The evolution of GOD as regulatory technology

By the druid Finn

Abstract

This essay reconstructs and evaluates the evolution of the God-concept as a regulatory interface in human cultures understood as aggregations of iterative survival-units (“iterations”).
Rejecting psychological developmentalism, the analysis reframes cultural forms as emergent survival strategies shaped by stochastic constraint-navigation under the Universal Procedure.
The God-concept—whether monotheistic, dualistic, or pantheistic—is interpreted as a regulatory technology that encodes and enforces the degree of external, hybrid, or internal self-control required for survival under local conditions.
The model explains variance across cultures, clarifies the political use of theology, and reveals the procedural logic underlying cultural evolution.

1. Introduction: From Child-Development Analogies to Procedural Iteration

Traditional analyses of religious development—especially those inspired by Freud, Piaget, or the anthropologists of the early 20th century—commonly treat cultures as if they were organisms developing through infantile, adolescent, and adult phases.
This analogy breaks down because cultures are not organisms but aggregations of survival-iterations, each generated by the Universal Procedure (UP).

The revised model begins with three axioms:

1. A culture = aggregation of iterative bions, not a single organism.

2. Each iteration transits from dependence → hybrid → relative independence in order to complete its survival function.

3. Cultural forms (including God-concepts) reflect and encode the regulatory mode most adaptive to the local survival context.

The God-concept is therefore a memetic Guide-and-Control interface—a symbolic technology used to coordinate survival behaviour.

2. Iterations, Constraint, and the Universal Procedure

Under Procedure Monism, every emergent (an atom, a species, a culture) is an iteration of the Universal Procedure—a bounded cycle of constraint satisfaction driven by:

· Universal Random Momenta (energy quanta)

· Universal structural laws (constraints on action/momenta)

Evolution, under this view, is neither random nor teleological.
It is stochastic constraint navigation:

· unpredictable in fact (because environments fluctuate unpredictably)

· predictable in principle (because all iterations must follow coherent procedural rules)

Each iteration must pass through the functional sequence:

1. Dependence on external constraints for stability

2. Hybrid navigation combining internal and external guidance

3. Relative independence (self-regulation) sufficient for successful transmission

Cultures, being superpositions of countless iterations, display the same sequence, not as a chronological development but as a distribution of regulatory attractors.

3. Regulatory Attractors: External, Hybrid, Internal

All cultural formations fall into one of three regulatory modes, each representing an attractor within stochastic constraint space:

3.1 External Regulation (Other-Control)

· Highly efficient (and stable) under unstable or threatening environments

· Produces hierarchical, authoritarian forms

· Requires strong anthropomorphic fictions (the Father-God, jealous, punitive)

Example:
Ancient Israel in the midst of imperial pressures and tribal warfare generates Yahweh—a martial, jealous Alpha conceived as “external regulator.”
The Qur’anic Allah functions similarly in the chaotic Arabian environment prior to unification.

Function:
Provides immediate coherence under fear, famine, invasion, and scarcity.

3.2 Hybrid Regulation (Mixed Internal/External)

· Characteristic of intermediate stability and expanding complexity

· Produces dualistic moral systems (flesh vs. spirit, world vs. God)

· Requires both inner conscience and outer authority

Example:
St Paul’s theology introduces a split regulator:

· external: God, Law, Christ

· internal: guilt, conscience, flesh-hate

· political effect: obedience mediated through internalised self-surveillance

Ritual purity and moral self-loathing (derived from Paul’s lie of Original Sin) function as internalised regulators while the scriptural deity remains external.

Function:
Balances expanding (still uncertain) individual autonomy with the need for group stability.

3.3 Internal Regulation (Self-Control)

· Colloquially called “pantheism” or “mysticism”

· Fosters maximal flexibility, creativity, and complexity

· Produces distributed or democratic socio-political structures

· God becomes procedure, not person

Examples:

· Upanishads: “tat tvam asi”—the Self as universal principle

· Rumi: the divine as internal flame

· John Scotus Erigena and Spinoza: Deus sive Natura

· Eckhart: the Godhead as internal ground

· Sufis, Advaitins, Gnostics—all variants of self-regulatory theology

Function:
Optimal under stable environments with high cultural complexity (trade networks, extended literacy, urban pluralism).

4. The God-Concept as Regulatory Technology

Once theology is recognised as didactic and political fiction, it becomes possible to evaluate its function directly:

· Monotheism = external regulatory technology (for uncertainty)

· Dualistic Christianity/Islamic legalism = hybrid (fuzzy) regulatory technology

· Pantheism/Mysticism/Generative Monism = internal (certain) regulatory technology

Each mode:

· encodes behavioural constraints

· coordinates large populations

· defines permitted actions

· protects against destabilising randomness

· expresses survival strategy under specific environmental contexts

Thus theology behaves as adaptive memetic infrastructure.

5. Cultural Variance as Survival Strategy Divergence

Variance across cultures does not indicate nested hierarchies of “maturity.”
It indicates diversified survival strategies optimised for context.

5.1 High-risk environments → external regulators

· desert monotheisms

· tribal warfare cultures

· famine-prone agrarian states

· militarised empires

5.2 Mid-risk environments → hybrid regulators

· early urbanisation

· expanding literate societies

· transitional periods of collective identity formation

5.3 Low-risk, high-complexity environments → internal regulators

· periods of economic stability

· pluralistic exchange networks

· philosophical intelligentsias

· decentralised polities

Thus every surviving culture is “mature”, but the type of maturity—minimal, sufficient, or optimal—is dictated by context.

6. The Political Instrumentalisation, indeed weaponization of Regulatory Modes

Because theology encodes survival regulation, elites naturally exploit external and hybrid systems because:

· they maximise traction

· they reduce individual autonomy

· they centralise decision-making

· they permit political legitimation by divine dictate

Examples:

· Brahmins treating Sudras as ‘food’

· Islamic jurists treating the Qur’an as political constitution

· Medieval popes ruling (and extorting) via divine right

· Puritan theocracies

· Ancient Israel’s priestly caste

· Protestant moral surveillance (Lutheranism/Calvinism)

Conversely:

· pantheistic, mystical, or generative monistic systems

· distribute authority

· weaken elite ‘woke’ control

· support voluntary association

· correlate with democratic or quasi-democratic structures

This explains why such systems are frequently suppressed.

7. Cultural Evolution as Stochastic Constraint Navigation

Evolution = adaptive iteration completion under the stochastic output of the Universal Random Momenta, shaped by universal constraints.

Thus cultural evolution is:

· not linear

· not predetermined

· not morally defined

· not hierarchical

· not psychological

It is:

· stochastic

· constraint-driven

· attractor-oriented

· content-neutral

· survival-functional

This allows us to understand the three regulatory attractors as equilibrium strategies repeatedly rediscovered across the histories of cultures, simple and complex.

8. Case Studies

8.1 Judaism → Christianity → Mysticism

· Judaism: external regulator (Yahweh)

· Christianity (Pauline): hybrid regulator (external God + internal guilt/sin)

· Mysticism: internal regulator (“Christ in me,” Eckhart’s Godhead)

8.2 Islam → Sufism

· Islam: external regulator (Allah’s Will)

· Sufism: internal regulator (divine as breath/heart)

8.3 Vedic Religion → Upanishads → Advaita

· Early Veda: external gods enforcing cosmic order

· Upanishads: internalisation of Atman

· Advaita: radical internal regulation (Atman = Brahman)

8.4 Europe: Medieval Christianity → Protestant guilt → Spinoza

· Catholic hierarchy: external

· Protestant self-surveillance: hybrid

· John Scotus Erigena and Spinoza: internal self-consistency (Deus sive Natura)

9. The Revised Model: A Procedural-Evolutionary Taxonomy

The original sequence is now reframed as:

External Regulation → Hybrid Regulation → Internal Regulation

NOT as chronological phases,
but as three procedural regulatory attractors
available to culture-iterations navigating survival constraints.

Each culture settles on the regulator that maximises survival coherence in its context.

10. Conclusion: God (as placeholder) as Procedural Interface

The evolved conclusion is:

1. Cultures are aggregations of iterative survival units.

2. Survival requires regulation (constraint control).

3. Theology encodes the regulatory interface.

4. Different environmental pressures generate different types of God.

5. Monotheism, dualism, and pantheism are adaptive survival modes, not stages.

6. Evolution is stochastic but structurally constrained.

7. All surviving cultures are mature; some are more optimally adapted.

8. Generative Monism (Finn’s model) is the modern internal-regulation attractor,
suitable for high-complexity informational cultures.

The God-concept is therefore not metaphysics but adaptive behavioural software—
a survival technology infinitely rewritten as cultures navigate their procedural constraints.

Theism phases

Home