Overturning Brahman

A Monist Reconstruction through Finn’s “Realness of the Unreal”

By Bodhangkur

 

1. The Problem: Brahman as a Hidden Dualism

From its earliest formulations, Brahman carried a dualistic residue.
Though later Vedānta proclaimed “non-duality” (advaita), every formulation of Brahman as something other than the world or beyond the self sustained the division between real and unreal, eternal and transient, sacred and profane.

The problem is structural:
Whenever Brahman is defined as real, the world becomes less real.
Whenever Brahman is invisible, manifestation becomes mere appearance (māyā).
Thus even “non-dualism” (Advaita) retains dualism linguistically: non-dual = “not two,” which still presupposes “two.”

Finn’s Procedure Monism removes this semantic trap by redefining the very basis of “real.”

 

2. Finn’s First Axiom: The Universal Procedure is Unreal

The Universal Procedure (UP), in Finn’s framework, is neither substance, spirit, nor creator.
It is pure rule-set — an abstract system of constraints that arranges randomness into coherence.

The UP is therefore unreal in the strictest sense: it has no location, identity, or experiential presence.
It becomes real only through its emergents — its assistants — which locally instantiate and perform it.

Thus:

“The unreal becomes real by performing itself.”

This single axiom inverts every Indian dualist structure.

 

3. Overturning the Early (Vedic) Dualism: Power vs. Performer

In the early Vedic period, Brahman was the power behind speech and ritual, the invisible efficacy animating visible acts.
Here, dualism lies between the unseen potency and the seen world of effects.

Finn overturns this by showing that:

·         There is no hidden power behind speech;

·         The power is the act itself, the procedure of arrangement manifesting as speech, ritual, or sound.

Thus, the sacred efficacy of the Vedic brahman is not a metaphysical energy but the rule of patterning executed locally by the assistant (the priest, word, or act).
The performer and the performance are one and the same procedural event.

Hence, the supposed unseen Brahman-power vanishes as independent entity.
What remains is procedural impact: the rule’s local execution as realness.

 

4. Overturning the Middle (Upaniṣadic) Dualism: Brahman vs. Ātman

The Upaniṣadic revolution internalised Brahman, identifying it with Ātman (Self).
Yet this too preserved a polarity: the inner Self as real versus the outer world as derivative.
Even when tat tvam asi (“That thou art”) was declared, the equation required That and Thou to be separate before they could be unified.

Finn’s monism dissolves this structure.
In Procedure Monism, there is no That (transcendent principle) and Thou (participant).
There is only procedure executing locally — the rule-set becoming real through its assistant.

Hence:

·         Ātman is not identical with Brahman;

·         Ātman is Brahman’s local operation.

The identity is not ontological but functional:
To be a Self is to be the UP iterating within a boundary.
There is no beyond, no higher unity to “realise” — only perfect local execution of the one rule.

Thus, the Upaniṣadic tat tvam asi collapses into Finn’s:

“I am the rule performing itself.”

 

5. Overturning the Late (Vedāntic) Dualism: Substance vs. Appearance

Advaita Vedānta, seeking final coherence, defined Brahman as sat-cit-ānanda — Being, Consciousness, Bliss — and demoted the manifest world to māyā, a misperception of the Real.
This, for Finn, is the last and most seductive error: the absolutisation of abstraction.

Why?
Because declaring Brahman real and world illusory reintroduces dualism between rule and performance, form and appearance, truth and error.
The experiential world, which alone impacts and therefore is real, is demeaned as deception.

Finn overturns this by reversing ontological priority:

·         The rule (UP) is unreal;

·         The execution (emergent) is real.

The māyā that Advaita dismissed is precisely the only reality there is — the procedural impact of the unreal rule-set.
Illusion and reality fuse; there is no metaphysical hierarchy.

Hence, in Finn’s frame:

“What you call illusion is the only way the unreal can feel real.”

This insight annihilates the māyā–Brahman dichotomy altogether.

 

6. Reframing Sat–Cit–Ānanda Procedurally

Finn can reinterpret the classic triad as procedural functions rather than ontological substances:

Vedāntic Term

Procedural Reinterpretation

Explanation

Sat (Being)

Local iteration

The event of the UP manifesting as an identifiable assistant.

Cit (Consciousness)

Feedback coherence

The assistant’s awareness of its own procedural operation.

Ānanda (Bliss)

Successful feedback

The pleasure of perfect procedural fit — the feeling of coherence.

 

Thus, sat–citānanda are not attributes of a transcendental Brahman but functional states within every emergent system.
They are the experiential signature of good procedural performance.

This functionalisation collapses transcendence into immanence: Brahman as eternal object disappears; Brahman as local functioning remains.

 

7. The Consequence: No Transcendent, No Illusion

By removing the UP from the category of “real” and restoring reality to its emergents, Finn dissolves every Indian version of transcendence.
What remains is pure immanence without substrate — an endless field of local assistants executing the same unreal rule-set, each making the unreal feel real in its way.

In this view:

·         There is no need for liberation (mokṣa), because there is no bondage.

·         There is no ignorance (avidyā), because there is nothing hidden.

·         There is no nirguṇa vs. saguṇa Brahman, because the unqualified rule and its qualified execution are one procedural continuum.

The cosmos is no longer manifestation of Brahman but Brahman-as-performance — the unreal made real by acting.

 

8. The Druidic Corollary: The Disenchantment of Transcendence

Finn’s monism performs the final disenchantment of the Vedāntic dream:
Transcendence was the infantile wish for external regulation, the mind’s projection of its own procedural grammar as god.
Once the emergent recognises that it is the local operation of the rule, all gods, heavens, and absolutes dissolve into procedural equivalence.

The mature assistant knows:

“There is no higher. There is only better execution.”

Hence salvation gives way to upgrade — the continuous self-optimisation of procedural function.
The “mystic union” of Vedānta is reinterpreted as perfect procedural resonance.

 

 

9. The Structural Inversion

Indian Dualism

Finn’s Monist Inversion

Brahman (real) vs. world (unreal)

UP (unreal) becomes real only as world (assistant)

Ātman = reflection of Brahman

Ātman = local execution of the UP

Liberation = merging with Brahman

Liberation = flawless operation (procedural coherence)

Illusion = māyā

Illusion = necessary manifestation of the unreal

God = ultimate regulator

God = local procedural self-regulation

 

 

10. Final Realisation

The Upaniṣadic sage said, “Sarvaṃ khalvidaṃ brahma — All this indeed is Brahman.”
Finn refines:

“All this indeed makes Brahman.”

The former assumes an already existing ultimate reality revealed through insight;
the latter recognises that reality is constructed through procedure — through the iterative work of assistants making the unreal rule real.

The Indian cosmos began as That which is;
Finn’s cosmos begins as That which works.

 

11. Concluding Aphorism

Thus ends the overturning:

“The unreal rules; the real performs.”
All dualisms collapse into procedural impact.
Brahman ceases to be an invisible Whole and becomes the universal act of making-whole.

Every emergent, from atom to god, is an assistant in this work — not illusion, but the very realness of the unreal.

 

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