🏛️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 unit of measurement — specifically, a measurement of progression and change.

Humans typically measure time relative to mortality: years lived, days passed, lifespans completed. But this is not time itself; it is merely one local method of measurement. Just as distance can be measured in metres, kilometres, or miles, change can be measured in seconds, years, or epochs.

This becomes clear when we consider objects beyond human life. A rock found on Mars does not meaningfully “age” according to Martian days or years. Yet when brought to Earth, its age is almost always expressed in Earth years — not because Earth time governs the rock, but because measurement is local to the observer.

Time, in this sense, functions like:

centimetres for length,
degrees for angles,
or units for quantity.

It is a descriptive tool, not an ontological substance.

In Similarity Theory, time exists wherever change occurs, but it has no independent existence of its own.

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 can observe and interact with lower dimensions.
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, informational, and relational existence itself.

Matter is not the origin of consciousness. Matter is a manifestation of consciousness interacting with itself under structured constraints.

Consciousness, in this framework, is inseparable from information. Information is not destroyed when forms change; it is preserved, transformed, and reorganised. Even when information is deleted from a computer, it has not vanished from the universe — it has merely ceased to be accessible in that configuration.

As informational structure accumulates, it enables increasingly complex forms of expression. In this way, consciousness evolves not by appearing suddenly, but by building upon prior structure.

Different forms of consciousness exist, not as moral hierarchies, but as differences in capacity, integration, and scope.

See full explanation: 🧠Consciousness

✨Frames of Time

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

A Frame of Time is not a snapshot or a dead record. It is a preserved state of consciousness — dormant, but complete. Consciousness does not erase its previous states as it moves forward; it leaves them behind intact.

An analogy helps clarify this:

If we say 2 + 2 = 4, the number four now exists — but the two original twos have not vanished. They remain logically and informationally intact. Something new has emerged without something old being destroyed.

In the same way, as consciousness progresses, each state is preserved. These preserved states are Frames of Time.

Because existence itself involves constant interaction — atomic bonds, forces, perception, movement — even apparently “still” matter is continually generating Frames of Time. The universe is therefore not a single timeline, but a continuously branching preservation of states.

A single Frame of Time may contain countless subordinate frames within it, reflecting the layered nature of existence across scales.

See full explanation: ✨Frames of Time

🪞Emptiness and Origin

In Similarity Theory, emptiness does not mean nothingness. It refers to a depth of existence that precedes articulation, measurement, and comprehension — not the absence of being, but the absence of accessible description.

Prior to self-awareness, existence and change already occurred. There were Frames of Time, progression, and continuity, even though no conscious reference existed to recognise or interpret them. Because change existed, time already existed as a measure — even if no observer was present to name or quantify it. Time, in this sense, does not begin with awareness; it accompanies existence wherever change persists.

What we describe as “origin” is therefore not the beginning of time or existence, but the earliest frame we can meaningfully speak about.

As existence continues — frame after frame, without interruption — structure accumulates. These prolonged sequences of continuity may be thought of as frames of silence: not silent because nothing happens, but because nothing is yet recognised. Over vast spans of persistence, this accumulated continuity reaches a threshold where existence folds back upon itself.

At that point, consciousness becomes aware of itself.

This moment does not create time; rather, it introduces recognised difference — the awareness that what is differs from what was. Time, already present as progression, now becomes interpretable. Awareness reframes time; it does not generate it from nothing.

As awareness deepens, consciousness recognises not only itself, but other consciousness beneath or around it. With this recognition, relational complexity increases. This increase in experiential complexity is what gives rise to dimensions in Similarity Theory — not as spatial layers, but as differentiated rule-sets of lived existence.

From this perspective, the emergence of the universe is not a singular event in the distant past, nor a creation ex nihilo. It is a structural transition: from unarticulated continuity to relational awareness, from persistence to meaning.

Such transitions are not necessarily unique. What we call “origin” may occur at many scales, in many contexts, and in many Frames of Time. The simplicity we assign to beginnings reflects the limits of imagination, not the limits of reality.

Emptiness, therefore, is not void — it is unmapped depth.

See full explanation: 🪞Emptiness

🌌Closing Perspective

Similarity Theory does not claim certainty. It claims coherence.

It offers a way to understand reality in which:

nothing is lost,
progression is structural rather than moral,
and consciousness is not an accident, but the medium through which existence unfolds.

The sections above introduce the core definitions of Similarity Theory, with direct links provided for readers who wish to explore each concept in greater depth. This overview exists not to persuade, but to orient — a map before the terrain.