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“It’s Not About Me” The Natural Context of
Quantised Emergence 1. Nature as Discontinuous Emergence Nature
does not unfold as a smooth, continuous fabric. Rather, it happens as a
discontinuous series of quantised emergent events. Physics already
hints at this: photons, electrons, and quarks appear and act in discrete
packets, never as divisible halves. Each event is bounded, finite, and real
in its moment of strike. This
discontinuity is not a flaw but a structural feature. It is the way in which
realness comes to be. If reality were continuous, it would dissolve into the
indefinite, never resolving into anything identifiable. Only by quantisation
— by being cut into discrete packets — does nature generate identifiable
existents. 2. The Human “Me” as Localised Quantum of Realness The human
individual, the familiar “me,” is precisely one such bounded packet. I
am an identifiable, localised quantum of realness. My body and mind
cohere into a recognisable emergent only because constraints — of biology,
environment, and circumstance — hold me in place long enough to be
experienced as a self. In this
sense, the human person is not exceptional. Just as a photon is a quantum of
light-energy, so the human is a quantum of lived realness. Both exist only as
bounded, discontinuous emergents. 3. The Individual as Probe Yet the
human self carries an additional function: it serves as an experimental
probe of adaptation. Each person is a set of possibilities tested within
the larger procedural system of nature. My thoughts, choices, and behaviours
are not cosmic ends; they are trials, variations, experiments. The
lesson is stark: the individual is not an end in itself but
a means by which the procedure tests survivability. Evolutionary
history demonstrates this with unflinching clarity. Species appear, explore
possibilities, and vanish if their adaptations fail. So too with individuals:
we are probes that last a finite moment, then dissolve, leaving only the
procedural iteration behind. 4. The Universal Procedure The
Universal Procedure — the druid Finn’s term for the underlying dynamic of
existence — persists by self-iteration. It does not aim at perfection
but at continuity. It seeks not to conserve identities but to extend itself
through successive differential emergents. This
procedure operates both prior to and as each localised
iteration. It is misleading to imagine a “whole” standing apart from its
“parts.” The only reality is the procedure in act: the event of quantised
emergence here, now. What we call “the whole” is merely the continuity of
iteration across events. 5. What Is and Is Not About Me From this
perspective, we can draw a sharp distinction: ·
What is about me is only
my identified moment of realness. In this bounded duration, I am
unmistakably this one. ·
What is not about me is the
ongoing procedural survival that passes through me but does not stop with me. To
confuse the two is the root of delusion. The cosmos is not centred on my
persistence. I am centred only on my finite moment of realness. 6. Examples from Nature ·
Leaves on a tree: Each
leaf is a bounded emergent. It draws in light, processes nutrients, and then
falls. Its function is not self-permanence but contribution to the tree’s
continuity. The leaf is real, but not central. ·
Neurons in a brain: A single
neuron fires, connects, and dies. Its firing is real, but it serves the
continuity of neural systems. The brain persists, not the individual neuron. ·
Civilisations: Human societies rise,
experiment with forms of governance, technology, and culture, and then fade.
Rome, Angkor, and the Maya existed as identifiable quanta of history. They
were real, but their reality was bounded and transitional. Each case
confirms the same pattern: emergents are real in
their bounded moment but are means, not ends, in the continuity of the
procedure. 7. The Minim as Conclusion Thus, the
natural context of the druid Finn’s vision yields its logical minim: “It’s not
about me.” Not
because “me” is unreal or insignificant, but because “me” is a bounded
experiment in survival, one of countless brief iterations through which the
procedure continues. 8. Closing Reflection This
insight is sobering but liberating. To know that “it’s not about me” is to be
freed from the illusion of cosmic centrality. It places the individual in
proportion: not as the master of nature, but as one of its quantised
expressions. And yet,
within my bounded realness, the experience is absolute. For the moment that I
am, there is no other. That is the dignity of the emergent — but also
its limit. |