The Gravity of Acceleration

I had explained the idea of gravity to Ryan. “It behaves exactly like acceleration,” I said. “Gravity and acceleration behave exactly the same.” I should have guessed. It set Ryan off.

“That’s it!” Ryan responded. “Science must look for the common root. If gravity and acceleration act alike then gravity and acceleration must be the same thing. Gravity is acceleration or acceleration is gravity. The presumption must be made.”

“I’ll bite,” I replied, rolling my eyes. “Which is it? Is gravity acceleration or is acceleration gravity?”

“Very elementary,” said Ryan, smiling. “What is gravity? What is acceleration? Man can create acceleration. You do it every day, many times. You get in your car and step on the gas. You are accelerating. Acceleration is simple to comprehend. It is not constant movement, it is, well, accelerating movement. When you go faster and faster, you feel an effect like gravity. Your back gets glued to the back of your seat when you step on the gas. No mystery. So if we can create acceleration then we obviously know what acceleration is. But gravity, what is gravity? Let us mull on the truth that mind creates the physical world.”

The truth, I thought. Ryan had spoken of this mind-over-matter thing many times, but I have never accepted it. The world is real, solid as a rock. Bam, bam. I pound my hand down on my desk. But explaining this to Ryan was futile, so I played along. Ryan continued. “Objects are not really objects, they are symbolic creations of the mind. So gravity being a result of a solid object is mere poppycock.”

“Poppycock?” I interjected. “God, Ryan, that word is deep, really deep.” But my satirical effort failed to derail him. He continued.

“So there is not really any solid fixed object, and therefore the idea of solid objects creating a force called gravity is dubious. What we call gravity must be acceleration. We stand upon a foundation that is continually moving faster and faster, and this acceleration of movement is what glues us down to the earth. The ‘earth,’ mind you, is a mere point of consciousness. It is continually accelerating. If it stopped, we would begin to float, or fly off.”

“Oh great,” I replied. “So the earth keeps getting bigger and bigger. Crazy.”

“No, not bigger, you’re stuck on the earth being a solid object. The earth is a strand of consciousness, not an object. As such, it is accelerating.”

Ryan’s smug look had me thinking how to undermine him. “Oh, great,” I said. “So we are riding on this strand of consciousness that keeps going faster and faster, faster and faster, on and on, on and on. Why wouldn’t we at some point fly apart”

“Hmm,” Ryan replied, rubbing his chin. “You are right. We cannot just keep accelerating. I was thinking of a constant movement, but gravity is not like constant movement, the movement must keep increasing or we are in that area of relativity, like being on a moving train. If the earth was merely in movement we would float about. The acceleration, hmmm. I’m going to have to sleep on this.”

That Ryan did, sleep on it. For the very next morning he was back telling me he had figured this one out. “Oh, geez,” I said, “we’re back on this crazy thing again?”

“Oh yes, and it is earth-shattering. Sit down.”

“Earth shattering?” I said.

“Understatement,” he snapped back. “All day long we move about performing tasks, walking, talking, eating, doing things. Movement , life is movement. We wake up full of energy. Then, as the day progresses, our energy is depleting. We are reaching the limits of acceleration. The acceleration is about to decline. Our focus begins going elsewhere. We call this ‘drowsiness.’ Then we fall into unconsciousness, losing our physical focus. This we call ‘falling asleep.’ De-acceleration begins. We are met with the images and other stimulations from the five physical senses that we had experienced in a congruent form during acceleration, but now the forms are haphazard, flying into our minds disorderly. It is because we are de-accelerating, falling back into the images and forms that were built during acceleration.”

“Crazy,” I said.

“Let me give you a hint as to who may be right,” Ryan said. “Consider the astronomers. They had thought that the Universe was expanding at a uniform rate. But new observations indicate that it is expanding at an accelerated rate. Every inch of the universe is expanding, and thus the farther away something is, the greater it is accelerating. It is not me saying this, astronomers are. Of most interest is that the acceleration takes place away from the observer. Everything in the universe is accelerating away from your point of existence. Everything is accelerating away from you. This is what some astronomers say. And they are right. Everything accelerates away from you, or from me, because our separate points of awareness are all that exists, from our separate viewpoints. Let me give you a hint into the future. If I am right, these same astronomers who say that the universe is accelerating will find through observation that while that is true, equally true will be the fact that nothing is moving farther away from anything else. It will boggle their minds. They will say that such a thing is impossible, that something cannot be accelerating away yet not be moving any more distant away. Things in the universe, if they are accelerating away with every inch of space, should be rapidly becoming more and more distant from us, more and more with time. Yet astronomers cannot even agree on whether the universe is expanding or contracting! Why? Because both are happening, expansion in the waking state, and contraction during sleep.”

There was little I could say, for I was indeed aware of the controversy as to the state of the universe. Then Ryan, true to form, laid another one on me. “Instantaneous communication,” he said. “Quantum physicists know it exists. How does it exist?”

“Real mystery,” I replied, trying not to encourage Ryan further.

“No mystery at all,” said Ryan. “Didn’t I already tell you that three-dimensional space is a creation of the mind?”

“Uh, not sure,” I said, feigning innocence.

“It is,” said Ryan. “So, duh, three-dimensional space is a product of the mind, so, what is instantaneous communication?”

“Um, ok, I bite, what is it?” I asked.

“What is it? What is communication from one place to the same place? If there is no space then there is no non-instantaneous communication, right?”

“Oh, yeah, sure,“ I replied, grinning and feeling a bit stupid, but not really knowing why.

“No space. No distance. What is a delayed communication? What is the speed of light?”

“Keep talking,” I replied. But I wondered if I could somehow change the conversation to who’s going to the superbowl.

“The speed of light is not speed at all,” said Ryan. I rolled my eyes. He continued. “It is merely a delay, a pause, for creating in the mind a sense of distance. There is not really anything but instant communication. All communication is instantaneous because there is no space and thus no distance. Now, given this, what is acceleration?”

“Oh god,” I said. “I had enough problems with acceleration, now this.”

“No problem with acceleration,” said Ryan. “Space is an illusion, a creation of the mind. So what is acceleration? What is acceleration when there exists no space for accelerating? Acceleration must be some kind of intensity. I’m drawing a blank. I’ll have to sleep on this.”

“Do that,” I said, feeling queasy that I would be continuing this odd and eccentric conversation with Ryan again the next morning.

...To be continued