Nonduality doesn't make you immune to things until stated

[DontTalkDT]

The nonduality page says that being nondual regarding something makes you immune to attacks using that thing.
My simple proposal: Remove that, because in general that is simply not true. Instead make it something a verse can have the ability do if it clarifies the ability does that.

I first thought about just writing an introduction on formal logic to explain why this reasoning just doesn't work, but I will spare all of us the time by just getting straight to the point of the argument:
If you make any kind of argument like "If character x is nondual, that implies ... which implies that the character has immunity" in classical logic this instantly triggers the principle of explosion, since your premise included that something has a logically contradictory state. The principle of explosion tells us that arguments of this sort have no legitimacy and should be discarded. I.e. it's inherently impossible to make a logical argument that something nondual must have any particular property.

Explanations on why categorically arguments in favor of immunity can never work aside, it also simply is a super weird thing to postulate. Nondual characters are characters who don't even obey the rules of logic. They are characters who may as well break every rule and pattern there is. So why would all logic-breaking characters have to follow the rule of being immune to something? Why would they all have to break the rules in the same way?

In general, we have no framework by which we predict how something that may break all rules will respond to something. Even if they, for example, would not enter a dual state like "dead" after an attack (although that's an option, as no rule stays that a nondual thing can't become dual by interaction with something mundane), they could still end up in a non-dual state that effectively incapacitates them. No reason all nondual characters need to at all times be able to fight.

Heck, being immune to something is a dual matter, as it means that upon being attacked you are in the dual state of "not affected by the attack". This is basically postulating that all nondual characters have to be dual in a certain aspect.


So yeah, my proposal is to change things from nondual characters being immune to all things they are nondual to, to nondual characters being immune to things their verse clarifies they are immune to due to their nonduality.

 

[IdiosyncraticLawyer]

@Antvasima @AKM sama @DarkDragonMedeus @Mr._Bambu @Celestial_Pegasus @Andytrenom @Wokistan @Ultima_Reality @Elizhaa @Qawsedf234 @ByAsura @Sir_Ovens @Damage3245 @Starter_Pack @Abstractions @LordGriffin1000 @Colonel_Krukov @SamanPatou @GyroNutz @Firestorm808 @Everything12 @Maverick_Zero_X @Crabwhale @Just_a_Random_Butler @Agnaa @DarkGrath

 

[Ultima_Reality]

Hah. Funnily this thread ties into things I'm going to bring up somewhere else later today (You know where). Crazy how that works out.

Anyway: Meh. I'd say that these peculiarities largely relate to the extremely subpar state of the ability itself, rather than anything else. Making Nondualism revolve around logical dualities is a pretty big mistake, on the whole (And so is considering a conjunction of two separate states, A and ~A, to be 'nondual,' for the matter). To quote from the page:

For this ability, dualities refer to logical dualities where the duality is between "A" and "not A" where A is some object or attribute. For example, fire and water are not a duality; the duality of fire would be fire and not fire. The duality of existence would be existence and not existence, or, alternately, existence and nonexistence or existence and void. However, not all verses follow this logic, and many may treat things not logically considered dualities - such as water and fire or time and space - as dualities, meaning what is and isn't a duality can change between verses

This is largely what leads to the problems with Nonduality. The ability works perfectly and as intended for, say, verses where members of a dichotomy are both things of equal substance, instead of one of them being simply the absence/negation of the other and not even a force at all. For example, if you adopt an ontology where "Life" is a substance and "Death" is really only a non-thing, the absence of life, then being "Above Life and Death" is a pretty puzzling statement when taken at face value, and which you'd have to specify a little so that it makes sense. You don't encounter this issue if "Life" and "Death" are both substances whose influence you are exempt from.

So, really, I think that can be fixed up by just qualifying what we mean by "Nonduality" a little. I'd wager that this would fit in much better with the general portrayal of the ability in fiction, too.

 

[LordGriffin1000]

This is one of those abilities I'm not good with so I don't have much to say, I don't mind more evidence for characters to prove what the power gives them in verse or to fix up what qualifies. I'll let the experts handle this one.

 

[Damage3245]

OP makes sense to me.

 

[DontTalkDT]

Hah. Funnily this thread ties into things I'm going to bring up somewhere else later today (You know where). Crazy how that works out.

Anyway: Meh. I'd say that these peculiarities largely relate to the extremely subpar state of the ability itself, rather than anything else. Making Nondualism revolve around logical dualities is a pretty big mistake, on the whole (And so is considering a conjunction of two separate states, A and ~A, to be 'nondual,' for the matter). To quote from the page:



This is largely what leads to the problems with Nonduality. The ability works perfectly and as intended for, say, verses where members of a dichotomy are both things of equal substance, instead of one of them being simply the absence/negation of the other and not even a force at all. For example, if you adopt an ontology where "Life" is a substance and "Death" is really only a non-thing, the absence of life, then being "Above Life and Death" is a pretty puzzling statement when taken at face value, and which you'd have to specify a little so that it makes sense. You don't encounter this issue if "Life" and "Death" are both substances whose influence you are exempt from.

So, really, I think that can be fixed up by just qualifying what we mean by "Nonduality" a little. I'd wager that this would fit in much better with the general portrayal of the ability in fiction, too.

What you're talking about just... doesn't seem to be nonduality. At least not in the way we use the term.
If you postulate that life and death are things in a fashion that being neither is not contradicting the law of excluded middle, then death is not equivalent to "not life" and what you are talking about is just not a state of nonduality. It's just an additional state of being.
Nonduality is, very much by intention and design, a logic breaking ability. If a fiction established a third state aside from life and death that is not logically contradictory it would not qualify for this ability by our standards.

There is also no real problem with nonduality in itself as an ability. Not sure where you get that from. The problem is just that this particular implication isn't generally valid.


Edit: Basically, if you want to make an ability for something that isn't nonduality in terms of logical states, then write a proposal for that, but in a different thread. If you think some characters with nonduality listed shouldn't have nonduality in terms of logical states, then make CRTs for them to have this ability removed. This is a debate about the capabilities of characters that have nonduality in terms of logical states, so what you're saying seems to just be off-topic. It basically amounts to talking about how something works in a different ability altogether.

 

[Theglassman12]

I got a question in regards to this change.

So yeah, my proposal is to change things from nondual characters being immune to all things they are nondual to, to nondual characters being immune to things their verse clarifies they are immune to due to their nonduality.

Say there's a dual nature with light and darkness within a particular series, and both sides have a wide variety of abilities the characters use, would being Nondual for that series extend to all of the abilities there given their ties to either side?

 

[DontTalkDT]

I got a question in regards to this change.


Say there's a dual nature with light and darkness within a particular series, and both sides have a wide variety of abilities the characters use, would being Nondual for that series extend to all of the abilities there given their ties to either side?

Not sure I understand the question. Do you mean whether or not them having evidence for being immune to one thing due to nonduality would imply them also being immune to other things they are nondual over?
If so that depends on how exactly that immunity is explained. If it's explained in a way that suggests that nonduality just works that way in the verse then yes, if not then probably not.

Edit: Or do you mean whether a character going from "light"-side to "nondual" would automatically make their light-related abilities nondual? If so... probably not? Unless the series explains something, I would assume the light attacks are still light attacks.

 

[Theglassman12]

Say for light powers, they had something like power nullification, light manipulation, matter manipulation, etc. and darkness has corruption, mind control, soul manipulation, among many other dark demonic powers. If you're beyond the dual nature of light and darkness in that verse, would all of the above abilities by default be something you're immune to since they're classified under one of these two dual aspects?

 

[DontTalkDT]

Say for light powers, they had something like power nullification, light manipulation, matter manipulation, etc. and darkness has corruption, mind control, soul manipulation, among many other dark demonic powers. If you're beyond the dual nature of light and darkness in that verse, would all of the above abilities by default be something you're immune to since they're classified under one of these two dual aspects?

I mean, for a start, by what I'm arguing that verse would first need to establish that nonduality even makes you immune to anything.

And then... probably not? Like, these powers may be aligned with factions, but they aren't light or not light (i.e. darkness) in themself. I am of the opinion that even by the current standard such a conclusion wouldn't be drawn unless the verse is specific about it working that way.

 

[Theglassman12]

My example is them being tied to said dualities, not in a faction alignment. Also why would we need it to be specified that they’re immune to abilities when that’s the most simplest explanation for it. Thats like saying characters that aren’t bound by or transcend life and death altogether don’t have any form of immunity towards life or death hax because it’s not specified to be such.

 

[DontTalkDT]

My example is them being tied to said dualities, not in a faction alignment. Also why would we need it to be specified that they’re immune to abilities when that’s the most simplest explanation for it. Thats like saying characters that aren’t bound by or transcend life and death altogether don’t have any form of immunity towards life or death hax because it’s not specified to be such.

Being tied to the dualities is usually not really the same as being the dualities itself. If the verse specifies that it is, then that could work, though.

Nonduality doesn't include transcendence of the duality. There is no transcending life and death in nonduality. That's transduality. Transduality gets the automatic immunity.

For nonduality I don't see how that explanation would in any form be simpler. Just because you don't obey the rule of, say, being either fire or not fire does in no simple way result in you being immune to fire.
As said in the OP, that is a weird postulation of the interaction of a power with something nondual definitely resulting in the dual state of "non-affected". If it ends up in a dual state then it could also be the "affected"-state. Or the interaction with something non-dual could end up in yet another non-dual state which could impact the character in various ways.

Ultimately being simple is also just no reason to hand out an ability. We do need to actually know what the characters can do. We can't just invent extra abilities because it seems easy.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

I don't have the best understanding of Nonduality, but the OP looks good from a glance.

 

[Antvasima]

I also think that DontTalk seems to make sense here.

 

[IdiosyncraticLawyer]

@Mad_Dog_of_Fujiwara is the one who proposed initially changing transduality to nonduality and granting immunity for nonduality alone, and she's been banned until February 29. I'd like to hear her opinion when she gets unbanned regarding this topic before we do anything.

 

[DontTalkDT]

Thing is that I will be away starting at that time, as said in the staff convo. So if we don't reach a conclusion at that point we likely have to postpone this for quite a while.

Here's the referenced old thread in case anyone wants to look up if there's a counter-argument to my points in there.

 

[Antvasima]

It seems best if you apply your solution for the time being then.

 

[IdiosyncraticLawyer]

@Mad_Dog_of_Fujiwara Do you wish to comment?

 

[Mad_Dog_of_Fujiwara]

@Mad_Dog_of_Fujiwara Do you wish to comment?

Well, I obviously disagree, but given the staff support this already has, would it not be better to simply make a new thread?

 

[Antvasima]

Thing is that I will be away starting at that time, as said in the staff convo. So if we don't reach a conclusion at that point we likely have to postpone this for quite a while.

Here's the referenced old thread in case anyone wants to look up if there's a counter-argument to my points in there.

It seems best if you apply your solution for the time being then.

Has DontTalk's intended revisions been applied here, or does somebody else in our staff need to handle it?

 

[IdiosyncraticLawyer]

Well, I obviously disagree, but given the staff support this already has, would it not be better to simply make a new thread?

Has DontTalk's intended revisions been applied here, or does somebody else in our staff need to handle it?

I honestly think it would be better if we just left this thread on ice until DT comes back - I seriously don't want to have to apply this, then potentially un-apply it after a new thread.

 

[Mad_Dog_of_Fujiwara]

I honestly think it would be better if we just left this thread on ice until DT comes back - I seriously don't want to have to apply this, then potentially un-apply it after a new thread.

Well I'm not sure what the point would be, seeing as multiple staff have already agreed. I see no value in debating something where the odds are so clearly stacked against me - I have limited time and energy, after all - so I'd much prefer to start from a clean slate.

 

[IdiosyncraticLawyer]

Well I'm not sure what the point would be, seeing as multiple staff have already agreed. I see no value in debating something where the odds are so clearly stacked against me - I have limited time and energy, after all - so I'd much prefer to start from a clean slate.

This attitude is fundamentally anti-discourse. It's a very valuable skill for people to be able to argue and change their minds even when the odds are stacked against prior support, and trying to "clean the slate" just because you didn't participate in a thread's opening stages sets a bad precedent.

 

[KLOL506]

Meh. Ultima plans to revise Nonduality/Transduality sometime in the future so nothing in this thread may matter.

 

[IdiosyncraticLawyer]

All the more reason to wait - if Ultima renders this thread obsolete, it'd be a hassle to un-apply it.

 

[PrinceofPein]

I never understood the concept of "xoxo plans to make a thread, so stop the on going thread since it may contradicts"
That makes no sense, first this thread is accepted already.
Secondly, the ultima thread may not come anytime soon, it may take months if not year(s)
Lastly, the thread may not be accepted.

That aside, based on my stance in the previous Fuji thread (only major opposition), I agree strongly with this thread.

 

[DontTalkDT]

All the more reason to wait - if Ultima renders this thread obsolete, it'd be a hassle to un-apply it.

No profiles need to be updated as a result of this, so that seems like a non-issue. Since there is no work in applying it (aside from changing the page itself), there is no work in un-applying it either.

And in general Ultima's revision won't render this obsolete from all I have heard about it, because his intention is to redefine the term nonduality. He fundamentally wants to make it an ability that is not about logical dualities in the sense of negation of properties (A and not A), as he said in his comment in this thread.
Regardless of whether his revision passes later on or not, this regulation change will still have relevance for all characters who have nonduality in the terms of existing beyond logical dualities. Characters of that sort won't just stop existing, even if the ability page is rewritten later on.

So if there is agreement on the subject matter I'm in favor of applying it now.

 

[Qawsedf234]

So if there is agreement on the subject matter I'm in favor of applying it now.

Alright

 

[Antvasima]

That seems fine to me as well then.

 

[DontTalkDT]

I made the change.
If there are no requests to change the way I formulated it, this thread can be closed now.

 

[Antvasima]

Thank you very much to everybody who helped out here.