Why Bruno and Spinoza Never Found the Potato

By Finn, the druid, who has actually seen a potato

Let’s get right to it.
Giordano Bruno, cosmic martyr of the Infinite, and Baruch Spinoza, saint of Geometrical Necessity, both spent thousands of pages explaining the universe — and neither one of them could explain a potato.

Not a single potato.

Not why it has mass.
Not why it has structure.
Not why it stays a potato instead of turning into a goat.

They gave us infinite substance, infinite matter, infinite attributes, infinite forms — but not one finite explanation of anything actually sitting in front of them.

This is the philosophical equivalent of describing “the meaning of literature” without knowing how to read.

1. Bruno’s Potato: A Miracle of Infinite Matter (and Zero Mechanism)

Bruno, bless him, tried hard. He filled Europe with visions of:

· Infinite worlds

· Infinite matter

· Infinite forms

· Infinite everything

Which already tells you the trick:
If everything is infinite, you never have to explain anything specific.

So Bruno looks at a potato and says:

“It is an expression of the infinite capacity of the divine matter animated by the World-Soul.”

Right.
And thunder is bowling angels, and toothaches are demons.

His “matter” is infinite, omni-form, eternal, divine… and undefined.
A potato is simply one of its “infinite possible actualisations.”

Translation:
Bruno has no idea what generates form, mass, or identity.
He just says “infinite matter did it” and moves on to the next astronomical metaphor.

Bruno’s system is a fireworks show in which every explosion is labelled “infinity.”

Beautiful?
Sure.
Explanatory?
Zero.

2. Spinoza’s Potato: A Mode of Extension That Explains Nothing

Now Spinoza.
The man who wrote an entire universe in the style of Euclid.

He gives us:

· One substance

· Two attributes (thought and extension)

· Infinite modes

· Deterministic necessity

· A chain of causes stretching out forever like a cosmic game of dominos

A potato, in his system, is:

“A finite mode expressing under the attribute of extension the essence of God.”

And that’s it.
That’s the whole explanation.

Ask for more and he repeats himself with added geometry:

“The potato is determined by the eternal necessity of the divine nature.”

Which is the metaphysical equivalent of:

“It is what it is because that’s what it is.”

If Bruno’s potato is a miracle of infinite possibilities, Spinoza’s potato is a hostage of eternal necessity.
Neither is generated.
Neither is constructed.

Neither is explained.

3. Bruno and Spinoza Miss the Obvious Question

The question they never ask — the question that kills their monisms instantly — is embarrassingly simple:

How is anything actually made?

Not why it is divine.
Not why it is necessary.
Not why it fits into cosmic unity.

Just:

· What is the minimal unit?

· What are the rules of interaction?

· How does identity stabilise?

· How does mass arise?

· How does structure persist?

· How does a potato become a potato?

These questions would have blown up both systems instantly.
Because neither philosopher had any generative machinery.

They had words: substance, matter, world-soul, attribute, mode.

They had diagrams: One → Many, Substance → Modes.

But they had no procedure.
No engine.
No algorithm.

They had the metaphysical equivalent of:

“Everything comes from Everything because Everything is One.”

A cosmic shrug disguised as wisdom.

4. Enter Procedure Monism: Someone Finally Looks at the Potato

Now compare this to the druid Finn’s Procedure Monism.

Instead of infinite fluff, it asks:

What is the smallest thing reality does?

Not what it is —
but what it does.

Answer:

· a discrete quantum of directed action

· colliding at c

· generating realness through bounded interactions

· stabilising as mass

· iterating into structures

· emerging as identifiable entities

The potato is not a “mode of substance.”
It is a bundled cluster of confined action loops, a stable procedural identity produced through repeated interactions — a generative event in progress.

Bruno and Spinoza could never say that.
Because they never asked what identity or mass is.

They only asked what everything is made of —
and then answered with a theological thesaurus.

5. The Final Score

Bruno:
Infinite Matter. No mechanism. No potato.

Spinoza:
Infinite Substance. No generativity. No potato.

Finn:
Discrete action, collisions, iteration, emergence — potato achieved.

6. Why They Never Found the Potato

Because:

· Bruno was too busy inflating matter into a cosmic balloon.

· Spinoza was too busy flattening everything into geometric inevitability.

· Both thought you could explain reality from the ceiling down, instead of from the floor up.

· Both inherited scholastic vocabulary instead of interrogating it.

· Neither understood that identity must be generated, not presumed.

· Neither knew that mass is confined action, not divine gravitational moodiness.

· Neither realised that stable emergents require discrete units and procedural rules, not infinite adjectives.

In short:

They described the universe.
They never built one.

7. Closing (Druid) Rule

A monism that cannot explain a potato
cannot explain the universe.

And Bruno and Spinoza —
for all their brilliance and bravery —
never got to the vegetable aisle.

But Finn did, 400 years later!

The non-generative monisms of Bruno and Spinoza

A comparative critique of non-generative and generative monisms

Shankara’s Advaita: The grand non-explanation

All Finn’s blogs

The Druid Finn’s homepage