About GRAVITY

Bodies do not just fall toward each other, they also cease falling. A theory of gravity should explain both of these mysteries, and it should do so based solely on a single albeit complex mystery, a single yet complex principle, a single but extremely complex belief. Hence the word gravity should connote not only falling but also standing (or, you might say, rising), not only black holes but also atoms, not only unity but also multiplicity — and, most deeply, the spiritual. Which is to say, a theory of gravity should be an essentially quantum theory, a truly general theory, and moreover a theory of everything. Einstein’s general theory of relativity is not general in this truly general sense. Better than anyone, Einstein understood this fact — which is why he spent the last several decades of his life trying to generalize his general theory.

Yet Einstein understood that a theory of gravity should be simple as well. Likewise he understood that the attempt to marry generality and simplicity stems from a single kind of principle, namely a principle of relativity, i.e. a principle of relatedness or of sameness or of difference (these notions implying each other). Einstein's famous theory wittingly approximates such a principled relativity theory.

I think that the destiny of physics and indeed the destiny of the world depend on an optimal expression — including an optimal determination, a single best mathematical symbol — of the principle of relativity. This dependence is the chief lesson to be gleaned from the physics of the last century. Until recently, however, the thinker who has come closest to making said expression is Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. By way of Leibniz’s philosophy, Einstein’s principle of relativity can be generalized and simplified such that it emerges identical to the single most basic and inasmuch natural belief of all: an individual’s belief in others; i.e. an individual’s belief that he/she is not alone. This is to say, the principle of relativity should be considered the weakest form of solipsism, a radical conservation of the Cartesian “I”.

A completely successful physics based soley on this principle of relativity would be extremely beautiful, in large part because it would stand heuristically and ironically as the most impressive symbol of mystery.

Falling, rising, generality, relation, sameness, difference. These are extremely profound notions; people for countless millennia have naturally meditated upon them. In fact the touchstone which is modern physics points us not only to the future but also to the past — the deep past. And it’s especially in terms of this past that we will discover — or, better still, reconstruct — what we may fairly call the original theory of gravity, the extreme richness of which prehistoric theory interfaces naturally with the nascent physical theory adumbrated above. In the process of this recovery we will learn that we owe as much or more to James Joyce as to Einstein and Leibniz.

Truly we are addressing herein a theory of everything: physics, philosophy, cosmology, mythology, history, religion, psychology, art, sociology, commerce. What’s more, said theory is extremely beautiful in the sense of harmony between generality and simplicity, multiplicity and unity, inclusivity and exclusivity, extroversion and introversion. Such an ironical theory is also essentially fractal and holographic.

The Gravity trilogy is an address of and to a Golden Nature and Golden Age. I will try to show herein that until some 5000 years ago the cosmos and world were successfully understood and largely organized according to what was basically a theory of quantum gravity, of difference — a truly general theory of relativity. That Golden Age resonates in terms of Kronos, Saturn, Solomon, Humpty, etc. Humpty was destined to fall. And fall he did. But he is likewise destined to rise, and indeed he is rising — albeit painfully — before our very eyes. We, unlike all the king’s men, must — and will — see our way to putting Humpty completely together again. The Gravity trilogy endeavors to shed light with utmost accuracy and precision on this accidental quest, this destiny, this considerably long-lost yet at least ever-present and indeed obviously developing passage of passion, pain, patience, peace: on this Golden Nature and immature Golden Age of ours.