Mental Hologram (རྣམ་པ་, rnam-pa)
Also rendered as mental aspect, cognitive appearance, mental semblance, or mental impression. It is the cognitive appearance that every act of mental activity gives rise to at the same moment as it cognitively engages its object. Nothing is cognised without one.
The term “mental hologram” is Dr. Alexander Berzin’s rendering, drawing on the analogy of optical holography: a hologram is not the object itself but a three-dimensional light-field that closely resembles the object and through which (on the Gelug reading) the object is directly encountered (berzin-science-of-mind).
Definitions
Gelug Presentation
མཚན་གཞི་ (Definiendum): རྣམ་པ་ (rnam-pa) — mental aspect / cognitive appearance
མཚན་ཉིད་ (Definiens): A mental semblance (གཟུགས་བརྙན་) or mental derivative of a cognitive object — the appearance that arises in cognition as if it were directly in front of the consciousness — giving rise to a cognitive appearance of a cognitive object simultaneously with cognitively engaging it
མཚོན་བྱེད་ (Illustration): The sight of a table that arises when seeing a table; the sound of “apple” that arises in verbal thought; the blur that arises in unfocused vision
“A cognition gives rise to a cognitive appearance of its involved object simultaneously with cognitively engaging with it.”
Source: berzin-science-of-mind (Objects of Cognition: Gelug Presentation; Basic Distinctions among Cognitive Objects)
Two Kinds: Transparent and Opaque
Whether the mental hologram in sensory non-conceptual cognition is transparent decides whether we ever see a table, or only ever see a hologram of one. That is what the Gelug and non-Gelug traditions divide over.
Gelug: Fully Transparent
The mental hologram cast on a sensory consciousness by an external objective entity is fully transparent (གསལ་བ་). Through this transparency, the sensory cognition directly contacts the external commonsense object.
- We do not merely “see the hologram” — we see the table itself through a transparent hologram of it
- The hologram has no form of its own; it appears with the form of the aspect cast by the external object
- Thus, appearing object = cognitively taken object = commonsense object (through the transparent hologram)
Non-Gelug: Opaque
The mental hologram is opaque. Only the hologram itself appears in sensory non-conceptual cognition; the external object is not directly cognized.
This follows from a strict reading of momentariness: the external moment of sensibilia that caused the cognition ceased to exist the very next moment, when the cognition occurs. The cause and its effect cannot exist simultaneously. Therefore:
- The external moment of sensibilia is the indirectly cognized (ཤུགས་ལ་རིག་) cognitively taken object — hidden (ལྐོག་ན་མོ་) in the cognition
- The opaque mental hologram is the directly cognized (དངོས་སུ་རིག་) appearing object
Being “hidden” (ལྐོག་ན་མོ་) does not mean obscure (needing inference to be known) — the external moment is still non-conceptually cognized, just indirectly.
Summary table (from berzin-science-of-mind, Objects in Non-Conceptual Cognition):
| Gelug | Non-Gelug | |
|---|---|---|
| External object | commonsense object (collection + kind synthesis) | moment of sensibilia |
| Mental hologram | fully transparent | opaque |
| Hologram’s form | resembles commonsense object with conventional identity | resembles moment of sensibilia |
| What is directly cognized | commonsense object through transparent hologram | opaque hologram |
| Cognitively taken object | commonsense object | moment of sensibilia (indirectly) |
In Conceptual Cognition
In conceptual cognition, the hologram is neither fully transparent nor cast by an external object. It is semi-transparent (berzin-science-of-mind):
- The conceptual category (e.g. dog, love, voidness) is the appearing object — a static metaphysical entity with no form of its own
- Through the category and a specifier (“nothing other than a dog”), a mental hologram of a specific individual dog appears — the conceptually implied object (zhen-yul)
- This hologram is semi-transparent in the sense that the category and the hologram are mixed and confused (‘dres-pa): conceptual cognition takes the hologram representing “nothing other than a dog” to be what “dog” in general is
- The hologram in conceptual cognition does not arise from an external object as its natal source; it arises from a karmic tendency (ས་བོན་)
Practical Implication
Conceptual cognition is thus always deceptive (‘khrul-shes): it mixes and confuses the general category with the specific individual that represents it. When we think “I am an idiot,” we are taking the object category “me” and representing it with one specific incident, then confusing the category with this representation — as if that one incident is truly what “me” means (berzin-science-of-mind, Syntheses, Categories and Individual Items).
In Non-Conceptual Cognition: Involved Objects
On the Gelug side, only those features of the hologram that the cognition decisively determines are its involved objects (འཇུག་ཡུལ་). Other features may appear in the hologram and still fall outside them, if the cognition pays them too little attention to determine them as “this” and “not that”.
Berzin’s example is watching an apple cook. The same visual cognition may decisively determine the sight of the cooking apple, or its gross nonstaticness, depending on what it settles on; the colour of the apple, meanwhile, may appear throughout and never be apprehended at all (berzin-science-of-mind, Objects in Non-Conceptual Cognition). The involved object is therefore narrower than the appearing object, and which of them a given claim is about has to be checked before the claim can be assessed.
The distinction does no work on the non-Gelug side, and cannot: since sensory non-conceptual cognition there determines nothing about its object, the hologram cannot resemble some features that are involved objects and others that are not. The whole hologram resembles the involved object.
Audio Holograms
The mental hologram need not be visual. Every sense modality gives rise to its own hologram:
- Audio: the mental sound of words or natural sounds
- Olfactory: the mental smell of something recalled or imagined
- Gustatory: the mental taste
- Tactile: mental physical sensations
We hear a whole sentence with its meaning although only one consonant or vowel sounds at a time, and the first sound has ceased before the second arrives; what makes this possible is a mental hologram of the whole word or sentence built from the successive moments (berzin-science-of-mind, Mind as Mental Activity). Perceiving motion works the same way, from a succession of momentary positions. Berzin classes both as conceptual processes rather than achievements of sensory cognition (Objects in Non-Conceptual Cognition), which is worth keeping in view: the whole sentence one takes oneself to have heard is not something any sensory cognition delivered.
Relationship to Self-Awareness
On the Gelug analysis, the appearing object of non-conceptual cognition (the transparent hologram) is a noncongruent affecting variable (ལྡན་མིན་འདུ་བྱེད་) — a nonstatic objective entity that is neither a form of physical phenomena nor a way of being aware of something, but that lacks any form of its own, appearing only with the form of the aspect cast by the external focal object. self-awareness (rang-rig) accompanies all cognition; on the Gelug account it takes the hologram and the mental factors as its objects, enabling later recollection (berzin-science-of-mind, Basic Distinctions among Cognitive Objects).
Sources
- berzin-science-of-mind — central concept throughout; detailed treatment in Objects in Non-Conceptual Cognition, Objects in Conceptual Cognition, Mind as Mental Activity
- dreyfus-recognizing-reality — representationalism vs. direct realism debate; Gorampa’s representationalism (Chs. 25–26). Ch. 26, which calls it “an unstable compromise” and goes on to the difficulties of representationalism, is not yet drawn on here, and it is the obvious source for assessing the transparent/opaque dispute rather than merely stating it
- katsura-dignaga-lectures — twofold-appearance theory (arthābhāsa + svābhāsa) in Dignāga’s sākāravijñānavāda
- shantarakshita-madhyamakalankara-intro — aspect theory and its difficulties