General Relativity

"Okay," I smiled. "Next, we're going to look at how variable frame rates tie into general relativity."

"Just to clarify," Zac said, "general relativity is the theory of gravity, correct?"

"Yes. However, like special relativity, general relativity is accurate at a superficial level but fundamentally wrong."

"Because spacetime doesn't exist?"

"Exactly. We've already deduced from first principles that spacetime isn't bending because it doesn't fundamentally exist. Instead, the observer's frame rate must be bending. Basically, the universe enfolds an observer's consciousness into the implicate order at a variable frame rate. The frame rate depends on how fast the observer is moving through space. It also depends on where they are located in space.

To understand this, we need a new conceptual model. I want you to imagine what it would be like to be God. What would it feel like to be in a state of infinite entropy; infinite possibility? What would it feel like to be everything, all at once, all the time?"

"Err…" Zac hesitated. "If God doesn't experience relativity, then he wouldn't experience space or time. I can't even imagine what that's like."

"What about light?" I suggested.

Zac looked at me, puzzled. "What do you mean?"

"Well, imagine what it would feel like to be light. Like, literally to be light. Photons. Sunshine. Light rays. Light. What would you experience if you were light? What would reality feel like to you?"

"Ummm… I dunno," Zac said. "Very bright, I guess?"

"Bright, relative to what? How can you know bright if you've never experienced not-bright? You see, if you are a photon of light, then you would never experience any change — ever! Think about that. You would never, ever experience any change if you were light, because you are everywhere, all at once, all the time."

"I don't get it," Zac said.

"Do you remember how I told you it is impossible to travel at the speed of light? That it would take an infinite amount of energy to even send a grape traveling through space at the speed of light? Well, light can travel at the speed of light. Light has no mass. Therefore, if you are light, you are instantly everywhere, all at once, all the time. You experience no change. No space. No time. No relativity."

"Like God…" Zac's voice trailed off.

"Exactly! In fact, David Bohm once said, 'The universe is frozen light.' I thought that was a beautiful metaphor."

"Frozen light — like an ice cube!"

"Yes," I agreed. "Let's flesh out this conceptual model. On the left-hand side, we have pure light. Because light experiences no change, it's as if it is observing reality at one frame per eternity. On the opposite end of the spectrum, we have a black hole. A black hole has so much mass that even light cannot escape its gravitational pull. It's as if the black hole is observing reality at infinite frames per non-eternity, whatever that means. I've just inverted the frame rate to create a conceptual model. Again — I'm only playing with these ideas at a high level, so I'm not trying to be literal and precise."

"If light experiences no change, then a black hole experiences nothing but change. A black hole would literally experience 'eternity in an hour,' as William Blake's poem so eloquently states. From the perspective of a black hole, billions of years on planet Earth would flash by in an instant."

"Oh! That's time dilation again, right?" Zac said. "I watched Interstellar ages ago."

"Yep," I nodded. "Now, let's combine our variable frame rate model with our whirlpool model."

"So," I continued, "let's say Alice is falling into a black hole with a clock in her hand. From her perspective, time would appear to tick by at a normal rate. One second would feel like one second.

However, if you look at our model, you'll notice something interesting: the closer she gets to the black hole, the higher her frame rate becomes. To keep it simple, let's say Alice is observing reality at 500 frames per second. Her neural network, and the clock's neural network, are enfolded into the lower-dimensional implicate order 500 times for every second she observes."

"Meanwhile, the Cheshire Cat watches Alice fall towards the black hole. The cat is much further away from the black hole, so his frame rate is lower. Let's say the cat is observing reality at 10 frames per second. What will Alice look like from the cat's perspective, as she falls towards the black hole?"

"Umm…" Zac hesitated. "Well, I guess Alice will feel like time is ticking by normally. But the cat will see time slow down for Alice. Like, it will take 50 seconds of the cat's time, for Alice's clock to tick through 1 second."

"How come?" I asked.

"Because it takes 500 frames for Alice's clock to tick through a single second of time. But if the cat is observing reality at 10 fps, then he has to divide those 500 frames by his frame rate of 10 fps. Therefore, 500 / 10 = 50 seconds. The cat will watch Alice fall towards the black hole, and it will take 50 seconds of his time to observe Alice's clock tick through 1 second. But from Alice's perspective, it will take 1 second of her time for the clock to tick through 1 second."

"Perfect," I said. "Remember — Einstein's general theory of relativity was summed up by John Archibald Wheeler like this: spacetime tells matter how to move; matter tells spacetime how to curve. But we know that spacetime doesn't fundamentally exist. If we were to phrase this slightly differently: frame rates tell matter how to move; matter tells frame rates how to vary. It appears as if matter is mathematically optimized to take the most parsimonious route towards higher frame rates. It also appears as if matter affects the frame rate of other matter in its vicinity.

I'm no expert in physics, though, so I could be wrong. I'm just playing with ideas here, so this is just a high-level alternate way of conceptualizing the universe based on what we've deduced so far. Someone else can figure out the details. And the algorithm should be able to make some fun predictions about gravity.

To take this a step further, we could say that the more 'in particular' and focused an idea is, the more attractive it becomes. A black hole is like a very cold ice cube, sucking in more and more energy to keep it cool. Similarly, an idea in your mind can 'cool down' into an ice cube, and will remain an ice cube if you keep focusing on it. What you focus on, grows. It's a holographic pattern."

"Are you saying that a black hole is a very 'particular' idea in the mind of a superintelligence?"