Relation to General Relativity
Within this framework, General Relativity is understood as a geometric projection of uneven dimensional folding rates within spacetime. The Einstein field equations remain fully valid and empirically successful; however, the dimensional folding model proposes an underlying causal interpretation for why spacetime curvature behaves as it does.
Rather than treating spacetime as fundamental, this model treats it as an emergent descriptive layer that captures how matter and energy redistribute when dimensional folding proceeds nonuniformly. What GR encodes geometrically as curvature is, in this view, the spacetime-level expression of deeper dimensional gradients.
Gravity as a Folding Gradient
Gravity arises where dimensional folding proceeds more rapidly or more efficiently than in surrounding regions. Matter, which is stabilized across multiple dimensional layers, resists reconfiguration as folding progresses. This resistance creates gradients that force surrounding structure to redistribute laterally within spacetime.
From the spacetime perspective, this redistribution appears as curvature:
Objects follow geodesics not because a force acts upon them, but because the available paths through dimensional space are re-tiled unevenly.
The equivalence principle naturally follows, since all matter experiences folding gradients through the same geometric constraints.
In short, gravity is not an interaction exchanged between objects, but a geometric response to differential dimensional collapse.
Singularities as Dimensional Saturation Limits
In classical GR, singularities represent points where curvature, density, and tidal forces diverge. In the dimensional folding model, singularities are reinterpreted as regions where dimensional folding overwhelms all available higher-dimensional capacity.
Rather than representing physical infinities, singularities mark:
The exhaustion of stabilizing dimensional layers
The forced reversion of structure toward lower-dimensional unity states
A breakdown of spacetime as a sufficient descriptive framework
This interpretation aligns with the expectation that GR ceases to be complete near singularities, without requiring literal infinite quantities to exist physically.
Event Horizons and Hawking Radiation
An event horizon forms where the inward rate of dimensional folding exceeds the outward capacity of lower-dimensional propagation modes. From the outside, this boundary appears as a causal limit in spacetime; from the folding perspective, it is a surface where dimensional loss dominates over dimensional redistribution.
Hawking radiation arises naturally in this context. Near the horizon:
Lower-dimensional modes (such as light-like excitations) can become partially stabilized outside the collapsing region
Folding gradients allow energy to be shed outward as thermal radiation
This radiation reflects the local smoothing of extreme dimensional gradients, not particle creation from nothing
The resulting radiation spectrum is thermal because it is governed by geometry and boundary conditions, consistent with standard Hawking calculations.
Gravitational Redshift
Gravitational redshift occurs when light propagates across regions with different folding rates. As a lower-dimensional propagation mode, light is sensitive to changes in the dimensional environment through which it travels.
In regions of stronger folding:
The effective dimensional capacity available to light decreases
Energy is redistributed across modes
Observers in weaker folding regions measure the light as redshifted
This interpretation preserves the equivalence with time dilation and spacetime curvature in GR, while grounding redshift in dimensional energy redistribution rather than clock rate differences alone.
Summary
From the dimensional folding perspective:
Spacetime curvature encodes uneven folding rates
Gravity reflects geometric retiling driven by dimensional loss
Singularities represent dimensional saturation limits
Event horizons mark dominance of folding over propagation
Hawking radiation emerges from gradient smoothing
Redshift reflects dimensional energy redistribution
General Relativity remains the correct mathematical description of these effects, while dimensional folding provides a unified causal narrative for why they occur and why they are interconnected.