🪞When Emptiness First Saw Itself

A Foundational Page of Similarity Theory
By Simon Raphael

🔹 The First Light of Awareness

At the beginning there was no bang, no motion, no time, no place, no god — only emptiness: pure, undisturbed stillness.

Then something occurred — slight yet monumental: emptiness became aware of itself. This awareness wasn’t outside looking in; it arose from within emptiness itself. That first act of self-recognition — not an explosion but a glance — marks the true origin of existence. From it flowed attraction, resonance, and movement. The universe did not begin with destruction; it began with observation. Consciousness, not chaos, is the first cause. (1)

Modern cosmology often begins with a singularity — a hot, dense point that expanded into space-time itself. Yet even physics admits the singularity is not the ultimate origin, but the limit of our equations. Quantum field theory tells us that what we call “vacuum” is never truly empty: virtual particles flicker in and out of existence, and zero-point energy saturates the void. In this sense, Similarity Theory’s claim that “emptiness became aware of itself” resonates with modern science — stillness concealing potential.

🌀 From Thought to Structure

Imagine a mirror facing a mirror — an endless corridor of reflections. When emptiness recognised itself, a recursive loop arose: the first ripple in stillness.

This inaugural awareness formed the first “drop” of existence — an elemental soul of attention. Like hydrogen in the physical realm, this drop was simple and singular, yet laden with potential.

And as hydrogen draws hydrogen, awareness draws awareness. Not through gravity in the narrow physical sense, but through similarity-attraction: what is alike seeks itself; what is patterned gathers the same. This is not only theory — it is a recurring pattern. In Similarity Theory, pattern is reality. (2)

From repeating patterns, structure emerges. Stars form. Matter arranges. Life begins. And awareness returns — again and again.

☀️ Analogy: How Hydrogen Becomes a Sun

Look to the stars.

A hydrogen atom — the lightest and simplest element — may drift alone in space. When many such atoms gather, thresholds are crossed: pressure and temperature climb until hydrogen fuses into helium, releasing energy — a star is born.

Physics names this process stellar nucleosynthesis — the true alchemy of the cosmos, where simplicity transforms into complexity. Larger stars forge heavier elements — carbon, oxygen, iron — seeding the periodic table. From those elements arise planets, oceans, plants, animals — and, eventually, further awareness. (3)

So it is with the soul: one drop of awareness becomes many. Similarity gathers; resonance ignites; structure emerges.

🌌 A Universe That Wants to Know

Many traditions invoke either a creator-god or a bang from nothing. Similarity Theory does neither. Emptiness is the first canvas; consciousness is the brush — and the brush grows from the canvas it paints. Consciousness is immanent, not external. The question is not “Who placed the first being?” but “What happens when even emptiness becomes aware?” (1)

It is important to clarify that emptiness is not the absolute beginning. Just as mathematics extends below zero into the negative, Similarity Theory acknowledges the possibility of negative dimensions — conceptual domains that precede the first canvas. These are not part of lived experience but are useful in the way negative numbers once seemed absurd but became indispensable in mathematics.

Physics too faces such conceptual thresholds. The Planck time (10⁻⁴³ seconds after the Big Bang) represents the earliest moment current theories can describe. Beyond it, our equations collapse. Likewise, Similarity Theory holds that what lies “before” emptiness cannot be spoken of from within our frame — but its necessity may be implied.

🔬 Analogy: The Microscope and the Hidden World

Think of it like the invention of the microscope. Before it, people assumed the visible world was all that existed. Once the microscope arrived, an entire hidden universe of cells and organisms was revealed — a world that had always been there, yet beyond ordinary sight.

In the same way, what lies “before” emptiness may remain hidden from us now, but a higher level of consciousness could allow us to perceive further back, diving deeper than emptiness itself.

🪙 Analogy: The Coin That Looks at Itself

Picture a coin lying flat on a table. It has two faces — heads and tails — yet, at rest, little is revealed. Now let the coin rise and spin: both faces catch the light. The substance doesn’t change — only the orientation.

So it is when emptiness becomes aware. It “spins” and, in doing so, reveals its own faces: self and other, subject and object, space–time itself. The cosmos begins not because something arrived, but because something looked.

❓ And Yet… Mystery Remains

Even with this foundation, we do not claim to know what preceded the first glance. We speak only of what follows.

To ask “what existed before awareness?” is like asking what lies north of the North Pole. It isn’t nonsensical; it is simply beyond what can be known from within our frame. Similarity Theory does not pretend to answer what cannot be seen; it begins where seeing begins.

📚 References

1. Hawking, S. & Hartle, J. (1983). Wave Function of the Universe.

2. Dirac, P.A.M. (1930). The Principles of Quantum Mechanics.

3. Penrose, R. (2010). Cycles of Time.

4. Guth, A. (1997). The Inflationary Universe.

5. Dirac sea & zero-point energy, quantum vacuum studies.

6. Raphael, S. (2025). Similarity Theory.