A genuine (but potentially controversial) criticism of this wiki in its usage of classical philosophy

[Ywlrvl]

I dropped off the face of this wiki a while back simply because I was ashamed of the nonsense I pulled back in 2018-2023.

During that time, I spent my time focusing on my studies in college, which rather coincidentally, happened to be philosophy of antiquity. I returned recently and saw the tiering system. How it had changed. Imagine the absolute shock on my face when I saw the (neo)platonic One being used as the standard of Tier 0. Here's a question that came to mind when I saw this. Why are we enshrining what amounts to the western conception of the Abrahamic God or the One as the supposed pinnacle of FICTIONAL power? This brings countless problems to mind.

1: It's outright disrespectful
It's blatantly disrespectful, and holds no regards for those who actually study and hold faiths regarding these entities in real life. By using the theological One/God as the "golden standard" for Tier 0, we may as well rename Tier 0 to "Tier 0: Abrahamic God", for that is essentially what has been done. And we may as well be flinging the middle finger at all those who follow such a being, because now we have tacitly proclaimed and admitted to the world that such a figure is fictional, and as such comparable by fictional entities.

2: Inconsistencies in how the TS even defines "Oneness"
It makes no sense. The One is the One because it is the One. Even the slightest deficiency in one of its attributes (such as its lack of thought) would mean it is no longer the One. Plotinus himself had entire sections of the Enneads (Especially Enn. 6) devoted to making this rule clear. If Tier 0 means you are practically in all respects the One, then why are we allowing those that do not fully admit of its characteristics the same tier, and not High 1-A? This ties back into #1 where we're essentially ripping off entire sections of the Enneads and yet when the Enneads says something that inhibits tiering purposes it is ignored. Disrespectful, much?

3: Profiles at this level of transcendence are outright nonsensical
The One and those that are "Onelike" are not people. The One is not a being. It is not an idea. For all intents and purposes, it is not a "character" in the traditional sense. It does not possess intellect, consciousness, or self-awareness. All of the early Neoplatonic thinkers confirm this, and we can confidently say this because the One necessarily exists in apophatic reality. Hell, even some Christians do; contradicting their own scripture.

We don't give a page to the Mathiverse because it is not a character, and yet we give pages to entities on the same level as the One, and for all intents and purposes are the One? Are we going to give a page to a pebble next, and give it a tiering of 10-C?

4: The special pleading of religion on this wiki

Wiki rules explicitly state that religious pages cannot be used on this wiki. And yet, we have essentially carved the Abrahamic/Western God into the pinnacle of our tiering system? And yet we don't allow pages on Zeus or Buddha or Thor for what reason? And before anyone tells me that Neoplatonism is secular—

No, it isn't. Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus, and Proclus all mention divinity, Gods, "ascension through enlightenment", afterlives, and even associations with Gods numerous times throughout their works. The Christians then later built upon it with their own theologies. Again, this ties directly back into #1. We have ripped what is essentially theological/divine text and used it for the purposes of indexing fictional characters. There are even entire books and studies that hint that Neoplatonism has its roots in the ancient Greek mystery rites/cults, such as those of Pythagoras. At its very core, Neoplatonism is religious and theological in nature.

That's not even mentioning that to this day, neopagans and Christians exist which use the Neoplatonic texts in their faiths.

5: The artificial constraints of using Neoplatonic philosophy
Who's to say that this is, at all, the limit? The original Boundless worked superbly well because it was deliberately left open and flexible:

Characters or objects that can affect structures which completely exceed the logical foundations of High 1-A, much like it exceeds the ones defining 1-A and below, meaning that all possible levels of High 1-A are exceeded, even an infinite or uncountably amount of such levels. This tier has no endpoint, and can be extended to any higher level just like the ones above.

Now we've imposed an artificial and nigh-impossibly difficult standard to reach Tier 0, and we have no clue if it's even the correct limit or standard for Tier 0, because for whatever reason, we've decided to focus and put one specific and obscure Western school of thought in the limelight. We've placed a limit on the creativity of works by putting an arbitrarily-chosen lid on the can of worms that is the TS.

Guess what? The One would have been Tier 0 even were it not for this new change, meaning this entire revision was outright unnecessary.

You may even find that adding such a well-defined limit may even backfire on the attempt to prevent the predatory power-creep of some authors. After all, now they have a sure-fire way of ensuring that Tier 0s appear in their work. They just have to add the One into their story, word for word—and boom! Tier 0 franchise. No need for complex cosmologies, no need for dimensional tierings. And best of all, we've even popularized it because it's now enshrined on the wiki. Thankfully the SCP franchise was nuked, because I can absolutely assure you the writers on that site would have immediately jumped at the chance to replicate the One. Now we're really actively working towards limiting creativity, eh?
5: Summary
You know what we've done? We've embededed religious theology into our tiering system. And not just religious theology; we've enshrined Western religious theological absolutes as the alleged pinnacle of power. And not only that, we've tacitly admitted that these theologies are fictional, and that these Gods are fair game for utilization in indexing because they're also fictional, right?

But hey, that's just my two cents.

 

[Sir_Ovens]

Thankfully the SCP franchise was nuked, because I can absolutely assure you the writers on that site would have immediately jumped at the chance to replicate the One. Now we're really actively working towards limiting creativity, eh?

Nah cause if they did, they'd actively be shooting each other in the foot cause there can be only one tier 0. Racing to the top is a surefire way of keeping you out of it.

Hell, SCP was full of tier 0s in the old system. If it was still in the wiki now, the entire hierarchy would have been downgraded.

 

[Ultima_Reality]

ngl I actually do appreciate some of these criticisms. Not all of them, though, that's for sure.

1: It's outright disrespectful
It's blatantly disrespectful, and holds no regards for those who actually study and hold faiths regarding these entities in real life. By using the theological One/God as the "golden standard" for Tier 0, we may as well rename Tier 0 to "Tier 0: Abrahamic God", for that is essentially what has been done. And we may as well be flinging the middle finger at all those who follow such a being, because now we have tacitly proclaimed and admitted to the world that such a figure is fictional, and as such comparable by fictional entities.

That's a non-sequitur. Acknowledging that there are fictional representations of the concept, and tiering them in accordance to how the concept relates (Or would relate) to the rest of the Tiering System, is not the same as proclaiming that the concept itself is only fictional. The Tiering System also indexes things that are above space, but that doesn't mean it claims the philosophical concept of Immensity is a fictional thing, either.

2: Inconsistencies in how the TS even defines "Oneness"
It makes no sense. The One is the One because it is the One. Even the slightest deficiency in one of its attributes (such as its lack of thought) would mean it is no longer the One. Plotinus himself had entire sections of the Enneads (Especially Enn. 6) devoted to making this rule clear. If Tier 0 means you are practically in all respects the One, then why are we allowing those that do not fully admit of its characteristics the same tier, and not High 1-A? This ties back into #1 where we're essentially ripping off entire sections of the Enneads and yet when the Enneads says something that inhibits tiering purposes it is ignored. Disrespectful, much?

3: Profiles at this level of transcendence are outright nonsensical
The One and those that are "Onelike" are not people. The One is not a being. It is not an idea. For all intents and purposes, it is not a "character" in the traditional sense. It does not possess intellect, consciousness, or self-awareness. All of the early Neoplatonic thinkers confirm this, and we can confidently say this because the One necessarily exists in apophatic reality. Hell, even some Christians do; contradicting their own scripture.

We don't give a page to the Mathiverse because it is not a character, and yet we give pages to entities on the same level as the One, and for all intents and purposes are the One? Are we going to give a page to a pebble next, and give it a tiering of 10-C?

The Tiering System is supposed to be neutral, in that respect. It really just walks towards the general idea of "Absolute existing beyond qualification and differentiation" and then stops there. I wouldn't say it's exclusively Neoplatonic in nature, so much as Neoplatonic concepts are used as introductory examples.

4: The special pleading of religion on this wiki

Wiki rules explicitly state that religious pages cannot be used on this wiki. And yet, we have essentially carved the Abrahamic/Western God into the pinnacle of our tiering system? And yet we don't allow pages on Zeus or Buddha or Thor for what reason? And before anyone tells me that Neoplatonism is secular—

No, it isn't. Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus, and Proclus all mention divinity, Gods, "ascension through enlightenment", afterlives, and even associations with Gods numerous times throughout their works. The Christians then later built upon it with their own theologies. Again, this ties directly back into #1. We have ripped what is essentially theological/divine text and used it for the purposes of indexing fictional characters. There are even entire books and studies that hint that Neoplatonism has its roots in the ancient Greek mystery rites/cults, such as those of Pythagoras. At its very core, Neoplatonism is religious and theological in nature.

That's not even mentioning that to this day, neopagans and Christians exist which use the Neoplatonic texts in their faiths.

This falls under the same general umbrella as #1. I wouldn't say using Neoplatonism as an example of the concept for the sake of introducing it to people who've never heard of it means we are condemning the One and etc. to being mere fictional constructs. There's a pretty wide abyss between the two. You might as well chastise any scholar of philosophy that studies and gives exposition of these things in an academic context. Not saying it's 1:1, though, mind you.

Overall, the fact of the matter isn't "The concept is wholly secular," so much as "The concept can be transplanted into a secular framework without issue at all." Look no further than Spinoza or Schopenhauer (Or arguably even Deleuze) to see formulations of it that never really interact with religious practice and the like.

Now we've imposed an artificial and nigh-impossibly difficult standard to reach Tier 0, and we have no clue if it's even the correct limit or standard for Tier 0, because for whatever reason, we've decided to focus and put one specific and obscure Western school of thought in the limelight. We've placed a limit on the creativity of works by putting an arbitrarily-chosen lid on the can of worms that is the TS.

Guess what? The One would have been Tier 0 even were it not for this new change, meaning this entire revision was outright unnecessary.

You may even find that adding such a well-defined limit may even backfire on the attempt to prevent the predatory power-creep of some authors. After all, now they have a sure-fire way of ensuring that Tier 0s appear in their work. They just have to add the One into their story, word for word—and boom! Tier 0 franchise. No need for complex cosmologies, no need for dimensional tierings. And best of all, we've even popularized it because it's now enshrined on the wiki. Thankfully the SCP franchise was nuked, because I can absolutely assure you the writers on that site would have immediately jumped at the chance to replicate the One. Now we're really actively working towards limiting creativity, eh?

It's really just a matter of "Pick the broadest possible thing that you can transcend without running into logical incoherence." Any robust enough conception of "He transcends everything!!!" is going to terminate into the new Tier 0, one way or another. You also seem to entertain the notion of "tiering the One" even in a context detached from a scenario in which the new Tiering System exists (As seen by how you claim it "would be Tier 0 anyway"), so, what gives?

You know what we've done? We've embededed religious theology into our tiering system. And not just religious theology; we've enshrined Western religious theological absolutes as the alleged pinnacle of power. And not only that, we've tacitly admitted that these theologies are fictional, and that these Gods are fair game for utilization in indexing because they're also fictional, right?

Not too fond of the emotional appeals being done.

 

[Agnaa]

1. I have similar concerns in this realm, but I don't think it's that bad. Not all trains of western or Abrahamic religious thought lead to something like this, and some strains of Hinduism and Buddhism invoke stuff we'd say would qualify. I also think it's weird to say that we're declaring such deities as fictional; we're declaring fictional representations of them as fictional.
2. I think this more comes from trying to take universal/canonical qualities, rather than due to ripping off one specific description but ignoring one requirement specifically for tiering purposes.
3. Kinda, but I think it's close enough to land. Such characters already had profiles. The Mathiverse wasn't included as it seemed more accurately described as a location/cosmology, which we don't create pages for.
4. Again, I'd reiterate some of the stuff I said in point 1. But also, we disallow creating profiles for the canonical representations of religious figures; we have no rules against creating profiles for fictional representations of those same figures. I'd say this sort of systems-level stuff is more akin to the latter.
5. I do think this sucks, and pointed this out during discussions, but the vast majority of staff disagreed. So it goes.

 

[Ywlrvl]

That's a non-sequitur. Acknowledging that there are fictional representations of the concept, and tiering them in accordance to how the concept relates (Or would relate) to the rest of the Tiering System, is not the same as proclaiming that the concept itself is only fictional. The Tiering System also indexes things that are above space, but that doesn't mean it claims the philosophical concept of Immensity is a fictional thing, either.

Not when you're using said entity and referring to said entity when indexing fictional ones. The tiering system literally redirects you to a page that outright gives you passages from Pseudo-Dionysius and Plotinus. There's an underlying subtext here. The first thing you see when opening the wiki is that it is, and I quote, "a popular index of statistics and powers for characters from all of popular fiction." Then you click the Tiering System and scroll all the way down. Perhaps I'm somebody confused by the definition of Tier 0. Boom. Just like a "feat" listed on a profile, we immediately see God and the One being used as "examples" of attributes for Tier 0 status. With absolutely zero clarification as to the nature of these examples.

Let me put it this way. Imagine if next to Low 2-C, there was a link that redirected to an "example" of a universal feat. And that feat was Genesis 1. Do you see the issue yet? We're treating Gods and holy texts as if they were fictional stories, thoughtlessly and crudely using their passages freely for completely different purposes far estranged from their original ones, disregarding all the problems that such an act would imply.

That's not even considering the fact that some of these founding examples, such as Plotinus, would have utterly scorned such usage of the Good. Was the Enneads, a religious text detailing how one can go about achieving henosis and ascension towards the One, written so that battleboarders could use it to classify Azathoth as Tier 0? Again, it's simply disrespectful not only to the person who formulated the "example" in the first place, but to those who follow such ideas, which is not something you have addressed. Would Christians not find their God being compared to Azathoth disrespectful?

The Tiering System is supposed to be neutral, in that respect. It really just walks towards the general idea of "Absolute existing beyond qualification and differentiation" and then stops there. I wouldn't say it's exclusively Neoplatonic in nature, so much as Neoplatonic concepts are used as introductory examples.

This falls under the same general umbrella as #1. I wouldn't say using Neoplatonism as an example of the concept for the sake of introducing it to people who've never heard of it means we are condemning the One and etc. to being mere fictional constructs. There's a pretty wide abyss between the two. You might as well chastise any scholar of philosophy that studies and gives exposition of these things in an academic context. Not saying it's 1:1, though, mind you.

The difference here is that this is a website explicitly structured to index fictional characters; whereas any scholar of philosophy who speaks on it is more often that not a student who understands the nuances that such an entity existing within such an obscure school of thought would pose. There are philosophers who proclaim the One is false, or those who proclaim the One is true; in both cases, neither is using the One for the purposes of indexing literal fictional characters, but rather both sides are under the assumption that there is real chance that such an entity could exist.

There is no such nuance on the Tier 0 explanation page. Everything from the main title page of the wiki to the tiering system hints about everything mentioned as purely fictional.

Overall, the fact of the matter isn't "The concept is wholly secular," so much as "The concept can be transplated into a secular framework without issue at all." Look no further than Spinoza or Schopenhauer (Or arguably even Deleuze) to see formulations of it that never really interact with religious practice and the like.

Then what prevents the wiki from either clarifying this or outright simply only using the secular formulations of the conception, thus avoiding all potential controversy? My largest issue here is using what is essentially theology and sacred texts as "examples" of Tier 0. Notice how I haven't actually critiqued the idea of using Onelike attributes, my largest issue is actually ripping what is essentially direct passages from theological texts and then posing them as "examples" mindlessly?

It's really just a matter of "Pick the broadest possible thing that you can transcend without running into logical incoherence." Any robust enough conception of "He transcends everything!!!" is going to terminate into the new Tier 0, one way or another. You also seem to entertain the notion of "tiering the One" even in a context detached from a scenario in which the new Tiering System exists (As seen by how you claim it "would be Tier 0 anyway"), so, what gives?

I was merely bringing up the topic that even without these revisions, any entity that was Onelike would have remained in tier 0 regardless. There was little point in these revisions beyond adding an "arbitrarily chosen lid to a can of worms", which if another qualification was discovered which somehow surpassed it, would have to be revised one way or another in the far future. That was my whole point when I praised the original definition of Boundless being open and flexible.

Not too fond of the emotional appeals being done.

And yet it is what has been done.


-------------------------------------------



I'd like to ask for your thoughts on point #3 as well. There really isn't a point for "characters" at this level anymore. We're quite literally stretching the absolute limits of what it really means to be a "character" or "profile" in any possible sense. Azathoth is only vaguely considered an "entity" of sorts because Azathoth is "dreaming" in a sense, and yet I would argue that's no longer enough for Tier 0 simply because of the implication of thought, which implies multiplicity.

 

[Agnaa]

Then what prevents the wiki from either clarifying this or outright simply only using the secular formulations of the conception, thus avoiding all potential controversy? My largest issue here is using what is essentially theology and sacred texts as "examples" of Tier 0. Notice how I haven't actually critiqued the idea of using Onelike attributes, my largest issue is actually ripping what is essentially direct passages from theological texts and then posing them as "examples" mindlessly?

Because they're so much better as explanations that it's worth that tradeoff.

I was merely bringing up the topic that even without these revisions, any entity that was Onelike would have remained in tier 0 regardless. There was little point in these revisions beyond adding an "arbitrarily chosen lid to a can of worms", which if another qualification was discovered which somehow surpassed it, would have to be revised one way or another in the far future. That was my whole point when I praised the original definition of Boundless being open and flexible.

I think the change was, in part, driven by a desire to limit Tier 0 a lot more, to prevent another case like SCP from coming up in the future.

 

[HammerStrikes219]

I remember having my concerns regarding the usage of Monads and now someone else also have concerns regarding not just Monads, but the whole philosophy/theology angle being used in the tiering system.


Anyway, I will been more of a observer as I usually am regarding matters such as this

 

[Flashlight237]

While yes, I do think the older handling of Tiers 1 and 0 are better in my personal opinion, I can see why they wanted a more prominent example of absolution, even though I do think religion is debatable. Personally, I would definitely not put emotional thoughts into anything related to religion fictional or not. I prefer a more logical approach even if it is something as sacred as religious texts, and quite frankly only Norse religion and Buddhism/Hinduism have ever considered multiverses and higher tiers of infinity in their canonical texts respectively, but that's besides the point.

Point is, getting emotional over logical or philosophical views is not something one should do if the other side took the more logical/philosophical route without trying to put emotions in their side of the table. If anything, the only disrespect being done here is not respecting the fact that someone wanted a more logical view of absolution even if religious text to back it up.

Also, why are you using Azathoth as an example? Comparing literally everything in existence to Azathoth wouldn't be fair since he'd just wipe out literally everything just by waking up. We also have Self-Reference Engine (probably the best thing we have against Azathoth), whose whole point is it's an entity that is the source of literally everything written in existence (yes, even the Bible. It doesn't discriminate).

 

[Ultima_Reality]

Not when you're using said entity and referring to said entity when indexing fictional ones. The tiering system literally redirects you to a page that outright gives you passages from Pseudo-Dionysius and Plotinus. There's an underlying subtext here. The first thing you see when opening the wiki is that it is, and I quote, "a popular index of statistics and powers for characters from all of popular fiction." Then you click the Tiering System and scroll all the way down. Perhaps I'm somebody confused by the definition of Tier 0. Boom. Just like a "feat" listed on a profile, we immediately see God and the One being used as "examples" of attributes for Tier 0 status. With absolutely zero clarification as to the nature of these examples.

Let me put it this way. Imagine if next to Low 2-C, there was a link that redirected to an "example" of a universal feat. And that feat was Genesis 1. Do you see the issue yet? We're treating Gods and holy texts as if they were fictional stories, thoughtlessly and crudely using their passages freely for completely different purposes far estranged from their original ones, disregarding all the problems that such an act would imply.

That's not even considering the fact that some of these founding examples, such as Plotinus, would have utterly scorned such usage of the Good. Was the Enneads, a religious text detailing how one can go about achieving henosis and ascension towards the One, written so that battleboarders could use it to classify Azathoth as Tier 0? Again, it's simply disrespectful not only to the person who formulated the "example" in the first place, but to those who follow such ideas, which is not something you have addressed. Would Christians not find their God being compared to Azathoth disrespectful?

Then what prevents the wiki from either clarifying this or outright simply only using the secular formulations of the conception, thus avoiding all potential controversy? My largest issue here is using what is essentially theology and sacred texts as "examples" of Tier 0. Notice how I haven't actually critiqued the idea of using Onelike attributes, my largest issue is actually ripping what is essentially direct passages from theological texts and then posing them as "examples" mindlessly?

Based off this, I find that your concerns have largely to do with how the explanation of these things is structured and presented, rather than with the usage of the concept per se. With this in mind, I'll firstly point out that this entire thread is written in a needlessly sensationalized fashion, since it certainly comes across as condemning the usage itself, and not only how that is being presented.

From there, I'll say that there is no substantial difference between "Using the concept, and exemplifying it with A, B and C" and "Using the concept, and exemplifying it with X, Y and Z instead of A, B and C," if the lynchpin of your concerns is effectively just whether or not believers of the concept would find this disrespectful. Since any person with a brain could just connect the dots from there and potentially take issue with even the concept itself being used. Because of that, it's very pointless to concern oneself with such things, all-in-all, and a consistent treatment of this would just result in a refusal to properly tier any sort of metaphysics, since all of it has been incorporated into religion in one way or another.

So the line is ultimately just very finicky overall. For example, would you still take issue if the quotations from the Enneads were removed, and only citations from scholarly articles on Neoplatonism and the like were kept? Would a note explicitly saying "This is strictly about fictionalized versions of these things" suffice? What exactly makes the dichotomy between fine and not-fine here?

Furthermore, the Omnipotence page makes a point to not actually discuss tiering system jargon in the same breath as it cites pasages from texts such as Dionysius' Divine Names and Plotinus' Enneads. The bulk of that article could well mask itself as an essay on comparative philosophy, up to the point in which there is a line break, and the actual tiering explanation begins, which even is explicit in saying that what is being drawn out is a a common, distilled notion independent of all these formulations. It never at any point goes ahead and says "The One is Tier 0, because [quote from the Enneads here]," or somesuch. So to my mind the "subtext" approach can well be turned back on you as well.

And finally: No one is comparing God to Azathoth. At best, people are comparing a fictional version of God to Azathoth. That's an important distinction to be made.

The difference here is that this is a website explicitly structured to index fictional characters; whereas any scholar of philosophy who speaks on it is more often that not a student who understands the nuances that such an entity existing within such an obscure school of thought would pose. There are philosophers who proclaim the One is false, or those who proclaim the One is true; in both cases, neither is using the One for the purposes of indexing literal fictional characters, but rather both sides are under the assumption that there is real chance that such an entity could exist.

There is no such nuance on the Tier 0 explanation page. Everything from the main title page of the wiki to the tiering system hints about everything mentioned as purely fictional.

You still keep jumping from "Using fictional representations of philosophical concepts" to "We are saying the concepts themselves are fictional," which is still a non-sequitur, and one that that can only be inferred with subtext that can easily be rebutted on the same grounds, as I did above.

I was merely bringing up the topic that even without these revisions, any entity that was Onelike would have remained in tier 0 regardless. There was little point in these revisions beyond adding an "arbitrarily chosen lid to a can of worms", which if another qualification was discovered which somehow surpassed it, would have to be revised one way or another in the far future. That was my whole point when I praised the original definition of Boundless being open and flexible.

I mean, if you ever find a qualification that surpasses "Beyond qualification," then, be my guest. Fact of the matter is simply that the current Tier 0 best fulfills the progression of the rest of the Tiering System, where Low 1-C to Low 1-A are measured by quantitative distinctions, 1-A to High 1-A are measured by ontological distinctions, and Tier 0 is simply transcendence over both quantitative and ontological distinctions. Anything else would really just result in "Do High 1-A again" and similar redundancies, and "Okay but what if...?" is hardly an argument against that.

Azathoth is only vaguely considered an "entity" of sorts because Azathoth is "dreaming" in a sense, and yet I would argue that's no longer enough for Tier 0 simply because of the implication of thought, which implies multiplicity.

Whether Azathoth qualifies for Tier 0 at all is still up to debate. The system was updated quite recently, so, there hasn't been time to revise all the profiles to fit it.

I'd like to ask for your thoughts on point #3 as well. There really isn't a point for "characters" at this level anymore. We're quite literally stretching the absolute limits of what it really means to be a "character" or "profile" in any possible sense.

Perfect.