The whole western obsession with the node over the network has led us up a blind alley.

Consider that our consciousness exists as this interface between our body and its world, so we are as much the network, as the node.

Galaxies are energy radiating out, as structure coalesces in. As these mobile organisms, our digestive, respiratory and circulatory systems process the energy driving us on, while the central nervous system sorts through the information precipitating out. Motor and steering.

Our awareness functions as a sequence of perceptions, in order to navigate, so we experience time as the point of the present moving past to future, but the reality is change turning 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 state of presence. Creating time, temperature, pressure, color and sound. Time is frequency, events are amplitude.

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

As consciousness goes past to future, while the perceptions, emotions and thoughts giving it form and structure go future to past.

Life is complicated, but physics is still hung up on the singular. It's more yin and yang, than some ever more extreme form of atomism.