Adding Nonduality to Omnipotence

[Antvasima]

I strongly agree with FinePoint here (and hope that I haven't misunderstood his intentions this time).

 

[Agnaa]

Every step we take into things which have less of a coherent logical basis for our highest tier, the less of a reason we have for certain core functionality of it: Saying that Tier 0 cannot have multiple distinct characters from the same series, saying that Tier 0 characters can have contradictions of that nature which result in them not reaching that tier, and saying that Tier 0 characters cannot be surpassed.

Why can there not be characters who are paradoxically stronger than paradoxically omnipotent characters? Why can a paradoxically omnipotent force not be found in two coequal halves? Why would a paradoxically omnipotent character being unable to do something be an anti-feat; it may simply be both able and unable to do it?

Ultimately I don't like that core functionality, but I think a worst case would be if those were preserved while making Tier 0 more esoteric.

Especially since a reason why the current Tier 0 was declared the top was that higher ideas that we could suggest (various extremes of apophatic theology) were dismissed as being too logically incoherent, while monads were accepted as being relatively reasonable. Paradoxical omnipotence is not the highest power religious scholars have suggested over the last few thousand years.

 

[Antvasima]

Well, as Ultima once stated, beyond a certain point the ascension stops according to all possible conceptualisations (even if Lionel Suggs and other apparently completely power-mad absolute egostists won't accept that), and the way I understand, absolute nonduality is a big part of that property of encompassing absoletely all aspects and potentiality of existence, including completely transcending all mathematical and scientific logical frameworks.

 

[Agnaa]

As I said, even if we ignore the Suggs-like stuff, there are still ways to get beyond paradoxical omnipotence. Aeyu would be able to outline all of these better than I could, and Ultima is aware of them and (as far as I can tell) agrees that they would legitimately be higher in a sense, but doesn't think it makes sense to create profiles for them. But Aeyu and I don't really agree with that, as they certainly can be characterized in stories.

I think this already causes some issues (although it's swept under the rug). Unsong features a classic monad, and beyond that, an inert apophatic force. We seem to just completely ignore how the latter does not fit into our description of Tier 0 at all, and slap that tier on it anyway.

 

[DontTalkDT]

The current definition has the exact same problem.

To be beyond differentiation is to be unable to be compared to something else.

If it can't be compared to something else then it can't really be said it's 'stronger' than it.

Current Tier 0 are not beyond extrinsic comparision from what I understood.

Consequently, we already have an opinion here. We say that because it's unbound by all the things lower tiers are, it's 'superior'- but superior in what sense? If it just is, then it can't be stronger or weaker than anything else, and it can't be superior or inferior to anything either.

We've essentially stated that lacking something means you're superior to it, which is subjective.

You've described something which is supposedly beyond comparison yet you want to compare it to everything else, which creates an inherent contradiction.

Which, for the record, I think is fine- we ignore a lot of logic for this site. I'm just not sure then why we're being precious with it for the most abstract tier we have.

I'm not happy about the current system for many reasons. But the current reasoning for Tier 0 attempts to put forth a logical argument. It is not "it's stronger because I say so, no logic involved". It's also not quite that "lacking something is being superior to it" alone (as was debated plenty because I brought quite that same complaint to the Tiering Revision threads).
Honestly, if you think that the Tier 0 is a random religious opinion on whose the strongest that is not actually founded in logic and objective facts at all and yet support universally rankings all fiction filtered through that standard, I find that rather questionable.

As I said, even if we ignore the Suggs-like stuff, there are still ways to get beyond paradoxical omnipotence. Aeyu would be able to outline all of these better than I could, and Ultima is aware of them and (as far as I can tell) agrees that they would legitimately be higher in a sense, but doesn't think it makes sense to create profiles for them. But Aeyu and I don't really agree with that, as they certainly can be characterized in stories.

I think this already causes some issues (although it's swept under the rug). Unsong features a classic monad, and beyond that, an inert apophatic force. We seem to just completely ignore how the latter does not fit into our description of Tier 0 at all, and slap that tier on it anyway.

Honestly, considering that for each statement there is some world (not necessarily abiding classical logic) in which it is true and another in which it is false, there are certainly ways to beat paradoxical omnipotence when in paradoxical realms. Wouldn't even need some higher state of existence or higher form of omnipotence. If you are (perhaps paradoxically so) able to do it, then you just can.

However, while I can see successful debates at that realm when done in a way of direction comparision between two fictions, a general tiering of some things being generally stronger than other things in the realm of things beyond logic is IMO not supported enough by anything of sufficiently general consensus.

 

[Agnaa]

However, while I can see successful debates at that realm when done in a way of direction comparision between two fictions, a general tiering of some things being generally stronger than other things in the realm of things beyond logic is IMO not supported enough by anything of sufficiently general consensus.

My main issue with this streak of thought in our system, is that no actual numbers are presented on the level of support.

It's just a few people vibe checking what they know of the entire field of philosophy.

No numbers have actually been presented showing that, say, 80% of philosophers accept monads with logical omnipotence, 40% accept them with paradoxical omnipotence, and 5% accept hard apophatic theology.

For all I know, maybe it's 20/15/10, meaning they're all about comparably niche, and should either all be included or excluded.

And even then, because the field of philosophy doesn't get into the kinds of debates we have, their reasons for rejecting these things are usually "well that doesn't make sense logically as something that could exist". Which is kind of moot when we get to fiction actually invoking those concepts. Many of these, if they actually exist, would quite reasonably be outside the scope of (and perhaps be able to influence the scope of) lesser things.

 

[FinePoint]

Current Tier 0 are not beyond extrinsic comparision from what I understood.

The description (and the underlying philosophy) simultaneously states they're exempt from all division and distinction between objects but then handwaves that notion away by claiming it's 'beyond' them or 'exceeds' them at the same time. Just the phrase "beyond differentiation" is in itself a paradox.

We clearly acknowledge that going up, but completely ignore it going down:
"Since its "lack of differentiation" is not just internal, but also external, there can be nothing surpassing it, as that would imply there actually is differentiation above it, which is contradictory."

Honestly, if you think that the Tier 0 is a random religious opinion on whose the strongest that is not actually founded in logic and objective facts at all and yet support universally rankings all fiction filtered through that standard, I find that rather questionable.

That's bit of a strawman. I only said that there is subjective elements to what we currently accept, not that it's entirely random and founded in no logic or facts whatsoever.

There is a wide range of philosophical interpretations of omnipotence that could theoretically work for powerscaling, and the choice to go with this one wasn't objectively correct, nor is it completely logically sound for reasons stated above.

My complaint with a lack of nonduality is sort of fundamental. By not allowing it contradictions we naturally open ourselves to an omnipotent character capable of contradictions being technically superior to one which isn't, and that kind of goes against the point of the tier and concept, no?

 

[StrymULTRA]

Oh. Then I misunderstood. My apologies.

I thought that you agreed that nonduality is an inherent quality of omnipotence, as established by real world eastern spirituality, so I would much prefer that approach instead.

Tbf I still think it should be the case.

If High 1-A+ is the set of all the logical possibilities, which would obviously include also beings with infinite states/values of logic (with these values being the "A" and "Not-A" that define Nonduality), as otherwise Infinite-valued beings are impossible, to begin with.

I do believe that a Monad would obviously include this kind of stuff by just the virtue of transcending High 1-A+ which definitely should include that, otherwise we're saying that logic states are beyond the capabilities of omnipotence.

 

[SuperNova55555]

I got permission to post this from @FinePoint :

The description (and the underlying philosophy) simultaneously states they're exempt from all division and distinction between objects but then handwaves that notion away by claiming it's 'beyond' them or 'exceeds' them at the same time. Just the phrase "beyond differentiation" is in itself a paradox.

We clearly acknowledge that going up, but completely ignore it going down:
"Since its "lack of differentiation" is not just internal, but also external, there can be nothing surpassing it, as that would imply there actually is differentiation above it, which is contradictory."

As I understand it, this isn't inherently paradoxical, it's as paradoxical as “space expands into itself”. The reason why going up differentiation dissolves into unity, is because procession and gradation in doctrines of simplicity—unfolds from unity. It's also less of viewing differences/distinction logically but metaphysically, because the reason for 'unity' being different from 'multiplicity' is less of a metaphysical case for it but a logical one.

Logical differences in Tier 0 are purely accidental, the noetic activity of finite creatures is confined by potency and act. So when we recognise God as “metaphysically simple, yet different from created Beings”, the difference is there because only God can fully comprehend himself. Finite creatures just fragment the simple first, into finite categories [Modes of Being]. But in Pure Act, God embraces all modes of Being into unity.

The idea is supposed to be viewed in a dialectical sense, finite creatures being something like a “revelation” of Gods infinite power. But which simultaneously conceals God's essence/fullness, but as partless—God remains simple in his Being. But present causally in complex entities, which is just another reason why multiplicity can coexist with simplicity just fine.

I think alternatively acosmism works too. But yeah, it's not really logically contradictory. Logic deals with language extensionally and intensionally, as long as what is meant by “God is simple and beyond division” strictly has to do with Gods Being metaphysically. Then any logical difference doesn't collapse this model of metaphysical gradation; it is actually consistent if anything, because all finite creatures relate [causally/processually] to God. It's not that God is in some (or is) isolated transcendent reality, he is present with his power in multiplicity—without compromising his Being as simpliciter.

Although I'm fine with omnipotence having some degree of non-duality, because Eastern Mysticism tends to have non-dual doctrines as somewhat of an equivalent to Divine Simplicity.

 

[Vietthai96]

Tbf I still think it should be the case.

If High 1-A+ is the set of all the logical possibilities, which would obviously include also beings with infinite states/values of logic (with these values being the "A" and "Not-A" that define Nonduality), as otherwise Infinite-valued beings are impossible, to begin with.

I do believe that a Monad would obviously include this kind of stuff by just the virtue of transcending High 1-A+ which definitely should include that, otherwise we're saying that logic states are beyond the capabilities of omnipotence.

No, not really. High 1-A+ is all possible worlds, "Logical space," where the laws governing it are the three laws of thought. The three laws of thought forbid paradoxical states.
1. Law of identity mean you are you, nothing something else
2. Law of non-contradiction mean you can't be both you and not you
3. Law of excluded middle mean you are either you or not you, not a third state

Being nondual mean you are violating these three laws

 

[Ultima_Reality]

To elaborate, I think the notion of a 'logical omnipotence' is inherently flawed since omnipotence should entail being able to do anything you want, and being constrained by logic (which you should've created?) is categorically against that.

I've read Ultima's reasoning for that, but to me it boils down to an arbitrary assumption that something being a contradiction somehow exempts it from consideration for omnipotence just because we say it's not real.

I wasn't active whenever this was first established, but had I been I would've fought against it.

The only limit an omnipotent character should have is the fact that they're not actually real, I would reason.

At the end of the day Tier 0 is really a super-generalization of the same logic operating down at 1-A. 1-A transcends a more restricted type of multiplicity (spatiotemporal divisions and material compositions, taking "matter" in the broad sense here, so not just particles and the like), while Tier 0 exceeds qualitative distinctions in general (i.e. The highest attribute you can hit the transcendence button on). In this case here the canonical form of this "superiority" would be "Can be productive of a certain multiplicity of things while not being able to be exhausted by it" (e.g. 1-A has power over arbitrarily large levels of Low 1-A, which don't have a quantitative capstone and so are resolved into a different sort of infinity altogether), can't divide down nor add up.

Whether contradictions are by default assumed to be under its power will just depend on whether we deem them valid as a default, i.e. whether we take it seriously when a verse claims to have them or just treat it as a "The verse says it is but not really." Because, I mean, "controlling fire" is obviously a perfectly valid concept, so a Tier 0 controls fire, but if a contradiction is genuinely just noise, a flatus voci, then a Tier 0 not being able to accomplish it doesn't really detract from its status any more than the fact it can't "hwiqbaiabO✓~{™¢}?@;#+#(@(@!{£{£✓£=" does, and the same goes for whether it can tweak the landscape of possibilities to include those things in it, and similar.

As it stands it seems to me that the precedent leans towards the latter. I believe the current procedure for Nonduality for instance is basically "This power has no properties of its own at all, because it's not really an intelligible concept, so it just does whatever the verse says it does." But all-in-all I don't really mind discussing whether we give the okay to contradictions, as said elsewhere. Would say I'm pretty open to it but we'll see.

Whether Tier 0s automatically are nondual is another matter entirely in my eyes. Some renderings of the concept very easlly are, but obviously not all, and the ground zero of the tier as it is rn is that it isn't necessarily so, though it's accommodating of ones that claim to be (And one isn't treated as superior to the other, or anything).

 

[Agnaa]

Tbf I still think it should be the case.

If High 1-A+ is the set of all the logical possibilities, which would obviously include also beings with infinite states/values of logic (with these values being the "A" and "Not-A" that define Nonduality), as otherwise Infinite-valued beings are impossible, to begin with.

I do believe that a Monad would obviously include this kind of stuff by just the virtue of transcending High 1-A+ which definitely should include that, otherwise we're saying that logic states are beyond the capabilities of omnipotence.

Our official stance is that such things are by default not coherent logical objects, but that if a piece of fiction asserts they are, all High 1-A+ Type 2 beings would automatically contain them, and all Tier 0 beings would be able to ground them.

It is not treated as an indication of weakness to not be beyond "alewtgtrjklsns", since that has no meaning. But if a piece of fiction asserted that it did, we would not put it above other series.

I disagree with this, but this is what was accepted.

 

[FinePoint]

Whether contradictions are by default assumed to be under its power will just depend on whether we deem them valid as a default, i.e. whether we take it seriously when a verse claims to have them or just treat it as a "The verse says it is but not really." Because, I mean, "controlling fire" is obviously a perfectly valid concept, so a Tier 0 controls fire, but if a contradiction is genuinely just noise, a flatus voci, then a Tier 0 not being able to accomplish it doesn't really detract from its status any more than the fact it can't "hwiqbaiabO✓~{™¢}?@;#+#(@(@!{£{£✓£=" does, and the same goes for whether it can tweak the landscape of possibilities to include those things in it, and similar.

Thank you for the reply, and I do find your logic pretty reasonable. I do appreciate that you acknowledge the subjective element here.

Part of why I support a paradoxical omnipotence (besides thinking it's inherently part of even a 'logical' one) is that it solves the questions of superiority between Tier 0s automatically via inherent stalemate.

That is to say, if Tier 0s are truly capable of contradictions then they can both affect other Tier 0s but simply choose not to be affected by them in the same instance and even if technically capable of reducing omnipotence they practically cannot since true omnipotence means they can just will it back anyway.

In that same vein, an omnipotent being can choose to be 'incapable' of whatever it wants, and decide what is and isn't possible in any given context, in which a single statement of being unable to 'had82j' isn't necessarily a discredit to their status or a note of inferiority to others since it could theoretically decide it could too.

It also makes general sense to me that the ground of all reality would include the logic of reality, in which case nonduality is sort of a given.

A possible counterargument I foresee is that if we assume they will themselves to be incapable of whatever they want, then who's to say a Wall Level character isn't truly a Tier 0 in disguise? To which I think the answer is that we kind of already assume they are, since we assume it's all part of the Tier 0 anyway.

Tl;dr: even if a Tier 0 explicitly says it's not nondual, I think it's a logical assumption to assume it could change that fact if it really wanted.

 

[Antvasima]

Well, given that I am rather heavily into Eastern "spirituality" nowadays, I obviously still perceive nonduality as an inescapably intrinsic part of the nature of God and Buddhas/genuine Satgurus, whereas western comprehensions of the nature of God usually seem more narrow and limited, and as such do not describe true omnipotence, but I am not remotely an academic expert regarding the area, although I have had extensive spiritual experiences.

 

[IdiosyncraticLawyer]

Bump.

 

[IdiosyncraticLawyer]

Bump.

 

[IdiosyncraticLawyer]

@Agnaa @FinePoint @Antvasima @DontTalkDT @Vietthai96 @Ultima_Reality How is this coming along?

 

[Vietthai96]

From what i have seen, nonduality will not be added

 

[Agnaa]

@Agnaa @FinePoint @Antvasima @DontTalkDT @Vietthai96 @Ultima_Reality How is this coming along?

To figure that out, I'd be rereading the thread same as you would.

I think, just some wording tweaks, but not adding nonduality?

 

[IdiosyncraticLawyer]

To figure that out, I'd be rereading the thread same as you would.

I think, just some wording tweaks, but not adding nonduality?

Could someone provide a draft?

 

[FinePoint]

@Agnaa @FinePoint @Antvasima @DontTalkDT @Vietthai96 @Ultima_Reality How is this coming along?

The initial conclusion which aligns with current standards was to not add nonduality, but make some tweaks to the omnipotence page to address some of the things I brought up earlier.

Whether those current standards should stay as is or not was also discussed but hasn't particularly gone anywhere yet, especially since Ultima stopped responding. In short, Ant and I wanted to tweak our definition of omnipotence itself to include nonduality.

 

[Agnaa]

Could someone provide a draft?

I provided various suggestions in my posts on Page 1.

 

[IdiosyncraticLawyer]

Bump.

 

[IdiosyncraticLawyer]

I provided various suggestions in my posts on Page 1.

@FinePoint @Antvasima @DontTalkDT @Vietthai96 @Ultima_Reality Are any of you willing to comment on them?

 

[FinePoint]

@FinePoint @Antvasima @DontTalkDT @Vietthai96 @Ultima_Reality Are any of you willing to comment on them?

I already did, and was fine with them.

 

[Antvasima]

The initial conclusion which aligns with current standards was to not add nonduality, but make some tweaks to the omnipotence page to address some of the things I brought up earlier.

Whether those current standards should stay as is or not was also discussed but hasn't particularly gone anywhere yet, especially since Ultima stopped responding. In short, Ant and I wanted to tweak our definition of omnipotence itself to include nonduality.

That is correct, yes.

 

[Antvasima]

I provided various suggestions in my posts on Page 1.

Do you have any suggestions for how to include nonduality as an automatic property of omnipotence?

 

[Agnaa]

Do you have any suggestions for how to include nonduality as an automatic property of omnipotence?

I initially did, but after discussion with Ultima and DT, I was convinced that nonduality isn't an automatic trait Tier 0 characters have. They don't have to necessarily be in a state of both true and false for certain questions.

"Is the monad good or not-good?" "Good."

"Is the monad blue or not-blue?" "Not-blue."

Like many other abilities, it will simply need to be an addition to the profile if the verse establishes that the character in question has it.

 

[Antvasima]

Well, nonduality does not necessarily have to equally encompass ALL dualities and pluralities in their sum total in the highest state. God can, to use what I understand from how spirituality actually works in reality, encompass all existence and nonexistence, and encompass hatred, darkness, separation, lies, and bigotry as infinitely small mayas/illusory parts of Themself, due to inherently encompassing absolutely everything in the IS and IS NOT, but still be Oneness, Light, Freedom, Love, and Truth in Their highest truthful state.

 

[Agnaa]

Well, nonduality does not necessarily have to equally encompass ALL dualities and pluralities in their sum total in the highest state. God can, to use what I understand from how spirituality actually works in reality, encompass all existence and nonexistence, and encompass hatred, darkness, separation, lies, and bigotry as infinitely small mayas/illusory parts of Themself, due to inherently encompassing absolutely everything in the IS and IS NOT, but still be Oneness, Light, Freedom, Love, and Truth in Their highest truthful state.

That's a legitimately espoused view, but it's not one required by the minimum standards for reaching Tier 0 on-site.

For a rather potent example, we generally consider Tier 0s to be equivalent to Existence Itself, rather than encompassing existence and nonexistence.

 

[Antvasima]

Hmm. Not encompassing absolutely ALL seems like a flawed, constrained, and limited view of what tier 0/Omnipotence actually is. We should probably modify our fundamental definition in that regard in that case.

 

[Agnaa]

Eh, it still ends up including those other things, but by equalising them it doesn't properly recognise their differences. That's one of the main issues I had with this definition when it was proposed.

 

[Antvasima]

So what do you think that we should do here, when taking what I said above into account?

 

[Agnaa]

Right here, implement the wording tweaks I suggested earlier, which do not include adding Nonduality as a guaranteed ability for Omnipotence.

In terms of other revisions, I don't have any proposals that I think will have broad appeal.

 

[Antvasima]

Hmm. I obviously do not agree with that given what I said above.

 

[Agnaa]

@DontTalkDT @Ultima_Reality Your continued input here would be appreciated.

 

[DontTalkDT]

If an omnipotent is truly omnipotent then they are also able to not be nondual in any way. If every omnipotent entity needs to be nondual, then there is something no omnipotent entity can do, making them not truly oomnipotent to begin with.

Aside from pointing out the typical omnipotence paradoxes that are not evaded by the argument, I have not really seen a coherent argument why a nondual monad would be stronger than a dual one yet.
So for which reason are we supposed to treat them as stronger to begin with?

 

[Agnaa]

If an omnipotent is truly omnipotent then they are also able to not be nondual in any way. If every omnipotent entity needs to be nondual, then there is something no omnipotent entity can do, making them not truly oomnipotent to begin with.

The absurdity of this reasoning is proven by its generality. You could swap "nondual" for any existing term on this part of our Omnipotence page.

Omnipotent beings needing to be immortal does not make them less omnipotent. If they wanted to immortal, they would simply stop being truly omnipotent for that time, although they would paradoxically be able to return to that state afterwards by regaining immortality.

 

[DontTalkDT]

The absurdity of this reasoning is proven by its generality. You could swap "nondual" for any existing term on this part of our Omnipotence page.

You say that as if it's not my point.

If you take the idea of "omnipotence must be able to do anything" so very literally that you conclude that it also must be able to overcome logic, then by the same standard you invite in this kind of absurd argument.

The point is, of course, that you can't use that idea to justify that such a monad is stronger than a non-paradoxical one with otherwise equivalent properties.

Either you ignore the paradoxical implications, by which the idea of paraconsistent ones being stronger loses all ground, or you don't ignore them, by which arguments as I made by all strict standards of classical logic become an equally valid inference.

So either we rank them the same as non-paradoxical tier 0 or they are untierable on grounds that no ideas related to them make any sense in the court of logic.

Omnipotent beings needing to be immortal does not make them less omnipotent. If they wanted to immortal, they would simply stop being truly omnipotent for that time, although they would paradoxically be able to return to that state afterwards by regaining immortality.

Ah, but if an omnipotent entity can't make themself so mortal that they can't paradoxically return themselves to an immortal state afterwards, are they truly omnipotent? And if they are incapable of doing so against their will, isn't that a limitation?

We can do this all day and it leads nowhere. You have already used "is able to paradoxically do something" as a part of you reasoning, which means at this point you either accept principle of explosion or admit that your argument is not grounded in classical logic.

And in the latter case, you owe me a definition of which other kind of logic you are using and for which reason you think that's more justified than classical logic. And that's a bit of an uphill battle, if 99.99% of science, philosophy, metaphysics, theology and writing in general implicitly uses classical logic.



And, in the end, you still have not formulated an argument why nondual monads are stronger than dual monads.


Edit: Unless you are talking about omnipotence in isolation of our Tier 0. We could certainly say that in some interpretations of omnipotence it is paraconsistent, that's not wrong. It just wouldn't be an inherent property of Tier 0 characters.

 

[Agnaa]

And, in the end, you still have not formulated an argument why nondual monads are stronger than dual monads.

Even if we stick to classical logic, that doesn't tell us that such paradoxical things are weaker, it only tells us that such things are impossible (or in other words, are paradoxical; or in other words, collapse under the principle of explosion).

But if we defer that explosion to the fictional world where such things are asserted as true, I think we can still say from outside of it that being able to perform those things represents more capabilities, and so can reasonably be described as "stronger".