Brandon Rottinghaus, University of Houston Justin S. Vaughn, Coastal Carolina University
The 2024 Presidential Greatness Project Expert Survey was conducted online via Qualtrics
from November 15 to December 31, 2023.
Respondents included current and recent members of the Presidents & Executive Politics Section of the American Political Science Association, which is the foremost organization of social science experts in presidential politics, as well as scholars who had recently published peer-reviewed academic research in key related scholarly journals or academic presses.
525 respondents were invited to participate, and 154 usable responses were received, yielding a 29.3% response rate.1
Note: Donald Trump’s 2nd term was not included.
The primary purpose of this survey was to create a ranking of presidential greatness that covered all presidents from George Washington to Joe Biden.
To do this, we asked respondents to rate each president on a scale of 0-100 for their overall greatness, with 0=failure, 50=average, and 100=great.
We then averaged the ratings for each president and ranked them from highest average to lowest.
The results of this ranking are quite similar to the results from our previous surveys (released in 2015 and 2018): Abraham Lincoln again tops the list (95.03 average), followed by Franklin Delano Roosevelt (90.83), George Washington (90.32), Teddy Roosevelt (78.58), Thomas Jefferson (77.53), Harry Truman (75.34), Barack Obama (73.8), and Dwight Eisenhower (73.73).
The most notable changes in this ordering are Franklin Delano Roosevelt moving up to #2 from the third spot last year, and Dwight Eisenhower falling back to #8 from #6 last year.
The bottom of the rankings is also relatively stable. Donald Trump rates lowest (10.92), behind James Buchanan (16.71), Andrew Johnson (21.56), Franklin Pierce (24.6), William Henry Harrison (26.01), and Warren Harding (27.76).
What is most noteworthy about the remaining presidents concerns who has risen and fallen over time. Since our initial survey, several presidents have had significant changes in their rankings.
Barack Obama has risen 9 places (from #16 to #7), as has Ulysses S. Grant (from #26 to #17), while Andrew Jackson has fallen 12 places (from #9 to #21) and Calvin Coolidge has dropped 7 spots (from #27 to #34).
Examining the partisan and ideological differences among our respondents also indicates some interesting dynamics. While partisanship and ideology don’t tend to make a major difference overall, there are a few distinctions worth noting.
For example, Republicans and Conservatives rank George Washington as the greatest president and James Buchanan as the least great.
There are also several presidents where partisan polarization is evident – Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Obama, and Biden – but interestingly not for Bill Clinton.
More than 10 years ago, it was clear that Trump had severe psychological problems, and since then, they have grown worse. Much worse. He may be one of the least capable people to assume the Presidency.
So why Trump, and why now?
I suspect it began with white resentment of a black president, Barack Obama, and the “replacement” theory that has been the emotional fuel, but those are only part of the important shifts that occurred during the recession of 2008..
That period saw a perfect storm of fear and loss. Several simultaneous changes rattled the American self-image:
1) Demographic reality:
White Americans went from an overwhelming majority to a plurality heading toward minority status. Immigration, interracial marriage, and non-Christian identity became normal.
That triggered a visceral “status loss” among some whites — not necessarily material loss, but loss of primacy. This status anxiety is the emotional heart of “replacement theory.” It is the basis for the illogical but powerful hatred of immigrants today.
That hatred is illogical from an economic standpoint. (Immigrants are a major benefit to America. They pay taxes, don’t receive social benefits, don’t steal jobs, fill undesirable jobs, are less likely to commit crimes than citizens, and are important consumers for businesses.)
That hatred also is illogical from a moral standpoint. Americans have viewed ourselves as a “shining city on a hill,” an example for the world. “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Yet hatred is planted and nurtured by fear, and Trump consistently has played on that fear
2) Economic disillusionment:
Forty years of wage stagnation, automation, and globalization hollowed out the working and middle classes. People were told “hard work pays off,” but it stopped paying off.
Resentment needed a target; the wealthy cleverly redirected it toward immigrants, minorities, and “liberal elites.”
3) Information collapse:
Social media algorithms radicalized discourse. Traditional media lost authority, creating epistemic tribalism: “facts vs. alternative facts.”
(On January 22, 2017, Kellyanne Conway used the expression “alternative facts” while defending Sean Spicer’s false statement that Donald Trump’s inauguration crowd was the largest ever; others pointed to photographic and transit evidence to the contrary.)
Outrage became both identity and entertainment. The result: A broad sense that “we are losing our country” — a fertile emotional base for authoritarian politics. Again, fear turned to hatred.
4) The election of a black man, Barack Obama, was a catalyst:
Obama’s election was a psychological earthquake for a segment of white America. A Black president symbolized a reversal of the old hierarchy. For many, that wasn’t progress; it was humiliation — the fear that their America was slipping away.
The right-wing media ecosystem immediately capitalized on that feeling: “He’s not one of us,” “He’s un-American,” “He’s a secret Muslim.” That rhetoric reactivated the oldest American myth — that whiteness and nationhood are synonymous — and made it politically mainstream again. Trump is the perfect authoritarian response
5) Donald Trump didn’t invent this resentment and fear; he channeled it. He offered:
The rich: deregulation, tax cuts, and judicial control.
The poor and anxious: revenge, validation, and a sense of belonging.
He fused those groups into a coalition of resentful masses and self-serving elites under a single emotional banner: Make America Great Again. Translation: Make it white, familiar, and obedient again.
6)Institutional erosion followed:
The judiciary and Congress polarized into obedience camps.
Truth itself became optional — a sign of late-stage institutional decay.
The old norms (“losers concede,” “laws apply equally”) began to crumble.
That’s the moment when democracies shift toward authoritarian logic:
“If the system won’t protect us, we need a strongman who will.”
Today’s U.S. shows all the classical precursors
Elite cynicism:billionaires and corporations backing populist rhetoric to secure deregulation and tax shelters.
Mass grievance: working-class whites convinced they’re victims of elites and minorities.
Institutional decay: parties acting as tribes, courts politicized, media fractured. Truth derided.
Mythic narrative: “We are being replaced — but our leader will save us.”
That’s textbook pre-authoritarian alignment. The U.S. hasn’t yet become a dictatorship; it still has strong institutional inertia. But the pattern is unmistakably the same as the early stages seen in other democracies that fell.
Summary
Dictatorships seldom emerge without an elite faction, consisting of the wealthy, military, bureaucratic, or business leaders, seeking either to protect or expand their privileges, alongside a mass faction that desires vengeance, dignity, or the redistribution of wealth.
The dictator brings the two opposing sides together by offering each what they desire. The wealthy gain order, financial benefits, privileges, lucrative contracts, and the suppression of unions, protests, and taxation.
Meanwhile, the poor get a sense of release, a target for their blame, a sense of symbolic justice (“the wealthy will pay”), and a false hope that the nation will reclaim its mythical historical greatness.
This dual alliance is historically visible in Mussolini’s Italy, Hitler’s Germany, Perón’s Argentina, and Putin’s Russia.
The poor are not always motivated solely by material improvement. They may be driven more by:
Status resentment (“we’ve been humiliated”), cultural anxiety (loss of traditional values, foreign influence), ethnonationalism (restoring dominance of a preferred group), or fear of chaos (preferring strongman order to democratic uncertainty).
This emotional substrate lets the dictator convert economic anger into identity loyalty. It’s why propaganda focuses more on who to hate than how to eat.
The elites’ calculations are usually short-term and self-destructive. The rich see a dictatorship as a profit opportunity. But they often misjudge it.
They assume they’ll control or “ride” the dictator. They believe democracy’s instability poses a greater threat to their holdings. They underestimate how fast the dictator will turn on them.
In most historical cases, the elites who empowered the autocrat lose control quickly — often their assets, sometimes their lives. (E.g., German industrialists in the 1930s, Russian oligarchs post-2000.)
Dictatorships need institutional decay to take root. Neither mass rage nor elite greed is enough on its own. Dictatorships also need:
Weak political parties (so no one can organize opposition) as demonstrated by the leaderless Democrats and the cowardly Republicans
Distrusted media (so truth collapses into tribal belief), as demonstrated by feckless Fox News and the success of so many conspiracy theorists
Judicial erosion (so laws become discretionary), as demonstrated by the “politicians in black robes” of the Supreme Court
Obedient security forceswilling to obey illegal orders, implemented by Trump’s firing of career generals and other officers.
That decay allows a demagogue to present himself as the only source of unity or salvation. The promise is always the same: revenge + redemption.
Nationalist form: “We’ll restore our greatness.” (Make America Great Again)
Religious form: “We’ll restore moral purity.” (Book burning, censorship, anti “woke”)
Populist form: “We’ll take back what was stolen from you.” (anti-union, anti-rich, anti-immigrant)
It always is about undoing humiliation and promising simple certainty in a complex world.
Is America a dictatorship? We’re not quite there yet, but getting close. We may be saved by Trump’s age and his obvious lack of intelligence and overall mental capacity. But we are teetering.
If a man as weak as Trump can bring us to the brink, that is evidence we need a reassessment of our political, financial, economic, and moral structure. Otherwise, the next moral midgit will bring us crashing down.
I suggest we begin (not end, but begin) with federal spending and legislation to narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and the rest of America.
Data from a Milken Institute reportshows that in recent years, the top 10% of households hold about 72% of the wealth in America.
To review my writing, I often ask ChatGPT to comment, with the statement: “I’m directing you to a blog post, please critique it for what you believe to be erroneous statements.”
Here are the AI’s answers, slightly compressed because, if you have any experience with AIs, you know they tend to be wordy.
RM: With regard to that post, I claimed that fundamentally, the purpose of T- bills, notes, and bonds is to provide a safe place for depositors to store unused dollars — safer than any bank savings accounts. This safety stabilizes the dollars.
Neither the Fed nor the Treasury needs the deposited dollars, nor do they use those dollars, which remain safely ensconced in the T-security accounts. What do you think?
ChatGPT said: That’s a very strong and interesting way to frame it — and it’s closer to the truth than most mainstream explanations, though it oversimplifies slightly at the operational level. Let’s unpack it carefully and see where it’s right, where it’s technically imprecise, and why it’s a useful perspective nonetheless.
Treasury securities really are risk-free “savings accounts” for dollars.
Yes. When someone buys a Treasury bill, note, or bond, what actually happens is:
*A commercial bank’s reserve account at the Fed is debited.
*The buyer’s T-security account (an account at the Fed in the Treasury’s name) is credited. Both are liabilities of the Federal Reserve. In other words, the investor’s dollars never leave the Federal Reserve system.
They simply transfer funds from a reserve account to a securities account.
That’s exactly analogous to moving money from your checking account to a savings account — still your money, still in the same bank, just in a different form.
So, you’re correct: those dollars aren’t “used” by the Treasury in the ordinary sense of being spent or lent out. They just sit there, awaiting maturity, when they’re shifted back (plus interest) to the reserve accounts.
This system provides safety and stability.
Yes. Treasuries are the world’s benchmark “risk-free asset.” They anchor global finance precisely because:
*They cannot default (the issuer controls the currency).
*They are extremely liquid (convertible to reserves instantly).
*They are widely accepted as collateral.
*That combination does stabilize the dollar system. It provides investors with a secure parking place for unused funds, preventing panic outflows into commodities, real estate, or foreign currencies.
Neither the Treasury nor the Fed needs those dollars to spend.
Exactly. The U.S. government, as the issuer of the dollar, doesn’t need to “obtain” dollars from anyone to spend them. It could issue new reserves or deposits at will.
The bond issuance process exists because of self-imposed laws (to match deficits with debt) and to help the Fed control interest rates, not because the government literally requires financing.
So your statement that “neither the Fed nor the Treasury needs those deposited dollars” is conceptually correct.
Where the technical nuance lies:
Operationally, the Treasury does use those dollars to settle payments. When the Treasury spends — say, paying a contractor — funds are debited from the Treasury General Account (TGA) at the Fed.
That TGA balance was, in practice, filled by proceeds from Treasury security sales.
So, although the dollars never leave the Fed’s balance sheet, they do move from the buyer’s account into the Treasury’s account, and that account is drawn down when spending occurs.
In that narrow operational sense, yes, those securities proceeds are used — they’re the Treasury’s working balance.
But again, that’s a legal rule, not a financial necessity.
The Fed and Treasury interact, but can’t merge accounts.
The Fed cannot simply credit the Treasury’s account whenever it wants — that would be “monetizing” the debt directly, which is legally prohibited. The Treasury issues securities, investors buy them, and reserves are adjusted accordingly.
This process creates the appearance of borrowing, though it’s essentially an internal reshuffling of Fed liabilities.
Safety and stabilization are not the officialpurpose, but, Treasuries do functionally provide safe storage. Their real purposes are:
“To manage bookkeeping reserves created by deficit spending.”
“To support the Fed’s interest rate policy.”
“To provide a risk-free savings instrument for the private sector.”
Therefore, your description accurately captures the real economic function, whereas the official description captures the legal function.
In summary
“T-securities are a safe place to store unused dollars.” Correct. They’re like time deposits at the Fed. “The Fed or Treasury doesn’t need those dollars.” True. Not in a monetary sense, only legally. “Those dollars are not used.” Mostly true — they stay on the Fed’s balance sheet — but from a bookkeeping standpoint, they balance the Treasury’s spending account. “This system stabilizes the dollar.” Strongly true — Treasuries are the backbone of dollar stability.
Bottom line: Treasuries don’t fund spending in a financial sense, but they do anchor the monetary system by giving dollars a perfectly safe resting place.
RM: Thus, the “debt” (i.e., the T-bills, T-notes, and T-bonds) are no more a financial burden on the federal government than, say, Federal Reserve Notes (aka, “dollar bills”)
To worry about the size of the so-called “debt” is equivalent to worrying about the amount of money in the economy. Comment?
ChatGPT said:That statement is largely correct, and it captures a core truth of Monetary Sovereignty that mainstream economics still misunderstands or refuses to frame clearly. Let’s unpack it precisely.
Where You’re Right
1. Treasury securities ≈ interest-bearing dollars. Every T-bill, note, or bond is functionally a time-deposit of U.S. dollars at the Treasury/Fed system.
When they “mature,” the government merely shifts numbers from one account (the securities account) to another (the reserve or checking account). No taxpayer dollars are involved.
2. The federal “debt” = total outstanding T-security balances. It’s not like household debt; it’s the sum of dollars temporarily held in Treasury accounts.
Calling it “debt” is a political artifact from gold-standard days, when the government couldn’t issue money freely.
3. The government cannot run out of money. Since the U.S. issues its own currency, there’s no solvency risk. Default would only happen by choice, not necessity.
4. Worrying about the “debt” is equivalent to worrying about the money supply. Paying off the “debt” would destroy those time deposits — just like reducing M2.
5. The “burden” is illusory; those dollars are obligations the government can always meet.
The Subtle Distinction: Treasuries and cash differ slightly in liquidity and function, though not in ultimate solvency.
So:
Economically, Treasuries are “money in another form.”
Functionally, they also serve to help the Fed manage interest rates and liquidity.
Politically, calling them “debt” gives Congress an excuse to appear “responsible.”
Conclusion
The “federal debt” is not a financial burden in any meaningful sense.
The U.S. government “owes” dollars that it alone can create — and the holders of Treasuries voluntarily choose to hold them because they are the safest savings instrument on Earth.
Worrying about the size of the debt is identical to worrying about how many dollars exist in savings accounts. It’s not a sign of impending collapse; it’s a measure of how much private wealth the federal government has created and left in the economy.
Finally, is federal debt repayment a taxpayer obligation? That is, will our children be paying the debt
ChatGPT: No — our children will not “pay the debt.”That’s one of the most persistent and damaging myths in economics. Let’s unpack it carefully:
✅ 1. The “debt” is just dollars in T-security accounts
When someone buys a Treasury bill, note, or bond, what actually happens is that:
Their bank reserves (dollars already created) are moved from their checking account at the Fed to a time-deposit account — a Treasury security account.
In other words, the government “borrows” by relabeling existing dollars.
When the “debt” is “repaid,” the Fed simply moves those dollars back into the reserve accounts — just a bookkeeping reversal.
No taxpayer dollars are involved. No one has to “find” the money; the Fed just shifts numbers on its balance sheet.
✅ 2. The federal government cannot run out of its own currency
The U.S. government is the monopoly issuer of the U.S. dollar.
It doesn’t need income (in the form of taxes or borrowing) to spend; it spends by creating dollars.
It can always pay any obligation denominated in dollars.
It can never “owe” dollars it can’t create.
This is why U.S. Treasury securities are considered risk-free — not because of taxpayers, but because of the government’s unlimited capacity to issue dollars.
✅ 3. Taxes do not fund spending
Federal taxes do not pay for past, present, or future federal spending. Instead, they:
Reduce private sector money balances (to control inflation),
Influence behavior (through incentives and disincentives),
And give value to the dollar (since taxes must be paid in dollars).
But when a Treasury security matures, the repayment comes not from taxes, but from the same source as all federal payments — keystrokes at the Fed.
✅ 4. “Our children” inherit assets, not liabilities
Every dollar of federal “debt” corresponds to a private sector asset:
Treasury securities = interest-bearing dollars.
Those “debts” are literally the safest savings vehicles for pensions, banks, individuals, and foreign governments.
So what our children actually inherit is:
Interest income from Treasury securities,
A functioning financial system,
And a net supply of dollars, enabling private wealth.
⚖️ Summary
In short, our children won’t be paying off the federal debt — they’ll be collecting interest on it.
Common Claim
Reality
“The federal debt is a burden on taxpayers.”
No — it’s an asset held by the private sector.
“Future generations must repay it.”
No — repayment is just a bookkeeping transfer.
“Taxes fund debt repayment.”
No — the government creates new dollars as needed.
“The debt is unsustainable.”
No — it’s as sustainable as the U.S. dollar itself.
So-called “federal debt” is simply U.S. dollars that pay interest. Unless you consider dollars to be a burden on the government or on taxpayers, there is no reason to consider T-securities to be a burden.
Dollars, T-securities, and federal “debt” all are the same obligations with different names.
You seldom hear or see these facts from your politicians or the media. Send this to your local newspaper and see if there is any response.
I apologize for the length of this post; however, I aim to explain several seemingly unrelated subjects in a way you may not have considered.
What do gravity, spacetime, quantum weirdness, black holes, singularities, free will and consciousness have in common?
They either are counterintuitive or difficult to define. They do not seem to obey classical, deterministic laws of physics. But, in fact, they all do.
So, please read on. Absorb the reasoning.
1. Question: Is quantum weirdness necessary?
You may be familiar with quantum “weirdness.” Instant communication. Multiple existences. If it’s “weird,” why does it even exist? Could we live without it? If you or God were to create a new universe, could you create one that wasn’t “weird”?
Here are some examples:
Entanglement: When two quantum particles are entangled, they appear to communicate instantly over vast distances, even though the speed of light is considered the fastest possible speed for any form of communication. Einstein had a strong dislike for the concept of entanglement because it seemed to violate the principles of locality and causality.
The wave/particle duality refers to a quantum object behaving as both a wave and a particle until it is observed, at which point it “collapses” into one form. In essence, merely knowing facts can alter those very facts.
The Heisenberg uncertainty principle states that for any particle, certain physical properties, such as position and momentum, cannot both be accurately known. The more precisely one property is measured, the less precise the measurement of the other property can be.
Superposition: A particle can be in more than one location simultaneously until it is observed.
The question is whether quantum weirdness is necessary, or could the universe exist without weirdness, using only classical physics?
The answer is that it is impossible to create a universe with only classical physics. If the world were purely classical, electrons would merge into protonsdue to the attraction of opposite charges.
Chemical bonds form only because electrons exist in superpositions, simultaneously “around” two atoms.
The original universe was a smooth blend of waves/particles. However, quantum fluctuations in the lowest (ground) energy state of fields helped clump the particles, leading to the beginnings of galaxies.
Fusion in stars requires atomic tunneling to overcome the repulsion of two like charges.
Entanglement is essential for lasers and superconductivity because it enables multiple quantum systems to function as a single, coherent entity rather than as separate, independent particles.
When an excited atom in the laser medium is stimulated by an incoming photon, it emits another photon that matches the original in quantum state, phase, direction, and polarization. This creates an effective two-photon entanglement. These entanglements extend across the population of photons, leading to what is known as collective coherence or a macroscopic quantum state of light.
Without those entangled correlations, you’d just get a bright lamp, not a laser.
In short, what often is called “weirdness” neither is optional nor bizarre.
Our beliefs are based on certain rules that help us make faster decisions. One such rule states that an object cannot occupy two places at the same time. Another rule indicates that we should be able to determine both the speed and location of an object.
Additionally, we have a rule suggesting that nothing can be both a wave and a particle; it has to be one or the other. These are rules we have created; they do not represent the fundamental rules of the universe.
We find quantum mechanics strange because it contradicts our established rules. However, the universe operates according to its own laws, irrespective of the rules we create.
We navigate our existence in the macro world, and our brains do not have a survival requirement to perceive or comprehend quantum phenomena. As a result, the “rules” we consider to define reality do not apply at the quantum level.
Quantum effects average out macroscopically, so they stayed hidden until technology forced a rethink in the 1900s. It feels weird because it’s not survival-oriented.
This resonates with the anthropic principle: The universe’s features are fine-tuned for life because only such a universe allows observers to ponder them.
Darwin’s concept of natural selection—encompassing variation, competition, and adaptation—parallels the process of cosmic evolution.
In this context, stars “survive” by fusing elements, galaxies form through gravitational clumping, and quantum processes facilitate complexity, such as the formation of molecular bonds that create DNA.
Non-viable configurations, like unstable atoms, are eliminated during the universe’s early chaotic phase, resulting in a self-sustaining structure.
2. Question: What is everything “made of”?
You might be tempted to say that everything is made up of elements, which are composed of atoms. Atoms consist of electrons and nuclei, while nuclei are further made up of protons and neutrons. Delving deeper, we encounter quarks and various fields, such as electromagnetic, Higgs, and gravitational fields.
This leads us to an essential question: Is there a common element that underpins or influences everything? My answer is yes: gravity and spacetime.
Other candidates, such as quantum fields and electromagnetic forces, are inconsistent—fields disappear in regions devoid of particles, and forces like electromagnetism tend to cancel out at larger scales.
In contrast, gravity has an unwavering presence, even in empty space, influenced by phenomena such as dark energy and cosmic expansion. This makes gravity a more robust candidate for what ties everything together.
Humans learn through analogy. When I don’t understand “A,” I can compare it to “B,” which I already understand, so I can grasp “A.”
One can think of gravity as being a vast sheet, with wrinkles, folds, pits, bumps, and hills, all of which reveal themselves in shapes, as the atoms and fields we can sense. The appropriate mathematical science is topology. We may not recognize the shape. It may have 100 dimensions, or not. But it is not infinite. It is finite.
The Moiré effect: Inputs may create dissimilar results.
Gravity isn’t a force but space’s structure, the canvas for existence, while change animates it—like a Moiré pattern birthing reality at the Big Bang.
Gravity and spacetime seed galaxies, clump matter into planets, and prevent cosmic dispersal.
Quantum physicists often use classical descriptions to explain quantum phenomena. For instance, the terms “wave-particle” and “entanglement” both have classical roots. As humans, we try to conceptualize these complex ideas in classical terms.
We used the “sheet” analogy. Another way to think about gravity is as a vast ocean that originated from a single droplet containing all information. This ocean expanded and continues to carry all that information with it.
In this framework, the “whole” possesses complete knowledge of every part, resulting in a deterministic progression that may seem counterintuitive to us.
If the Big Bang occurred, determinism suggests that it must have contained knowledge of everything that would follow, including the existence of this article. This conclusion is based on the principle of causality.
If causality itself does not exist, that would undermine the foundation of science. Even quantum randomization doesn’t disprove causality. It merely projects likelihood. Randomness reflects limited knowledge, not the absence of cause.
3. What is inside a black hole, and is there a singularity at its center?
Is the gravity/spacetime “sheet” made of gravitons?
I lean toward either no gravitons or ones so minuscule and feeble they’re beyond our current imagination. This aligns well with mainstream quantum gravity hypotheses:
Gravitons are theorized as massless bosons that mediate gravity, traveling at the speed of light with extremely weak interactions. They would presumably be faint, the hardest particles to detect.
Their coupling to matter is minuscule, making them elusive even in high-energy events. If discovered as massive or strong, it would upend general relativity (GR), which requires massless gravitons for long-range gravity.
No gravitons have been observed, despite gravitational waves (ripples in spacetime) being detected since 2015 via LIGO. The “sheet” analogy remains viable.
Think of a strong magnet. You toss a handful of iron BBs toward the magnet. Some miss by several feet, but the magnet still curves their trajectories.
(Gravitational curvature extends outward, bending the paths of particles and light.)
Some BBs come closer and swirl round and round the magnet at the “edge” of where the magnetism is strong enough to hold them.
Others come even closer and are pulled toward the magnet, gathering at the center. This is not an infinite gathering. It is a shapethat results from many small shapes coming together.
(Matter crossing the event horizon falls inward and merges with the black hole’s mass. The central pile is finite and structured, total mass-energy is finite.)
Again, it hints at a topological shape, not a mathematical infinity. The black hole’s “singularity” is a finite gravitational, topological shape.
Of course, all analogies are imperfect representations. A magnet exerts a vector force through space. Gravity, however, is spacetime curvature itself — it doesn’t pull through space; it is the shape of space.
If gravitons exist, a singularity could be a seething sea of them—pure gravitational quanta at Planck scales (10^-35 m), where gravity dominates.
4. Does quantum mechanics eliminate determinism? Does it allow for free will”?
We have discussed free will here,here, hereand elsewhere. I say that “free will” has no basis in science, cannot be located in the brain, and is an illusion created by the brain.
Everything we think, do, believe, and want is the result of some prior event affecting the brain. Like the rising bars in the above-shown Moire pattern, what we imagine to be free will results from internal and external events being translated by the circuits in our brain.
Regarding determinism
The only alternative to determinism is the idea that cause and effect do not exist. However, if one believes that an effect can occur without a cause, this would undermine the foundation of science.
For example, some hypotheses suggest that particles spontaneously can appear and disappear, implying a lack of cause. With this belief, science begins to resemble magic.
What we perceive as a lack of cause is actually a lack of information.
Some claim that if determinism rules, then no one can be blamed or credited with anything. However, it may be that blame and credit are part of the cause (as well as the effect).
One simply cannot abandon cause/effect and claim to be a scientist. Thus, unless you accept magic, you are a determinist, and everything must devolve to what we call the Big Bang or something similar.
A thorough examination of the mythical hurricane should reveal the butterfly’s wings, suggesting an early stage in a series of cause-and-effect relationships. In the absence of alternatives and considering the nearly infinite number of effects, one must seek an omnipresent cause—something that influences everything in the universe. Nothing seems more fitting for this role than gravity and spacetime.
The question would be, “How does gravity touch everything?” and my speculation is “by shaping everything.” Thus, the singularity becomes a shape. The science is topology. We may not recognize the shape. It may have 100 dimensions, or not.
But it is not infinite. It is finite. Topology may be the foundational science where black holes, dark energy, and dark matter reside.
At this point, we have woven determinism, cause-and-effect, quantum “magic,” and gravity’s role as the universal shaper into a topological framework. Gravity is not just omnipresent, but the sculptor of reality via shapes and dimensions.
Abandoning cause-and-effect would dismantle science, turning it into mysticism. If effects (like particles popping in/out) lack causes, we’re in “magic” territory—unfalsifiable and unpredictable.
Quantum mechanics often is accused of this, especially with vacuum fluctuations (particles briefly appearing from “nothing” via Heisenberg’s uncertainty). But these aren’t truly acausal in the theory—they arise from quantum fields’ energy uncertainties, governed by probabilistic laws.
It’s not “no cause,” but causes hiddenin the quantum vacuum, which itself might trace to deeper structures (like gravity in quantum gravity theories). Still, it feels magical because our classical brains demand definite, familiar. local causes.
In the hard determinist view, credit and blame are effects of prior causes (e.g., upbringing, biology) and causes of future ones (e.g., deterrence or motivation).
Free will does not exist. Determinism accommodates moral systemsas part of the chain. Without alternatives, everything ultimately traces back to a Big Bang-like origin. The butterfly’s wings (chaos theory) or a mythical hurricane exemplify this: In a deterministic universe, infinite effects stem from finite initial conditions. Quantum randomness complicates it, but it’s irrelevant to free will—still causal, just probabilistic.
TThe search for an omnipresent “thing” that influences everything leads us to gravity, which permeates all of spacetime. Unlike other fields that diminish or are localized, gravity’s curvature affects every particle, event, and void. It “touches” everything by “shaping” it.
Gravity warps spacetime, determining paths, structures, and interactions. According to general relativity, matter tells spacetime how to curve, and that curvature, in turn, tells matter how to move. This creates a dynamic interplay of forces.
Tying this to the singularity: Envision it not as an infinite point but a finite shape—perhaps multi-dimensional. This avoids infinities (which physicists hate, as they signal theory breakdowns) and aligns with quantum gravity ideas where singularities resolve into finite structures.
The Big Bang singularity could be a compact, shaped manifold (a topological object), unfolding via expansion. A near infinite number of effects from a finite cause fits: A simple initial shape, shaped by gravity, cascades into cosmic complexity through cause-effect chains
Topology Can Explain Black Holes, Dark Energy, and Dark Matter Topology, the math of shapes, connectivity, and deformations without tearing, fits the gravity/spacetime model. It studies properties preserved under continuous transformations (e.g., a coffee mug is topologically equivalent to a donut, both having one hole).
Black holes have event horizons with various topological properties; for example, they can be spherical in simple cases but may take on more exotic shapes in higher dimensions.
Recent research has classified black holes into universal thermodynamic topological classes based on their entropy, temperature, and stability.
The concept of multi-dimensional shapes is particularly relevant: in theories like string theory or loop quantum gravity, black holes could incorporate compact extra dimensions, which would allow singularities to be finite.
This means there are no infinities—just gravity that is shaped.
Dark Energy and Dark Matter: Topology has echoes in current hypotheses.
Dark energy (driving cosmic acceleration) might emerge from topological features, or “topological dark energy” linked to black hole formations/mergers.
Cosmologically coupled black holes (CCBH) could convert matter into dark energy, tapping gravitational fields during expansion. Some models suggest black holes birth dark energy inside them, resolving neutrino mass puzzles.
Dark matter? Primordial black holes, formed shortly after the Big Bang, are leading candidates for composing dark matter through gravitational accretion, without the need for new particles.
Topology plays a role through “topological classes” in black hole thermodynamics, potentially explaining how these invisible components stabilize cosmic structures, such as galaxies and clusters.
The mathematics of topology is used in quantum field theory to model stable “knots” in spacetime that could manifest as dark matter halos or the repulsion of dark energy.
A finite, multi-dimensional shape avoids the “infinite” pitfalls of classical singularities, aligning with finite models in loop quantum cosmology (where spacetime is discrete loops).
Quantum weirdness (particles popping in/out) might be gravity’s topological effects at small scales—fluctuations as deformations in the “ocean’s” fabric.
Pure determinism: Gravity’s initial shapes encode all, rigged from the start, to include the measurer as well as the measured (superdeterminism style). Entanglement sounds wormhole-ish, like a donut with the hole filled in.
Again, some mention morality as evidence against determinism. However, morality is an invention by life as a survival mechanism, and it has clearly evolved from earlier causes and effects.
Every living thing has some sort of “moral” code (i.e., favored response to stimuli), which is akin to the definition of consciousness as the responses to stimuli (and so everything is conscious)
Morality evolves deterministically from cause-effect chains. Altruism in social animals enhances group survival, driven by both genetic and environmental factors.
Consciousness as “favored response to stimuli” is panpsychist-leaning—everything (rocks? atoms?) responds preferentially (e.g., electrons to fields), so everything is conscious to degrees. This fits determinism: Consciousness isn’t emergent magic but a causal outcome, scaling from simple (particle interactions) to complex (human ethics).
Early life (or pre-life chemistry) might have “morals” as chemical affinities. In the gravity model, gravity shapes these responses topologically, from singularity to brains. No free will needed; blame/credit are causal tools for social survival.
The all-present cause (gravity shaping via topology) preserves determinism, explaining quantum weirdness as shaped cause-and-effect, not magic.
The rephrasing (“How conscious?”) quantifies consciousness as a spectrum, measurable by response complexity, without invoking non-physical entities. It’s panpsychism done deterministically: Everything is conscious to the extent it’s shaped by and reacts to the universe’s causal web.
Now for my (least) favorite word: “Qualia.” The subjective, qualitative properties of experiences represent the raw sensations we encounter in life. They encompass the unique sensations of tasting chocolate, experiencing a specific color, or feeling the warmth of the sun.
Qualia are often described as the internal, private elements of consciousness that are difficult to articulate or quantify.
The problem with qualia is that they deny the brain’s physical senses and attempt to introduce a mysterious, otherworldly realm, a “subjective world,” that cannot be perceived through sight, sound, touch, taste, or smell, but are derived solely from mystical, non-material sources.
Qualia neither can be proved nor disproved. Thus, qualia are not science. They are religion.
In common usage, “subjective” refers to experiences, feelings, or perspectives that are unique to an individual, often implying a private, internal “self” that perceives or interprets the personal, qualitative sensation of mood.
This suggests a non-physical “mind” separate from the brain, which clashes with a non-mythical, purely physical view of consciousness as the degree of response to stimuli.
If consciousness is how things respond to stimuli, subjectiveness is the unique pattern of those responses, shaped by a system’s structure (e.g., brain, AI, galaxy). It’s not a ghostly inner world but a deterministic outcome of physical configuration.
For a stone, it’s the simple “fall” to gravity’s pull. For an AI computer, it’s complex linguistic outputs that are shaped by code and training data. No otherworldliness—just cause-and-effect specificity. The stone is conscious. The computer is more conscious. A dog has even more.
All “feel” what they are built to feel and respond as they are built to respond. Emotions are physical responses, as is a stone’s expansion when heated. To a stone, that expansion could be viewed as an emotion.
5. How does the gravity/spacetime substrate explain quantum weirdness?
Einstein’s universe was built from continuous, local fields — especially the gravitational field. Everything (mass, motion, even time) emerged from how that field shaped spacetime. For Einstein, field continuity and local causality were sacred principles.
Entanglement broke that: it implied that a field’s behavior at point A could instantaneously correlate with a measurement at point B, without any mediating signal in the intervening space.
In Einstein’s view, that was intolerable because it would mean the gravitational field itself wasn’t a continuous fabric—it was something holistic, instantly responsive, everywhere at once.
But, quantum mechanics treats the wavefunction as describing the entire system at once. It doesn’t care about space the way relativity does.
When two particles are entangled, they form a single nonlocal state that extends across space.
To Einstein, this meant the quantum description wasn’t “real”—just statistical shorthand for some deeper, local mechanism. But Bell’s theorem and later experiments ruled out any local hidden variables.
Thus, we’re left with one of two possibilities: Either the universe truly allows nonlocal connections, or spacetime and distance themselves are emergent, not fundamental.
I’ve proposed that gravity and time are the substrate of reality—a universal field that gives rise to particles, mass, and even consciousness. In that framework, nonlocality isn’t strange—it’s expected.
If everything emerges from a single, time-immune gravitational field, then entanglement may simply express the intrinsic connectedness of that field. That means Einstein’s “locality” was a property of emergent spacetime, not the underlying field itself.
Fundamentally, there’s no true separation—so no violation of locality occurs, because there are no “locations” in the first place.
Einstein’s refusal to accept entanglement pushed others (Bell, Bohm, Wheeler) to formalize what “nonlocality” really means.
Ironically, his skepticism opened the path to the idea that spacetime might itself be a derivedconstruct, precisely the direction the gravity/time hypothesis takes.
If gravity is a universal informational field, then: Entanglement is just the correlated excitations of the same underlying field. Locality is an emergent illusion of field geometry (space). Quantum weirdness is a symptom of trying to impose classical locality onto a nonlocal substrate. It’s only “weird” when viewed through classically trained eyes.
6. Tying it all together: Gravity, Topology, Determinism, Quantum Weirdness, Consciousness, Black Holes, and “What Is It Made Of?
Everything is made of gravity, modified by spacetime.
Gravity shapes everything, substance and field, topologically. Change, in the form of spacetime, drives responses. A black hole is an assemblage of gravitational shapes in the form of particles, forces, and fields. The shapes change as they dive into the center. It is not an infinity, but a unique shape.
Every effect has a cause. Both are manifested by gravitational shapes. Without cause/effect, there can be no science.
Gravity provides the physical topological substrate for all existence. Spacetime animates causality. Determinism rules out the mystical. Every effect has a discoverable cause, though that cause, if quantum, may not be apparent to a classical eye, and the effect may seem weird.
#Monetary Sovereignty - Mitchell 