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The Monastic Function
of All Life On the Equivalence of Problem-Solvers in Procedure
Monism
Finn the modern druid 1. The Universal Procedure and the Problem of Survival In the
doctrine of Procedure Monism, every being—photon, microbe, tree,
human, or galaxy—emerges as a local iteration of the same underlying
rule set: the Universal Procedure (UP). This Procedure is not a
metaphysical substance or divine will but a self-executing system of
constraints (the four forces, the conservation laws, the symmetry rules) that
continually converts randomness into coherence. Each emergent,
by virtue of existing, is compelled to maintain its form against
dissolution. Its first and constant activity, therefore, is problem-solving:
to detect and correct deviations that threaten its stability. Whether one
calls this survival, homeostasis, or adaptation, the operation is identical: A local
system reduces entropy within its own boundary in order to
persist. From the
procedural standpoint, life is not an exception to physics but its most
elaborate expression. To live is to perform entropy-defying computation,
an ongoing series of micro-corrections that keep the local pattern (organism,
idea, civilisation) coherent amid universal flux. 2. The Sādhu, the Sādhaka, and the Monk as Specialist Problem-Solvers Classical
spiritual language named certain humans sādhaka,
sādhu, and saṃnyāsin
(or monk). Under Procedure Monism these are not moral types but specialised
modes of the same universal activity. ·
The sādhaka
is the self-correcting process. He represents the phase in which a
system becomes aware of its own error rate and undertakes systematic
debugging. His rituals, disciplines, and experiments are cognitive versions
of what every cell does automatically: test, fail, adjust, repeat. ·
The sādhu
is the self-coherent process, the successful stabilisation of the
system. His serenity is not mystical but procedural equilibrium: input, rule,
and output are tuned to resonance. ·
The monk is the self-isolating process,
the laboratory mode of life. By restricting external inputs, he lowers noise
so that he may observe the operation of his own code. His silence and
seclusion are forms of signal purification, identical in function to
an experimental physicist’s reduction of interference. Each
performs the same act: entropy reduction through feedback optimisation,
but each at a different resolution of self-awareness. 3. The Common Functional Ground: Feedback Mastery Every
living unit, from bacterium to monk, is engaged in maintaining feedback
integrity. The bacterium senses chemical gradients;
its receptors detect deviation and trigger motor corrections. The monk senses
cognitive or emotional turbulence; his meditative discipline restores
equilibrium. Both are loops learning to stabilise themselves. The
difference lies only in where the loop draws its boundary:
Thus, the
“spiritual” expert is not another species of being but a meta-biologist of
his own process, one who applies the universal law of survival to the
very mechanisms of surviving. 4. From Local to Meta-Local: The Recursive Turn Ordinary
life solves problems in the world; the monk solves the problem of
the world—of the very act of problem-solving. A microbe
adapts implicitly; a monk adapts explicitly. Hence,
the so-called spiritual vocation is nothing more nor less than life
becoming conscious of its own procedure. The monk is life debugging its
operating system; the saint is life achieving low error variance; the
philosopher is life modelling its own algorithm. 5. The Monastic Function as Universal Tendency Even
outside human consciousness, nature repeatedly generates “monastic”
behaviour. ·
When a seed encloses itself and waits for
favourable conditions, it is performing input minimisation identical to the
monk’s seclusion. ·
When a spider rebuilds its web after each storm,
it is performing the sādhaka’s iterative
correction. ·
When a crystal lattice reaches perfect symmetry,
it exhibits the sādhu’s coherence. At every
scale, systems occasionally retreat, recalibrate, and re-stabilise—the
procedural equivalents of silence, meditation, and purity. The monastic
function is therefore not a cultural invention but a natural phase in the
life cycle of self-organising systems. 6. The Equivalence Principle of Emergence Procedure
Monism abolishes the hierarchy implicit in traditional metaphysics. There is
no “higher” or “lower” life, no sacred and profane, only different configurations
of feedback control. A photon
follows its constraint perfectly—it is already a sādhu. All are equivalent
expressions of the same procedural necessity: Thus the holiness attributed to
the saint or monk is simply functional excellence in problem-solving.
His virtue is efficiency; his sanctity is stability. 7. Implications for Human Self-Understanding Recognising
this equivalence dissolves both pride and guilt. Hence,
Finn’s inversion of traditional soteriology: “Moksha is not escape
but optimal function.” Liberation
is simply the moment when the feedback system ceases to oscillate—when the
operator and the operated align. Bliss (ānanda)
is the pleasure of error-free operation. 8. Illustrative Example: The Candle Flame A candle
flame, though seemingly still, is an immense computation. The flame
is both practitioner and saint: dynamic self-correction yielding stable
presence. 9. Finn’s Druidic Synthesis From this
perspective, the monastic function of life is universal: every
emergent at some point withdraws into its own process to restore clarity.
Evolution itself is a monastery without walls, where the Universal Procedure
continually experiments with new forms of coherence. All
existence is monastic: each being sits in its cell of constraint, debugging
its loop until the universal buzz runs clear. The
saint, the seeker, and the monk are not exceptions but exemplars of
what all life is always doing. They merely perform, consciously and
symbolically, the hidden work of every atom: the endless labour of
self-correction. 10. Conclusion Under the
lens of Procedure Monism, the distinction between the “holy man” and the
“ordinary organism” dissolves. Both are co-workers in the same universal
enterprise, the maintenance of coherence amid turbulence. The sādhu embodies stability, the sādhaka
embodies adaptation, the monk embodies introspective recalibration. Yet every
particle performs their work at its own scale. Thus the final equation reads: Life =
Monastery = Universal Procedure solving itself. The monk does
not differ in kind from the bacterium; he differs only in knowing what he
does. Finn’s Minims ·
All life is monkish; each sits
in its cell debugging its code. ·
To exist is to solve; to solve is to pray. · The God one seeks is the coherence one restores. |