From Dualism to Monism: Nature’s Graduation Exam

We humans arrive like all mammals — wet, noisy, and clueless — dropped into a chaotic universe, meaning a random locality, without a manual. The field we land in is unpredictable, full of moving parts, indeed random events that don’t care whether we survive or not. So, to stay alive long enough to reproduce, we have to learn how to read and regulate that the chaos.

And that’s where the trouble starts.

To manage the overwhelming complexity, the young human brain does what any sensible computer would do: it splits the data stream into two columns — safe vs. dangerous, good vs. bad, friend vs. foe. This is dualism, nature’s built-in training software. It keeps us from sticking our fingers in the fire too often.

But there’s a catch.
Dualism works only so long as we believe that someone else — a parent, god, teacher, law — knows what’s right and keeps the system from collapsing. In other words, dualism is the mindset of procedural infancy: we survive by obeying an external rulebook.

Nature’s Cognitive Nursery

Dualism isn’t evil; it’s evolution’s nursery school.
The child divides to survive. The tribe invents gods, commandments, and punishments for the same reason: to keep chaos at bay while we learn how the system actually works prior to making it work for us.

Think of it as a cosmic driving instructor sitting beside us, foot on the second brake pedal, shouting “Don’t hit that!” until we finally learn how to steer. The rules feel absolute because without them, the learner swerves into the ditch.

Religion, ideology, and moral law are the stabilisers on the bicycle of evolution. They stop us from falling over while we’re learning balance. But a grown species, meaning a mature adult, shouldn’t ride forever with training wheels.

Maturity = Internal Regulation

As experience accumulates, the external rulebook begins to look suspiciously like common sense. The parent’s “Don’t touch the stove” becomes the adult’s reflexive awareness of heat.

That’s the moment monism begins — when the law outside becomes logic inside. The world is no longer split into sacred and profane zones; it’s one continuous field of contact, governed by the same universal constraints everywhere.

Finn’s formula says it cleanly:

“Everyone is God in their space.”

Meaning: every living system, once mature, acts as the universal creative procedure from within its own bounded domain, therefore naturally. No external referee required. The rules are internalised as understanding.

Graduating from Dualism

Civilisations follow the same path as individuals.

· Early societies need commandments, kings, and priesthoods.

· Later ones develop science — internalised understanding of natural law.

· The next step (which Finn calls Procedural Adulthood) is recognising that there never was a separation between the Universal Emergence Procedure and the natural. The universe, as ensemble of all emergents, is the ongoing act of self-organisation. Each of us is a node of that act.

Dualism, in short, is the cognitive prosthesis of childhood.
Monism is what happens when the prosthesis is no longer needed. Non-dualism, specifically the Adi Shankara version, serves as juvenile transition fudge in-between.

The New Ethic: Comprehension, Not Obedience

In the dualist world, ethics is about obeying rules handed down from on high (to wit, the supra-natural).
In the monist world, ethics emerges (via human artifice) as locally expedient survival procedure: the art of maintaining coherence in an unpredictable field. “Good” means it works and keeps working. “Bad” means it collapses.

It’s no longer about reward and punishment; it’s about systemic feedback. The adult no longer needs to be watched. The law has become personally adapted muscle memory.

The Future According to the Druid

In Finn’s druidic shorthand:

“The child prays to God above. The adult acts as God.”

Humanity’s next evolutionary task is to graduate from the religious nursery — not by burning it down, but by realising we built it for ourselves. Dualism got us this far; now it’s time to hand back the training wheels.

Monism isn’t a belief; it’s a competence. It’s what happens when the universe starts thinking through you instead of at you.

So the real question isn’t “Do you believe in God?”
It’s “Have you grown up enough to act as God in your space?”

Finn’s Last Word

The immature divide to survive.
The mature unite to create.

Dualism is the cry for supervision.
Monism is the calm of understanding.

Grow up, says the Procedure.
You are it.

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