[deleted]
Lawrence,
I'm thinking of your observations about tmi(too much information), as I'm reading this. Part might be distraction and part might be that the information is so dense as to be impenetrable by anyone not intensely versed in it to begin with.
While I certainly agree we are drowning in oceans of information, I see there are lessons to be learned there as well. Think in terms of how you process information as sequence, yet what you are getting is masses. What principles apply to mass? Temperature, weight, velocity, pressure, magnetism, etc. Now how would your instinctive, non-linear right brain process these masses of information? Are they stable, ie. does it seem like the parts don't fit together, etc. Is it something attractive or repulsive to you? Does it have weight, ie, gravitas, or too much gravitas? Think of financial bubbles in terms of waves and how when lots of them line up, you get a very large one. Consider how energy manifests information and information defines energy and how our bodies have distinct systems to process both, with the central nervous system dealing with information and the digestive, respiratory and circulatory systems processing energy. The hemispheres of the brain are thermostat and clock.
See, this is why I both like physics so much and am so frustrated by physicists. The opportunities to explore and examine all aspects of reality are there, but physics is way off in the extremes of the very small, very large and very obscure, not to mention off on a number of wild goose chases. As well as insisting static models can really describe dynamic processes.
We also loose sight of temperature when we try to measure it to arbitrary accuracy. If time is an effect of action, there can be no dimensionless point in time, as that would mean no action and thus no time. Like a temperature of absolute zero.
I think it is a mistake to lump space and time together. When we measure time, we are measuring change, as caused by action, but when we measure space, be it distance, area, or volume, we are measuring space. While I agree space is occupied by fields of energy, no matter how weak, I still don't think it should be define entirely in terms of what occupies it. Consider that centrifugal force is the relation of spin to inertia, not some outside reference to the spinning object. Being aphysical, space cannot be bound, bent, accelerated, etc. Only what occupies it can be so defined. If there is no "fabric of spacetime," then possibly space is the real frame, so that C is determined by the rate at which all nuclear energy is converted to velocity, due to moving through that inertial space, with clock rates slowing as the velocity increases.
As for gravity, this is very simplistic, but if releasing energy from mass creates pressure, wouldn't energy condensing into mass create a vacuum? That way, it wouldn't be a force, but an effect. Gravity waves would be the energy released by fusion. Sunlight. They can't find any dark matter, but if gravity is not simply a property of mass, but an effect of energy condensing into mass, then the excesses of cosmic rays in galaxies and lots of interstellar gases might hold the clue. Could the conditions in parts of the galaxy make this transition from one to the other possible? It's not like we can run experiments outside the heliosphere.