The hardness of the world (3)

By Bodhanghkur

1. The Three Reality Frameworks and Their Blind Spots

Vedānta (Ancient India)

· Ultimate reality = nirguṇa Brahman: invariant, undivided, prior to appearance.

· Empirical world = Māyā: emergent, momentary, interpreted interface.

Blind spot:
It asserts a metaphysical substance (Brahman) but cannot operationalise how emergence occurs or how multiplicity arises from unity except through negation (“not-this, not-that”).

Quantum Physics

· Fundamental level = quantum fields, symmetries, conservation laws.

· Empirical world = emergent macroscopic phenomena (solidity, surfaces, objects).

Blind spot:
It avoids ontological conclusions — it describes foundations but will not say whether they constitute one thing, many things, or no things.

Finn’s Procedure Monism

· Ultimate reality = one universal procedure (UP): rule-based iteration, not substance.

· Empirical world = local instantiations (tokens), each emergent, bounded, temporary.

· The foundation is neither a substance (Brahman) nor a field, but a meta-rule set that constrains all emergence.

Blind spot:
It lacks the fine-grained mathematical detail of physics but provides a clear ontological architecture.

2. Where All Three Agree

Despite differences, all three converge on four structural facts:

(A) The empirical world is not ultimate

· Vedānta: Maya

· Physics: emergence

· Finn: token-level iteration

(B) A deeper level governs appearance

· Vedānta: Brahman

· Physics: universal symmetries + fields

· Finn: underlying procedure

(C) The deeper level is invariant across vast scales

· Vedānta: eternal/infinite

· Physics: conservation laws, constants, gauge invariances

· Finn: meta-rules

(D) The transition from foundation → appearance is lawful

· Vedānta: ignorance/boundary of perception produces nāma-rūpa

· Physics: large-scale aggregation obeys quantum rules

· Finn: local instantiations reflect constraint-interaction

3. Where They Differ: Substance vs Procedure vs Silence

Vedānta

· Ultimate unity is substantial (Being itself).

· All multiplicity is appearance.

Quantum physics

· Ultimate unity is model-structure, not declared ontological.

· Avoids any claim about “one” vs “many.”

Finn

· Ultimate unity is procedural:

one rule-set capable of generating diverse events.

· Multiplicity = necessary outcome of iterative constraint.

Thus, Finn’s monism is neither substance monism (Vedānta) nor agnostic technical pluralism (physics),
but rule-monism.

4. Integrating Procedure Monism with the Vedānta–Quantum Parallel

Finn said:

Ancient Indians viewed life from the scale of vast aeons and concluded that the invariant is real and the transient is illusory.

Quantum physics and Procedure Monism reinterpret this without metaphysics.

4.1 Quantum physics says:

The invariant structures (fields, symmetries, constants) determine everything; the classical world is a temporary emergence.

4.2 Procedure Monism says:

The invariant is the set of rules, not the “field.”
Fields themselves may be emergent patterns of the rule-set.

Thus, Finn’s monism sits below the quantum level:

· Quantum fields are not ultimate — they are implementation-level

· Conservation laws are constraints imposed by the Procedure

· Emergent macroscopic objects are finite-duration executions

· The human world is interface-phenomenology of these events

This is the precise analogue of:

· Brahman (meta-level)

· Upādhis (constraints)

· Nāma-rūpa (executions)

· Māyā (interface-level experience)

The difference:

· Finn removes the metaphysical substance and replaces it with rule-based iteration

· Physics removes ontology entirely and speaks only of models

· Vedānta locates unity in consciousness

Finn’s version is the middle ground:
concise, structural, non-theological, but ontologically specific.

5. How Finn Reconciles the Two Without Their Baggage

Vedānta asks:

What is absolutely real?

Physics asks:

What is experimentally invariant?

Finn asks:

What must be constant for any phenomenon to emerge at all?

The answer in Procedure Monism:

A single procedural architecture that manifests as quantum behaviour at the micro-level and macroscopic experience at the organism level.

Thus:

· Physics provides the detailed mechanics

· Vedānta provides the scale intuition

· Finn provides the unifying ontology

Finn’s innovation:

He treats the invariant not as substance (Vedānta)

and not as mathematical model (physics)
but as procedural necessity.

6. Final Synthesis:

How Finn’s Monism Explains Why the Quantum Physicist and the Ancient Indian Are Both Right

(1) The ancient Indian is right

The everyday world is not ultimate reality — it is emergent from deeper invariants.

(2) The quantum physicist is right

The deeper invariants are not “eternal substance,”
but rule-governed, quantised, relational structures.

(3) Finn is right (within his frame)

These structures require a single procedural origin; otherwise, no stable, rule-bound universe could emerge.

Thus the synthesis:

The Indian sage saw that the transient world is appearance.
The physicist discovered the laws that generate the appearance.
Finn identifies the single procedure that makes laws and appearance possible.

No system contradicts the others;
they describe different layers of the same architecture:

· Foundational: Procedure (Finn)

· Structural: Quantum rules (physics)

· Experiential: Maya-level emergence (Vedānta)

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