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From Substance to Procedure The Static Failure of
Spinoza’s Ontology and the Rise of Finn’s dynamic Procedure Realism I. Introduction: The Problem of the One That Does Not
Move Since
Parmenides first declared that Being is, philosophy has wrestled with
the paradox of how the One can generate the many without ceasing to be One.
Every monism inherits this difficulty: if the ultimate reality is
indivisible, how can differentiation appear? Spinoza’s
Ethics (1677) is the most rigorous modern attempt to resolve that
question within the rationalist framework. His definition of substance—that
which is in itself and is conceived through itself—appears,
at first glance, to solve the problem by positing a self-sufficient source of
all existence. Yet precisely because it is self-sufficient, it is also
immobile. Spinoza’s
substantia guarantees unity, but at the price of inertia. It
“is,” but it does not do. Its perfection forbids process.
Consequently, its explanatory power dissolves when confronted with modern
physics, systems theory, or Finn’s Procedure Monism, which requires
that reality happen, not stand. II. Spinoza’s Substance: A Conceptual Circumscription, Not a Definition In Ethics
I, Definition III, Spinoza writes: “By
substance I understand that which is in itself and is conceived through
itself; that is, that whose concept does not require the concept of another
thing from which it must be formed.” This is
not a definition but a circumscription, a boundary-drawing exercise.
It tells us what substance is not—it is not dependent, not derivative,
not conceived through another—but not what it is. The
linguistic root betrays this: ·
Sub-stare — to stand under. ·
Substantia — that which stands beneath
appearances. The verb stare
(to stand) freezes the concept in stillness. Substance is defined by
immobility: that which does not move, change, or depend. Like a foundation
stone, it supports everything else by itself not participating in motion. This
metaphoric inheritance—an ancient architectural image—condemns Spinoza’s
metaphysics to architectural stasis. III. The Contradiction of the Self-Caused Static Spinoza’s
most radical move is to call substance causa sui, the cause of itself.
But the phrase is incoherent when read dynamically. If
something causes itself, the act of causation implies temporal
succession—a before and after. Yet in Spinoza’s system, substance exists
eternally; it is outside time. Hence, the causal language collapses into
tautology: substance is not “caused,” it simply is. This
reduces causation to logical entailment, not process. The universe
becomes an axiomatic structure, not an event. For
example, imagine a fire warming a stone. The warmth spreads, the stone
changes. For Spinoza, such phenomena are mere modes—modifications of
the one substance. But the substance itself remains untouched by the heat it
engenders. It produces without transforming. By
removing transformation from the essence of Being, Spinoza disqualifies
motion, evolution, and emergence from the ultimate order. What remains is a
God that cannot create, because creation would imply change, and change
would imply imperfection. IV. The Missing Mechanism: Expression Without Execution Spinoza’s
preferred verb for the relation between substance and its modes is expressio—the many “express” the one. But
expression, without a mechanism of execution, is merely metaphor. How,
exactly, does thought express extension, or extension express thought?
Spinoza offers no operative logic—only a geometrical analogy. His Ethics
is written “more geometrico,” as if reasoning
itself could replace process. But logical derivation is semantic, not ontological.
The step from axiom to proposition describes the mind’s movement, not nature’s. In modern
terms, Spinoza’s God is a static field, not a running program.
It guarantees consistency but not generation. The entire cosmos becomes a set
of logical consequences eternally inscribed in a metaphysical ledger. Nothing
truly happens. V. The Modern Contrast: Dynamic Ontologies By
contrast, 20th and 21st-century science has revealed that dynamism is
fundamental. From quantum mechanics to thermodynamics, the real is a
field of discontinuous interactions—events, not substances. 1. Physics: Quantum
field theory replaces “substance” with excitation—discrete, temporary
perturbations of an underlying field. o Example:
A photon is not a thing but a quantized event of electromagnetic interaction. o Nothing
“stands under”; everything “occurs.” 2. Systems
Theory: Living systems maintain identity not through
permanence but through self-regulating exchanges—feedback loops that
continually reconstruct the organism. 3. Information
Theory: The real is now treated as pattern, not
material—what endures is the algorithm, not the stuff it runs on. Each of
these disciplines presupposes Procedure, not substance, as the
fundamental reality: a repeatable rule generating stable effects from
unstable inputs. VI. Finn’s Procedural Correction Finn’s Procedure
Monism provides the definitional clarity Spinoza’s concept lacks. Where
Spinoza’s substantia “stands under,” Finn’s Procedure runs
through. “A
procedure is a set of constraints that transforms random inputs into
self-coherent outputs.” This is a
true definition—explicit, operational, and falsifiable. It specifies a
mechanism of coherence, not a metaphoric support. In Finn’s
framework, the real does not depend on what is, but on what happens
when constraints interact. Existence arises through contact—the
quantized moments where procedures intersect and produce realness. Repetition
of such contacts generates identity, a dynamic analogue of Spinoza’s
“mode.” For
instance, the stability of an atom results not from a static substance but
from a recurring procedural balance between opposing
constraints—electromagnetic attraction and quantum exclusion. The atom
“exists” only as long as the procedure runs coherently. VII. Consequences for Monism
The key
difference lies in temporality. Spinoza’s eternity abolishes time;
Finn’s procedure creates time—each contact a quantized now, each
repetition a duration. Thus,
Finn rescues monism from metaphysical stillness by embedding it in discontinuity
and sequence—the very texture of existence that Spinoza’s geometric
vision erased. VIII. Illustrative Analogy Consider
a symphony. ·
In Spinoza’s model, the entire symphony exists
eternally as a score—complete, perfect, unchanging. Each note is a “mode”
expressing the totality. ·
In Finn’s model, the symphony becomes real
only when played—when each note occurs in serial contact, generating the
experience of time and identity. The score is potential; execution is
being. Spinoza’s
God is the score. Finn’s God is the performance. IX. Reflection: The Price of Perfection Spinoza’s
monism is intellectually magnificent but existentially inert. It offers
certainty at the cost of participation. The human, as mode, cannot
alter the substance, only understand it. Knowledge becomes resignation;
freedom becomes awareness of necessity. Finn’s
procedural framework, by contrast, restores agency. Every emergent is
a self-executing iteration of the universal Procedure, locally autonomous yet
globally coherent. “Everyone is God in their space” means precisely this:
each bounded system runs its segment of the universal code. In such a
universe, perfection is not timeless immutability but functional coherence—the
ability to continue running under constraint. The moral question shifts from What
is the good? to What works?—from ontology to procedure. X. Conclusion: From Standing to Running Spinoza’s
substantia remains one of philosophy’s grandest intellectual
architectures: a God stripped of anthropomorphism, pure immanent order. Yet
its flaw is precisely its architectural nature — it stands rather than
acts. The
modern world, informed by physics, computation, and procedural reasoning,
requires a monism of execution, not of support. Finn’s Procedure
Monism supplies that: a definable, dynamic ontology where the One is not
a wall behind appearances but the rule through which appearance occurs. In
Spinoza’s universe, Being is the foundation
stone; in Finn’s, it is the algorithmic pulse — the act that never ceases to
iterate. Aphoristic
Close: Spinoza’s
God stands perfect and still. |