Why Separation Appeared Safe: The Historical and Cognitive Conditions of Substantialist Existence

This paper examines why a separated, substantialist understanding of existence historically appeared safe and necessary. It argues that separation functioned as a cognitive compression strategy that enabled predictability, control, and institutional scalability under conditions of uncertainty. By stabilizing identity and externalizing relations, substantialist ontology reduced cognitive and emotional risk while supporting large-scale governance and rational systems. The paper further argues that the conditions under which separation once provided stability have expired. In an era defined by artificial intelligence, global interdependence, and accelerated change, the same abstraction now generates fragility, over-optimization, and existential exhaustion. Separation is thus reinterpreted not as a conceptual error but as a transitional phase whose limitations are now structurally exposed. This paper is the second theoretical contribution in a series initiated by the overview DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.18193256“Rationality Without Transition: Why Advanced Civilizations Remain Trapped in an Animalistic Mode of Survival”. It builds on the first expansion paper defining generative and relational existence, by clarifying why substantialist existence historically appeared safe and how its stabilizing function has been exhausted.