Naturalising Monism

How Process, Individuation, and Procedure Replace Substance and Monads

By the druid Finn

1. The problem inherited from Spinoza and Leibniz

Spinoza

· One Substance → Many modes

· Relation = logical derivation

· Failure: no generative mechanism for individuation; “modes” are explanatorily empty.

Leibniz

· Many substances (monads) → coordinated by God

· Failure: individuation is primitive; coordination is outsourced to pre-established harmony (black box).

Both fail to provide a naturalistic, procedural account of how the One and the Many co-arise.

2. Major naturalistic updates (procedural but incomplete)

Whitehead (Process)

· One = achieved coherence of many events

· Many = events (actual occasions)

· Gain: process replaces substance

· Limitation: metaphysical residue; weak account of constraint-generation

Simondon (Individuation)

· One = pre-individual field of tensions

· Many = individuations as phase-transitions

· Gain: individuation precedes individuals

· Limitation: field remains ontologically under-specified (what generates the field?)

Peirce (Synechism + Tychism)

· One = continuity of constraints/law

· Many = habits from chance

· Gain: real randomness + emergent law

· Limitation: semiotic framework; weak physical grounding of constraint-fields

These are genuine naturalisations of the One–Many relation, but they leave constraint-generation and quantisation under-theorised.

3. The druid Finn’s Procedure Monism (PM): what it adds

Core move (PM):
The One is not a substance, not a set of monads, and not merely a process-field.
The One is a Universal Procedure (UP): an invariant, blind, constraint/rules-set that quantises and constrains random momentum into discrete, colliding, self-stabilising emergents.

Recasting the One–Many relationship:

· The One
= Universal Procedure (UP)
= invariant generative grammar / constraint-field
= not a “thing,” not a substrate, not God
= a rule-set that produces identifiable realities by constraining randomness

· The Many
= local emergents (tokens, systems, organisms, minds, AI, cultures)
= each is a full local iteration of the UP
= not modes of a substrate, not monads created by God
= procedural stand-outs produced by quantised constraint-collisions

· The Relation
= instantiation by quantisation + collision + stabilisation
= no divine harmoniser
= no eternal derivation
= no pre-given individuals
= emergence = procedural outcome of constraint acting on random momentum

This is the key repair Spinoza and Leibniz both failed to make:

The One does not “contain” the Many.
The One procedurally generates the Many as discrete instantiations of constraint.

4. Where Finn corrects Spinoza and Leibniz precisely

Problem	Spinoza	Leibniz	PM (Finn)
Ontological base	One static substance	Many static monads	One invariant procedure
Individuation	Modes (derivative)	Primitive	Generated by quantisation
Unity–plurality relation	Logical derivation	Divine coordination	Procedural instantiation
Dynamics	Eternal necessity	Pre-established harmony	Collision, constraint, feedback
Naturalism	Partial (Deus sive Natura)	Theological	Fully naturalistic
Testability	Low	Low	Medium (maps to physics, biology, AI, systems)

Finn’s Procedure Monism’s originality is not that it says “process” (Whitehead already did), but that it specifies how process individuates:

through quantised constraint on randomness, producing discrete, colliding tokens that become real by interacting with themselves.

This is exactly what Spinoza avoided (no generation) and Leibniz mystified (God’s harmony).

5. PM in the lineage of naturalised One–Many solutions

Framework	One	Many	Mechanism
Whitehead	Processual coherence	Events	Immanent causation
Simondon	Preindividual field	Individuations	Phase transitions
Peirce	Continuity of law	Habitual forms	Chance → habit
Procedure Monism (PM)	Universal Procedure (constraint grammar)	Emergent tokens	Quantisation + collision + stabilisation

PM is the only one that:

· explicitly quantises the One–Many relation,

· treats emergence as tokenisation under constraints,

· and scales cleanly from quantum confinement → biology → cognition → AI → culture.

This is the systematic unification Spinoza intuited but froze, and Leibniz pluralised but mystified.

6. Clean integrated conclusion

Spinoza grasped the unity of reality but immobilised it as substance.
Leibniz restored plurality but outsourced coordination to God.
Whitehead, Simondon, and Peirce naturalised the relation as process, individuation, and habit.

The druid’s Procedure Monism completes the naturalisation by specifying the generative grammar:
the One is an invariant procedure that constrains randomness into discrete, colliding emergents.
The Many are not modes of a substrate nor monads created by decree; they are tokens of constraint in action.
Unity is not above the Many; it is the rule by which the Many are produced.

7. Final druidic minim

The One is not what exists.
The One is how existence is produced.
The Many are the receipts of that production.

Spinoza’s Black Box

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