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A short history of Monism A typology (for orientation) ·
Substance monism: there is
one kind of stuff (Matter, Mind, or a neutral base). ·
Priority/ontological monism: there is
one all-encompassing whole; parts are derivative. ·
Process/functional monism: there is
one operative principle or procedure generating the many. ·
Experiential/identitarian monism: there is
one field of experience/being; differences are
modulations. I. Ancient seeds (c. 6th–4th c. BCE) Ionian “archê” hunters
(Greece) ·
Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes —
Substance monisms (water/ápeiron/air)
as a single underlying stuff from which variety differentiates. ·
Heraclitus — Process monism of flux/logos:
the one as lawful fire/change; opposites co-emerge. ·
Parmenides — Being-as-One: strict
identity/immutability; plurality is appearance. ·
Empedocles/Anaxagoras — Not
fully monist, but push mechanisms (Love/Strife;
Nous) that prefigure “rules that make worlds,” a proto-procedural angle. South
Asian lineages ·
Early Upaniṣads — Brahman–Ātman — ekatva
(monism); the one as the ground of self/world (“Tat tvam asi”). Mechanism:
appearance as māyā/vikāra (modulation). ·
Advaita Vedānta (Śaṅkara) — Strict non-dualism: only
Brahman is real; multiplicity is superimposition. ·
Kashmir Śaivism — Spanda —
(vibration) and Śiva/Śakti as
dynamic, creative non-duality—tilting toward process monism. ·
Early Buddhism (Theravāda) — Not a
monism; yet the one procedure of dependent arising (pratītya-samutpāda) offers a law-like
generator of phenomena (a procedural flavor
without an ontic One). ·
Jain, Vaiśeṣika —
Principled pluralisms (many reals/atoms). Useful as foils to monism in Finn’s
contrasts. China ·
Daoism (Laozi, Zhuangzi) — The Dao
as a generative, ineffable one that “gives birth to the ten thousand
things” (clear process monism vibe). ·
Neo-Confucian qi-monism (Zhang Zai, Zhu Xi) — World
as differentiations of qi informed by li (pattern). II. Late Antique to Medieval (3rd–12th c.) ·
Plotinus (Neoplatonism) — The One
overflows into Intellect/Soul; emanation as
mechanism. Experiential ascent to unity. ·
Christian monistic currents o John
Scotus Eriugena — All things proceed from and return to the One; a panentheistic monism via processional logic. ·
Islamic philosophy & Sufism o Ibn ‘Arabī — Waḥdat
al-wujūd (unity of being): multiplicity =
self-disclosures of the One. (Finn later rejects its continuity ontology but
inherits the “one process displays as many” motif.) III. Early Modern (17th–18th c.) ·
Spinoza — Substance monism:
one Substance with infinite attributes; modes are its expressions. Causal
immanence replaces creator–creature dualism. ·
Hobbes (material monism) and Berkeley
(ideal monism) — Opposed spins on “only matter” vs “only mind.” ·
Leibniz — Not monist (plurality of
monads) but his lawful coordination pushes a systemic-genetic picture. IV. 19th century: idealisms and will ·
Hegel — Absolute idealism:
reality as self-developing Concept; history as the one’s dialectical
self-articulation (process at scale). ·
Schopenhauer — Will as the single
noumenal essence; representations are surface. ·
British Idealists (Bradley, Bosanquet) — The Absolute
as one coherent whole (priority monism antecedents). V. 20th century pivots: neutrality, process, systems,
information ·
Neutral Monism (Mach, James, Russell) —
One neutral “stuff” behind mental/physical; bridges dualism without choosing
sides. ·
Whitehead — Process metaphysics:
actual occasions as fundamental; concrescence as the generative rule.
A clear procedural turn. ·
Systemics & Cybernetics (von
Bertalanffy, Wiener, Ashby) — World as constraint/feedback/organization;
unity by regulation and flow. Seeds for “one procedure organizing
many.” ·
Physics-hinting monisms o Quantum
field pictures and holism (entanglement) → the
whole has priority; parts derive (proto-priority monism). o Wheeler’s
“It from Bit,” Shannon information → informational
unities/pattern-first ontologies. ·
Phenomenology & Non-dual
currents (Husserl, Merleau-Ponty; modern Advaita/Zen) —
Experience as field-like unity. VI. 21st century analytic revivals & crossovers ·
Priority Monism (Jonathan Schaffer) — The
cosmos as the one fundamental concrete object; parts are derivative. ·
Russellian Monism / Panpsychist variants
(Strawson, Chalmers, Goff) — One intrinsic base, relational physics as
structure. ·
Complexity/Computation
(Wolfram, Deutsch) — World as computation; rules generate visible complexity
(procedural flavour). ·
Information/Integrated frameworks (IIT,
Friston’s Free-Energy Principle) — Unifying generative or variational
procedures across scales (method rather than strict ontic monism, but
convergent with procedural motifs). VII. The Druid Finn’s Procedure Monism (PM): the
contemporary upgrade Core
thesis: There is one universal Procedure—a
constraint-executing, contact-driven generator—that coheres randomness
into identifiable realities. What we call “entities” are local,
bounded iterations of this Procedure. Key minims (selected): ·
“Everyone is God in their space” —
autonomy of each bounded iteration. ·
“Identity is address” — identity = stable
pattern of constraint relations; not conserved across all
transformations. ·
“Original Goodness” — life’s baseline
valence is the capacity to cohere and continue (success of procedure),
not inherited guilt. ·
Mechanism: contact →
constraint → repetition → identity. Reiterated constraint on
random momenta yields “realness-moments” and, with repetition, recognizable
identities. What’s new relative to the
tradition 1. From
One-Substance to One-Procedure. Spinoza et al. identify what
is one; Finn identifies how the one operates: as constraint
sequences acting on stochastic inputs. 2. Discontinuity-first. Against
continuity ontologies (e.g., Ibn ‘Arabī), PM is quantized, serial,
event-driven—the One executes rather than flows. 3. Contact
realism. Reality is made at contacts (collisions,
couplings, informational constraints). No contact, no realness. 4. Autarchy
without the Absolute. “Everyone is God in their space” affirms local
sovereignty of bounded procedures without positing a personal Absolute. 5. Ethics as
optional derivative. PM brackets moralism; “good” = procedural
fit/coherence (a naturalized “Original Goodness”). 6. Computational/systemic
synthesis. PM integrates Turing-style rule execution, systems
constraints, and quantum-inspired discontinuity into a single
ontological frame. A minimalist lineage map (who contributes what to PM?)
Key inflection points (why this history “had” to
produce PM) 1. From
“what” to “how.” Ancient and early modern monisms
fix the unity of being;
20th–21st c. science pushes the unity of generation. PM absorbs that
and gives an operational ontology. 2. From
continuity to discontinuity. Physics (quantization),
computation (discrete steps), and systems (events/updates) converge on serial
procedure. 3. From
metaphysical comfort to natural constraints. PM
strips soteriology and moral inheritance, leaving fit, coherence,
continuance as the only “goods.” One-paragraph definition (portable) Procedure
Monism: Reality is the continuous self-execution of one
universal Procedure—a rule-like, constraint-applying operator over
stochastic inputs—that generates realness at contacts and stabilizes
identities through repetition. Every entity is a bounded address
of that Procedure (“everyone is God in their space”); “good” denotes
procedural success (coherence/continuance), not moral standing. The Lineage of Monism From the (static)
One to the (dynamic) Procedure I.
Timeline of Monist Theories
II.
Comparative Table: Three Monisms in Focus
III. The Druid Finn’s
Upgrade Procedure
Monism (PM) redefines the One not as substance, whole, or process
but as procedure — a self-executing rule system that constrains randomness
to generate identifiable realities. Every entity is a bounded iteration of
the universal procedure, autonomous yet continuous with all others through
the shared rule-set of constraint and contact. Key
Innovations: ·
Discontinuity-first ontology: existence as
quantised contacts. ·
Contact Realism: realness emerges only through
collision or constraint. ·
Autarchy Principle: every bounded identity
executes the One autonomously. ·
Ethics replaced by coherence: survival equals
procedural fitness. In
summary: PM transforms metaphysical speculation into a natural
systems logic. The One is no longer Being, Substance, or Process but the ongoing
execution of constraints that produce realness and identity. IV. Epilogue: The Druid’s Return The
circle closes: from the ancient intuition of unity to the druid Finn’s
procedural knowing. The One never was a thing but an operation — the rule of
all rules, the law of all laws, the Universal Constraint that turns chaos
into cognition. |