Many years ago, reading Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time, when it first came out, I came across the point that the expansion of space is closely balanced by the force of gravity. "Omega=1."

How it was interpreted as, was the rate of expansion is "flat," so no increasing, or decreasing.

Yet what seemed most evident to me, was that if expansion between galaxies is matched by the contraction into them, there is no overall expansion, but more of a cycle, essentially a cosmic convection cycle.

Some years later, late 90's, I was mentioning this idea on the old NYTimes Mysteries of the Universe section they had on the forums they had, back in the day.

One of the other commentators said that I didn't really have to model it as expansion and contraction of space, but as effect of measuring mass, versus light. That when we measure mass/gravity, the dimensionality contracts, while when we measure light, the dimensionality expands. He said he had majored in cosmology at the University of Chicago and had proposed this as his thesis paper. To which his advisor suggested that if he planned to pursue it, he might better consider another profession.

Which ties into another idea that has been germinating in my head these many decades;

As these mobile organisms, this sentient interface our bodies have with their situation functions as a sequence of perceptions, in order to navigate, so our experience of time is as the present moving past to future. Though the evident reality is that activity and the resulting change turns future to past. Tomorrow becomes yesterday, because the earth turns.

There is no dimension of time, because the past is consumed by the present, to inform and drive it. Causality and conservation of energy. Cause becomes effect.

Energy is conserved, because it manifests this presence, creating time, temperature, pressure, color and sound. Frequencies and amplitudes, rates and degrees.

So the energy goes past to future, because the patterns generated coalesce and dissolve, future to past. Energy drives the wave, the fluctuations rise and fall. No tiny strings necessary.

Consciousness also goes past to future, while the perceptions, emotions and thoughts giving it form and structure go future to past. Though it is the digestive system processing the energy and feeding the flame, while the nervous system sorts the information and and the circulation system is feedback in the middle.

Galaxies are energy radiating out, as structure coalesces in.

So our minds and our souls pull in opposite directions, like light and gravity.