mark, but the way she gets to the support of the idea, and then what she extrapolates from that idea, is flawed. I really don’t like writing critically of anyone, but I do feel it’s vital to inform you when a book goes seriously south. Let’s look at how that happened using our favorite analysis tool, CV.
The Author
I always like to know who I’m learning from when I read a book, and what that author’s consciousness quality is. It sets the stage for my awareness of where deficits in logic might creep in, where unseen bias might lie, or where the author’s strong points might be. Here’s a little information about Jude Currivan I discovered with CV.
Jude Currivan’s LOC (level of consciousness per David Hawkins’ map, which you can discover in his book Power vs. Force) is 177. This informs us that Jude is currently very preoccupied with her sense of self and identity, and struggles with consistent integrity. Pridefulness is dominant at this level, and that pride reaction is against a consistent stream of self-generated fears.
Jude Currivan’s EQL (energetic quality level, per my scale) is 566. This super specific assessment tells us that, as a reaction to the fear of failure and the judgment of others, Jude defaults to perfectionism. While this may have some minor practical value as a scientist, it also lets us know that her preoccupation with fearfulness will keep her mind from connecting scientific data in a coherent and consistent way. It is true for all humans, that we make mistakes when we are afraid of making mistakes, due to the subtle stressors we create.
The EQL of Jude Currivan’s motivation for writing this book is 556. At this consciousness level people are motivated by a fear of monetary loss and insecurity. This is a very common motivation for people; but, writing a book that connects scientific research with universal consciousness is not the place to work out your financial worries. This limits the likelihood that truthfulness will be attended to, and she probably felt stressed and rushed in the process, as is common at this level.
The fundamental premise of The Cosmic Hologram: In-formation at the Center of Creation by Jude Currivan, Ph.D., is accurate. Result: Not yes. Oh dear, that’s unfortunate. Remember that this is a science based, non-fiction book, so the fundamental premise must be accurate for the book to be at least factual. Beginning with an inaccurate premise is like trying to get to a destination with the wrong address. You just aren’t going to make it to where you want to go.
Jude Currivan is certain that the fundamental premise of her book is accurate. Result: Not yes. Well, that could explain some things. If you aren’t certain of what you are claiming or promoting, you aren’t going to be able to thoroughly and logically explicate that idea to an audience without having a few hiccups in the process. If she doesn’t fully buy in, who else will?
The Book
Now let’s look at the accuracy of the book in greater detail. We’ll do so by using the scale I created to manage the understanding of how information can be verified for Truthfulness. I call it the Truth Value scale, or just TV for short. Recall that all information is extant data that is either coherent with universal facts and truths (it matches), or else that information is not coherent, and is therefore inaccurate to some degree. Those degrees of differentiation are on a 0-100% scale, with 100% being maximum truthfulness, and 50% being the absolute minimum for factuality. While I could just check the book as a whole and move on, I like to give authors a fair shake, and break it down by chapter. Here are the CV results for that process, along with some additional supporting verifications.
Chapters
1 = 43%. 2 = 46%. 3 = 39%. 4 = 36%. 5 = 42%. 6 = 36%. 7 = 46%. 8 = 42%. 9 = 41%. 10 = 42%. 11 = 36%. 12 = 39%. 13 = 42%. 14 = 41%.
You can see that none of the chapters are above the critical level of 50% TV for minimum factuality. In the 35-45% TV range there is considerable misinterpretation of facts, distortion of facts, and semi-conscious manipulation of information for the purpose of supporting a predisposition, an agenda, or a bias. Needless to say, this does not bode well for the value of the book as a whole.
Entire Book
The core text (excluding index, citations, etc.) of the book, The Cosmic Hologram: In-formation at the Center of Creation by Jude Currivan, Ph.D., is coherent with the Truth Value scale at 45%. Result: Yes.
The core text of the book, The Cosmic Hologram: In-formation at the Center of Creation by Jude Currivan, Ph.D., meets the level of factuality. Result: Not yes.
The core text of the book, The Cosmic Hologram: In-formation at the Center of Creation by Jude Currivan, Ph.D., does have some truthfulness in it. Result: Yes.
Jude Currivan is aware that she’s written a book that does not meet basic factuality. Result: Not yes.
Conclusion
You might be asking, “What went wrong?” That is a very reasonable question I asked myself repeatedly throughout this read. I have come to a number of conclusions that I’ll summarize for you here, and hopefully that will help you to decide if this is a book worth your time.
Information is not a thing. Throughout the book Currivan vacillates between treating information like a thing, and treating it like the essence of consciousness. In fact, she identifies information as the prime “ingredient” in the universe, which it is not (this I have verified repeatedly).
Information is a primal force in the universe, but it functions as a process, not a thing. This may seem like hair splitting, but it’s a fundamental distinction that, without clarifying, leads her off into some errant extrapolations.
Entropy is a math function that doesn’t reflect reality. OK, I don’t want to get too geeky here so let me keep it simple. Entropy is a HUGE DEAL in physics, and Currivan uses it to justify her position about the fundamental nature of, and criticality of information in the universe. The problem is that entropy is a useful mathematical tool, but one that is based in the perceived need to understand change, scientifically speaking.
There is no actual entropy. I would of course be shot in the corridors of Cal Tech for saying so, but that’s the truth. As humans we need measurements of change, and I have no problem with that. I do have a problem when scientists try to formalize our judgments of the universe into absolutes that they can then build on. Currivan does this, and it’s a basic misunderstanding of the nature of information.
There is no cosmic hologram. You can tell by the title of the book that this means there’s going to be problems. I admit that Currivan is somewhat correct that information as a process is effectively encoded into everything, but it’s not holographic, even if it seems like an appropriate comparison. She adds to this error the idea that, at the smallest level imaginable (the Planck scale), all information is pixelated (like tiny versions of all information), which again, is an error of imagining that information is a thing rather than a process or fluid event.
Currivan never says what information is, really. If information is the primary ingredient, and she’s sure that it has entropic characteristics, and it’s the mega-mind (my term) that we are all participating in, then shouldn’t there be some detailed explanation of what information is in a nearly 400 page book? This never quite happens, and that keeps her from communicating critical truths.
Evidence of something is not always fact. Currivan makes many inadvertently sneaky leaps of logic throughout the book, with no supporting evidence of her premises. In fact, she repeatedly writes lengthy sections on current scientific research, and then jumps from that research to repeating her positions at the end of a section, with little or no connective tissue between the research and her ideas. She points to evidence of one thing, and then claims it’s evidence of her thing. I have no problem with defining implications, but they aren’t proof.
Honesty is vital in non-fiction. In my opinion, if you can’t tell your readers what you are trying to say, prove, theorize, or speculate on in your non-fiction book, then you aren’t really functioning with integrity as an author. Currivan has an agenda in the writing of this book, which she doesn’t fully get to until the end, and it has little to do with the nature of information. She’s really trying to justify her belief in the need for research into paranormal phenomena. Again, if she wants to push that, I’m cool with it. Just don’t write a big book, packed full of scientific information and only partly justified assertions, and wait to the end to tell us that you want paranormal research to be funded and done so more can be learned about remote viewing, telepathy, near death experiences, and communications with aliens. It’s dishonest, at best.
Let me wrap up my conclusion by saying something a little weird after all this seemingly negative stuff. Jude Currivan is correct in many areas. She’s correct about information being critical to our understanding of the universe. She’s on target when she says all information is in everything, all the time. She’s totally on track when she implies we are only at the beginning of a massive jump in human evolution that should be guided by new research into all aspects of the nature of information transfer, including trippy paranormal stuff. I’m with her.
I suspect her and I could get along famously, and have a lot to discuss over an adult beverage or three. She deserves consideration as a person, as a scientist, and as an author. She’s taken a big swat at a complex issue in this book, and she is by no means inarticulate in the process. Quite the contrary.
Where Jude and I break, is on how an author treats the reader. I think more about you, the reader, than just about anything or anyone else in the world. I want you to get it. I want you to be challenged, enthused, humored, and finally, provoked. I want you to be educated when I offer anything I write to you, but I also want you to know that I’m treating you like the genius you are.
I’m afraid The Cosmic Hologram: In-formation at the Center of Creation is a great idea for a book, that fell short of respecting your mind and intuition. You could have been treated as though you were being invited into Jude’s home and served like an honored guest. Instead, I closed the last page of this book feeling like I had been sold an old condo on a Mexican beach that had a great coastal view, but needed a boat load of money and time to upgrade and make it livable. That’s not the deal I was looking for, or the one I felt I was due as an excited reader.
