You’re probably intrigued by the title of this article. Isn’t “gravity” just a basic scientific “fact”? Big things attract smaller things, and that’s that. But why? That’s the tricky question, and this opens up a Pandora box which takes us all the way to questioning why the Universe exists, and why the “rules” governing this Universe are what they are.
Indeed! Who “invented” the rules of gravity?
Let’s cut the story short and go directly to Einstein’s theory of relativity. Gravity is just the observed effect of the curvature of space-time. That is, the “heavier” an object is, the more it “bends” space-time around it, just like a weight on a piece of cloth, and thus we observe a physical change in an objects’ behaviour (for instance, orbiting a planet, or an apple falling to the ground).
So far, so good. But that only kicks the can down the road. Where does the “mass” of atoms come from? Why do objects even have a mass? And where does this “space-time” fabric come from?
While we tend to observe the physical world moving in a certain way, like the planets revolving around each other, us walking around in a certain way, an alternative way to represent movement is to picture any and all objects as falling through “time”. That is, imagine that each “moment” of reality is like a still frame and that each and every atom is “falling” through still frames which gives us the illusion of movement. You can thus view planets or galaxies as huge clusters of atoms which create a large, main “tunnel” through which they are falling, collectively, and thereby create a form of local “coherence” for all objects on that planet. Earth’s real appearance is thus not a sphere rotating around the sun but rather a huge cluster of atoms falling through time at a certain rate, and influencing other clusters of atoms when they get near enough to Earth.
So whenever you see dices rolling on a table, for instance, they are not really rolling on the table so much as slightly deviating out of their “normal” state, falling through time, and thanks to you, they have been granted sufficient energy to push certain atoms out of their “tunnel” to make way for them (like the air surrounding the dices, or a light obstacle on the table).
Weight or mass, in this respect, is only the required force to push an object out of its point of equilibrium, falling through time. Right now, as you are reading this article, no objects are moving chaotically around on your desk. This is because all of the individual atoms that your objects are made of are falling through time in a “coordinated” manner, each in its own “tunnel” or dedicated path. Whenever you move an object, you are thus “forcing” it out of its falling trajectory, while also forcing all other atoms out of theirs (like the air around the object). Friction is also just an effect of this phenomenon. Mass and friction thus only exist thanks to time and the relative “effect” that each atom has when falling through time, or in other words, how “easy” or difficult it is to “shift” an atom away from its falling trajectory.
The Higgs Boson can be seen as an attempt to find out why certain atoms have more mass than others, or in other words, why certain atoms are harder to “push” out of their “tunnel”, falling through time.
But this again just kicks the can further down. Where does “time” even come from?
The fundamental assumption behind this article is that the only force that exists in the Universe is the force of attraction that the future exerts on the past. Now, don’t run away, it’s quite simple to understand. Again, using Einstein’s basic principle of relativity and the effect of mass on space-time, it is well known that black holes seem to bring these principles to a breaking point.
“In the center of a black hole is a gravitational singularity, a one-dimensional point which contains a huge mass in an infinitely small space, where density and gravity become infinite and space-time curves infinitely, and where the laws of physics as we know them cease to operate.”
Basically, if you could sit in the “heart” of the black hole, time would flow infinitely fast from your perspective. It would be as if you would see the Universe move infinitely fast (the planets spinning around their orbits infinitely fast etc). But what are the implications of this? If you really think about it, what it means is that the singularity of the black hole is where any and all possible futures lead. That is, the “ultimate” destination of the Universe is back to a singularity, once each and every single black hole will have merged back into one, which can then “re-expand” and create another Universe.
So time is created from this singularity. However, what scientists fail to recognize is that this singularity never ceased to exist! It doesn’t “disappear” after the Big Bang, it is merely “teleported” into the future! The “Big Bang”, or “time” itself, is just the trail that this singularity leaves behind, these individual “slices of a holographic reality” which leads back to it. Proof of this is quite simply in the existing black holes around us. When did the first “black hole” appear according to you, after the “Big Bang”? Bad question. The “Big Bang” IS the black hole, the singularity, but it’s just one “slice” of time of that singularity.
That’s also probably where the “flat Earth” theories come from: indeed if “reality” is just atoms falling through “slices” of a predefined reality, then the entire Universe is flat!
A better way to represent the Universe is like a series of “singularities" or black holes nested inside one another, where information circulates back and forth to allow for an evolutionary process which defies the “odds" (defying randomness and make sure that all that can happen will happen, like the emergence of life). In the illustration below, you can imagine that the objects on the surface of Planet Earth are “falling through time” towards the centre of the Planet (the singularity of Planet Earth, it’s “ultimate” future, where the Planet can be all that it can be), Planet Earth is itself falling through “time" towards the centre of the Sun, the Sun is falling towards the centre of the galaxy, the galaxy towards the centre of the cluster of galaxies, the cluster towards the “singularity” of our Universe, whatever that is… When I say falling, I do not mean physically falling, but rather falling through time, or through an evolutionary process. In other words, falling through time simply means that the Universe becomes always a bit “more” than it was, it evolves into something more complex (clearly, a Universe with animals is more complex than just made of rocks, and a Universe with sentient beings like humans is also more complex than one with just animals…) So while we may not have the impression that we are physically getting closer to the “center” of Planet Earth, or of the Sun, we are getting closer from an evolutionary perspective: becoming always more then what we were just an hour ago: inventing new things, etc. And of course, to mess with your mind a bit, it’s in reality all turned inside out, which means the cluster of galaxies are inside the Universe’s singularity, the galaxies are inside the singularity at the heart of the cluster, the stars including our Sun are inside the singularity at the centre of each galaxy, the planets are inside their stars, and we live inside our planet. The world as we see it is just a holographic projection from the inside out of these nested singularities.
What are the implications for us? Well, perhaps it is a wake-up call that it is time to reconcile philosophy, religion and science. If a singularity never really disappears, it just “jumps” into the future, then whatever that singularity is, is like an “ultimate” future which creates a form of coherence around itself, leading back inescapably to become “itself” again. That sounds like a pretty good definition for God or a unique “Source Creator”. And all is IT, including this moment where you are just reading this article. That moment is a “part” of that singularity, since it left that “trail” behind itself for you to experience. At this very moment, you are “falling” through time, right back into the one singularity which “created” you. You are falling very slowly (from your perspective), into a black hole.
You could even say that the Universe is just this singularity, or God experiencing him/her/itself if you’re metaphysical in nature. What is certain is that we haven’t even started to explore the philosophical and metaphysical implications of the idea that the future very much co-exists with the past (the heart of any black hole that we observe “exists” now, as we are looking at it). It brings many questions with it, such as why are we here? And if we are “part” of that singularity, if it “created” us from an “ultimate” future which already exists, then what comes after us?
Another “puzzle”, is to figure out where the first “singularity” came from and what it looked like. Did the Universe (or the holographic “trail” it left behind) have the same “properties” as this one? I won’t go into details of the answer, as I explain this in my second article on “perfect symmetry and transcendence”, but the short explanation is something like this: from the point of view of a singularity, time does not exist, so past/present/future co-exist simultaneously, which means it is “aware” of all of the holographic trail it left behind instantly. So the Universe is actually expanding “logically” by learning from itself. The very first singularity was nothing much, but from the “little” that it was, it became more on it’s “second” expansion, and so on, and so on. This might sound like there is a “linear” progression or time, but don’t forget that from the perspective of a singularity, since time flows infinitely fast, can we even speak of a “linear” progression? If it evolves infinitely fast, than perhaps it became all that it can be instantly from it’s point of view. We, here, in this Universe, this holographic trail leading back to the singularity, are helping “informing” it on becoming more than what it already is. Given that a singularity is extremely small, it is also extremely efficient in storing “information” that governs the holographic “story” it leaves behind. This is what I call, in my articles, the “logic layers” of the Universe. This singularity “stores” within itself, the “basic” rules which successfully “manifested” a more complex Universe after each “cycle” of contraction/expansion, which, from it’s perspective, was instantaneous! This includes the rules of physics, chemistry, biology, whatever “rules” apply to us to allow for a harmonious interaction between humans… Every set of rules allows to displace “chaos” upwards, and stabilize one “layer” or building block of the Universe. Each “layer” allows the Universe to expand in complexity without “breaking” this cycle and evolution of the singularity. So this is this famous “feedback” loop which allows the Universe to “evolve”. It creates certain “rules” based on it’s previous expansion, then “tests” those rules in a new expansion and derives “new” rules or tweaks the existing ones, and this to infinity.
Now that you have read all this, take a break, and pick up an object. Understand what you have done. You have “changed” that object’s future, as you have “ripped” it away from it’s predetermined timeline. In a purely mechanical, physical Universe, the “destiny” of the atoms of every single object could, theoretically be predicted until the very end of time. Our way of interacting with physical matter is perhaps a perfect reflection of this process of evolution of a singularity. We also learn from experience, allowing us to evolve as a collective. Don’t forget that the closer you get to the heart of the singularity, the faster “time” advances. But I would rather say, the faster the evolutionary process! How long do you think it took for the rules of “physics” to “emerge” thanks to this feedback loop in a Universe made up of a soup of sub-atomic particles? How fast do you think it took the rules of “chemistry” or “biology” to emerge? We complain that humans are “slow” to learn from their “mistakes”… But I would argue we are learning at an insanely fast rate, relative to the timescale of the Universe!
In my other articles, I explore these questions, like time being non-existent, and many more, so feel free to jump on board and kick the can as far as it can go!