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Abstract Entities

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BreloomFanboy

BreloomFanboy

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In my opinion, characters that represent/embodies a concept or power are conceptual entities/abstracts (Power Manifestatio). These characters should usually have these abilities:

Type-8 Immortality- The character will exist as long as the concept/power they embody isn't destroyed.

Possible Cosmic Awareness/Nigh Omnipresence- If the character's concept/power is fundamental to reality. They should interact with everything their concept/power affects.

Non-Corporeal- Some abstracts aren't physicalor they're naturally intangibility .

Low-Godly Regenerationn- The character will regenerate as long their concept/power exist.
 
I suppose that some of this seems reasonable, but it depends on if anybody is willing to list all of the conceptual entities in this wiki, and adjust them.

In addition, a character embodying a concept on a universal scale, can still easily be completely destroyed by characters that vastly transcend this tier, even if the concept itself continues to exist on higher levels of reality.
 
I know that characters that transcends the abstract will defeat them regardless. This thread is basically a list of abilities that conceptual entities\abstracts should usually receive.

Well if the character's profiles are unlocked, I'll personally apply the appropriate abilities. I'll also create profiles for the characters that I know.
 
I would prefer if some staff member handles it, but if nobody is interested, it is not that big a deal.
 
Question, is it possible to include a conceptual entity/abstract category? Sorry if this is asking for too much.
 
I agree with this but the problem is scoping all of them out since we don't have a category for it.

Not to mention it will be difficult even if its a passive thing since most of these profiles are at least 2-C and only Content moderators, admin and bureaucrats will be able to modify the profiles.
 
Well, I do not mind, but don't have the time and energy to add a "Abstract Entities" category to all of the related pages myself.

We do have this category though, but it is limited to Marvel only.
 
Things like Omnipresence or Cosmic awareness don't need to be included and the true core of abstracts are probably always intangible, since it is... abstract.


That said I don't think there should be a revision, since this will just easily cause it to be taken backwards.

In other words abtracts/conceptual entities do not have this abilities because they are abstract, but they are abstract because they have this abilities.

In other words "represent/embodies a concept or power" is not sufficient criteria to have this abilities. Having this abilities is sufficient for having "represent/embodies a concept or power" though.

So giving any characters such powers should be properly discussed for them in particular.
 
@DonT: Most conceptual entities and abstracts don't have these abilities despite the fact that abstracts should have these abilities by default. That's way I made this revision thread.
 
@Dont Why don't you believe abstracts should have nigh-omnipresence or cosmic awareness? Especially if their concept/power is fundamental for reality.
 
I've noticed that a number of profiles have "Abstract" listed as a power. Would this justify a new power page? Or would it just fall under in-corporeal?
 
Well, I do not know if it is a common enough power, or one that is easily enough defined, to warrant a separate page.

However, being an abstract embodiment of a concept is not the same thing as being incorporeal. Perhaps you could look at the Superpower wiki for inspiration, and summarise the information in your own words?
 
All of the Dies Irae profiles have this, and numerous Higher Dimensional Profiles (i.e. Michael Demiurgos, are described as "Abstract Beings" on their classifications.

I'll give it a shot.
 
Thanks Reppuzan

But I still believe Type-8 Immortality and possibly Low-Godly regen should be included under "uses".

Anyways, this thread is concluded, so if anybody can close it.
 
I think that we are still waiting for input from DontTalk.
 
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I am not sure if an ability that is just a set of a relatively small amount of already existing abilities has that much use, but ok.


This is a relatively complicated issue when compared to usually making ability pages, because our usual ability pages don't contain this kind of reasoning. Fire Manipulation is listed if you have any kind of control over fire (for example creating fire), but you can not declare someone an abstract existence if he only has one ability which an abstract existence usually has (not every non-corporeal entity can be listed as Abstract existence). In other words as the article currently mentions, it describes a state of being and reasons abilities that a being in that state has, instead of describing an ability like usual pages.

If we do it this way we have to be very specific with the definition of the state of being and have to formulate it in the way that the abilities we want to reason from it are a necessary result. Since fiction is very non standardized and follows many different views/laws this is extremely difficult without requiring the abilities we want to shown to exist to be part of the definition in the first place.
So for short the problem is that not all dragons breath fire, not all ghosts are intangible and not all plants are weak to fire. Similarly not everything called an embodiment of some concept or theme is an abstract entity.

1. Practical example: Luna Child is the fairy that is the embodiment of the aspect of nature that is the moon. She has basically none of the properties we want though. She can neither manipulate the moon nor its concept, she is entirely physical whenever existing (though her true nature isn't to be fair) and she certainly isn't aware of anything going on upon the moon. She also doesn't regenerate from the concept of the moon, but just from its physical existence.

2. Corollary: We can easily enough construct the same problem as in 1 with something like space instead of the moon.
At this point I might also remind that there is a difference between something like space and the concept of space, even if both are intangible. Space is he practical set of points we life and act in. The concept of space is in a sense just the idea or possibility that there might be some set of points with such a things as distance defined on them. In other words the concept of space is an abstraction, and the actual space is just one possible instance that fulfills this abstract properties. So for our purpose "space" is closer to "Moon" than to "Concept of Space" in nature.

3. Practical example: Relying on what TheMightyRegulator told me I will do a practical example here (if this shouldn't apply or I misinterpret it view this as theoretical example instead). To quote from a thread I talked with him: "It was noted that if Giratinaina ceased to exist, so would its world of antimatter". Giratina is the embodiment of antimatter in Pokemon (not sure if its the concept of antimatter, but lets assume that for this example). If this relation holds true it doesn't fulfill the properties we want though. Because instead of being an entity which physical form has conceptual inheritance from what it embodies (aka regenerates from its concept) what it embodies is destroyed if it dies physically. Due to that the hard to kill aspect, which is probably the most important property we wish from conceptual entities, is not fulfilled.
No matter whether this practical case is as I explained it or not, we see that playing an embodiment of a concept like this is possible and not implausible. Hence we can not disregard that in the definition and have to take care to weed out those cases.

4. Remark: The possibility that a character has conceptual inheritance, but lacks the omnipresence that is currently mentioned as necessary use, is also imaginable.

5. Slightly off-topic remark: Let me also say that if one works with statements regarding concepts and embodiment one has to be careful, as this can often be rhetorical formulations not presenting what actually is the case. (For example "ignoring the concept of xy" is often a hyperbole)


So all in all the current definition of abstract entity is too imprecise to reason the abilities we want to give out for fulfilling it, in my opinion.

The task that would have to be done to resolve it is one of a nature typical to mathematics. Essentially we want to define the term "abstract entity" in such a way (which way is technically not important) that we can without doubt reason from that definition that such an entity has the abilities that we want. That definition is then the criteria a character has to proof to fulfill to have this nature and get having all this abilities acknowledged.

How could that be done? My intuitive understanding of what an abstract/conceptual entity is: "An entity which true form is that of a disembodied consciousness and which has conceptual inheritance (the ability to regenerate from) one or multiple concepts".
So as you can see my intuitive definition clearly contains which are the minimum abilities I expect any a conceptual entity to have, but due to that makes it unsuited for an reasoning from the nature of an abstract being to its abilities: In order to show that someone is an abstract you would have to show that it has the abilities already, which it gets due to being an abstract. So in the end you could only reason from its nature what you already know.
If we want to skip properly defining what an "abstract existence" is we might as well just rewrite the page to be the page for "The ability to [which abilities we want abstract entities to have]", though. That way one actually has directly argue those abilities for the characters one wants to list the ability for though (something I have no problem with, but what might goes against the intention of this discussion?)

Note:
It's almost 6 o'clock here and I just wanted to get something of my work list before going to sleep, so this might be an crappy (and much too extensive) formulation (it was restructured, re-purposed and reformulated multiple times), but I hope I could make the problem, that I see, clear.

Edit: seeing how long that actually got if it is too hard to read I can try writing a better summarized thought gathering, with less irrelevant information tomorrow.
 
@DontTalk

No problem and thanks. My ability descriptions seem to be pretty bad.

Nevertheless, from what I'm getting, an Abstract Being is a disembodied consciousness and embodiment of a particular immaterial concept or theme and is able to regenerate for as long as that concept exists. Correct?
 
@Dont:

About Giratina, Cyrus stated this. I don't believe that means Giratina isn't a abstract (especially when Dialga and Palkia are abstracts).

I can't speak for Luna Child as I know nothing about her verse.
 
@Reppuzan: My suggestion on the description would be something similar to this:

"An Abstract Existence is a being, which incorporates a concept in such a way that it is able to regenerate after being destroyed as long as the concept exists and whichs true nature is in itself immaterial."

So your summary of my definition of that is basically correct (I maybe should note that I am not quite sure what a theme is in this context). My definition isn't the only possible understanding though. As long as the definition is clear and non-contradictory anything else is also an option.

That said as BreloomFanboy said the text should make clear that not everything that embodies or represents something (even if it's a concept) is necessarily an abstract entity. Or in other words that having demonstrated (or having a believable statement about) regenerating as long as ones concept exist, should probably be a requirement to get this ability listed. Something similar the above suggested structure would already make that clear, I think.
 
@DontTalk

I'm applying your suggestions now.

In that context, I meant to describe a theme as "a particular idea or assortment of concepts". For example, the Gods of Percy Jackson embody certain themes and concepts. Pan, God of the Wild, eventually faded from existence as his theme/domain, nature unaltered by man (which thus includes the earth, fauna, and atmosphere surrounding it), was weakened to the point of near-collapse by human development.
 
I have made further modifications to the structure of the profile.
 
Well this thread is concluded.

Is it acceptable for me to create a blog listing all the characters that apply for Abstract Existence(with an explanation)?
 
You could write the list down here so I can post them on the page itself, but I don't think you need to list ALL of them since we rate them on a case-by-case basis and have a few examples already.
 
I'm interested in this. While I'm not an admin, and this almost certainly involves tier 2 and up, I'd be happy to help look for abstracts (I'm almost certain Dialga and Palkia are).
 
Disagree with Dialga and Palkia, they lack any feats of regenerating from the concept they represent to my knowledge (as far as they even represent the concept and not just the instance) and additionally the giratina quote seems to imply that they, as creatures of similar nature, would destroy at the very least the instance of the concept they embody if the are physically killed.

Don't know enough about Chronos to say if he qualifies, not entirely sure how it is in madokas case.

Bunch of Umineko characters apply for that (probably all witches). Beatrice for example revived by conceptual inhertitance from the game rules after having her personal concept of existence temporairly denied, IIRC.

Though discussing all characters in one thread will be to confusing so I agree with Reppuzan on discussing them to be added in one thread per verse and afterwards add them as examples on the page.
 
I agree with everything else you stated. I'll create another thread about characters that possibly apply for Abstract Existence.
 
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