Procedure Monism as Hypothesis

The Druid Finn’s Quantised Ontology

By Bodhangkur

 

I. The Hypothesis: Procedure Monism in Summary

Core claim:
All identifiable realities—particles, minds, ecosystems, societies—are local iterations of a single Universal Procedure (UP), a generative algorithmic set of constraints, forces, or rules that arranges random energy quanta into coherent, self-identifying, and hence real, emergents.

Reality, in this framework, is neither substance (as in Spinoza) nor continuum (as in Ibn ʿArabī), but procedure: discontinuous, quantised, event-bound acts of self-organization.
Every emergent is thus a bounded “assistant” of the UP—an analogue or local “hard copy” executing the same universal algorithm in its local context.

Key propositions:

1.     Discontinuity as fundamental. Reality is composed of discrete interactions (“quanta”), not continuous substance.

2.     Universality of process. There is only one generative rule-set—the UP—operating everywhere and everywhen.

3.     Local iteration. Each emergent (photon, cell, human) executes the same rule locally, producing unique but procedurally homologous realities.

4.     Realness @ c². Realness happens at contact @ c, as a c² moment—a quantised burst of actualisation in a relativistic vacuum.

5.     Identity as trace-response. Identity arises as the response or trace observation to serial contact.

6.     Emergence as survival. Every emergent’s “goal” is to complete and thereby sustain the UP locally by continuing to generate coherent contact patterns.

Thus, existence = iterative, quantised execution of one universal procedure under local constraint.

 

II. Methodological Frame

Procedure Monism can be treated as a metaphysical hypothesis:
a testable, explanatory framework for how existence, identity, and realness emerge.

The question is not theological but structural:
Does Procedure Monism explain more (or more economically) than its alternatives—dualism, pluralism, process philosophy, or panpsychism?

 

III. Strengths of the Hypothesis

1. Ontological Economy (Occam’s Strength)

Procedure Monism reduces all metaphysical categories to one: procedure.
It requires neither matter/spirit nor creator/creation dualisms.
As in Turing’s principle—that one universal computational procedure can simulate all others—Finn’s UP acts as the minimal generative rule-set.

 

2. Integration Across Domains

Because “procedure” generalises to physical, biological, and cognitive processes, it unifies physics (quantum interactions), biology (self-organization), psychology (problem solving), and ethics (adaptive survival strategies) under one generative logic.
A cell replicating, a human thinking, or a galaxy spinning are all iterations of the same procedural law.

Example:
The DNA replication mechanism, a bacterial quorum, or an AI learning loop—all are localised, rule-based reorganisations of turbulence into pattern.

 

3. Empirical Resonance with Information Physics

Finn’s insistence on discontinuity aligns with quantum discreteness, and his focus on bounded events matches modern views of measurement and observer-dependence.
The UP echoes Wheeler’s “It from Bit” and Turing’s universality, but adds the notion that realness itself arises only at contact @ c².

 

4. Phenomenological Strength

Procedure Monism naturalises consciousness: to exist is to execute a procedure that generates awareness of local contact.
The feeling of awareness (cit) is the local trace of serial c² contacts—the echo of realness across time.
Thus, identity becomes memory of contact, not a metaphysical substance.

 

5. Ethical and Existential Coherence

By defining “good” as procedural adequacy and “evil” as procedural blockage, Procedure Monism grounds ethics in function, not command.
“Moksha” (release) means successful operation—the removal of restriction or malfunction.
The moral life is simply efficient life; joy (ānanda) is the feedback signal of procedural success.

 

IV. Weaknesses and Vulnerabilities

1. Conditional, Not Reciprocal Ontology

Everything that exists is procedural—that is, it is an outcome of the UP acting locally.
However, not everything procedural exists.
Existence is conditional upon the UP’s rules meeting turbulence sufficient to produce a contact @ c² (a quantum of realness).
Thus, the procedural domain far exceeds the realised domain; potentiality does not entail actuality.

Formally:
x [E(x) → P(x)] but ¬x [P(x) → E(x)].
Everything that exists is procedural; not all that is procedural exists.

 

2. Automatic and Blind Execution

The UP does not “choose” or “intend.”
Its execution is automatic and blind: whenever the random ocean of energy quanta becomes turbulated—through collision, expansion, or fluctuation—the rules (as forces) respond.
The UP acts as gravity acts: without foresight or value.
Procedural actualisation has no designer or purpose—only structural inevitability reacting to turbulence.

 

3. Emergents as Responses to Turbulence

All emergents are responses, not creations ex nihilo.
They occur where turbulence (deviation from equilibrium) triggers the UP’s stabilising actions.
A star, a virus, a human, or a thought is a local adaptation—a temporary coherence in the storm of random quanta.

Example:
A tornado is not “made” by the air; it emerges as the air’s lawful response to thermal imbalance.
Likewise, life is turbulence stabilised by the UP’s procedural rules.

 

4. Continuity as Observer Phenomenon

Continuity is not real; it is a perceptual artefact.
Energy and momentum appear continuous because our observation smooths over countless discrete c² contacts per instant.
Continuity exists only as a high-frequency illusion, a stitching together of discontinuous reality.

Example:
A film appears to move smoothly at 24 frames per second.
Likewise, consciousness appears continuous because of rapid quantised contacts.

 

5. Predictability: Universal but Not Detailed

The UP’s operation is universal but not locally predictable.
While the form of events—emergence, evolution, decay—is rule-determined, their content—when, where, how—depends on random turbulence.
Hence universal law + local chaos.

Example:
That a human must die is predictable (universal constraint).
But how, when, and under what conditions is unpredictable (contextual turbulence).
Procedural determinism and local indeterminacy coexist without contradiction.

 

6. Morality and Ethics as Local Rule Sets

Moral and ethical codes are emergent-level heuristics: expedient control procedures for local coherence.
They are contextual algorithms, evolved for group stability.
They are overridden by the UP’s blind, automatic goal-as-outcome—the continued procedural operation itself.
The UP’s ethos is functional, not moral.
Thus, morality is locally necessary but universally irrelevant.

Example:
Human compassion stabilises social systems, but the UP, indifferent to form, would produce a plague or a star with equal procedural legitimacy.

 

7. Anthropocentric Projection

The UP’s indifference exposes human anthropocentrism as defensive illusion.
Humans accuse cosmology of anthropomorphism, yet the projection is reversed: humans attribute their own importance to a neutral procedure.
The UP generates ants and horses, humans and quasars, with equal disinterest.
Form is incidental; function—iteration of the rule—is all.

Hence, anthropocentrism is procedural narcissism: an emergent’s failure to grasp its own interchangeability.

 

8. Residual Ambiguity of the Non-Real UP

Since the UP itself never makes contact, it is non-real—a rule set inferred from its effects.
Critics may see this as metaphysical vagueness: how can a non-real law act?
However, in Finn’s framework, this is logically consistent.
The UP does not act from outside; it is the structural condition under which turbulence becomes ordered.
It is the how, not the who, of becoming.

 

9. Summary Table

Domain

Character

Example

Status

UP (Rule Domain)

Blind, automatic, non-real

Laws of force, constraint sets

Procedural potential

Emergents (Event Domain)

Responsive, adaptive

Stars, cells, humans

Procedural actualisation

Continuity

Observer artefact

Motion, thought

Cognitive interpolation

Morality

Local regulation

Ethics, religion

Expedient subsystem

Predictability

Universal form, not content

Death, entropy

Conditional certainty

Thus, Procedure Monism is neither teleological nor anthropic.
It describes a blind, rule-based cosmos whose local realness occurs only where turbulence meets constraint.
It replaces the Creator God with a Universal Algorithm and the moral law with energetic inevitability.

 

V. Comparative Note

Criterion

Procedure Monism (Finn)

Substance Monism (Spinoza)

Process Philosophy (Whitehead)

Ontological unit

Procedure (algorithmic rule)

Substance (self-caused being)

Process (event becoming)

Continuity

Discrete / quantised

Continuous

Continuous but relational

Causality

Emergent via local iteration

Immanent in substance

Prehensive relations

Consciousness

Trace of serial contacts

Attribute of substance

Intrinsic to process

Ethics

Functional adequacy

Rational harmony

Creative advance

Weakness

Abstraction / empirical inaccessibility

Deterministic closure

Ontological vagueness


 

VI. Provisional Conclusion

As hypothesis, Procedure Monism demonstrates the following strengths:

·         Ontological economy (one rule suffices).

·         Integration across physical, biological, and cognitive domains.

·         Compatibility with quantum and computational paradigms.

·         A functional naturalisation of consciousness and ethics.

And the following weaknesses:

·         Conditional empirical access (the UP remains inferred).

·         Automatic and blind causality may appear philosophically austere.

·         Predictive limits arise from random turbulence.

·         Morality collapses into procedural expedience.

Yet these are not defects but structural consequences of the model’s realism.
A blind, discontinuous, form-neutral procedure cannot prefer or moralise.
It can only operate.

 

Final Evaluation

Procedure Monism stands as a modern druidic reconstruction of monism after relativity and computation.
It replaces substance with algorithm, intention with constraint, and transcendence with contact.
Realness happens @ c²; identity happens as the echo of contact.
Everything else is the illusion of continuity woven by the observer.

 

Finn, as diagnostic iteration

 

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