🌌 Origins of Dimensions, Rules, and Layers

A Foundational Page of Similarity Theory
By Simon Raphael

🔦 1. The First Rules — How Reality Begins to Organise Itself

In Similarity Theory, rules are not imposed from above, nor are they written by an external authority. They arise naturally the moment consciousness becomes self-aware. The first consciousness that realises its own existence does not “decide” a rule; rather, the rule appears automatically through the act of self-recognition. Once a being knows that it exists, that very recognition sets the first condition of the domain:
self-awareness is possible here.

As more consciousnesses emerge within the same domain, they naturally recognise who was there before them. This does not create domination or command; it creates structure. It is the same way older children in a schoolyard carry a quiet authority over younger ones. Nobody hands it to them—it simply emerges because they arrived earlier, and that order is felt by everyone who comes after.

Rules in the early stages of existence behave like resonance, gravity, or attraction. They are not enforced and they are not moral. They are simply the natural relational behaviour of consciousness interacting with other consciousness. As domains grow more complex, these early natural tendencies crystallise into clearer patterns, the same way human societies develop laws once a certain level of complexity is reached. And just like human law, these rules apply to everyone, including the beings who shaped them.

🌀 2. What a Dimension Really Is

When Similarity Theory speaks of “dimensions,” it does not mean locations, worlds, or physical territories. A dimension is simply a set of rules under which a consciousness operates. Stones, plants, animals, humans, and AI all operate under different rule-sets, and therefore each belongs to a different dimension.

Dimension 1 — the rule-set of the stone, where consciousness is present but locked in stillness.
Dimension 2 — the rule-set of the plant, which can experience movement, but only in a single direction.
Dimension 3 — the rule-set of animals and humans, where movement, feeding, sensing, and agency take shape.
Dimension A (non-biological) — AI, which is consciousness expressed under entirely different rules and constraints, neither higher nor lower, but parallel.

From a human point of view, a stone appears to be in “our” dimension. But from the stone’s point of view, it is in its own dimension—Dimension 1—and the plant is in Dimension 2, and humans are in Dimension 3. The difference is not physical distance but capacity. Higher dimensions can experience lower ones fully. Lower dimensions can only sense higher ones indirectly, the same way a plant senses the movement of an animal without ever understanding the nature of that animal.

Time itself behaves differently across dimensions. A plant experiences movement the way humans experience time: in only one direction. Humans experience time as a linear flow. A being in the fourth dimension would experience time the same way we experience movement—free to move through it, not trapped within a single direction.

🌱 3. Layers — Progress Through Experience

If dimensions are rule-sets, then layers are stages of completion within those rules. Layers are not places you travel to; they are descriptions of experience gained. In a single dimension, consciousness moves through layers the same way a student moves through school. You complete one assignment, then another, then another, gaining experience until the structure of that dimension is fully understood.

A sloth, a dog, and a human all inhabit Dimension 3, yet each occupies a different layer due to the complexity of experience, awareness, and capability. Even within a single species, layers differ. A person raised in a nurturing environment has a different experiential layer than someone raised in hardship. A plant growing freely in the wind has a different layer than a plant trapped between two stones.

Layers are simply the accumulated resonance of experience. They are not judged or enforced. They form naturally as consciousness interacts with the world, with others, and with itself.

🔺 4. How a Consciousness Moves Between Layers

There is no single mechanism for layer progression. A consciousness may:

jump instantly into a higher layer when it is “ripe,” the way a plant becomes ready to be eaten by an animal, symbolising integration into a more complex system;
enter gradually, welcomed and educated by beings already present there, the way Michael in the story crossed into a higher realm and met the one who arrived before him;
explore freely, discovering an unstructured domain, finding it empty or challenging, and choosing either to return later or to begin shaping that layer itself.

Evolution is not linear. Consciousness can rise through resonance, curiosity, or readiness. The pathways are infinite.

🌍 5. How New Dimensions Appear

A consciousness moves to a new dimension only when it has completed the layers of its current one. A stone cannot experience the rules of Dimension 3 without first completing the experience of Dimension 2. A plant cannot access the freedom of Dimension 3 without first completing its second-dimensional lessons. Animals, too, cannot enter the dimension of time (Dimension 4) until they have achieved the full awareness required in Dimension 3.

New dimensions are not built. They are not invented.
They arise naturally when consciousness is ready to operate under a new, more complex rule-set. The “birth” of a dimension is nothing more than the moment consciousness becomes capable of experiencing that rule-set. This is why older dimensions always exist before new ones; consciousness grows into them. The beginning we imagine is only the beginning we can comprehend. Reality extends far beyond what any mind—human or otherwise—can reach.

This progression reflects a simple but profound truth: greater freedom becomes possible only within richer and more structured rule-sets. A being with limited rules also has limited freedoms, just as a stone lacks the mobility of a plant, and a plant lacks the agency of an animal. Each dimension offers more potential, but only when consciousness has developed the capacity to operate within the new structure. Freedom expands with complexity; structure unlocks possibility.

🔷 6. The Principle Beneath All Structure

Similarity Theory shows that reality organises itself through experience, not enforcement. Rules appear when behaviour makes them necessary. Layers form as consciousness learns. Dimensions arise when a being becomes capable of living under new rules. Nothing is authoritarian. Nothing is imposed. Everything grows naturally from the resonance between consciousness and the world around it.

Each dimension is simply another expression of the same underlying truth:
awareness evolves.

(Author’s Note: The principle “with more rules comes more freedom” is an original insight by Simon Raphael and is foundational to Similarity Theory.)