Adding Nonduality to Omnipotence

[Jin2188]

Keep in mind that Jin's idea for an ultimate tier would entail a form of nonduality really quite different from the power we currently index on the wiki (the one we atm call "Paraconsistent Physiology"), since as I said before it wouldn't entail a subject or a "something" which has paradoxical properties and/or occupies alternate logical states with more than one truth value, or even "something" with the property of being ineffable. Instead it'd entail suspending any and all logical states whatsoever and any predication, just canceling out any reference to entities or "somethings" at all (And therefore all reference). Ofc, my contention is whether it even makes sense to treat it as something profilable, since strictly speaking comparisons and contrasts are meaningless by then, and the whole point is instead to just displace a grammatical object or referent, which you'd think is fundamentally what a profile indexes. But we'll see Ig.

"For our highest tier, we have

That's the whole point, and should be the point of an ultimate tier.

An ultimate tier should essentially be a sort of "powerscaling singularity" where all our methods break down and you can't go any further.

 

[Vietthai96]

This kind of discussion should be in another thread, ngl, this thread is only about adding nonduality/paraconsistent physiology to Omnipotence or not

 

[Antvasima]

Can you link the post you're referring to? I'll give my exact thoughts later when I'm home.

See here please:

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Keep in mind that Jin's idea for an ultimate tier would entail a form of nonduality really quite different from the power we currently index on the wiki (the one we atm call "Paraconsistent Physiology"), since as I said before it wouldn't entail a subject or a "something" which has paradoxical properties and/or occupies alternate logical states with more than one truth value, or even "something" with the property of being ineffable. Instead it'd entail suspending any and all logical states whatsoever and any predication, just canceling out any reference to entities or "somethings" at all (And therefore all reference). Ofc, my contention is whether it even makes sense to treat it as something profilable, since strictly speaking comparisons and contrasts are meaningless by then, and the whole point is instead to just displace a grammatical object or referent, which you'd think is fundamentally what a profile indexes. But we'll see Ig.

Okay. I suppose that it seems best if Jin stops derailing our thread here then.

 

[FinePoint]

Has the debate here actually progressed or are we still essentially at "It's not nondual as per our current definition" and with essentially the same people still on other side of changing that definition?

 

[DontTalkDT]

Quite frankly, I don't think any conclusion as for changing the definition can be made it this thread.
That isn't something that would be confined to editing the omnipotence explanation page if we are to establish it in a fashion that actually reflects in how we tier characters. Because then you would need to make a new tier or shift tier definitions.

I believe we have established what the current status is. Anything more will require writing a full tiering revision thread.
I can say that my follow-up proposal will, in all likelihood, take that form.

 

[Antvasima]

Please elaborate regarding what you have in mind.

 

[DontTalkDT]

Please elaborate regarding what you have in mind.

To establish something in the direction of this as a basis for evaluating issues regarding paradoxical powers in fiction. That would establish a better foundation in which question like "is a paraconsistent monad stronger than a regular monad?" can be explored more meaningfully than just by appeal to intuition. (Albeit still not without a certain amount of case-by-case evaluation)
In other words, I intended to lay groundwork to debate a decision, more than to advocate for a decision. (Though, knowing how threads go, that likely won't be separable in the end)

 

[Antvasima]

Thank you. However, can you summarise please?

 

[Vietthai96]

Quite frankly, I don't think any conclusion as for changing the definition can be made it this thread.
That isn't something that would be confined to editing the omnipotence explanation page if we are to establish it in a fashion that actually reflects in how we tier characters. Because then you would need to make a new tier or shift tier definitions.

I believe we have established what the current status is. Anything more will require writing a full tiering revision thread.
I can say that my follow-up proposal will, in all likelihood, take that form.

Personally i think we should write a note about about tier 0 doesn't mean automatically paraconsistent/nondual but if you and others don't think it is neccessary then oke

 

[DontTalkDT]

Thank you. However, can you summarise please?

I will summarize it when I make the thread, yes.

Personally i think we should write a note about about tier 0 doesn't mean automatically paraconsistent/nondual but if you and others don't think it is neccessary then oke

We can clarify the current status, I have no problem with that. Just changing the current status is beyond the scope of this thread.

 

[Agnaa]

I will summarize it when I make the thread, yes.

So you're intending to make another thread about this topic, and to summarize if after all?

Aw man, I already got halfway through reading that paper!

 

[Ultima_Reality]

To establish something in the direction of this as a basis for evaluating issues regarding paradoxical powers in fiction. That would establish a better foundation in which question like "is a paraconsistent monad stronger than a regular monad?" can be explored more meaningfully than just by appeal to intuition. (Albeit still not without a certain amount of case-by-case evaluation)
In other words, I intended to lay groundwork to debate a decision, more than to advocate for a decision. (Though, knowing how threads go, that likely won't be separable in the end)

Sounds decently interesting. Will be checking out the paper while you're preparing the thread.

 

[Antvasima]

See here please:

@Ultima_Reality

 

[Ultima_Reality]

@Ultima_Reality

It seems like your concerns largely revolve around Tier 0 not being absolutely all-encompassing, which is actually very fair, yeah. As it stands the system does think of those characters as absolutely universal, though, hence I mentioned up there that technically if a Tier 0 is "Being" or "Existence" then it's necessarily a strictly all-inclusive notion of it that doesn't leave room for such a thing as "non-being" or "nonexistence" opposing it. The question of how to relate nonduality (Or Paraconsistent Existence, I guess, which is different from the philosophical accounts of "nonduality" you're likely familiar with) to it is really to do with how we treat paradoxes and logical inconsistencies, which is a broader topic not strictly identical to the matter of Tier 0's definition and also (to my understanding) what DT's future thread will tackle.

 

[Antvasima]

Well, as far as I understand, nonbeing or nonexistence doesn't oppose the nature of God or a Buddha. All IS and IS NOT are automatically parts of Their nondual nature along with all other dualities and pluralities.

 

[Ultima_Reality]

Well, as far as I understand, nonbeing or nonexistence doesn't oppose the nature of God or a Buddha. All IS and IS NOT are automatically parts of Their nondual nature along with all other dualities and pluralities.

To be perfectly clear, my intent here was to have always made Tier 0 as philosophically neutral as possible. Indeed I'd label it "philosophical" rather than religious or theological precisely because it can be universalized and expanded beyond this or that particular tradition to fit a common concept that might be found in many. But with that clarified what you're saying is substantially true of it, yeah. "Whatever you can mention is within its nature" is precisely the idea, so I don't think there's disagreement on that end.

 

[Agnaa]

As it stands the system does think of those characters as absolutely universal, though, hence I mentioned up there that technically if a Tier 0 is "Being" or "Existence" then it's necessarily a strictly all-inclusive notion of it that doesn't leave room for such a thing as "non-being" or "nonexistence" opposing it.

I don't think this is actually true.

It wouldn't be the same sort of nonexistence as we ascribed Nonexistent Physiology to, but it's certainly something that wouldn't be included in a Tier 0.

These wouldn't be able to do anything (as they're nonexistent), any theoretical properties they have are irrelevant because they're nonexistent. They wouldn't be able to output any energy or have any particular speed. But there would be a large plurality of such things.

For every instant in time, there is a series of copies of an object, that are identical except they exists in locations at which the object does not exist, and accordingly are objects which do not exist. They lack the property of "existence", and have the property of "nonexistence", and are functionally irrelevant.

 

[Ultima_Reality]

I don't think this is actually true.

It wouldn't be the same sort of nonexistence as we ascribed Nonexistent Physiology to, but it's certainly something that wouldn't be included in a Tier 0.

These wouldn't be able to do anything (as they're nonexistent), any theoretical properties they have are irrelevant because they're nonexistent. They wouldn't be able to output any energy or have any particular speed. But there would be a large plurality of such things.

For every instant in time, there is a series of copies of an object, that are identical except they exists in locations at which the object does not exist, and accordingly are objects which do not exist. They lack the property of "existence", and have the property of "nonexistence", and are functionally irrelevant.

Not really, no. If there's any object there that can have statements made about it or have properties (e.g. "existence" or "nonexistence" however those are defined), it's encompassed in the Tier 0, because anything mentionable or articulable is. To use more precise terminology, if a verse has a meinongian cosmology, an object being nonexistent doesn't mean it escapes the Tier 0.

Honestly I'm surprised you mention this, I thought I've been pretty clear that Tier 0 is indeed all-embracing. If it's not clear enough for you as is then I suppose this thread still has some use after all. We can make that clearer.

 

[Agnaa]

Not really, no. If there's any object there that can have statements made about it or have properties (e.g. "existence" or "nonexistence" however those are defined), it's encompassed in the Tier 0, because anything mentionable or articulable is. To use more precise terminology, if a verse has a meinongian cosmology, an object being nonexistent doesn't mean it escapes the Tier 0.

Honestly I'm surprised you mention this, I thought I've been pretty clear that Tier 0 is indeed all-embracing. If it's not clear enough for you as is then I suppose this thread still has some use after all. We can make that clearer.

I currently exist exactly where I am, in this world, at this moment in time.

I do not exist in the middle of the ocean, in this world, at this moment in time.

There is a me that exists in the middle of the ocean somewhere in possibility space, in a different world.

I guess that leaves the question; is the possible world an object is located in a property that is intelligible in any way? If so, then we must be swamped with far more nonexistent objects than we have extant ones. If not, I suspect that runs into other issues.

 

[Ultima_Reality]

I currently exist exactly where I am, in this world, at this moment in time.

I do not exist in the middle of the ocean, in this world, at this moment in time.

There is a me that exists in the middle of the ocean somewhere in possibility space, in a different world.

I guess that leaves the question; is the possible world an object is located in a property that is intelligible in any way? If so, then we must be swamped with far more nonexistent objects than we have extant ones. If not, I suspect that runs into other issues.

Yeah, I think the topic prescinds from these considerations, since broadly the point is: If there is in any way an "it" to talk about there, it's already in. Additional qualifications as to how it subsists are unimportant.

 

[Agnaa]

Yeah, I think the topic prescinds from these considerations, since broadly the point is: If there is in any way an "it" to talk about there, it's already in. Additional qualifications as to how it subsists are unimportant.

I think it's quite important.

If you ignore location in possibility space, then it becomes impossible to answer any question about any world. One can only answer questions about all worlds in totality.

Is there a unicorn plushie in front of each of us, right now? Impossible to tell. Both that proposition, and its negation, must exist, and we cannot possibly distinguish between them.

I think it also prevents there from being entities that travel between possible worlds, as such movements are rendered unintelligible from the outset.

 

[Ultima_Reality]

Is there a unicorn plushie in front of each of us, right now? Impossible to tell. Both that proposition, and its negation, must exist, and we cannot possibly distinguish between them.

They both exist and therefore are already in the totality (or they're things that participate in existence, I guess, if you want to use that language). I don't see the relevance.

 

[Agnaa]

They both exist and therefore are already in the totality (or they're things that participate in existence, I guess, if you want to use that language). I don't see the relevance.

Being unable to say anything about any particular world, apart from the whole, seems like an extremely relevant flaw in explanatory power.

 

[Ultima_Reality]

Being unable to say anything about any particular world, apart from the whole, seems like an extremely relevant flaw in explanatory power.

I don't see how. Or, more specifically, I don't see what point you're trying to make. Can you restate it in a clearer way?

 

[Agnaa]

I don't see how. Or, more specifically, I don't see what point you're trying to make. Can you restate it in a clearer way?

I've given three examples with accompanying explanations.

I cannot restate it differently without you pointing at something in particular.

 

[Ultima_Reality]

I've given three examples with accompanying explanations.

I cannot restate it differently without you pointing at something in particular.

Yeah, your point is frankly unintelligible to me even with all of that.

 

[Agnaa]

Yeah, your point is frankly unintelligible to me even with all of that.

Well, to step aside from that and take a completely different path, I seem to remember you talking about an absence of a monad, with this technically being at the bottom of the tiering system, but also largely being irrelevant. Except as, perhaps a state, characters might be able to be irrecoverably erased to.

I've found this contemporary quote of me referencing you having this idea:

"Being this nonexistent is what Ultima put at the bottom of the tiering system".

But I couldn't find anything direct from you.

Does that ring any bells?

---

And to try to go back to my point from the previous few posts, I am absolutely astonished that you find "Isn't there a problem with being unable to assign truth values to anything, aside from the total collection of possible worlds?" to be a completely unintelligible point. Is there seriously not even a single word you can point to that makes that hard to understand; you just can't grasp it from start to finish?

 

[Ultima_Reality]

Well, to step aside from that and take a completely different path, I seem to remember you talking about an absence of a monad, with this technically being at the bottom of the tiering system, but also largely being irrelevant. Except as, perhaps a state, characters might be able to be irrecoverably erased to.

I've found this contemporary quote of me referencing you having this idea:

But I couldn't find anything direct from you.

Does that ring any bells?

.
It does indeed, and my point in mentioning an "absolute nothingness" as compared to Tier 0 was to show the difference between the transcendence that a 1-A holds over its inferiors and the transcendence of a Tier 0. i.e. 1-A sees inferiors as relatively 'nonexistent' insofar as they can't be added up to equal it (And nor can it be divided down into them), hence they shrink into a sort of zero compared to it, and its "reverse" therefore is something qualitatively inferior to base reality. Tier 0 meanwhile is all-encompassing such that a putative "absence" of it would be just a privation of any positive content whatsoever (And all negative content too, for that matter, insofar as propositionally any negative can be converted into a positive and vice-versa), hence in the strictest terms there is not anything that slips below its immanence. It's not that there's something there but this something is so flimsy that it's irrelevant to us, it's that there isn't anything reverse to it. So the point was basically "1-A has a hierarchical flipside. 0 doesn't."

And to try to go back to my point from the previous few posts, I am absolutely astonished that you find "Isn't there a problem with being unable to assign truth values to anything, aside from the total collection of possible worlds?" to be a completely unintelligible point.

Yeah, to comply with your previous request for specificity, the point is unintelligible to me because:

1. Barely any justification for why Tier 0 encompassing these meinongian entities you mention would lead to these consequences.

2. No justification for why these consequences are problematic for Tier 0 encompassing them (Besides an assertion of "flaw in explanatory power")

So if you could restate your point with these two pointers in mind, I'd be thankful.

 

[Agnaa]

It does indeed, and my point in mentioning an "absolute nothingness" as compared to Tier 0 was to show the difference between the transcendence that a 1-A holds over its inferiors and the transcendence of a Tier 0. i.e. 1-A sees inferiors as relatively 'nonexistent' insofar as they can't be added up to equal it (And nor can it be divided down into them), hence they shrink into a sort of zero compared to it, and its "reverse" therefore is something qualitatively inferior. Tier 0 meanwhile is all-encompassing such that a putative "absence" of it would be just a privation of any positive content whatsoever (And all negative content too, for that matter, insofar as propositionally any negative can be converted into a positive and vice-versa), hence in the strictest terms there is not anything that slips below its immanence. It's not that there's something there but this something is so flimsy that it's irrelevant to us, it's that there isn't anything reverse to it. So the point was basically "1-A has a hierarchical flipside. 0 doesn't."

Might come back to this part tomorrow, I'm heading to bed.

But short sketch is that there being a thing like "existence" where the inverse of it is not a valid object seems like it would run into issues with the laws of logic.

If taking a proposition whose output is "exists", and then prepending "not" to it doesn't change the output, that seems like it would cause greater issues.

1. Barely any justification for why Tier 0 encompassing these meinongian entities you mention would lead to these consequences.

I'm arguing that encompassing non-entities means that they're not non-entities, and that not having non-entities leads to these consequences.

2. No justification for why these consequences are problematic for Tier 0 encompassing them (Besides an assertion of "flaw in explanatory power")

I do not believe that you apply this standard equally to other proposed aspects of the Tiering System.

"Such an aspect needs to care about this for it to be disqualified based on it", okay, just make the top entity a [ ] that goes [ caring about any problematic consequences ].

Heck, just think back to the points you've made about why we don't have Tier 0 be hard apophaticism! A hard apophatic being would not care about those considerations, but that is not the standard I believe you apply.

If something leads to trivialism, that is an issue. If we're indexing fictional series, and we cannot assign any truth values to any proposition about the characters we index, that is an issue.

We cannot meaningfully say that Joe Skyrim has destroyed a mountain, because the Joe Skyrim that has and the Joe Skyrim that hasn't (and can't) both exist, and we cannot distinguish between them.

 

[Ultima_Reality]

I'm arguing that encompassing non-entities means that they're not non-entities, and that not having non-entities leads to these consequences.

Would require a clarification of the meaning of "entity." If entity means a "what," an object of thought, a subject of judgement and reference, then those nonexistent objects you mention certainly are entities. You even call them "objects," after all, and talk about them having the properties either of existence or of nonexistence, so they're entities in the relevant sense.

I do not believe that you apply this standard equally to other proposed aspects of the Tiering System.

"Such an aspect needs to care about this for it to be disqualified based on it", okay, just make the top entity a [ ] that goes [ caring about any problematic consequences ].

Heck, just think back to the points you've made about why we don't have Tier 0 be hard apophaticism! A hard apophatic being would not care about those considerations, but that is not the standard I believe you apply.

If something leads to trivialism, that is an issue. If we're indexing fictional series, and we cannot assign any truth values to any proposition about the characters we index, that is an issue.

Yeah and the issue is I have little clue how you go from "Tier 0 would encompass these weird ghostly entities because for all their oddity they still subsist in some fashion" to "Trivialism!" (i couldn't even tell that the point was that it led to trivialism up until now, in fact). Hence I ask you to restate your reasoning in a clearer way.

 

[Agnaa]

Would require a clarification of the meaning of "entity." If entity means a "what," an object of thought, a subject of judgement and reference, then those nonexistent objects you mention certainly are entities. You even call them "objects," after all, and talk about them having the properties either of existence or of nonexistence, so they're entities in the relevant sense.

Replace "entity" with "extant object".

Yeah and the issue is I have little clue how you go from "Tier 0 would encompass these weird ghostly entities because for all their oddity they still subsist in some fashion" to "Trivialism!" (i couldn't even tell that the point was that it led to trivialism up until now, in fact). Hence I ask you to restate your reasoning in a clearer way.

Hopefully the bit I edited in helps

We cannot meaningfully say that Joe Skyrim has destroyed a mountain, because the Joe Skyrim that has and the Joe Skyrim that hasn't (and can't) both exist, and we cannot distinguish between them.

If that doesn't help, then tomorrow morning we can start by coming to an agreement on what the word "proposition" means. Go through every single word and bit of connective tissue used to form this point.

 

[Ultima_Reality]

Replace "entity" with "extant object".

I don't think a Tier 0 encompassing those things would mean that non-existing objects are actually existing objects. It would just introduce a third, broader term embracing both "existence" and "nonexistence" as properties or states while leaving them unconfused. I'm reminded here of Bertrand Russell's idea that "Being" is a term that applies to any object of thought or reference whatsoever, while "Existence" is a narrower term applying only to some such objects, which thus means that you have both existent beings and nonexistent beings, but not that nonexistent beings are existent beings. In that regard it does throw some light on your point, which seems to be that if everything actually occupies the same slot in possibility space, then goofy consequences follow. Putting aside the cogency of the inference, I don't think it actually results in everything moving down to the "existence" slot, so much as you're conceiving of existence as something narrower than what the Tier 0 embraces.

To put it in another way: If you suppose that there is the actual world, and then possible worlds distinct from this, what's happening isn't that I'm shoving everything under the actual world (such that possible things in reality are actual). It's that both actual and possible are subsumed under a deeper framework beyond both (which therefore transcends the distinction between the two).

Hopefully the bit I edited in helps

Yeah I believe I got it.

 

[Agnaa]

I don't think a Tier 0 encompassing those things would mean that non-existing objects are actually existing objects. It would just introduce a third, broader term embracing both "existence" and "nonexistence" as properties or states while leaving them unconfused. I'm reminded here of Bertrand Russell's idea that "Being" is a term that applies to any object of thought or reference whatsoever, while "Existence" is a narrower term applying only to some such objects, which thus means that you have both existent beings and nonexistent beings, but not that nonexistent beings are existent beings. In that regard it does throw some light on your point, which seems to be that if everything actually occupies the same slot in possibility space, then goofy consequences follow. Putting aside the cogency of the inference, I don't think it actually results in everything moving down to the "existence" slot, so much as you're conceiving of existence as something narrower than what the Tier 0 embraces.

To put it in another way: If you suppose that there is the actual world, and then possible worlds distinct from this, what's happening isn't that I'm shoving everything under the actual world (such that possible things in reality are actual). It's that both actual and possible are subsumed under a deeper framework beyond both (which therefore transcends the distinction between the two).

In many cases, yes, but we also have to account for series where the collection of all possible worlds is an actual object. So "possible but not actual" ceases to be a state of affairs.

 

[Ultima_Reality]

In many cases, yes, but we also have to account for series where the collection of all possible worlds is an actual object. So "possible but not actual" ceases to be a state of affairs.

I don't know what relevance that has.

 

[Agnaa]

I don't know what relevance that has.

By

1. Not having any coherent objects be considered non-actual.
2. Not having the possible world that an object is in, as an identifiable piece of information about the object.

You can only declare propositions as true or false in reference to all possible worlds as a collection.

So, in cases where a proposition and its negation are both logically consistent, we can not determine which is true in any given possible world. All we can say is that in some worlds it is true, and in some it is false.

Which causes problems for indexing.

Everything which is not a logical necessity, or a logical contradiction, is of indeterminate truth. And we cannot build profiles off of that.

 

[Ultima_Reality]

By

1. Not having any coherent objects be considered non-actual.
2. Not having the possible world that an object is in, as an identifiable piece of information about the object.

You can only declare propositions as true or false in reference to all possible worlds as a collection.

So, in cases where a proposition and its negation are both logically consistent, we can not determine which is true in any given possible world. All we can say is that in some worlds it is true, and in some it is false.

Which causes problems for indexing.

Everything which is not a logical necessity, or a logical contradiction, is of indeterminate truth. And we cannot build profiles off of that.

Yeah, and I've already responded to that: If you envision "possibility" and "actuality" as two irreducibly distinct spheres then the Tier 0 would be just the common medium which ties them together (i.e. That which permits them to be gathered up in one thought). That doesn't involve making all possible entities actual because the medium in question then just transcends both actuality and possibility, and therefore doesn't confuse the two in encompassing them. Then in response you brought up something about series that consider all possible worlds (and the collection they make up) to be actual, and that's what I'm asking about.

 

[Agnaa]

Yeah, and I've already responded to that: If you envision "possibility" and "actuality" as two irreducibly distinct spheres then the Tier 0 would be just the common medium which ties them together (i.e. That which permits them to be gathered up in one thought). That doesn't involve making all possible entities actual because the medium in question then just transcends both actuality and possibility, and therefore doesn't confuse the two in encompassing them. Then in response you brought up something about series that consider all possible worlds (and the collection they make up) to be actual, and that's what I'm asking about.

Yeah, ig it's fair to say that it's more a problem with High 1-A+ Type 2. Although I identified it because both that tier and Tier 0 involve the same definition of "existence".

 

[Agnaa]

Bump :3

 

[Ultima_Reality]

Bump :3

I thought there wasn't anything else to discuss here ngl.

 

[Antvasima]

What are the staff conclusions here?