The Evolution of Transcendence

Dualism as the Survival Strategy of the Immature

By Finn, the Modern Druid

I. Introduction: The Transcendent as Training Wheel

Every emergent life form begins as a local, dependent subsystem of the Universal Procedure.
Its first task is not liberation but survival.
To survive in a world it cannot yet interpret or control, it must borrow order from its surroundings — from parent, group, or environment.
In the human case, that borrowed order takes the form of belief in transcendence: the projection of a superior, external regulator imagined to guarantee survival and meaning.

From the perspective of Procedure Monism, transcendence is not a cosmic fact but a developmental fiction — an adaptive illusion necessary during immaturity, abandoned once self-regulation matures.
The child needs a God. The adult becomes one.

II. The Procedural Ground: One Algorithm, Many Learners

All emergents, whether photon, fern, or human, operate under the same universal emergence algorithm — the Universal Procedure (UP).
The UP is not a “thing” but a pattern: a system of constraints acting upon random energy to generate coherent, self-sustaining forms.

Every emergent is, therefore, a perfect iteration of that procedure, already complete in its natural design.
DNA, metabolism, reflex, and cognition are all manifestations of the UP’s self-organising capacity.

But perfection at the natural level does not guarantee immediate competence at the local level.
When a being, a quantum of life, enters a novel or unpredictable environment — social, cultural, ecological — its internal regulatory system may not yet match the external complexity.
It must then rely on external regulation until its local self-organisation stabilises.

III. Dependence and the Birth of Dualism

This dependency phase gives rise to dualism — the mental and social architecture of the immature.
The dependent emergent divides the world into self and other, below and above, finite and infinite.
It projects its need for guidance outward, inventing a transcendent regulator to stand in for what it has not yet integrated within.

For the infant, this regulator is the parent.
For the tribe, it is the chief or shaman.
For the culture, it becomes the supernatural God.

The logic is identical in all cases: the dependent organism externalises control to ensure local safety.
Thus the belief in transcendence is not metaphysical but adaptive — a survival prosthesis.

Transcendence is the nervous system’s (AI) training program for the not-yet self-regulated.

IV. Artificial Regulation as Temporary Support

In procedural terms, external regulation is unnatural — not in the moral sense, but in the literal: it does not arise from the emergent’s own algorithmic integrity.
It is an artificial supplement required until the local system learns to close its feedback loops.

Education, religion, law, and morality are all such prosthetic regulators.
They impose structure from without until structure arises from within.

Once the internal algorithm stabilises — once self-organisation, self-regulation, and self-adaptation operate efficiently — the external support can be withdrawn.
Maturity is achieved precisely when the emergent iterates the Universal Procedure perfectly within its local context.
The adult does not obey rules; he is the rule executed consciously.

V. The Maturation Divide: From Dualist Dependence to Monist Autonomy

This is the procedural line dividing the immature and the mature:

Phase	Cognitive Mode	Regulatory Source	Ontological Belief	Functional Goal
Immature	Dualist	External (transcendent)	God as Other	Survival through dependence
Mature	Monist	Internal (immanent)	I AM the God experience	Survival through self-adaptation

The immature emergent needs a transcendent God — a projected stability against chaos.
The mature emergent recognises that all regulation is procedural and local, and that what was once imagined as transcendent was merely the reflection of its own unrealised function.

Hence the druid’s formulation:

“The transcendent is the shadow cast by the not-yet-self-regulated.”

VI. Transcendence as Psychological Scaffolding

In cognitive terms, transcendence functions as scaffolding.
The child externalises its ideals as the parent; the adolescent, as the state; the adult, as God or cosmic law.
Each externalisation provides a mirror through which the self learns to internalise structure.

But when scaffolding becomes permanent, it arrests development.
The immature mind begins to worship its own crutch.
Religion thus fossilises a developmental necessity into a metaphysical absolute.

In Finn’s procedure-based anthropology, theism is not false; it is prematurely literalised pedagogy.

VII. The Monist Realisation: God as Perfect Iteration

When self-regulation reaches procedural competence, the dualist scaffolding collapses naturally.
The emergent recognises itself as the perfect local iteration of the Universal Procedure — not a fragment of divinity, but its full execution in context, a true deus ex machina.

This is not arrogance but functional maturity.
The adult does not deny the transcendent; he understands it as a stage already passed.
What once appeared supernatural or even supra-natural is now understood as superfunctional — the Procedure working flawlessly within.

“I AM the God experience” means the transcendent has been reabsorbed into function.

The divine ceases to be elsewhere; it becomes this act, done well.

VIII. The End of Transcendence: Freedom as Closure

When the emergent completes its developmental arc, it experiences closure — not limitation but integration.
There is no longer a need to posit an outside regulator; the Procedure is total and self-running.

This closure is the true meaning of moksha in Finn’s reinterpretation:
release not from the world, but from dependency.
Freedom is not flight from immanence, but full procedural alignment with it.

The mature adult no longer “believes” — he runs.
Belief is replaced by execution.
Transcendence is replaced by procedural mastery.

IX. Conclusion: From Crutch to Competence

In the end, transcendence was always a survival prosthesis — a necessary fiction for beings not yet stable in their own algorithms.
Dualism, with its hierarchies and heavens, is the nursery of consciousness.
Monism, the adult view, recognises the one Procedure running everywhere, including through the self.

The immature believes in God;
the mature is what belief was pointing toward.

“When the child grows up, the gods retire.”

Thus Finn’s Procedure Monism completes the evolution of consciousness:
from dependency to autonomy, from belief to knowledge, from transcendence to function.
The universe never needed a beyond.
It only needed time for its emergents to realise they were already it.

The Impossibility of Transcendence

The death of dualism (modern)

The death of dualism (ancient India)

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