🏛️Foundational Definitions of Similarity Theory.

A Foundational Page of Similarity Theory
By Simon Raphael

Similarity Theory is a consciousness-first framework for understanding reality. It does not attempt to replace existing scientific models, nor does it claim final authority over truth. Instead, it provides a structural lens through which time, dimensions, matter, and experience can be understood as expressions of a deeper continuity.

At its core, Similarity Theory proposes that reality is not random, not fundamentally inert, and not constructed from matter alone. Rather, reality unfolds through patterns of similarity that repeat, echo, and evolve across all scales of existence.

This page introduces the core concepts of the theory in their simplest and most stable form.

⏳ Time in Similarity Theory

In Similarity Theory, time is not a space, a substance, or a dimension through which anything moves. Time is a means of measuring progression and change.

Humans typically measure time using familiar cycles and conventions: seconds, days, years, lifespans, and historical epochs. These units do not constitute time itself; they are scales through which change and duration are described. Just as distance may be expressed in metres, kilometres, or miles, progression may be expressed in seconds, years, or epochs.

Consider a rock formed on Mars. Its history does not intrinsically belong to either Martian years or Earth years. We may express its age using either system without altering the sequence of changes through which the rock has existed. The units belong to the measurement; the progression belongs to the existence being measured.

Time, in this sense, functions like:

• centimetres for length,

• degrees for angles,

• or units for quantity.

It is a descriptive measure of progression and change, not an independent ontological substance.

In Similarity Theory, time is therefore applicable wherever change occurs, but it does not exist independently of the progression it describes.

See full explanation: ⏳ Time

🌐Dimensions in Similarity Theory

The word dimension is used very differently in Similarity Theory than in physics.

In physics, dimensions usually refer to spatial axes (X, Y, Z) or mathematical extensions of space. In Similarity Theory, dimensions are not spatial locations and not places one can travel to. They are states of lived experience — measures of conscious complexity.

A dimension describes how existence is experienced, not where it occurs.

For clarity, Similarity Theory uses numbered dimensions as conceptual labels, not literal counts:

• Dimension 1 refers to elemental and inanimate existence — rocks, atoms, molecules. These forms exist, interact, and persist, but do not grow or act autonomously.

• Dimension 2 refers to plant life. Plants exist within a richer experiential field: they grow, respond, adapt, and sustain themselves through interaction with soil, light, and water.

• Dimension 3 includes animals and humans. Here, autonomous movement, agency, perception, and decision-making emerge.

These numbers are not absolute. Dimension 1 could just as easily be called Dimension 1,000,000. The labels exist only for human comprehension. Lower or higher dimensions beyond our current capacity are not ruled out — they are simply irrelevant to count until they can be meaningfully understood.

Crucially, all dimensions can coexist in the same physical space. A human (Dimension 3), a plant (Dimension 2), and a rock (Dimension 1) may occupy the same location while existing within different experiential rule-sets.

Perception across dimensions is asymmetric:

• Higher-dimensional beings may possess the capacity to perceive and interact with lower-dimensional realities. This does not mean that they necessarily observe or interact with them at all times; rather, their dimensional position may make such perception or interaction possible.

• Lower-dimensional beings may respond to higher dimensions without awareness or comprehension.

A plant does not understand a human, yet it is affected by human actions. Likewise, higher-dimensional forms (Dimension 4 and beyond, if they exist) may perceive and influence our world while remaining largely invisible to us — sensed, perhaps, but not cognitively grasped.

See full explanation: 🌐Dimensions

🧠Consciousness

In Similarity Theory, consciousness is primary.

This does not mean that human thought is primary, nor that all things think as humans do. Rather, consciousness is understood as ontological life — active, relational existence capable of expression through different forms, structures, and degrees of complexity.

Matter is not regarded as the origin of consciousness. Instead, matter is understood as a structured manifestation of consciousness interacting within particular relational conditions and constraints.

Consciousness is also inseparable from information and relation. As configurations change, new informational and relational structures arise, while earlier conscious states remain determinate within their respective Frames of Time. Change therefore does not require the metaphysical erasure of what came before; rather, new configurations develop from prior conditions while earlier Frames remain what they were.

As relational and informational complexity develops, increasingly complex forms of conscious expression become possible. In this sense, consciousness does not suddenly appear at an arbitrary threshold. Its modes of expression develop through accumulated structure, interaction, and relation.

Different forms of consciousness may therefore differ in capacity, integration, awareness, and scope without ceasing to participate in the same underlying conscious reality. These differences describe variation in expression and organisation; they do not, by themselves, establish a moral hierarchy.

See full explanation: 🧠Consciousness

✨ Frames of Time

Whenever consciousness undergoes change — however small — a new Frame of Time is generated.

A Frame of Time is not a snapshot, a memory, or a dead record of what once existed. It is consciousness itself as it exists in a particular relational configuration. When change generates a new Frame, the preceding Frame does not disappear or become overwritten. It remains determinate as the consciousness-configuration that existed in that relation.

The principle is simple: something new can arise without requiring what came before to cease to exist.

As consciousness changes, successive Frames are generated, while earlier Frames remain real within the structure of existence. An earlier Frame may also enter into relation again. Such renewed interaction does not force it to repeat its previous continuation; the interaction itself constitutes change and therefore generates a new relational Frame.

Because existence involves continual change and relation — from thought and perception to movement, biological processes and molecular interactions — Frames of Time are generated at every scale. Even apparent stillness contains ongoing relational change.

Frames should therefore not be imagined as a single universal row of moments. They are nested, overlapping and relational, occurring within people, organisms, objects, environments, planets and larger structures.

Branching is also possible. Where a Frame becomes the basis for more than one continuation, different developmental paths may emerge from the same earlier configuration. Branching is therefore a possible form of continuation, not a requirement of every change.

Frames of Time preserve continuity without imposing predetermined outcomes. Earlier configurations remain real, while consciousness remains capable of generating genuinely new relations and developments.

See full explanation: ✨Frames of Time

🪞Emptiness and Origin

In Similarity Theory, emptiness does not mean absolute nothingness. It refers to a state of existence in which consciousness is present but has not yet developed the relational distinctions through which it recognises itself and its surroundings.

Emptiness is therefore not proposed as the ultimate beginning of existence. It is a Frame of Time within the developmental history of our universe — an early condition from which the emergence of recognisable structure can be described.

Before reflective self-awareness arose, consciousness, change, and progression already existed. Changes in consciousness generated Frames of Time even though those configurations were not yet being reflectively recognised, interpreted, or measured by a self-aware observer.

Time does not therefore begin with self-awareness. In Similarity Theory, time is a means of describing progression and change. Where change occurs, that progression can be described in temporal terms, whether or not a consciousness within that Frame is consciously measuring it.

What we describe as an origin is therefore not necessarily the absolute beginning of consciousness, time, or existence. It is the earliest condition within a particular developmental sequence that we are able to identify and meaningfully describe.

As consciousness continues through successive changes, relational structure can become increasingly complex. At some stage within this development, consciousness becomes capable of recognising itself. This self-recognition does not create consciousness or generate the first Frame of Time. It constitutes another change in consciousness and therefore generates a new Frame — one in which reflective awareness has emerged.

With self-recognition, difference becomes explicitly experienced: what is can be distinguished from what was, and self can be distinguished from other. Progression that previously occurred without reflective interpretation can now be recognised and understood.

As relational awareness develops further, consciousness may recognise other forms of consciousness and increasingly complex relations among them. Within Similarity Theory, such differences in experiential and relational complexity provide the basis for what are described as dimensions — not spatial layers, but differing modes and capacities of lived existence.

From this perspective, the emergence of our observable universe need not be understood as creation from absolute nothingness. It may instead be understood as a developmental transition within consciousness: from a relatively undifferentiated Frame toward increasingly articulated structure, relation, awareness, and complexity.

Such transitions need not be unique. Comparable processes may occur at different scales, within different contexts, and across different Frames of Time. What appears to us as a beginning may therefore be the beginning of a particular developmental sequence rather than the beginning of existence itself.

Emptiness, in Similarity Theory, is therefore not nothingness and not an absolute origin. It is a Frame of relatively undifferentiated conscious existence from which further relational structure can develop.

See full explanation: 🪞Emptiness

🌌 Closing Perspective

Similarity Theory offers a consciousness-first framework for understanding reality through relation, continuity, change, and similarity.

It presents a view of existence in which consciousness is not treated as a late product of matter, but as the underlying ontological reality through which structure, experience, and increasingly complex forms of organisation can emerge.

Within this framework:

• consciousness is primary;

• change generates new Frames of Time;

• earlier Frames remain determinate rather than being overwritten by later ones;

• progression describes development and change, not moral superiority;

• dimensions describe differing forms and capacities of lived experience rather than spatial locations;

• branching is possible where more than one continuation develops from an earlier Frame;

• and similarity provides a means through which relations, continuities, and recurring structures can be recognised across different scales of existence.

Reality is therefore understood not as a single sequence in which each new state erases the one before it, but as an evolving relational structure in which new configurations can arise while earlier Frames remain what they were.

The sections above introduce the foundational definitions of Similarity Theory, with direct links for readers who wish to explore each concept in greater depth. This overview is intended not as a complete account of the theory, but as an orientation — a map before the terrain.

🔎 Similarity Theory Summary

Similarity Theory is a consciousness-first framework in which reality develops through change, relation, and similarity.

Consciousness is primary. Change generates new Frames of Time, while earlier Frames remain determinate. Continuity may develop through successive Frames and may also branch into more than one genuine continuation.

Dimensions describe differing capacities and modes of conscious experience, while similarity provides a means of recognising relations, patterns, and continuity across existence.

In short, consciousness is the foundation, relation is the structure, change generates development, and similarity reveals the connections between them.

Despite its name, Similarity Theory is therefore not merely a theory about resemblance. Similarity is the investigative principle; consciousness and relational existence are the subject of the framework.