• 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.

Conceptual Manipulation Clarifications/Revisions

Status
Not open for further replies.
The name itself wouldn’t necessarily a concept, the name tied to an individual would be. But since it’s dependent on perception it would only be type 3.
Fair although name to a individual being a concept does seem weird as since you can make a argument that individual may not necessarily been or have a true name per se.

Anyway, as for the rest of what has been discussed, I am completely neutral on.
 
Elaborate, also.
Digital = technical
Physical = information underlying matter
Metaphysical = information underlying souls, ideas, abstracts, etc.
Ontological = blanket term that can encompass all of the above and systems that transcend the physical/metaphysical split.
 
Because the description given for ontological says 'encompasses all the above', and Heaven's Door can manipulate all of the above.
 
I don't think there's really a need for ontological since it just combines multiple other forms by the looks of it, while also being above. I think if we're going to have types, it would be better just to stick with Data, Physical, and Metaphysical. That should cover all of our fields, and we just give people all the manipulations they fall under.
 
Ontological is less all of the above and more, information dealing with the underlying substance/properties of a thing, while metaphysical is just data dealing with non-physical substances
 
Ontological is less all of the above and more, information dealing with the underlying substance/properties of a thing, while metaphysical is just data dealing with non-physical substances
I'm sorry what? Why wouldn't we just consider information manipulation just broadly dealing with the underlying substance/properties of a thing? That thing can either be something physical or metaphysical. There's nothing else it could really be, besides Data which is a bit weird in of itself.
 
I think I explained it poorly, while normal and metaphysical info manip deal with the properties of a thing, ontological Info is what defines a character, for example, if normal info would be the properties of a character and manipulating it would change said properties, ontological information, on the other hand, is would be like what a character file is to a digital character, it defines what said character is and what properties they have, it is the information to the information to simplify, or using our current concept to explain, normal information is type 2 concepts while ontological info is type 1 concepts
 
So what are the current conclusions here? Also, thanks a lot for helping out Promestein.

Just to clarify, there are no current plans to merge data manipulation and information manipulation, correct? I would be very uncomfortable with us stating that manipulating computer software is the same as controlling the fundamental information that creates the fundaments of reality itself.
 
Just to clarify, there are no current plans to merge data manipulation and information manipulation, correct? I would be very uncomfortable with us stating that manipulating computer software is the same as controlling the fundamental information that creates the fundaments of reality itself.
Information doesn't necessarily refer to some fundamental component of reality, though. In fact, it has multiple common definitions, and none of them treat it as some important ontological thing, meaning this interpretation of the term is largely a fictional creation. Yes, I know fiction is what we're all about, but my point is that "information = fundamental thing" isn't an association that most people, including writers, are likely to make. Besides, we wouldn't treat data as the exact same thing (even though it kind of is), more so just a different level/type of information (and there are a fair few verses where data intersects with ontological stuff, anyway). If it helps, you can think of it in terms of these three types:
  1. Digital Information. Computer software, basically.
  2. Intellectual Information. What people learn about things.
  3. Ontological Information. The stuff that defines reality on physical and/or metaphysical levels.
 
I like Kingpin's definitions for Information Manipulation?

For Conceptual Manipulation just take away the universal implications, probably remove Type 3, and focus on concepts more as ideas and the manipulation of them - potentially but not necessarily with universal consequences.
 
Sorry about the delay guys... was busy... for now it's christmas time though 🥳
It depends on the specifics. Ichibe, from Bleach - his power alters your name and in doing so affects your properties. That's Conceptual Manipulation.

"At this point it is just our personal interpretation of the ability"

It's always gonna be. I prefer this to making up a power.
Thing is, that's just like freezing water by supernatural means and saying that changed its properties and therefore it's concept manipulation.

There should be a difference between the power to make something cold (or red or hard or tree-like) by some means (like changing its name) and the ability to change what coldness even is (or what redness, hardness or tree-likeness is).

I think conflating those two things into being the same ability would be a mistake, as it would imply that, for example, resisting the former lets you resist the later, which is unfounded. It should be separated by some means, be it a different ability or a different type.

Information doesn't necessarily refer to some fundamental component of reality, though. In fact, it has multiple common definitions, and none of them treat it as some important ontological thing, meaning this interpretation of the term is largely a fictional creation. Yes, I know fiction is what we're all about, but my point is that "information = fundamental thing" isn't an association that most people, including writers, are likely to make. Besides, we wouldn't treat data as the exact same thing (even though it kind of is), more so just a different level/type of information (and there are a fair few verses where data intersects with ontological stuff, anyway). If it helps, you can think of it in terms of these three types:
  1. Digital Information. Computer software, basically.
  2. Intellectual Information. What people learn about things.
  3. Ontological Information. The stuff that defines reality on physical and/or metaphysical levels.
I'm fine with the types, but still think Type 1 should just remain as data manipulation. Yeah, some people might call computer data information, but I think there is a relevant distinction to be made between manipulating something that is manifested in the form of magnetic charges on a harddrive and manipulating some abstract thing like the other two types are.
 
Thing is, that's just like freezing water by supernatural means and saying that changed its properties and therefore it's concept manipulation.
It's not like that at all. Freezing water is different from explicitly changing something's "name" and through doing such changing its nature. You can be reductive about it but it's not the same. Some applications are better than others; that doesn't mean we need to arbitrarily split the power. That's just confusing! It's the character page's responsibility to specify what an ability does and how; not our responsibility to account for every minute variation and limitation with a million different power pages based on increasingly arbitrary, confusing criteria.

And the ability is changing what 'something' is! Ichibe changes what 'you' are from x to y. A meaning is still being redefined.

Our ability pages should not exist to accommodate people's unwillingness to think about how abilities compare to one another themselves.
 
Last edited:
It's not like that at all. Freezing water is different from explicitly changing something's "name" and through doing such changing its nature. You can be reductive about it but it's not the same. Some applications are better than others; that doesn't mean we need to arbitrarily split the power. That's just confusing! It's the character page's responsibility to specify what an ability does and how; not our responsibility to account for every minute variation and limitation with a million different power pages based on increasingly arbitrary, confusing criteria.

And the ability is changing what 'something' is! Ichibe changes what 'you' are from x to y. A meaning is still being redefined.

Our ability pages should not exist to accommodate people's unwillingness to think about how abilities compare to one another themselves.
While changing somethings name is a unique mechanism the outcome of the power, i.e. changing the state of the thing to another state, is still basically the same.

Ichibe changes what something is, yes. He performs a transformation of an object. However, he doesn't cause a transformation of a property as an abstract thing.
We want to go away from plantonic forms as explicit standard, but let me still bring them up here as an example. It is one thing to take a circle, name it square and by that turn it into a square. It is a whole other thing to change the platonic form of circleness and change what it means to be a circle-like to turn the circle into a square. The result might be the same, but it's archived in completely different ways, different things are manipulated and it behaves differently in relation to other powers.

Our ability pages can't handle all explanations, true. However, they should separate what is manipulating fundamentally different things. Otherwise, why even have them if you may as well just explain all power on the profiles and have people think?
You can manipulate gravity to make something float or you can manipulate the law governing gravity to make something float. So should we group those into the same ability and say "That's just two different scales of the same thing. Not our job to explain people that those are different"? Not a good take, as it just produces false equivalences and solves nothing. If it helps to show there is a difference, why not do it? Especially for a power like concept manipulation that many people have trouble wrapping their head around, making the "think for yourself" approach suboptimal.

If you think the ability shouldn't be listed as something different than concept manipulation, fine. But if you already say that it is a different scale (or that it is better than another application), then let's at least make it its own type. That's what types are for, after all. To represent different scales or natures in which an ability can occure.
 
We want to go away from plantonic forms as explicit standard, but let me still bring them up here as an example. It is one thing to take a circle, name it square and by that turn it into a square. It is a whole other thing to change the platonic form of circleness and change what it means to be a circle-like to turn the circle into a square. The result might be the same, but it's archived in completely different ways, different things are manipulated and it behaves differently in relation to other powers.
I'm not denying that but you essentially throw this out yourself by acknowledging we're changing the standards. Some concepts are better than other concepts and some forms of manipulating them are better than others.
You can manipulate gravity to make something float or you can manipulate the law governing gravity to make something float. So should we group those into the same ability and say "That's just two different scales of the same thing. Not our job to explain people that those are different"? Not a good take, as it just produces false equivalences and solves nothing.
Completely different mechanics. Altering the idea of something is altering the idea of something. It's just a different scale of something in Ichibe's case. I'm fine with the idea of divding it into types.
 
Thing is, that's just like freezing water by supernatural means and saying that changed its properties and therefore it's concept manipulation.

There should be a difference between the power to make something cold (or red or hard or tree-like) by some means (like changing its name) and the ability to change what coldness even is (or what redness, hardness or tree-likeness is).

I think conflating those two things into being the same ability would be a mistake, as it would imply that, for example, resisting the former lets you resist the later, which is unfounded. It should be separated by some means, be it a different ability or a different type.

I'm fine with the types, but still think Type 1 should just remain as data manipulation. Yeah, some people might call computer data information, but I think there is a relevant distinction to be made between manipulating something that is manifested in the form of magnetic charges on a harddrive and manipulating some abstract thing like the other two types are.
While changing somethings name is a unique mechanism the outcome of the power, i.e. changing the state of the thing to another state, is still basically the same.

Ichibe changes what something is, yes. He performs a transformation of an object. However, he doesn't cause a transformation of a property as an abstract thing.
We want to go away from plantonic forms as explicit standard, but let me still bring them up here as an example. It is one thing to take a circle, name it square and by that turn it into a square. It is a whole other thing to change the platonic form of circleness and change what it means to be a circle-like to turn the circle into a square. The result might be the same, but it's archived in completely different ways, different things are manipulated and it behaves differently in relation to other powers.

Our ability pages can't handle all explanations, true. However, they should separate what is manipulating fundamentally different things. Otherwise, why even have them if you may as well just explain all power on the profiles and have people think?
You can manipulate gravity to make something float or you can manipulate the law governing gravity to make something float. So should we group those into the same ability and say "That's just two different scales of the same thing. Not our job to explain people that those are different"? Not a good take, as it just produces false equivalences and solves nothing. If it helps to show there is a difference, why not do it? Especially for a power like concept manipulation that many people have trouble wrapping their head around, making the "think for yourself" approach suboptimal.

If you think the ability shouldn't be listed as something different than concept manipulation, fine. But if you already say that it is a different scale (or that it is better than another application), then let's at least make it its own type. That's what types are for, after all. To represent different scales or natures in which an ability can occure.
As usual, I strongly agree with DontTalk. He makes very good sense above.

I especially don't want us to mix up supernatural computer programming skills and manipulating the fundamental building blocks of reality.
 
I especially don't want us to mix up supernatural computer programming skills and manipulating the fundamental building blocks of reality.
We're not mixing them up, you're just actively assuming that they're gonna be mashed together when they're not.

Data Manipulation shouldn't exist on its own, it's just a subset of a more general power that is itself very vague and needs to be divided into types; as it is, many pages already link to Information Manipulation rather than Data Manipulation, so, yeah, we need to collapse them together.
 
That seems like massive amounts of work that nobody will likely have the time and energy to apply for likely negative gain to me.
 
It's really not. It's slapping a redirect on Data Manipulation, rewriting two pages, and slowly updating other pages to be better as we get to them. As slow, natural, and steady as any power revision like this.

Even if it was work, it's necessary work.
 
Well, I continue to consider the two concepts wildly different, and as such highly inappropriate to combine. My apologies.
 
They aren't different, you're just misinterpreting what Information Manipulation means and how it's treated on the wiki, because you don't make pages or participate in threads.
 
Well, I participate in a massive amount of content revision and policy threads, just not versus threads, and I helped DontTalk with information regarding plenty of instruction pages that he wrote afterwards. I also gradually wrote several of the instruction pages myself.
 
Personally, I don't really see why combining them would be an issue. The biggest difference between data and information is one is raw and unfiltered, while the other is more structured and can be used to decrease uncertainty. Data having a widespread connotation for use in technology and digital mechanisms doesn't seem like a valid reason for keeping it separated, as the new info manip would have types. Just as our current type 3 concepts are different but share a similar basis to type 1 and 2 concepts, except I'd argue the data-information relationship is much, much closer.

Just my two cents though.
 
My point is that you don't understand that the pages are already essentially used for the same thing. Whatever distinction you imagine exists only exists in your head as far as this community goes. They're very closely related concepts and the pages should be collapsed together for convenience; with types, yes, as we've been going over. We're not just making them the exact same.
 
Okay. I suppose that I may have misunderstood then. However, it is best to wait to see what DontTalk thinks for safety reasons.
 
Tbh I'm not really for "metaphysical" Information Manip being its own thing, rather than just a possible portrayal of concept manip.

Technically speaking the only thing differenciating the two are the words used, but in the same way you won't have two verses describe their concepts with the same terminology.

(Although my concern is deeper than that, adding more stuff would be derailing the thread from its original purpose.)
 
I'm fine with the types, but still think Type 1 should just remain as data manipulation. Yeah, some people might call computer data information, but I think there is a relevant distinction to be made between manipulating something that is manifested in the form of magnetic charges on a harddrive and manipulating some abstract thing like the other two types are.
He was fine with it.

I can try to draft a new Information Manipulation page later today with reference to Conceptual Manipulation. Some overlap is possible, though? So I don't exactly want to just completely not have it referenced on the Information Manipulation page; a power can be both things.
 
Okay. Feel free to write a draft then, but I would like DontTalk to evaluate it before it is published.
 
Completely different mechanics. Altering the idea of something is altering the idea of something.
I mean, is Ichibei altering the idea of something? He alters names and by that properties. I don't think it was ever suggested he alters ideas. And then we're not talking about any idea but one were altering it "change the universe's fundamental principles" (according to the current page, at least. Unless we're changing that too)

It's just a different scale of something in Ichibe's case. I'm fine with the idea of divding it into types.
So I take it you would be fine with rewriting type 3 to be for alteration of properties without affecting their abstraction? (Or however we want to put it)
 
Ichibe is manipulating the name, that is, the embodiment of what a thing is. The idea is changing Conceptual Manipulation to have controlling ideas (and similar abstractions) be the baseline, not the changing of the universe's fundamental principles.

Again, it fundamentally is the manipulation of the abstraction, just not necessarily on a universal scale, and the problem is that we automatically slap 'universal scale' as the baseline for every concept in fiction, which is dumb.

Also, for the sake of an argument, the name itself could be a Type 2 or Type 1 concept. Could someone with resistance to Type 2 Conceptual Manipulation resist Type 1 Conceptual Manipulation, even if it's used in a non-universal context? No, not at all. This shouldn't be and can't be a third type as such; it's a matter of scope, not in the nature of what's being affected, and the nature of what's being affected can still be a Type 2 or Type 1 concept.

If anything, it'd have to be like, a subtype, but I think that's stupid and I still think we should just keep it at two types and make people specify.
 
Last edited:
I have always seen Concept types based of dependency.

Type 1:- concepts independent of governed object(s).
Type 2:- Concept and its object(s) depending on each other.
Type 3:- Depends of perspective of person.

Alsp this universal stuff is just range shenanigans.

So from what I see.. names are either Type 2 or Type 1...since they don't change with change in perspective.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top