The Basis of Existence

Is existence grounded in substance or process?

Imagine two ways of understanding how the world comes to be. The first sees existence as a hierarchy—like a great tree whose structure is already determined from the seed. The roots, trunk and branches unfold in a fixed order, each part dependent on the one before it, all governed by an inherent blueprint. In this view, the world is born from layers of dependence, where things are defined by their place in a preordained structure.

The second sees existence as a process—like the same tree but shaped by wind, rain and the creatures that interact with it. Here, the tree grows not by a rigid plan but through endless exchanges with its surroundings. Its form emerges from countless small dependencies—soil nourishing roots, sunlight guiding branches—each moment a collaboration rather than a command. In this view, the world is born not from hierarchy but from the dance of ongoing relations.

One model traces order to a chain of authority; the other finds it in the flow of becoming. Both explain dependence but in radically different ways. This week, I explore metaphysical dependence—from Aristotle's classic grounding model to the process-based approaches that emerged centuries earlier in Buddhism and Heraclitus.

Classical Positions

Summary timeline

The Classical Picture: Hierarchy and Grounding

Western metaphysics has long been shaped by a vertical vision of reality—a world built on foundations. Aristotle set the template: substances (like trees or humans) come first, and their properties (color, size) depend on them.^[1] This wasn't merely taxonomic but metaphysically loaded: dependence meant that without the substance, its attributes would collapse. The structure was rigidly asymmetric, like a pyramid—base layers securing the upper tiers.

This logic evolved but kept its skeleton. Medieval thinkers anchored the pyramid in God; rationalists like Descartes swapped God for the cogito; physicalists later reduced minds to brains and brains to particles.^[2][3][4] What changed was the candidate for the 'ground floor,' not the architectural principle. Contemporary grounding theorists formalize this intuition: when we say '$X$ holds in virtue of $Y$,' we're insisting reality has a direction of fit, with fundamental facts propping up the derivative.^[5]

Crucially, this model assumes two tacit commitments:

1. Priority: The fundamental is ontologically independent—it needs nothing below it.
2. Asymmetry: Dependence never runs back up. A statue depends on clay, but clay doesn't depend on the statue.

Even when grounding debates turn technical—are the fundamental items particles, structures, or mathematical truths?—the hierarchical impulse remains. The world, in this view, is a well-ordered stack.

Yet for all its clarity, the grounding model is incomplete. To say that $X$ is grounded in $Y$ may describe a vertical relation, but it doesn't account for how $X$ persists—what allows it to continue being.^[6] A hierarchical map of dependencies can show what is where, but it doesn't show how it holds together. This is where the process view offers more: it treats existence not as a hierarchical catalogue of parts but as a condition: 'process of declaring together'.

Process-Relational Views

Early Buddhist thought proposed dependent origination (pratītyasamutpāda), arguing that nothing exists independently—only through reciprocal conditions.^[7] A flame burns only while fuel and air sustain it; a 'self' emerges from fleeting sensations, perceptions, and causes. Here, dependence isn't a chain but a net: no first thread, no ultimate ground.

Spinoza's metaphysics radicalized this horizontality in the West. For him, there is only one substance (Deus sive Natura) and all particular things—trees, thoughts, laws—are its modes.^[8] Unlike Aristotle's substance-attribute model—where reality stacks like a multi-tiered scaffold (primary substances supporting dependent properties)—process thinkers reject fixed foundations altogether. For them, dependence is a web, not a ladder.

Current Flashpoints

1. Priority vs. Interdependence

Classical models treat reality like a building: the foundation comes first and everything else depends on it. Aristotle's substances, Descartes' indivisible minds and bodies or a physicist's fundamental particles all follow this logic—what's foundational exists on its own, while the rest hangs off it, layer by layer. Process models, by contrast, see the world as a connected series of acts: nothing stands alone. A mind isn't a thing that then interacts with the world; it's a knot of sensations, memories, and external conditions, all pulling into shape at once. Here, dependence isn't a one-way street but a roundabout.

2. Stasis vs. Dynamism

Hierarchical metaphysics often imagines the base level as timeless—whether it's Plato's eternal Forms, the laws of physics, or God. Change happens upstairs, in the derivative layers, like furniture being rearranged in a fixed house. Process thinkers reject this stability. For them, to exist is to change. A river isn't made of water atoms plus flow; the flow is the river. Even what seems solid—a rock, a star—is just a slow-motion event in a universe where being and becoming are the same.

3. Reduction vs. Emergence

When classical theorists encounter complexity, they dig downward: minds are brains, brains are cells, cells are molecules. The truth, they assume, waits at the bottom. Process models look sideways instead. A thought isn't just neurons firing; it's an emergent spark between biology, language, and the thinker's history. There's no 'bottom' to hit—only patterns that sustain themselves through feedback loops, like a whirlpool that exists only while water rushes through it.

Why It Matters

These aren't just technical disagreements. They shape how we understand everything from consciousness (is it a layer or a process?) to ethics (are we autonomous individuals or relational nodes?). The hierarchical view thrives in tidy systems—laws, taxonomies, reductionist science. The process view thrives in messy, living ones—ecologies, cultures, quantum entanglements. One asks, What are the pieces? The other asks, How does it hold together?

The Conference of Difference (CoD) Model

If the universe is a conference of difference, as the Gospel of Being declares, then grounding can't be pictured as a simple top-down arrangement.^[9] It isn't a vertical chain of command. It's closer to what physicists call a network: not a series of stacked layers, but a mesh of mutual influences—each part holding others in place through ongoing relation.

In the CoD, dependence isn't a one-way street. Every being gains power—ability—by adapting within a web of other beings. If we apply that lens to grounding, it reshapes how we think about metaphysical dependence. Instead of asking: 'What is most basic?' the more productive question becomes: 'What allows the whole to hold together?'

This doesn't erase differences in strength or stability. Some nodes in the mesh may carry more weight—foundational physics might still shape chemistry. But even foundational elements adapt to the larger system: physics itself depends on the mutual conditioning of particles and atoms—their conference of difference shaping what comes to be.

A conference-of-difference approach reframes grounding as reciprocal interdependence with proportional influence. Where classical views insist $X$ grounds $Y$ without $Y$ affecting $X$, this framework sees a more dynamic reality: $X$ and $Y$ stabilize each other through continual adjustment. This is clearest in social and biological systems, where roles, structures, and rules co-depend. However, it extends into physics itself, where phenomena like particle interactions and quantum entanglement show that what we call fundamentals emerge through relational processes, not as isolated structures.

Equilibrium in this context is not maintained through top-down or bottom-up hierarchy, but through reciprocity: the 'condition of like forward, like back' that functions to regulate the accumulation of power by others. This process permits the system as a whole to cohere and yet adapt, create, and transform. That applies whether we're looking at atoms aligning into molecules or propositions cohering into scientific theories—each a conference of difference sustained by reciprocal constraint.

This turns grounding from a static picture into a dynamic one. Rather than imagining a metaphysical base and its superstructure, we imagine a field constantly recalibrating to maintain equilibrium. In physics terms, we might think of it as a standing wave pattern: difference is distributed, yet coherent—stable.

From this view, grounding relations aren't fixed. They evolve. As beings confer and adapt, what once grounded might become secondary, and what seemed secondary might take on grounding force. This is not relativism—it's structured reciprocity. A dynamic but ordered whole.

For those seeking clarity: grounding as condition—a 'process of declaring together'—doesn't deny the appearance of structure. It denies that appearance as ground. And it reads dependence not as a chain of authority but as a living conversation.

In sum:

• Grounding is real, but in process—not structure.
• Equilibrium arises through reciprocity—not top-down control.
• The deepest layer of being is not base material but the ongoing CoD of beings.

Convergence and Divergence

Where do classical grounding theories and the CoD overlap—and where do they part ways? Here's the landscape in brief:

Convergence:

• Both see structured dependence as real:
  → Reality isn't a random heap; there's order in how facts, beings and laws relate.
• Both acknowledge asymmetries in influence:
  → Some things carry more stabilizing force than others, even in a process.

Divergence:

• On Priority:
  → Classical models insist on an ultimate base layer.
  → CoD model sees priority as relative and shifting: no final ground, only dynamic balance.
• On Fixity vs. Adaptation:
  → Classical grounding treats dependence as fixed and timeless.
  → CoD grounding treats dependence as evolving through continual conference of difference.
• On Symmetry:
  → Classical models assume strict asymmetry ($X$ grounds $Y$, not vice versa).
  → CoD model allows for reciprocal influence and stabilizing loops.
• On Equilibrium's Role:
  → Classical grounding is equilibrium-blind: it assumes grounding rests on static facts, not relational balance.
  → CoD grounding is equilibrium-aware: grounding arises from reciprocal constraint, where coherence depends on ease, mutual adaptability, and the path of least resistance.

In essence, both pictures agree that things depend on other things. But only the conference of difference grounds existence in a participatory process rather than a fixed hierarchy.

Summary

If grounding once seemed like a structural hierarchy, we now appreciate a more telling perspective: grounded in process. The dependency of existence isn't frozen; it flexes. Equilibrium isn't imposed hierarchically but realizes through reciprocity. Finally, the constant expression of existence (ground) is not substance but the conference of difference itself i.e. the 'condition of bearing together' that transforms the 'condition of bearing apart'.

Next week, we follow this thread into modal ontology: if reality is grounded in a conditional process, what about possibilities? Are possible worlds distant layers—or does the same process stretch across them too? Fewer bricks, more threads—and a few surprises.^[10]

The Gospel of Being

by John Mackay

A rigorous yet readable exploration of how existence functions—and how that relates to you.

Discover the book