  This paper provides a heuristic derivation of how classical gravitational
physics in the AdS/CFT correspondence appears from the strong dynamics of the
N=4 SYM theory in a systematic way. We do this in a minisuperspace
approximation by studying 1/8 BPS configurations. We show that this is related
to a gauged matrix quantum mechanics of commuting matrices. We can show that
our description matches the semiclassical physics of 1/8 BPS states in
supergravity. We also provide a heuristic description of how massive strings
appear in the geometry, and how at strong 't Hooft coupling they become local
on the five sphere suggesting that they can be realized as a sigma model on a
weakly curved background. In the process we also clarify some aspects of 1/2
BPS states. We also have a conjectured realization of some 1/8 BPS giant
graviton wave functions in the dynamics, which captures all 1/8 BPS giant
gravitons constructed by Mikhailov. This leads to a lot of different topology
changes which can be treated heuristically.
