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“Bookworms of the
Infinite” The
Non-Generative Monism of Bruno and Spinoza.” By Finn, the druid 1. What is a generative monism? Before we
shoot them, we should specify the crime. Call a
metaphysical system generative if: 1. It does not
just say “All is X,” but 2. Specifies
a procedure or structure by which: o multiplicity
emerges from unity, o determinate
properties emerge from indeterminacy, and o particular things (this potato, that cat) get
their concrete profile. In other
words: a generative monism (i.e. Procedure Monism) tells
you, at least in principle: ·
what the basic unit is (event, quantum, operation
…), ·
how units interact, ·
how stable identities and masses arise, ·
how you could, in principle, construct a
world. A non-generative
monism, by contrast, is one that: ·
posits a single underlying stuff (substance,
matter, Brahman, etc.), ·
declares that everything “proceeds” or “follows”
from it, ·
but gives no operational account of how
any concrete emergent is actually produced. Bruno and
Spinoza are paradigmatic non-generative monists. 2. Giordano Bruno: Infinite fireworks, no factory 2.1 The bravado Bruno is
routinely praised as a heroic, cosmic mind: ·
Infinite universe, infinite worlds. ·
One infinite substance, divine and immanent. ·
Matter as “womb of all forms,” animated by a
World-Soul. ·
Minima, monads, seeds, atoms – a proto-atomist /
proto-field thinker. On the
surface, this looks wild and modern. But structurally it’s an ornate mask
on an empty face. 2.2 Matter as an undefined infinite Bruno’s
“definition” of matter, when stripped of rhetoric, rests on four clichés: 1. Matter is
one 2. Matter is
infinite 3. Matter is
the substratum of all forms 4. Matter
has capacity for all forms Each of
these is not a definition but a circumscription: ·
“One” does not tell you what it is; it
just says “don’t multiply it.” ·
“Infinite” literally forbids delimitation, hence
forbids definition. ·
“Substratum” only says “it’s underneath
everything,” not what it is. ·
“Capacity for all forms” just labels a role:
“that which can become anything.” He never
asks: ·
What is the unit of this matter? ·
How does it produce specific structures? ·
By what mechanism does a given form emerge rather
than another? Instead, he
baptizes the indefinite with holy adjectives and calls it a principle. 2.3 The World-Soul: vitalist wallpaper To cover
the gap between dead substrate and living emergent, Bruno
invokes: ·
anima mundi, the World-Soul ·
pervasive spirit, inner dynamism, cosmic life But
functionally, this is a vitalist patch: ·
Why does anything move? → World-Soul. ·
Why is matter alive? → World-Soul. ·
Why do forms appear, persist, transform? →
World-Soul. Nothing
is explained; it is just shifted from “matter” to “soul” and left there. If a
modern physicist did this, they’d be laughed out of the room: “The
electron moves because of World-Soul.” Yet in
Bruno, this pass counts as metaphysical depth. 2.4 The potato test Take your
potato. Ask
Bruno: Why does this
potato exist as a stable lump, and not as a cloud of dust or as a cat? His
framework can only answer with vague slogans: ·
Because matter is infinite and able to express
all forms. ·
Because the World-Soul produces this
configuration here and now. ·
Because in the infinite universe, infinite forms
are realised. None of
this tells you: ·
why this potato weighs 180g rather than 30g, ·
how its internal structure is maintained, ·
how energy and mass relate in its formation, ·
what minimal operations generated this
emergent. Bruno
gives you cosmic poetry, not generative ontology. The potato is a
miracle of “infinite capacity,” not a result of a specified procedure. 2.5 Non-generativity score ·
Unit of reality? Vague
“atoms/minima” that are geometrical metaphors, not operational entities. ·
Mechanism of emergence?
“Infinite matter” + “World Soul” = magic. ·
Account of mass, structure, information? None. ·
Can the system, even in principle, construct a
world? No. Bruno
gives us a narrative of what must be true “in general”, but no
recipe for how anything happens. 3. Spinoza: Geometry without a construction algorithm If Bruno
is metaphysical fireworks, Spinoza is metaphysical granite. But the same
structural emptiness lies beneath. 3.1 The elegant non-definition of substance Spinoza’s
central move: Substance
is that which is in itself and is conceived through
itself. This is
widely admired as profound. It is, in fact, a tautological firewall. ·
“In itself” = not in anything else. ·
“Conceived through itself” = conceptually
independent. This
defines substance only negatively: by what it is not. He does
not tell you: ·
what its operational nature is, ·
what its unit is, ·
how it manifests concretely. Everything
further—attributes, modes, God/Nature—is built on this undefined primitive. It’s like
declaring: “The
computer’s operating system is that which operates itself and is understood
only by itself.” No
engineer would tolerate this as an “explanation.” 3.2 Attributes and modes: grammatical illusions Spinoza’s
ontology: ·
One substance → infinite attributes →
finite modes. Again, this
sounds precise. In practice: ·
Attributes (thought, extension, etc.)
are ways we grasp the same substance. ·
Modes are particular
expressions of the attributes. But how
does one mode arise? Why this
actual configuration and not another? Why a
potato here and a storm there? Spinoza’s
answer is always of the form: “This
follows from the nature of God, through the infinite chain of causes.” Which is
just a refined way of saying: “Because
the system is deterministic.” Determinism
is not a generative explanation. It’s a global constraint on whatever
generative machinery you might have. Spinoza never gives the machinery. 3.3 The potato test, again Put the
same potato in front of Spinoza. Ask: Why does this
potato have this shape, texture, mass? Spinoza
can only say: ·
It is a mode of the attribute of extension. ·
It is determined by an infinity of prior causes
in Natura naturans. ·
Its essence expresses the essence of God in a
certain and determinate way. None of
this is an answer. It is a metaphysical shrug with geometric syntax. He does
not: ·
identify a minimal unit (event, quantum,
operation), ·
show how such units compose to yield this
structure, ·
connect any of this to measurement, intensities,
or procedures. The
potato is eaten by syntax: “a mode of God,” full stop. 3.4 Substance as ultimate placeholder Spinoza’s
substance plays exactly the same role as Bruno’s
matter: ·
It is assumed, not derived. ·
It is declared self-explanatory. ·
It is the “thing that explains everything,”
thereby itself beyond explanation. It
functions like a black hole in the theory: Everything
falls into “substance” and nothing comes back out as
generative detail. He has
constructed the perfect non-interactive monad: a God-concept that
swallows all questions and emits completed necessity, but no causal
architecture. 3.5 Non-generativity score ·
Unit of reality?
Undefined “substance” plus derivative “modes.” ·
Mechanism of emergence? “Follows
from the necessity of the divine nature.” ·
Account of mass/structure? None.
Extension is not analysed, only posited. ·
Can it construct a world in principle? No. It
can only declare one to be necessary. 4. Shared pathology: library metaphysics Bruno and
Spinoza are very different in temperament, but they suffer from the same
structural defects. 4.1 Inherited terms, not discovered primitives Their
basic vocabulary is inherited: ·
matter, form, soul, infinite, substance,
attribute, mode, etc. These are
not empirically or operationally discovered primitives. They are scholastic
tokens upgraded with new polarities (immanence instead of transcendence,
infinity instead of finitude). They
never put the universe back on the table and ask: What
minimal operations are actually needed to produce
any emergent? Instead,
they rearrange and polish the inherited lexicon. 4.2 Top-down diagrams rather than bottom-up
constructions Both are diagram
thinkers, not constructor thinkers. ·
Bruno draws a map: Infinite One → World
Soul → Forms → Infinite Worlds. ·
Spinoza draws a map: One Substance →
Infinite Attributes → Modes → Determinate Things. In both
cases, the map is top-down. There is no step-by-step mechanism: ·
nothing like “from this minimal event, via
such-and-such rule, emerges that structure.” ·
no analogue of “collision,” “quantum unit,”
“information packet,” ·
no recognition that identity must be produced. They
sketch the logical shape of a world already assumed, not the algorithm
that would produce one. 4.3 Static eternity vs procedural emergence Both
thinkers worship the eternal, unchanging, necessary: ·
For Bruno: the Infinite
One and its eternal matter. ·
For Spinoza: God-Substance and its timeless
attributes. Time,
change, development, iteration are treated as secondary distortions of
something already complete. A
generative ontology, by contrast, starts from: ·
discrete events, ·
serial interactions, ·
bounded procedures that build up
identities over time. Bruno and
Spinoza both attempt to describe reality sub specie aeternitatis – “from
the viewpoint of eternity.” From that height, you cannot see how a potato
grows, how mass condenses, how a cell divides. All local becoming is
flattened into “necessary expressions of what already is.” Eternity
here is not a vantage point; it is a blindfold. 5. Why their monism is non-generative (and why it
matters) 5.1 Undefined primitives as fudge anchors In both
systems, the crucial anchor notions are undefined: ·
Bruno: matter, infinity, World-Soul. ·
Spinoza: substance, attribute, necessity. They
function as what you elsewhere called fudge anchors: ·
terms that stabilise the discourse ·
but do no actual explanatory work. You can
swap the surface lexicon: Brahman,
Substance, Matter, God, Energy, The One and the
overall structure still works because nothing is grounded in a defined
minimal unit. 5.2 Zero predictive or reconstructive power Ask: Given
your theory, can you, even in principle, The
answer is no. Their
systems: ·
cannot generate models, ·
cannot specify constraints in a testable form, ·
cannot even fictionalise the emergence beyond
metaphors. They do not
even fail scientifically; they never reach the level of trying. 5.3 The moral: bravery without method Both were
genuinely brave: ·
Bruno paid with his life. ·
Spinoza paid with excommunication and isolation. But
bravery of this kind does not guarantee clarity or generativity.
They smashed certain medieval idols (transcendence, closed cosmos, dualism),
but replaced them with monumental abstractions. They
opened the roof, then forgot to build a staircase. 6. Contrast: what a generative monism would have to
include Without
going into the full druid Finn-canon mode, we can state the requirement
neutrally: A
genuinely generative monism would need to: 1. Identify
a minimal unit (quantum of action, event, operation). 2. Specify rules
of interaction for these units. 3. Show how stability
(mass, identity, structure) arises from repeated interactions. 4. Treat time
and iteration as constitutive, not as superficial. 5. Allow, in
principle, a procedural reconstruction of emergents. In your
language: quanta as discrete decisions; collisions at c producing realness;
mass as confined action; energy as directed action; identity as addressable
stability; emergents as localised God-in-execution. Bruno and
Spinoza do none of this. They remain in the pre-procedural age, where saying
“All is one” was considered a metaphysical achievement rather than a starting
guess you then have to operationalise. 7. Scathing conclusion Bruno and
Spinoza are celebrated as pioneers of bold, immanentist
monism. On a structural reading: ·
They inherit a vocabulary of
matter/substance instead of defining it. ·
They assert infinite capacity instead of exhibiting
finite procedures. ·
They describe the world from the ceiling
down instead of building it from the floor up. ·
They flatten emergence into timeless
necessity instead of deriving it from local operations. So yes,
as you put it: They were
scholiasts, bookworms. They gave
us elegant, sometimes beautiful diagrams of “what must be true” if you start
from certain theological and philosophical commitments. But they never wrote
the one chapter that a truly generative monism needs: “How to Make a World,
Step by Step.” A comparative
critique of non-generative and generative monisms Shankara’s ADVAITA as grand
non-explanation |