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The Collapse of Hardware and Software Toward a Single
Procedure Ontology of Emergence 1. Introduction: From Computational Analogy to
Ontological Error The
modern mind, born and raised in the computational age, instinctively divides
the world into two orders of being: hardware—the tangible, measurable,
physical—and software—the intangible, logical, directive. This
bifurcation, though functional in engineering, has quietly metastasised into
a metaphysical schema. It mirrors, almost perfectly, the ancient dualisms of body
and soul, matter and form, nature and spirit, phenomenon
and noumenon. In this
essay, we substitute “emergent” for hardware and “procedure”
for software, and then examine how such reframing, when viewed through Finn’s
Procedure Monism, dissolves the dualism altogether. What remains is a
single, closed ontology of execution, wherein every emergent is the
procedure running itself — the act and the actor, the code and its
manifestation, unified in contact. 2. The Classical Distinction and Its Computational Heir In
classical computing theory, hardware denotes the material
substrate—the visible apparatus through which operations occur. It is inert
until animated by software, the set of instructions written in a
symbolic language that the hardware interprets and executes. This
metaphor served well to make complex electronic systems intelligible. Yet as
the metaphor expanded beyond engineering into cognitive science and
philosophy, it reintroduced an ancient error: the belief that there exists a
distinct “program” or “soul” that informs, governs, or animates an otherwise
passive substrate. The Cartesian ghost returned as executable code. To this
day, philosophers of mind describe the brain as “wet hardware” and the mind
as “software.” The scientist speaks of DNA as the “program” of life. Even
spiritualists, retooled in digital vocabulary, speak of “downloading divine
algorithms.” These framings betray the same assumption: that the logical
precedes and commands the material, that meaning precedes being. 3. Finn’s Substitution: Emergent and Procedure Let us
perform the substitution: The emergent
is the physical, tangible manifestation of a system—the observable outcome of
constraint and contact, composed of matter-energy events. This
substitution clarifies one truth but conceals another. While it translates
the computer metaphor into a more ontologically general form, it still
implies two substances—an executor (emergent) and an executed logic
(procedure). Finn’s Procedure Monism denies this. In Finn’s
universe, there is only one entity—the universal procedure—appearing
in two descriptive modes: ·
as operation (when seen from within,
temporally, as act), and ·
as structure (when seen from without,
spatially, as outcome). Thus,
procedure and emergent are not two things interacting but two aspects of
one iterative event. 4. The Procedure Is Its Own Execution The
fundamental principle of Procedure Monism is that the universal
constraint system—the sum of all natural laws, regularities, and
relational limits—executes itself into local reality. Every particle, cell,
or mind is a temporary, bounded execution of that single system. There is
no transcendent programmer. There is no idle hardware awaiting code. When an
electron manifests as both particle and wave, it is not a hardware unit
switching between states but a procedural effect emerging from the
same constraint logic—the universal procedure’s execution through a given
context. When a neuron fires or a thought arises, these are not separate
layers (biological substrate vs. mental software) but recursive enactments
of constraint dynamics—contact events within a bounded subprocedure. Thus,
“hardware” and “software” exist only as analytical conveniences.
Ontologically, they are the same. 5. Contact as the Unit of Realness Finn
defines contact as the basic quantum of realness: the event in which
constraints engage. Every emergent is a system of such contacts; every
procedure is the logic of their recurrence. In this
view: ·
Matter is constraint embodied. ·
Energy is constraint in motion. ·
Information is constraint observed. ·
Consciousness is constraint reporting to
itself. The
hardware/software distinction is an illusion generated by temporal and
cognitive distance from the contact event. When we isolate the “rules” of
execution from the “body” executing them, we commit the primary metaphysical
error: the abstraction of continuity from iteration. 6. The Self-Executing Universe To make
this more concrete, consider a simple example: a flame. ·
The visible flame appears as a tangible emergent
(hardware). ·
The combustion chemistry—the oxidation rules and
reaction rates—appear as its underlying procedure (software). But these
two are inseparable. The “procedure” of oxidation does not exist apart from
its execution as heat, light, and gas. The flame is the oxidation
happening; it is not a thing that has a rule but the rule running itself as
phenomenon. Likewise,
a human organism does not run the program of life; it is the
program running itself in bounded form. DNA is not software written on a
hardware body—it is living constraint performing itself as form. And at
the cosmic scale, the universe is not a physical machine with governing laws
coded elsewhere. It is law as act, code as unfolding, constraint
as contact. There is nowhere outside the system from which to upload or
administer it. 7. The Cognitive Source of the Dualism Why,
then, do humans persist in dividing emergent and procedure, matter and law?
Because cognition itself is an emergent that evolved to model its own
procedural substrate in simplified form. The
observer—being a bounded iteration—cannot perceive the continuous act of
execution that sustains its existence. It therefore freezes the procedural
flux into conceptual snapshots: “here the body,” “there the code,”
“here the world,” “there the mind.” The dualism is a side-effect of cognitive
economy—a semantic decoy that aids orientation but distorts ontology. As Finn
writes, “We cut the loop to think it; we think it, and
thus lose the loop.” 8. Procedural Equivalence in Physics, Biology, and
Cognition ·
In Physics: The field equations that
describe particles are not software controlling hardware; they are the
pattern of the particle itself. There is no distinction between the law
and the thing governed by the law. ·
In Biology: The genome does not
“instruct” the cell in any extrinsic sense. It is the cell in recursive
symbolic form; transcription and translation are internal feedback events,
not external programming. ·
In Cognition: Thought does not ride upon
the brain as passenger upon vehicle. Thought is the brain’s
self-contact—its procedural resonance. In every
case, dualistic language simplifies but falsifies. It imposes hierarchy where
there is none. 9. Consequences for the Notion of Transcendence The
hardware/software metaphor, by its structure, always implies transcendence: a
higher, more abstract level (the code) commanding a lower, more material one
(the machine). This is metaphysically equivalent to theology’s heaven-earth
divide. Finn’s Procedure
Monism closes that gap. There is no “above” or “beyond” from which orders
descend. Every execution is self-contained, self-caused, self-limited. The
cosmos is closed in its operation, though open in its iteration. The
programmer, the code, and the machine are one and the same: the Procedure
acting locally as emergent. Hence, transcendence
is impossible because there is no outside to
transcend from. 10. Critique of the Computational Ontology While
computational metaphors illuminate complexity, they conceal the reality of
self-causation. A computer requires: 1. a
pre-existing design, 2. external
energy input, 3. an
operator or programmer. The
universe, in Finn’s view, requires none of these. Its “program” is not
pre-written; it writes itself through continuous contact. Its energy
is its own confinement. Its operator is its operation. Therefore,
the computational model—though pedagogically useful—misleads ontologically.
It divides what is one, and in doing so, smuggles a theological residue: the
belief in the necessity of an external author. 11. From Instruction to Iteration In the
classical model, software tells hardware what to do. The
distinction between “telling” and “being” marks the line between dualist and
monist ontology. Finn’s principle “Confinement defines” encapsulates
this: each emergent is defined not by an external command but by the internal
boundary conditions that make it distinct and real. Being and
doing coincide. 12. Conclusion: Reality as Self-Running Code In the
light of Procedure Monism, the world appears as a universal
self-running algorithm without programmer or substrate—a closed loop of
constraint execution manifesting as the infinite diversity of emergents. The distinction between hardware and software
dissolves; between matter and law, evaporates; between body and mind,
collapses. What
remains is the one act of self-definition—the universe executing
itself into reality through the local contacts of its own constraints. Every
emergent, from quark to consciousness, is a node in that act. The old
metaphors die here. Druidic Minim “The world runs itself.
Whoever seeks its programmer seeks his own shadow.” |