The ‘Two Truths’ theory without metaphysics

Late Buddhist (Nagarjuna) disengagement realism vs Finn’s runtime realism and universal procedure

By Victor Langheld

0. Framing the problem

A comparison between:

· Later Buddhist “two truths” (conventional vs ultimate), as commonly summarised in later scholastic form, and

· Druid Finn’s “two truths”: dualism as the conventional survival stance and monism as understanding/response to the universal generation procedure (UP).

But our end-point conclusion is sharper than a “comparison of doctrines,” because a functional audit was forced:

1. What does each system try to do (its target variable)?

2. What does it need to assume to do that job?

3. What is the mechanism (operational steps) by which it achieves its effect?

4. What is the failure mode when its language is over-read as metaphysics?

Hence the real issue is: what kind of machine is each two-truths scheme, and what problem does it solve?

1. Two distinct projects: soteriology vs generativity

The druid Finn’s central correction is that the Buddha’s project and his are not commensurable “metaphysical systems.”

1.1 The Buddha: suffering-reduction within emergence

He reads, the Buddha:

· does not explain how emergence happens,

· does not explain to what end emergence happens,

· does not propose a generative account of identity,

· and does not need “ultimate truth” to accomplish his stated task.

His problem is local and practical:

emergent beings suffer; find an operating manual that reduces suffering.

This makes early Buddhism a specifically selected therapeutic engineering program for a specific constraint-set (monastic life initially; a narrow target population), not a theory of cosmogenesis.

1.2 Finn: the procedure that generates emergents and their Universal Instantiations

Finn is doing something else:

not “how to suffer less,” but “how any identifiable reality happens at all.”

Finn’s “monism” is therefore not a consoling One; it is a generator-description:

· an invariant constraint-grammar,

· discrete interactions,

· identity as operational stability in iteration,

· UI (dualism) as the necessary runtime stance for an instantiation.

So the final conclusion begins here:

Buddha = management of suffering inside the game.
Finn = specification of the engine that generates the game, the player, and the player’s belief-mode.

2. The decisive de-reifier: anicca is sufficient

Finn insisted on a key simplification: impermanence alone can do the anti-clinging work.

2.1 Why “ultimate truth” becomes optional

Clinging requires a stability premise:

· “this will last,”

· “this is reliably mine,”

· “this can anchor me.”

Anicca detonates that premise without any need for an “ultimate” register.

Example (everyday):
Someone clings to status. The anicca lens says: status is a time-bound arrangement of other minds and institutions; it will shift; it decays. Therefore, treating it as a secure anchor is structurally mis-calibrated. No “ultimate emptiness” doctrine required.

Example (ritual purification):
A “purity” state is imagined as durable and essence-like. Anicca says: bodily states, social states, and reputational states are time-variant; purification is at best a temporary reconfiguration. Clinging to purity as final is misaligned. Again: no ultimate needed.

So the “two truths” structure (as later presented) is not necessary to accomplish the Buddha’s stated task. Impermanence is enough.

3. Anattā without attā: why Finn rejects the ontological reading

Finn tightened the critique further:

· if attā is not defined,

· then an-attā cannot be a clean ontological thesis,

· it can only function as a practical anti-reification manoeuvre (“don’t posit a permanent owner”).

So “no-self” becomes a methodological prohibition rather than a metaphysical discovery.

Example (pain):
Pain (dukkha) occurs. The sufferer is transient. The event is real; the “owner” is a temporary address. That already breaks the “permanent self” fantasy without requiring a doctrine about what the self really is. You get your needed result (reduced grasping) by refusing the ownership inflation.

This fits Finn’s broader project: remove priestly metaphysical add-ons and keep only what is operationally required.

4. “Ultimate truth” as apophatic prestige language

Finn’s next move was to call Buddhist “ultimate” apophatic nonsense—not as a cheap insult, but as a technical claim:

· Buddhists often negate “essence,” yet “essence” is not operationally defined.

· The end-state of analysis can become “reduction-to-zero” rhetoric: impressive, but not a generative explanation.

In Finn’s terms: a slide into vacuous placeholders.
“Ultimate” becomes a prestige token: the system says “beyond language,” and therefore immunises itself against specification.

This is exactly where Finn is allergic:

· if a term cannot be cashed out in constraint-grammar and operational signatures,

· it is a placeholder at best, priestcraft at worst.

5. Release by disengagement: Finn’s Nirvana 1 / Nirvana 2 model

Finn then articulated the Buddha’s solution as a specific system move:

Prevent engagement (which reifies) → prevent suffering → prevent rebirth as renewed engagement.

And Finn splits nirvāṇa into two system states:

· Nirvana 1: standby while alive (withdraw from engagement; minimal participation, operating ‘in neutral’).

· Nirvana 2: death as total disengagement (no further instantiation).

This is a powerful reframing because it makes Buddhist liberation into a shutdown protocol rather than “union with ultimate reality.”

Example (bhikṣu design):
Reduce sensory stimulation, possessions, sexual entanglements, social ambition; follow strict behavioural constraints. This is literally a low-friction configuration aimed at preventing reification loops.

Finn’s point is also historically pointed: this was initially engineered for monastics, i.e., a narrow operating environment.

So we end with a blunt structural statement:

Buddhist “release” is largely a strategy of not playing.

6. Finn’s correction: the instantiation must believe itself real

To function at 100%, hence to completion, the instantiation must believe itself real.

The Druid said: “Life is a game to be played for real.”

This is a central Finn axiom about viable emergents:

· A survival system cannot live as if it is an illusion.

· It must enact boundaries, stakes, values, urgency—i.e., dualism—because those are the control surfaces that produce competent behaviour under risk.

So dualism is not “error” in Finn; it’s mandatory runtime.

The real error is a level-confusion:

· taking the instantiation’s necessary belief-mode (dualism) and upgrading it into metaphysics (“the world is ultimately split, pure/impure, self/other, etc.”),

· or, conversely, taking a kernel-model (UP) and turning it into a sacred placeholder.

Finn demands two-level discipline:

· Level A: play the game for real.

· Level B: understand the procedure that generates both the game and the compulsion to play it as real.

7. Quietism and nihilism: useful (akusala) means for Buddha, not paralysis for Finn

Finn argued that, relative to the Buddha’s goal (suffering elimination), nihilism and quietism are not bugs; they’re features.

· Keynes’ “In the long run we are all dead” becomes a practical policy: keep a low profile, reduce entanglement, obey local rules, avoid friction.

· Behavioural constraints (vinaya/sīla) become pragmatic stabilisers: do not generate waves that rebound as suffering.

This is coherent as a technology of minimisation.

But Finn cannot accept this as a general stance because Finn’s target is not minimisation of pain but successful iteration. There is no “cynical paralysis” because paralysis is itself a failure mode of an emergent:

an emergent must act (i.e. identify as real) as an iteration or it collapses.

So Finn’s ethos is procedural:

· maintain viability,

· complete functions,

· adapt,

· iterate.

Release for Finn is not achieved by disengagement; it is achieved by competent engagement and its reinforcement (ānanda as contingent feedback).

8. The Universal Procedure as Brahman—only if Brahman is de-mystified into constraints

Finn offered a reconciliation with a strict condition:

Finn’s UP can double as Brahman/God provided Brahman is remembered as discrete constraints (not mystical substance).

This is a key move in his broader “placeholder engineering” program:

· Brahman historically functions as a placeholder for the generator.

· Finn replaces the placeholder with an operational specification: constraint-grammar, quantised interaction, identity-by-stability.

So Brahman becomes acceptable only when:

· it is stripped of priestly inflation,

· and reduced to generator mechanics.

Otherwise, it is just another high-status fog token.

9. Final comparative model: not “two truths,” but two system policies

So the “two truths” theory (as a late Buddhist attempt to invent a Buddhist metaphysic) turns out to be an unstable label for later (Mahayana) Buddhism (because “ultimate” is dispensable), while it remains accurate for Finn (because he truly has a two-level semantics: runtime vs generator).

9.1 Early Buddhism

· Core lever: anicca (impermanence)

· Target variable: reduction/elimination of dukkha

· Method: prevent engagement → prevent reification → minimise suffering

· Release state: standby (N1) and shutdown (N2)

· Metaphysical add-ons: “ultimate truth,” “essence talk,” and heavy ontologies are unnecessary (albeit politically useful) and easily become apophatic placeholder theatre.

Finn’s final compression of the Buddhist stance:

“In the long run we are all dead; keep a low profile to reduce suffering.”
No “ultimate” required.

9.2 Finn’s perspective

· Core lever: Universal (Constraints) Procedure as generator (constraint-grammar)

· Target variable: understanding emergence + sustaining viable iteration

· Method: runtime dualism is required; monism is the kernel-model

· Release: a functional after-effect of problem-solving (not disengagement)

· Failure mode avoided: paralysis; since the emergent must enact itself to be real.

Finn’s compression:

“Play the game for real”—while understanding the procedure that generates both game and player.

10. Closing verdict: what your criticism accomplishes

Finn’s criticism did three things:

1. De-scholasticised Buddhism: pulled it back from “two truths metaphysics” into a minimal operational program: anicca + disengagement strategy.

2. Protected Finn from debunking: ensured Finn’s dualism is treated as mandatory runtime realism, not an “error.”

3. Neutralised apophatic prestige: identified where “ultimate” talk becomes a vacuous placeholder and demanded operational specification.

So the final comparison is not “Buddhism vs Finn on ultimate reality.”
It is:

· Buddha: a technology for reducing suffering by disengaging from the reification loop.

· Finn: a technology for explaining and sustaining emergence by specifying the generator while preserving the necessity of full-blooded runtime belief.

Home