.Gravity’s Logic .Consciousness and gravitons A recurrent dream of mine is about flying, but not in an airplane. If I just pump my arms enough I can get above the tree tops with some exertion, and maybe even higher. Gravity is still very much present, but it is being partially counteracted.
In the waking part of this best possible world we traded in our wings so that we could build airplanes with our hands, giving us the best of both worlds, and still we can dream of unassisted flight.
I am quite willing to accept that some people can levitate objects and even themselves, unassisted, while wide-awake. Such exceptions go to prove gravity’s compelling logic. We need solid ground rather more than we need to levitate. We are part of a two dimensional ecosystem whose third dimension is ruled by gravity. I trust that there are other realities where gravity is optional or even absent, but they will require other kinds of ordering principles in order for there to be level playing fields on which the players may interact.
Given a semblance of gravity, the continuity of consciousness demands that gravity remain uniform unless the Principle of Sufficient Reason rules otherwise. The inverse square law is a necessary part of any system of gravitating bodies. If we are going to dream consistently and collectively of going to the Moon, then the gravity of our dreams will have to obey the inverse square, and so it does.
This is how gravity really works. Supersymmetric gravitons are a wonderful mathematically consistent embellishment upon this dream logic, but that should not mean that we have to believe that space is actually filled with gazillions of virtual gravitons. Occam says that the continuity of consciousness is a vastly simpler and better explanation. Why are we not more amused when a prominent gravitationist attempts to explain consciousness in terms of gravitons? Is this not a reductio ad absurdum?
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rev. 7/5/00