• This forum is strictly intended to be used by members of the VS Battles wiki. Please only register if you have an autoconfirmed account there, as otherwise your registration will be rejected. If you have already registered once, do not do so again, and contact Antvasima if you encounter any problems.

    For instructions regarding the exact procedure to sign up to this forum, please click here.
  • We need Patreon donations for this forum to have all of its running costs financially secured.

    Community members who help us out will receive badges that give them several different benefits, including the removal of all advertisements in this forum, but donations from non-members are also extremely appreciated.

    Please click here for further information, or here to directly visit our Patreon donations page.
  • Please click here for information about a large petition to help children in need.

Delving further into the Conceptual Nature of Astral Forms (Marvel Comics)

Status
Not open for further replies.
18,552
12,861
So Astral Forms in Marvel are already accepted as Type 3 concepts, but after looking at various facets of their nature throughout Marvel, I believe that they are in fact Type 1 concepts.


Thus, it seems clear that Astral Forms (as well as the Astral Plane) are Type 1 Concepts due to meeting all of the following criteria:

Such concepts are completely independent from the part of reality they govern, except maybe of other concepts of this nature. These concepts shape all of reality within their area of influence and at whatever level that area exists in, and everything in it "participates" in these concepts. For example, a circular object is circular because it is "participating" in the concept of "circle-ness". In this way, the alteration of these concepts will change every object of the concept across all of their area of influence, while the opposite wouldn't affect the concept.


And for reference, here's the current explanation(s) for Astral Forms being conceptual:

Loki referred to his Astral form as his Ethereal Ego, which, asides from being likely in reference to the Freudian concept of the psychological ego, is described in a later comic as being one's conception of self. Silver Surfer referred to his soul as his metaphysical essence, or rather "the essence of what is [him]"[25]. A soul contains one's memories, personality, and all aspects of who they are. An astral form is one's "spirit identity".

Further support for this, at least for users of magic, is how it is already accepted that a sorcerer's soul contains a sizable portion of their mystical power, with magic in Marvel being already accepted as a Type 1 concept on its own.

Thus, Astral Forms in Marvel are Type 1 Concepts instead of Type 3, which mainly just bumps up their Abstract Existence as well as the NPI & Concept Manipulation potency of affecting them.

As a minor thing, here's a scan of the mind, soul, and "essential life force" all being the same in Marvel that I would like to add to the Astral Form page as support for stuff that's already there, like Life Manipulation as well as mind and soul being the same in Marvel.
 
Last edited:
As a perspective for those who do not have in-depth knowledge of Marvel comics...
Concepts that are not abstract, such as those outlined in Idealism and Nominalism, do not qualify for conceptual manipulation of any kind. Such concepts exist strictly as non-abstract objects and hold no power over anything whatsoever. For a character to qualify for conceptual manipulation, the character must be able to manipulate abstract concepts that exist partially or completely independently of the mind.
If I were to take these statements alone, without any other context, I would say that they all seem to be based on idealism, and that concepts of idealism that are not independent of the character's mind are not truly abstract concepts by our standards.
I don't see why this makes any sense in terms of souls being type 2/1 concepts.
It can be said that the soul is life in the context that the soul of every person is the life force of that person, but Dr. Strange is talking here about life itself rather than the life force of individual souls, so this scan proof to what is souls rather than being proof of their abstract nature.
Justification that souls are real abstractions.
Loki referred to his Astral form as his Ethereal Ego, which, asides from being likely in reference to the Freudian concept of the psychological ego, is described in a later comic as being one's conception of self. Silver Surfer referred to his soul as his metaphysical essence, or rather "the essence of what is [him]"[25]. A soul contains one's memories, personality, and all aspects of who they are. An astral form is one's "spirit identity".
Much more textbook justification for type 3 concepts.
Further support for this, at least for users of magic, is how it is already accepted that a sorcerer's soul contains a sizable portion of their mystical power, with magic in Marvel being already accepted as a Type 1 concept on its own.
I don't have the knowledge needed to evaluate this.
As a minor thing, here's a scan of the mind, soul, and "essential life force" all being the same in Marvel that I would like to add to the Astral Form page as support for stuff that's already there, like Life Manipulation as well as mind and soul being the same in Marvel.
This is fine.
 
I know that 3 staff have accepted this, I'm just waiting to apply two other CRTs of mine before I applied this one (since I still need to get some pages unlocked).
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top