The Solar System Scale

planet. This is not to even mention the spirality we already acknowledged in the DNA of every life form on our planet.

While we might have seen fairly simple examples of the universal Push and Pull on smaller scales, we must remember that planets came much later in the evolution of the universe than atoms and molecules, so they have achieved far more Complexification by comparison. This is especially true of the Earth as new concepts evolved in the duality of the Push and Pull.

Even the simplest of plant life introduced an entirely new concept and level of complexity – the idea and existence of life and death. Take a moment to consider that. Before the earth reached a certain degree of complexity, life and death did not exist. As we will discuss in more detail later, life and death were just the beginning of the unique complexity biological life began. For now, let us just focus on the vast amount of complexity Earth represents, to the point it is what Potentialism regards as both an Epoch and a Complexification event.

The Solar System Scale

On the level of the solar system, we’ll start with the easy thing to identify, Potential’s Push and Pull. This is actually the basic of what we call Newtonian physics. The orbit of the planets 75

represents the perfect balance between these two forces of Potential. The key is envisioning what an orbit actually is.

Let’s take a really simple example and consider the International Space Station. We often talk of the station as being a zero-G environment. Like, since it is far from Earth, everything just floats without gravity. But that isn’t actually what is happening at all.

Gravity is in full effect on the station. It is so close to the Earth below; it very much feels the full weight of its gravity at all times. So, why does it seem like people are floating with no gravity? The answer is terribly interesting. The station is actually falling towards our planet – it just keeps missing!

How is that? Well, it has to do with the momentum of the station. Consider if you threw a baseball at 30 miles per hour, and it went, let’s say, 50 feet. If you threw the ball twice as fast, you’d find it went much further. Well, if you could throw it fast enough, it could fly forever. At some speed, it would fall towards Earth because of gravity, but the Earth is round. So, it could fall at the same rate the Earth curves and never actually hit the ground.

Now, this analogy is imperfect. The ball would actually hit the ground because it would slow after a while. Air in our atmosphere creates friction, so the ball would slow as a result 76

and eventually hit the ground. But above our atmosphere, in space, the space station has no such problems. Thus, we can think of the Push being the velocity of the space station and the Pull being Earth’s gravity.

Planets in the solar system work in much the same way as their velocity keeps them from falling into the Sun, and the Sun’s gravity keeps the planets from launching off into space. Push and Pull.

Now, a clever reader might be thinking at this point, but what about spirality? An orbit is a circle, not a spiral. Well, that’s not actually true. We’ll use a couple of illustrations to explain why. Here is what you have been used to seeing as a model of our solar system.

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On some level, this isn’t completely incorrect. It does roughly describe how the planet moves around the Sun. Granted, the model is oversimplified as the sizes, distances, and exact orbits aren’t correct. But it is sufficient to get across the general idea.

However, something big is missing from this picture. Our solar system doesn’t sit still. It is part of the Milky Way. And our galaxy does not sit still, any more than the planets sit still. As such, it moves in a circle around the core of our galaxy. So, what does it look like when you account for that motion? Well, let’s take a look and see.

Notice something distinct? Yes, the entire solar system is made up of consecutive spirals. Sometimes, if you cannot find something, you only need to shift perspective to find it was

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