Similarity Theory vs Other Theories
A Comparative Framework Across Science and Philosophy

A Foundational Page of Similarity Theory
By Simon Raphael

This page positions Similarity Theory as a meta-framework for understanding how different scientific and philosophical models describe reality from distinct perspectives. Rather than replacing existing theories, it explains why multiple models can remain valid simultaneously, even when they appear to conflict.

By comparing Similarity Theory with several well-known frameworks, this page shows how apparent contradictions often arise from differences in explanatory layer or viewpoint, rather than from errors in the models themselves.

Big Bang Theory

What it focuses on: The measurable expansion of the physical universe from an early hot, dense state.
What it does not address directly: Why awareness exists, or why reality has intelligible structure.
How Similarity Theory relates: Similarity Theory treats the Big Bang as a valid description of measurable physical origins, while exploring a broader structural question: how consciousness, time, and dimensional rule-sets relate to the emergence of any universe.

Relativity

What it focuses on: Space and time as relative, linked frameworks shaped by mass and energy.
What it does not resolve fully: How subjective experience and observation fit into a complete account of reality.
How Similarity Theory relates: Similarity Theory accepts relativity as a correct physical layer, and adds the idea that perspective itself can vary by “layer” — meaning different observers may be validly describing different aspects of the same structural reality.

Quantum Mechanics

What it focuses on: Probabilities, measurement, and non-classical behaviour at small scales.
What remains debated: The interpretation of measurement and the observer problem.
How Similarity Theory relates: Similarity Theory treats quantum behaviour as a genuine layer of reality, while emphasising that observation and perspective can change what is accessible within a given frame of time.

Materialism

What it focuses on: Matter as fundamental; mind as produced by physical processes.
Strength: Strong compatibility with empirical measurement.
Limitation: Struggles to explain why conscious experience exists at all.
How Similarity Theory relates: Similarity Theory allows materialism to remain valid within domains where matter-based explanation is sufficient, while proposing that consciousness may be foundational at deeper structural layers.

Idealism

What it focuses on: Consciousness as fundamental; matter as derivative or appearance.
Strength: Centres experience and awareness.
Limitation: Can struggle to explain the stability of physical law.
How Similarity Theory relates: Similarity Theory permits idealist interpretation at certain layers, while retaining the lawful consistency of physics as a repeating structure across scales.

Dualism

What it focuses on: Mind and matter as distinct categories.
Strength: Preserves the intuition that inner experience is not identical to physical matter.
Limitation: Cannot easily explain interaction without paradox.
How Similarity Theory relates: Similarity Theory reframes the apparent split as a perspective effect — different layers of description, rather than permanently separate substances.

Panpsychism

What it focuses on: Mind-like properties as widespread in nature.
Strength: Offers a bridge between matter and experience.
Limitation: Faces the combination problem (how smaller experiences form unified minds).
How Similarity Theory relates: Similarity Theory shares the intuition that consciousness is not an accident, but it frames consciousness, time, and dimensional structure as a unified repeating system rather than a single-property solution.

For a more detailed discussion of how Similarity Theory reframes the combination problem, see [The Combination Problem].

String Theory / M-Theory

What it focuses on: A mathematical framework for unifying physical forces via higher dimensions.
Strength: Aims at physical unification.
Limitation: Does not directly address subjective experience or meaning.
How Similarity Theory relates: Similarity Theory does not compete with these frameworks. It proposes that “dimensions” can be understood more broadly as rule-sets and layers of perspective — physical, experiential, and conceptual — while leaving mathematical physics intact in its proper domain.

What Similarity Theory Adds

Similarity Theory’s distinctive contribution is not a new competing equation, but a structural claim:

• Reality can be described from different layers of perspective.

• These layers produce different, sometimes contradictory-seeming models.

• The contradiction arises from viewpoint, not necessarily error.

• Patterns repeat across time, scale, and dimensional rule-sets as recognisable echoes.

Having seen how classical frameworks describe distinct facets of reality, the following distils how Similarity Theory integrates these insights into a unified perspective.

Similarity Theory

What it focuses on: The repeating structural relationships between consciousness, time, and dimensional rule-sets across all scales of reality — from human experience to cosmology.

What it addresses: How multiple, apparently conflicting theories can remain valid simultaneously by operating at different layers of description, perspective, and explanatory scope.

How other theories relate: Rather than replacing existing scientific or philosophical models, Similarity Theory treats them as locally accurate descriptions within a broader structural framework. Each theory contributes empirical, mathematical, or conceptual support at its respective layer, collectively reinforcing a coherent picture of reality viewed from multiple perspectives.

This makes Similarity Theory read as a contextual lattice, not a claim of supremacy.

See also

• What Is Similarity Theory — A foundational definition.

• Similarity Theory of Everything. — How the framework unifies science and experience

• About Simon Raphael — background on the creator of Similarity Theory.