Omnipotence, Illogical Disguised As Logical

[Vzearr]

Yowzers, never thought I'd be here. I guess we all have got to branch out of calculations one day. Permission has been granted. Don't worry.

Hi.

If I may quote Omnipotence:

The entire issue here is that the definition straight up switches mid-argument and people just don’t notice-... You start with a completely standard, defensible idea of omnipotence, the ability to actualize any logically possible state of affairs which already has a built-in constraint (no contradictions), and that’s perfectly fine. Then out of nowhere it gets inflated into this pseudo-deep apophatic absolute, something “beyond all distinctions, qualities, and multiplicity,” and that’s exactly where it alllll collapses. Because the moment you actually think about what “no distinctions” entails, the concept self-destructs. Knowledge requires a true/false distinction (HD iykyk), will requires differentiation between states, causation requires relational structure, and identity requires at least a minimal self/non-self distinction. Strip all of that and you don’t have a maximum powerful entity; you have something that cannot, even in principle, insinuate any of the functions omnipotence is supposed to cover. So what you’re left with is a straight up contradiction!!

It’s described as beyond all distinctions, yet simultaneously treated as possessing distinction/dependent properties like omniscience and causalty. That’s not some deep tension you can handwave away; it’s a definitional collapse of the system. And it gets worse when you try to scale it, because once you define something as beyond all qualities, relations, and logical structure, you’ve removed it from any evaluative framework entirely. Power is inherently comparative; it presupposes differences in capability or effect, so if you erase all distinctions, the notion of greater or lesser literally stops applying...

At that point, calling it “highest” or “Tier 0” is just literally empty labeling, not an actual placement. The modal language is abused in the same way lol. “Transcends all possible worlds” sounds impressive, but possible worlds are already maximal consistent structures; you don’t scale above them, you either operate within that framework or you’re no longer in a comparable system at all. So saying something is beyond them doesn’t elevate it, it just removes it from the space where power comparisons even make sense. Ultimately (Ultima), the definition is trying to have it both ways, it wants an entity that is completely beyond all structure and distinction while still functioning as an agent with knowledge, will, and causal output, and those are mutually exclusive.

If you want coherence, you have to pick a lane: either keep omnipotence as a functional notion, maximal causal power over all logically possible states, and drop the “beyond all distinctions” rhetoric, or keep it as a purely apophatic absolute and accept that it’s no longer something that acts, knows, or can be meaningfully scaled. Right now it sits in both categories simultaneously, and that’s exactly why it doesn’t survive basic scrutiny.

The page defines Tier 0 as “transcending qualitative multiplicity” and being “beyond all distinctions,” which sounds absurdly profound until you actually think about it for more than five seconds-... Power, by definition, is relational, it requires an agent producing a change on some object, and the second you nuke all distinctions you’ve also nuked the agent, the action, and the target. Then there is no agent, no action, no effect. You didn’t reach maximum power, you defined your way into absolute nothingness. By the wiki’s own logic a Tier 0 entity becomes indistinguishable from something that cannot do anything at all. If your highest tier is functionally equivalent to a state with zero differentiation then your hierarchy isn’t a hierarchy, it’s a circle where the top collapses into the bottom and pretends that’s depth.

The modal logic part is even worse, “transcends all possible worlds” gets thrown around like it’s a trump card, but a possible world is just a maximal consistent set of propositions. If you’re beyond all of them you’re not higher, you’re outside logical consistency entirely, and once you’re there you don’t get to keep assumptions like acts, creates, or even exists, because those require a coherent framework to operate in. So no, you’re not scaling something above the system, you’re removing it from the system and pretending that absence counts as superiority, which it doesn’t, it just means you’ve left the domain where comparisons are genuinely and actually meaningful. Then there’s the qualitative superiority angle, which somehow makes it worse, because you define lower tiers by transcending quantity, then jump to transcending quality, and still try to use comparative language like higher and superior.

But if you’ve transcended quantity then more and less stop applying, and if you’ve transcended quality then this and that stop applying, so what exactly are you comparing? You’re using distinctions to rank something you’ve already defined as having no distinctions, which isn’t advanced metaphysics, it’s just incoherent. Tier 0 ends up being a label with no referent, a word you keep repeating while hoping no one asks what it actually points to. And the omnipotence angle just nukes whatever was left, because the second you allow violations of the law of non-contradiction every statement about Tier 0 becomes both true and false, it is the strongest and the weakest, it exists and does not exist, and at that point you’ve destroyed the very logic you need to make a tiering system in the first place. You don’t get to abandon logic to inflate a concept and then immediately rely on that same logic to rank it, that’s not scaling.

Even if you try to fall back on analogical or apophatic language, the page still equivocates, it denies any common measure with lower tiers while continuing to ascribe positively loaded capacities like omnipotence, omnipresence, creation, and omniscience anyway, and those aren’t neutral terms, they carry structure. If you don’t heavily qualify them, which the page doesn’t, the framework stays unstable, and that’s the actual problem.

Overall. Defining Tier 0 as “beyond all distinctions” makes the character incapable of having knowledge, will, or causal power, so it either collapses into incoherence or becomes indistinguishable from nothing, meaning it can’t be meaningfully scaled or called “highest.”

It appeals to an interpretation of omnipotence I disagree with anyway though-.

 

[Reiner04]

@DontTalkDT @Agnaa @Ultima_Reality @Qawsedf234 @Elizhaa

 

[Qawsedf234]

I would suggest adding paragraphs. Run on sentences are pretty hard to read.

 

[Ultima_Reality]

It’s described as beyond all distinctions, yet simultaneously treated as possessing distinction/dependent properties like omniscience and causalty. That’s not some deep tension you can handwave away; it’s a definitional collapse of the system. And it gets worse when you try to scale it, because once you define something as beyond all qualities, relations, and logical structure, you’ve removed it from any evaluative framework entirely.

"Beyond distinctions" in this case means qualitative distinctions, i.e. the logic governing the layers of the Tiering System. A Tier 0 is obviously distinct from its inferiors, it's just a "negative" distinction, i.e. It's not defined by an added quality but by the lack of that. And the page, ofc, makes it clear enough that "quality" here means a more specific thing than "Things that are true of something." e.g. "Atemporality" as far as the page is concerned isn't a quality, because it's not really a positive item or entity determining something, just the negation of a determination.

At that point, calling it “highest” or “Tier 0” is just literally empty labeling, not an actual placement. The modal language is abused in the same way lol. “Transcends all possible worlds” sounds impressive, but possible worlds are already maximal consistent structures; you don’t scale above them, you either operate within that framework or you’re no longer in a comparable system at all. So saying something is beyond them doesn’t elevate it, it just removes it from the space where power comparisons even make sense.

Controversial, by the way. You'll find a lot of authors who ultimately relativize possible worlds in some way or who question their robustness or ultimacy as a logical tool, because of questions such as "But what about statements done about possible worlds themselves? Those can't be adequately represented from within possible worlds!" and so on. Cf. The "in a world" vs "at a world" distinction (which if I recall correctly David Lewis applies to the topic of universals under his modal realist ontology; universals are at all possible worlds, because truths relating to them obtain in all worlds, but they're not in any possible world, because they aren't located in the "bounds" of any one world, for obvious reasons).

The modal logic part is even worse, “transcends all possible worlds” gets thrown around like it’s a trump card, but a possible world is just a maximal consistent set of propositions. If you’re beyond all of them you’re not higher, you’re outside logical consistency entirely, and once you’re there you don’t get to keep assumptions like acts, creates, or even exists, because those require a coherent framework to operate in.

Why did you repeat this?

Knowledge requires a true/false distinction (HD iykyk), will requires differentiation between states, causation requires relational structure, and identity requires at least a minimal self/non-self distinction.

The bit about will and knowledge depends on your philosophy of the mind. For example according to the late platonists, knowledge requires a minimal distinction between thinker and thought, an irreducible presence of one thing to another, hence the absolute can't have knowledge. Meanwhile you'll have Aristotelians contesting this and contending that thinker-thought distinction is an artifact of materiality (or finitude more broadly) and not something that applies to intellect as such, and hence that there can be intellection beyond this duality. Neither of these two is invalid, as far as we're concerned. We can accept verses abiding by either, because we don't adopt a canonical theory of mind, nor should we.

Power, by definition, is relational, it requires an agent producing a change on some object, and the second you nuke all distinctions you’ve also nuked the agent, the action, and the target. Then there is no agent, no action, no effect

"Power" in the sense relevant to us is just "capacity" or "potency." That has relational effects, but it's still something intrinsic to a thing. So I don't think there's much substance to this.

FWIW "There is no action or agent" may indeed be true. Either because the Tier 0 is something in which "action" and "agent" are identical (A subsistent activity or something like that), or because it transcends the action/agent dichotomy (And hence indeed doesn't "do" things after all). "There is no effect" is spicier, but given that I've already qualified (pfft) what "quality" means in this context, there isn't really a problem with a Tier 0 being non-identical to its effect (Though it might also not have an effect, after all. It might be from an acosmist "all is illusion" cosmology or something).

Even if you try to fall back on analogical or apophatic language, the page still equivocates, it denies any common measure with lower tiers while continuing to ascribe positively loaded capacities like omnipotence, omnipresence, creation, and omniscience anyway, and those aren’t neutral terms, they carry structure. If you don’t heavily qualify them, which the page doesn’t, the framework stays unstable, and that’s the actual problem

To be perfectly honest "le analoge" and "apophatic language" and whatever are not really necessary to carry the point across beyond the minimal idea of "Things apply differently to a Tier 0 than they do for other tiers." And the page makes this pretty extensively clear, hence it does, by definition, "qualify" them.

If you want coherence, you have to pick a lane: either keep omnipotence as a functional notion, maximal causal power over all logically possible states, and drop the “beyond all distinctions” rhetoric, or keep it as a purely apophatic absolute and accept that it’s no longer something that acts, knows, or can be meaningfully scaled. Right now it sits in both categories simultaneously, and that’s exactly why it doesn’t survive basic scrutiny.

I won't lie, I don't mind discussing whether it's feasible to feature the totally apophatic variant of Tier 0 as its own tier (though I'm skeptical as to whether you can coherently do that), but regardless of any of that, Tier 0 as explained in the current Omnipotence page would still exist.

 

[Vzearr]

Your response hinges on redefining terms just enough to avoid the contradiction without actually resolving it.

"Beyond distinctions" in this case means qualitative distinctions, i.e. the logic governing the layers of the Tiering System. A Tier 0 is obviously distinct from its inferiors, it's just a "negative" distinction, i.e. It's not defined by an added quality but by the lack of that. And the page, ofc, makes it clear enough that "quality" here means a more specific thing than "Things that are true of something." e.g. "Atemporality" as far as the page is concerned isn't a quality, because it's not really a positive item or entity determining something, just the negation of a determination.

You say Tier 0 is “beyond qualitative distinctions,” then immediately turn around and say it’s still distinct from everything else, just via some “negative distinction.” That’s not transcending anything I don't even know what to say; that’s literally still operating on distinction. You basically slapped a different label on it. Calling it “negative” doesn’t magically make it not a distinction; it just means you’re defining it by what it isn’t instead of what it is. But guess what, “not like X” is still a differentiating property. You’re still grounding it in comparison, still using the exact same framework, just inverted.

Your position ends up stuck in a contradiction:

• If the “negative distinction” is meaningful enough to rank Tier 0 above other tiers, then it’s still a real distinguishing feature, meaning you haven’t transcended distinctions.
• If it’s not a real distinguishing feature (just pure absence with no structure), then it can’t ground a hierarchy placement in the first place because it's a presupposition.

Controversial, by the way. You'll find a lot of authors who ultimately relativize possible worlds in some way or who question their robustness or ultimacy as a logical tool, because of questions such as "But what about statements done about possible worlds themselves? Those can't be adequately represented from within possible worlds!" and so on. Cf. The "in a world" vs "at a world" distinction (which if I recall correctly David Lewis applies to the topic of universals under his modal realist ontology; universals are at all possible worlds, because truths relating to them obtain in all worlds, but they're not in any possible world, because they aren't located in the "bounds" of any one world, for obvious reasons).

Pointing out that possible worlds are debated doesn’t actually do anything for your position. You’d need to show that those alternative views still give you what you need, you're presupposing a conclusion from baselessness, some coherent framework where “beyond all worlds” doesn’t immediately kill any meaningful notion of power, existence, or action. You basically said “some philosophers question possible worlds” and that isn't an argument. Sure, of course its true, but its completely irrelevant unless it actually resolves the consequence I pointed out, my consequence subsequently debunks it.

The problem still stands:

• If Tier 0 is within some coherent modal/meta-modal structure, then it’s not truly “beyond all distinctions” in the absolute sense being claimed by our page.
• If it is outside all such structures, then you lose the ability to meaningfully describe it using concepts and words such as power, existence, or causation.

The bit about will and knowledge depends on your philosophy of the mind. For example according to the late platonists, knowledge requires a minimal distinction between thinker and thought, an irreducible presence of one thing to another, hence the absolute can't have knowledge. Meanwhile you'll have Aristotelians contesting this and contending that thinker-thought distinction is an artifact of materiality (or finitude more broadly) and not something that applies to intellect as such, and hence that there can be intellection beyond this duality. Neither of these two is invalid, as far as we're concerned. We can accept verses abiding by either, because we don't adopt a canonical theory of mind, nor should we.

The Platonist vs Aristotelian split doesn’t really solve the issue here. The disagreement between them is about how cognition is structured, not whether structure exists at all. Aristotelians reject that specific duality the Platonist hold, but they don’t eliminate intelligibility, identity, or determinate content. There is still an act of understanding, something understood, and a way that understanding is actualised. So dead ass, appealing to multiple philosophies of mind only works if one of those frameworks actually supports the kind of cognition being claimed on the page. But neither view gives you cognition without any intelligible structure; they just differ on how that structure is accounted for. Because of that, neutrality between theories of mind doesn’t automatically justify the claim. At most, it shows there are different models of cognition, but all of them still require some minimal conditions for knowledge or will to exist at all. If the page is making a stronger claim than that, the appeal to philosophical pluralism doesn’t actually defend it. "Power" in the sense relevant to us is just "capacity" or "potency." That has relational effects, but it's still something intrinsic to a thing. So I don't think there's much substance to this.

"Power" in the sense relevant to us is just "capacity" or "potency." That has relational effects, but it's still something intrinsic to a thing. So I don't think there's much substance to this.

Redefining power as “capacity” doesn’t fix anything though, like dead ass. Capacity for what?!? A capacity only means something if there are actual differences it can ground, possible states, effects, outcomes. If you’ve already thrown out distinctions, relations, structure, then there’s nothing left for that “capacity” to even point to, no way to specify it, no way for it to cash out into anything intelligible. Calling it “intrinsic” doesn’t suddenly give it substance; it just turns it into a fancy-sounding placeholder. Even in classical metaphysics, potency isn’t this free-floating thing, it’s always directed toward some actualization, some determination. It’s a capacity toward something. But if you’ve erased all distinctions, there is no “toward,” no difference between actual and non-actual, no content to latch onto at all, it's just blatantly flawed. So you become stuck again: either this “power” still quietly presupposes structure, or it doesn’t, and now it’s indistinguishable from having no power whatsoever. Calling it intrinsic doesn’t resolve that anyways.

FWIW "There is no action or agent" may indeed be true. Either because the Tier 0 is something in which "action" and "agent" are identical (A subsistent activity or something like that), or because it transcends the action/agent dichotomy (And hence indeed doesn't "do" things after all). "There is no effect" is spicier, but given that I've already qualified (pfft) what "quality" means in this context, there isn't really a problem with a Tier 0 being non-identical to its effect (Though it might also not have an effect, after all. It might be from an acosmist "all is illusion" cosmology or something).

This doesn’t get you out of the problem. If you go with the first route and say action and agent are identical, then you’ve still got structure, identity, determinacy, all of which are positive features. You didn’t transcend distinctions; it's not the same thing.

If you go the other route and say it transcends the action/agent split entirely and therefore doesn’t do anything, then you’ve stripped away everything altogether. At that point, calling it “powerful” is just empty, because power with no possibility of action or manifestation has no content. You’ve defined something that, functionally, does nothing and then still want to treat it as maximum potency. The “no effect” point makes it worse, not better. If there are no effects, then there’s nothing that differentiates this from something with zero influence whatsoever. You can’t scale or compare it, because there’s nothing to ground the comparison. And appealing to some acromancy like “everything is illusion” angle just nukes the entire framework, cause now u removed the very basis for interaction, attribution, or hierarchy in the first place. So you end up in the same hindrance again. Either there’s still some structurer in which case it’s not actually beyond distinctions, or there isn’t, in which case terms like power, action, and effect stop meaning anything.


If you want me to be honest. I have my own philosophy behind what omnipotency is.

Analogy​

If two rocks both jump, but there is no distinction between them, no identity, no difference in state, no separation of action or agent, then which rock is jumping? It becomes. "A rock is jumping" but that doesn't make sense anymore because now you can’t answer:

• Which rock? (no identity)
• What does jumping differ from? (no different state)
• What separates the rock from anything else? (no seperation)

I don't know how to make this more clear.

 

[Vzearr]

The like feature on VSBW gets on my nerves.

 

[Ultima_Reality]

You say Tier 0 is “beyond qualitative distinctions,” then immediately turn around and say it’s still distinct from everything else, just via some “negative distinction.” That’s not transcending anything I don't even know what to say; that’s literally still operating on distinction. You basically slapped a different label on it. Calling it “negative” doesn’t magically make it not a distinction; it just means you’re defining it by what it isn’t instead of what it is. But guess what, “not like X” is still a differentiating property. You’re still grounding it in comparison, still using the exact same framework, just inverted.

Yeah, I specified what "distinction" is supposed to mean in the definition of the tier. Sketched out exactly the sort of "differentiation" which Tier 0 is said to transcend. That's just a matter of defining our terms, and quibbling "well then it doesn't transcend distinctions!" isn't a problem with the tier itself, it just means you didn't know what the tier was supposed to be. Now you know.

And notice that I never said the inequality between Tier 0 and non-Tier 0 isn't a distinction, just that it's not the sort of distinction that's relevant for the tier. i.e. It's not a "qualitative" distinction because 0 and non-0 aren't distinguished by a positive quality, but by the lack of those on the part of the Tier 0. Hence:

Thus, just as 1-A differentiated itself from its inferiors not through a spatiotemporal attribute or in general by quantitative "borders", so does 0 distinguish itself from its inferiors not by being a particularized mode of a common standard, but by not being such.

Your position ends up stuck in a contradiction:

• If the “negative distinction” is meaningful enough to rank Tier 0 above other tiers, then it’s still a real distinguishing feature, meaning you haven’t transcended distinctions.
• If it’s not a real distinguishing feature (just pure absence with no structure), then it can’t ground a hierarchy placement in the first place because it's a presupposition.

First one has already been answered. Second one is a non-sequitur; being distinguished from other things in terms of what you are (rather than in terms of what you aren't) is by no means a presupposition for comparison to take place (Assuming in good faith that this is even what you mean, because that right there is just an incomplete sentence). Why would it be?

The Platonist vs Aristotelian split doesn’t really solve the issue here. The disagreement between them is about how cognition is structured, not whether structure exists at all. Aristotelians reject that specific duality the Platonist hold, but they don’t eliminate intelligibility, identity, or determinate content. There is still an act of understanding, something understood, and a way that understanding is actualised. So dead ass, appealing to multiple philosophies of mind only works if one of those frameworks actually supports the kind of cognition being claimed on the page. But neither view gives you cognition without any intelligible structure; they just differ on how that structure is accounted for. Because of that, neutrality between theories of mind doesn’t automatically justify the claim. At most, it shows there are different models of cognition, but all of them still require some minimal conditions for knowledge or will to exist at all. If the page is making a stronger claim than that, the appeal to philosophical pluralism doesn’t actually defend it.

Tier 0 doesn't eliminate intelligibility or identity (Or else it would be entirely apophatic by default), so I have no idea why you bring that up. By extension, the page doesn't even claim any strong kind of cognition for a Tier 0. It only says that a Tier 0 may be something like a mind, enough for it to display knowledge and agency, and be classed as omniscient. And whether such a cognition is possible given a Tier 0's nature is, precisely, what depends on your particular philosophy of the mind. Since we are neutral on that topic, we are likewise neutral on the topic of whether a Tier 0 can have cognition, and accept both verses where they do, and verses where they don't. In the same way that we are (obviously) neutral on the topic of whether the soul exists, and thus accept both verses where there are souls, and verses where there are no souls.

Redefining power as “capacity” doesn’t fix anything though, like dead ass. Capacity for what?!? A capacity only means something if there are actual differences it can ground, possible states, effects, outcomes. If you’ve already thrown out distinctions, relations, structure, then there’s nothing left for that “capacity” to even point to, no way to specify it, no way for it to cash out into anything intelligible. Calling it “intrinsic” doesn’t suddenly give it substance; it just turns it into a fancy-sounding placeholder. Even in classical metaphysics, potency isn’t this free-floating thing, it’s always directed toward some actualization, some determination. It’s a capacity toward something. But if you’ve erased all distinctions, there is no “toward,” no difference between actual and non-actual, no content to latch onto at all, it's just blatantly flawed. So you become stuck again: either this “power” still quietly presupposes structure, or it doesn’t, and now it’s indistinguishable from having no power whatsoever. Calling it intrinsic doesn’t resolve that anyways.

"Redefining" is a strong word, because, I mean, capacity just is a valid meaning of the word "power" to begin with. In the case of the tiers from 1-A and upwards, we are taking it in the widest sense possible: Capacity to produce, to affect, to cause, and so on and so forth. Hence 1-A, for example, is explained (in "canonical" fashion, at least, i.e. the barebones version we describe in these hypotheticals, abstracted from how a particular verse might choose to portray it) as a being that has causal power over arbitrary quantitative multiplicities but is irreducible to any of them, cannot be divided down into them. Tier 0 is just a generalization of that same logic, thus its "capacity" is for... everything.

Hence the reply to the argument that "Power is relational, therefore something that's outside relation cannot be described as powerful" is "Power in the sense relevant to us is not relational, ergo, etc." It's understood with a reference to something other, but it doesn't need that thing to exist and be itself, obviously. (And ofc, this also depends on how you understand "relation" here. You haven't made that too clear, even with your analogy there)

Pointing out that possible worlds are debated doesn’t actually do anything for your position. You’d need to show that those alternative views still give you what you need, you're presupposing a conclusion from baselessness, some coherent framework where “beyond all worlds” doesn’t immediately kill any meaningful notion of power, existence, or action.

The point is that the views in question aren't "alternative", really, so much as just well-recognized ways in which possible worlds might be cashed out, since, of course, they're primarily logical tools and their exact ontology is a subject of debate. In this case, it's not really incoherent to, for example, take the totality of all possible worlds and then consider it all at once as a single unity, in that each world shares something in common with all the other worlds such that they form a collection to begin with. The Tier 0 could or would then be just whatever binding thread makes that unity, that which all the structures share in common or instantiate, so to say.

 

[Da3ggman]

Who keeps on giving you permission to make Staff Threads

 

[TWILIGHT-OP]

Who keeps on giving you permission to make Staff Threads

Well, he did got the permission.

 

[Reiner04]

Who keeps on giving you permission to make Staff Threads

I was the one who gave him permission. He brought his concerns regarding the 'Omnipotence' page to me, and while I was personally unsure and had my own problems about the topic, I felt the topic acceptable enough to be addressed in staff thread incase he intends to create one. To my knowledge though, he hasn't created more than one staff thread (that is this one), though I could be mistaken.

 

[Da3ggman]

I was the one who gave him permission. He brought his concerns regarding the 'Omnipotence' page to me, and while I was personally unsure and had my own problems about the topic, I felt the topic acceptable enough to be addressed in staff thread incase he intends to create one. To my knowledge though, he hasn't created more than one staff thread (that is this one), though I could be mistaken.

Shit, I think I'm confusing CGM threads and Staff, that's my bad.

 

[LephyrTheRevanchist]

Who keeps on giving you permission to make Staff Threads

Shit, I think I'm confusing CGM threads and Staff, that's my bad.

Even with the mistake in mind, this comment is unnecessary and only serves to start conflict. Don't do it again.

 

[Da3ggman]

Even with the mistake in mind, this comment is unnecessary and only serves to start conflict. Don't do it again.

Understood, won’t happen again. Apologies.

 

[Vzearr]

Yeah, I specified what "distinction" is supposed to mean in the definition of the tier. Sketched out exactly the sort of "differentiation" which Tier 0 is said to transcend. That's just a matter of defining our terms, and quibbling "well then it doesn't transcend distinctions!" isn't a problem with the tier itself, it just means you didn't know what the tier was supposed to be. Now you know.

And notice that I never said the inequality between Tier 0 and non-Tier 0 isn't a distinction, just that it's not the sort of distinction that's relevant for the tier. i.e. It's not a "qualitative" distinction because 0 and non-0 aren't distinguished by a positive quality, but by the lack of those on the part of the Tier 0. Hence:

Thus, just as 1-A differentiated itself from its inferiors not through a spatiotemporal attribute or in general by quantitative "borders", so does 0 distinguish itself from its inferiors not by being a particularized mode of a common standard, but by not being such.

which Tier 0 is said to transcend.

that I never said the inequality between Tier 0 and non-Tier 0 isn't a distinction, just that it's not the sort of distinction that's relevant for the tier

You're contradicting yourself mid-paragraph, just moving the goalposts at that point. If you claim transcendence of distinctions, you need either no distinctions at all, or a clearly defined restricted class of distinctions from the start.

I never said the inequality between Tier 0 and non-Tier 0 isn't a distinction

Though tier 0 transcends distinctions? That's a contradiction.

The page says it transcends qualitative difference, but then you say there is still a distinction?

Tier 0 and non-Tier 0 isn't a distinction, just that it's not the sort of distinction that's relevant for the tier.

Special pleading fallacy.

argument in which the speaker deliberately ignores aspects that are unfavourable to their point of view.

A distinction doesn’t stop being a distinction just because it’s phrased negatively. “Has qualities vs has none” is still a differentiating condition. If that distinction is real enough to separate Tier 0 from everything else, then it hasn’t transcended qualitative difference; it’s still within it-..
You're also presupposing a conclusion within your reasoning.

First one has already been answered. Second one is a non-sequitur; being distinguished from other things in terms of what you are (rather than in terms of what you aren't) is by no means a presupposition for comparison to take place (Assuming in good faith that this is even what you mean, because that right there is just an incomplete sentence). Why would it be?

Non-Sequitur?! That's literally how comparison works.

How is it:

a conclusion or statement that does not logically follow from the previous argument or statement

Explain.

Tier 0 doesn't eliminate intelligibility or identity (Or else it would be entirely apophatic by default), so I have no idea why you bring that up. By extension, the page doesn't even claim any strong kind of cognition for a Tier 0. It only says that a Tier 0 may be something like a mind, enough for it to display knowledge and agency, and be classed as omniscient. And whether such a cognition is possible given a Tier 0's nature is, precisely, what depends on your particular philosophy of the mind. Since we are neutral on that topic, we are likewise neutral on the topic of whether a Tier 0 can have cognition, and accept both verses where they do, and verses where they don't. In the same way that we are (obviously) neutral on the topic of whether the soul exists, and thus accept both verses where there are souls, and verses where there are no souls.

Tier 0 “doesn’t eliminate intelligibility or identity,” but the page defines it as transcending qualitative distinctions. Identity and intelligibility are grounded in differentiation; something being this rather than that. If you remove differentiation, you’ve already undermined any of the conditions required for identity and intelligibility to exist in the first place. So you don’t get to just assert they’re still there without explaining how. Also neutral? Neutrality between different theories of mind only works if all of those theories are compatible with the framework you’re proposing, which is masterfully inconsistent.

"Redefining" is a strong word, because, I mean, capacity just is a valid meaning of the word "power" to begin with. In the case of the tiers from 1-A and upwards, we are taking it in the widest sense possible: Capacity to produce, to affect, to cause, and so on and so forth. Hence 1-A, for example, is explained (in "canonical" fashion, at least, i.e. the barebones version we describe in these hypotheticals, abstracted from how a particular verse might choose to portray it) as a being that has causal power over arbitrary quantitative multiplicities but is irreducible to any of them, cannot be divided down into them. Tier 0 is just a generalization of that same logic, thus its "capacity" is for... everything.

I wouldn't call it that. “Capacity” only means something if it’s directed to distinguished outcomes; states that can be produced, effects that can occur, and differences that can be realised. That’s not an optional gimmick; that’s what gives capacity meaning in the first place. But your own framework removes exactly that. If Tier 0 transcends all qualitative distinctions, then: There are no distinct states to actualise, no differences between outcomes, and literally no meaningful this and that. Oh, and saying “everything” doesn’t solve that, because “everything” presupposes a set of possibilities. If all distinctions are gone, then “everything” collapses into nothingness. There’s nothing for the the meaning of capacity to latch onto.

Hence the reply to the argument that "Power is relational, therefore something that's outside relation cannot be described as powerful" is "Power in the sense relevant to us is not relational, ergo, etc." It's understood with a reference to something other, but it doesn't need that thing to exist and be itself, obviously. (And ofc, this also depends on how you understand "relation" here. You haven't made that too clear, even with your analogy there)

You say power isn’t relational, then immediately define it in reference to something of another. That is the definition of a relation. And if you remove any abstract distinctions between possible outcomes, there’s nothing left for the word “power” to refer to. So either it still depends on distinctions, or it becomes an word of... Nothingness.

The point is that the views in question aren't "alternative", really, so much as just well-recognized ways in which possible worlds might be cashed out, since, of course, they're primarily logical tools and their exact ontology is a subject of debate. In this case, it's not really incoherent to, for example, take the totality of all possible worlds and then consider it all at once as a single unity, in that each world shares something in common with all the other worlds such that they form a collection to begin with. The Tier 0 could or would then be just whatever binding thread makes that unity, that which all the structures share in common or instantiate, so to say.

If Tier 0 is “what all worlds share in unity” then it’s not beyond the system; That's literally our own definition that says shouldn’t exist. So either it’s outside all worlds, or it’s a shared property (and hasn’t transcended anything). Yer can't do both.

Syllogism:​

Premise 1:
If something actually transcends all qualitative distinctions, then no distinctions (including between itself and anything else) can actually exist in and of itself.

Premise 2:
Tier 0 is claimed to transcend all qualitative distinctions, yet remain distinct from non-Tier 0 and to possess properties such as capacity or identity.

Conclusion:
Therefore, the Tier 0 framework is internally contradictory, since it both denies and relies on qualitative distinctions simultaneously.

 

[Vzearr]

It turns out I'm pissing a lot of people off with this thread? If Ultima doesn't concede here, I can close it.

I don't know why people are so mad.

 

[Antvasima]

It turns out I'm pissing a lot of people off with this thread? If Ultima doesn't concede here, I can close it.

I don't know why people are so mad.

I don't think they are. I just tried to say that you should probably tone down your intensity in regards to starting wiki-affecting revision threads, as it can be tiresome for our staff members to deal with.

 

[Vzearr]

I don't think they are. I just tried to say that you should probably tone down your intensity in regards to starting wiki-affecting revision threads, as it can be tiresome for our staff members to deal with.

I've gotten other DM's regarding this thread that have demotivated me.

 

[Antvasima]

Okay. That is unfortunate.