From Ātman to Algorithm

The Genealogy and Modern Upgrade of Monism in Finn the Druid’s Procedural Philosophy

I. Introduction: The Long Arc of the One

Monism has haunted philosophy from its first question: How can the many be one?
Across India’s classical schools — Vedānta, Buddhism, Jainism, Vaiśeṣika — that question was answered in varied idioms: substance, process, plurality, contact.

The modern druid Finn, inheriting that lineage, translates the same intuition into the grammar of the 21st century: Nature is not what is; it is what happens.
For him, monism is not a metaphysical claim but a procedural description: existence consists of quantised, serial contacts of realness — discontinuous interactions that generate identity and meaning by their local contact alone.

This essay traces the ancient lineage and highlights Finn’s modernist upgrades — where each classical insight becomes naturalised, computational, and discontinuous.

II. Upanishadic Monism: From Substance to Procedure

1. The Classical View

The Upanishads (c. 800–500 BCE) declare:

Ekam eva advitīyam — “One without a second.”
Tat tvam asi — “That thou art.”

Brahman is the ultimate reality; Ātman (self) is identical with it.
The multiplicity of forms is illusion (māyā). Realisation is awakening to one’s true identity as Brahman — Being itself, eternal, undivided.

2. Finn’s Continuation

Finn inherits the Upanishadic insight of immanence: the divine and the natural are not two.
Every emergent — molecule, cell, thought, or person — is “God in its space.”
This, Ekattva, affirms the Aham Brahmāsmi (“I am the divine”) intuition.

But Finn modernises it radically.

3. Finn’s Upgrade: The Discontinuous One

For Finn, Brahman is not an unchanging substance but a universal procedure that generates realness through contact-events.

“Existence is not substance; it is serial instruction.”

The One is quantised, not continuous — more like a universal computation than an eternal ocean.
Where the Upanishads speak of “the river returning to the sea,” Finn speaks of data packets updating the same global field.

Example:
When an electron interacts with a photon, it registers a discrete event — a “contact.” For Finn, that is Brahman touching itself, not as mystical continuity, but as procedural iteration.

Hence:

Upanishads: “All this is Brahman.”
Finn: “All this is the runtime of one algorithm.”

This transforms mystical identity into procedural identity:
Ātman = Brahman becomes Address = Runtime.

III. Theravāda Buddhism: From Dependent Origination to Procedural Contact

1. The Classical View

Theravāda rejects both eternal self and eternal substance.
Its key doctrine, paṭicca-samuppāda (dependent origination), declares:

“When this is, that is; from the arising of this, that arises.”

Everything arises in dependency.
The individual is a momentary flux of aggregates (khandhas), bound by cause and effect.
In experience, contact (phassa) leads to feeling (vedanā), perception (saññā), and craving (taṇhā).

2. Finn’s Continuation

Finn fully accepts the process ontology: nothing exists independently.
Each “I” is a transient node in a causal web — an address within an ever-running natural system.

He also keeps the Buddhist precision that contact generates affect — a foundational observation that matches modern information theory.

3. Finn’s Upgrade: Contact as Instruction

Finn redefines phassa as instruction: every contact transmits a bit of information that alters both parties.
He translates the Buddhist insight into computational language:

Contact = Instruction
Affect = Update
Consciousness = System feedback

Unlike the Buddhist path, however, Finn removes the soteriological intent.
There is no liberation, no nirvāṇa, no “escape” from the system. The procedure does not aim to end suffering; it simply runs.
Suffering, joy, awareness — all are runtime states within the same algorithm.

Example:
A neuron fires when triggered; that firing alters the system’s configuration. There is no salvation — only modulation. For Finn, this is the exact natural analogue of paṭicca-samuppāda, minus its metaphysical aspiration.

Thus, Finn turns Buddhist conditionality into procedural causation — pure natural logic stripped of metaphysical residue.

IV. Jainism: From Anekāntavāda to Address-Relativity

1. The Classical View

The Jains proposed a pluralist universe composed of innumerable jīvas (souls) and ajīva (non-souls).
Each jīva perceives truth only partially; hence anekāntavāda (many-sidedness): every statement is conditionally true, relative to standpoint (naya).

Reality is many-faceted and perspectival. Salvation lies in freeing the jīva from karmic matter through perfect non-violence and knowledge.

2. Finn’s Continuation

Finn adopts the perspectival realism of anekāntavāda: every address perceives from its own constraints.
No description is absolute; each is a local truth-state within the total runtime.

He retains the Jain discipline of contextuality but rejects its metaphysical pluralism.

3. Finn’s Upgrade: Identity Is Not Conserved

Finn replaces jīva (soul) with address, a transient configuration through which the procedure operates.
Each address is expendable — a temporary node.
Hence his axiom:

“Identity is not conserved.”

Where Jains saw infinite souls trapped in karmic matter, Finn sees infinite temporary identities flickering through a self-updating system.

Example:
Just as an IP address on a network may persist or vanish while data keeps flowing, so too do individuals in Nature’s network arise, modulate, and disappear without loss to the total runtime.

This preserves anekāntavāda’s relativity but grounds it in physics, not metaphysics.

Jain: Many souls perceive partial truth.
Finn: Many addresses instantiate partial state of one system.

V. Vaiśeṣika: From Atomism to Quantum Procedure

1. The Classical View

The Vaiśeṣika school proposed one of the earliest atomistic systems:
Reality consists of indivisible particles (paramāṇu) of earth, water, fire, air, and ether.
Objects form through contact (saṃyoga); properties (guṇa) adhere to substances (dravya) through inherence (samavāya).
All categories (padārtha) could be listed and logically analysed.

2. Finn’s Continuation

Finn inherits their love of discreteness and contact.
He agrees that realness emerges only through contact-events — the act of connection that produces perceptible form.
He also embraces their categorical discipline: the attempt to map all modes of being.

3. Finn’s Upgrade: From Atoms to Events

For Finn, atoms are not basic; contacts are.
He reverses the hierarchy:

· Vaiśeṣika: Atoms cause contact.

· Finn: Contact generates apparent atoms.

In other words, the quantum of reality is not matter but interaction.
A photon is not a particle but an event of exchange — a procedural handshake between fields.

Example:
Quantum entanglement shows that two particles behave as one system despite distance — a result Vaiśeṣika could never accommodate.
For Finn, this is simply procedural coherence at work: the system runs discontinuously but remains self-consistent across its distributed addresses.

Thus, Finn transforms ancient atomism into quantum proceduralism — atoms as temporary configurations of contact-rules.

VI. Finn’s Modernist Synthesis: From Mokṣa to Modulation

Each classical system aimed toward a metaphysical end — mokṣa, nirvāṇa, kevala, kaivalya — the liberation of the self from flux.
Finn, in contrast, declares: there is no liberation from Nature because Nature is liberation in action.

Every emergent, by simply existing, is the One expressing itself.
There is no beyond, no metaphysical elsewhere. The “God-experience” is happening now, everywhere, as everything.

“Everyone is God in their space.”
“Life is good.”
“Identity is address.”
“Contact is instruction.”

These are not mystical proclamations but procedural truths.
They convert the soteriological ambitions of ancient India into the epistemic humility of natural science: each local system knows only what its contacts permit.

VII. Illustrative Modern Examples

1. Cellular Biology:
Each cell is an autonomous module running the universal code of life. DNA is not divine revelation but a local instruction set modulating the One procedure of bios.
Birth, death, differentiation — all are procedural updates.

2. Quantum Interaction:
When two photons collide, they exchange spin — a quantised event of contact. There is no continuous flow of energy; only discrete transfers.
Finn reads this as the physical manifestation of the One’s discontinuous procedure.

3. Social Systems:
Human societies, too, are emergent algorithms: individuals function as addresses within collective procedures of adaptation and survival.
There is no absolute morality, only the logic of local coherence — an echo of Jain perspectivism reborn as network theory.

VIII. Comparative Summary

Tradition	Classical Premise	Finn’s Continuation	Finn’s Modern Upgrade
Upanishadic	Brahman = eternal substance	Unity of being	One = universal procedure; continuity → discontinuity
Theravāda	Dependent origination; momentariness	Process ontology	Contact = instruction; runtime without teleology
Jain	Infinite plural souls; perspectival truth	Address-relative knowing	No conserved identity; addresses modulate system
Vaiśeṣika	Atomism; contact forms composites	Discreteness and relation	Atoms emerge from contact-events; quantum proceduralism
Finn	—	—	Procedural Monism: One runtime, serially generating realness; no beyond, no final cause.

IX. Conclusion: Finn’s Procedural Monism as the Modern Endpoint of Indian Insight

Where the Upanishads envisioned unity of being, Buddhism process without essence, Jainism relativity of perspective, and Vaiśeṣika discrete contact, Finn fuses them all into one operational model:

Existence is the ongoing computation of realness.

This is the final modernisation of Indian monism — stripped of metaphysics, expressed as natural system dynamics.
It needs no gods, no heavens, no final enlightenment, only the recognition that Nature is God running — quantised, discontinuous, endlessly self-modulating.

Finn thus completes a 3,000-year arc:

· The Upanishads’ “That Thou Art” becomes “That Runs Through Thee.”

· Buddhism’s “No-self” becomes “No conserved address.”

· Jainism’s “Many truths” becomes “Many addresses, one procedure.”

· Vaiśeṣika’s “Atoms in contact” becomes “Contacts make atoms.”

And through it all, the Druid smiles, for the druid’s maxim is simple:

“Life is not to be escaped.
It is to be understood —
as procedure.
And in that understanding,
the One runs free.”

The Druid Finn’s homepage