Soul Manipulation and The Real World

[Agnaa]

I don't think a character's cosmological structure is an intrinsic part of them now is it

The cosmological structure of SCP is an intrinsic part of SCP-2747. Its tiering and abilities are all a byproduct of SCP's cosmological structure. Without narratives, SCP-2747 doesn't work in any way as a character.

 

[Wokistan]

We still have to figure out exactly what narratives equalize to though. Characters that are living cosmological structures like eternity and stuff obviously are like that, what the other guy was implying is that characters can't exist if their opponent's verse doesn't have higher dimensions.

 

[Iamunanimousinthat]

I don't think a character's cosmological structure is an intrinsic part of them now is it

I would say, beings having a soul is intristic part of the cosmological structure of the verse.

 

[Podonklos]

1. Nothing can determine the existence of souls.

Nothing? If the soul is completely intangible, insensible, and causes nor reacts to anything... then wouldn't it just not exist for the purpose of a debate? Or, at least, its existence would be so meaningless to the "character" it's tied to that manipulating it would accomplish nothing.

Regarding the rest of the thread, I do think equalizing souls in real life is a bit... ridiculous. It can easily lead to situations like this:

1. Soul Manipulator X vs. Stephen Hawking

2. Stephen Hawking has never demonstrated having a soul, and also firmly does not believe in one

3. But we will assume Stephen Hawking has a soul anyways

4. Stephen Hawking has no feats for resisting soul manipulation, as he literally can't get such a feat due to not having a soul in the first place (but we're assuming he does)

5. Therefore, we can assume Soul Manipulator X has a necessary level of "soul maneuvering potency" to defeat Stephen Hawking, who we are also assuming has a soul

6. Soul Manipulator X wins based on two assumptions we made without evidence (and, depending on how you define "soul", possibly against evidence)

 

[Agnaa]

Nothing? If the soul is completely intangible, insensible, and causes nor reacts to anything... then wouldn't it just not exist for the purpose of a debate? Or, at least, its existence would be so meaningless to the "character" it's tied to that manipulating it would accomplish nothing.

Yep, nothing. It exists for the purpose of debate because manipulating it with supernatural powers still affects the person who has it.

It may seem meaningless to them normally, but it stops being meaningless once it's manipulated for harmful effects.

Also Podonklos, that same thing can already happen for verses that don't mention the existence of souls.

 

[Paulo.junior.969]

Regarding the rest of the thread, I do think equalizing souls in real life is a bit... ridiculous. It can easily lead to situations like this:

1. Soul Manipulator X vs. Stephen Hawking

2. Stephen Hawking has never demonstrated having a soul, and also firmly does not believe in one

3. But we will assume Stephen Hawking has a soul anyways

4. Stephen Hawking has no feats for resisting soul manipulation, as he literally can't get such a feat due to not having a soul in the first place (but we're assuming he does)

5. Therefore, we can assume Soul Manipulator X has a necessary level of "soul maneuvering potency" to defeat Stephen Hawking, who we are also assuming has a soul

6. Soul Manipulator X wins based on two assumptions we made without evidence (and, depending on how you define "soul", possibly against evidence)

That's kind of what we do for pretty much every verse.

 

[Andytrenom]

In my opinion, whether souls are a majority belief or not doesn't even come into this. It's all about making assumptions best suited for the purpose of a vs debate.

A point that I've seen often brought up in the previous discussions about this is about burden of proof and how assuming souls seemingly ignores it. But does it really? I think it's more that fully believing souls exist just isn't a requirement for assuming it in a vs matchup and instead it is "souls must have an equally possible chance as existing as not existing"

If the context was adding information to a character's profile, then souls would obviously not be assumed to exist without evidence but since the context here is discussing to who has a better combination of abilities, weakness and other stuff, not assuming someone to be totally immune to the other"s hax unless shown otherwise is the best option.

 

[Wokistan]

@iamun I think you're misunderstanding me here.

If it's something not intrinsic to the character, like their verse having say 10D dudes in it, that can carry over via way of the "neutral verse" clause of SBA.

However, things intrinsic to the character, like having a soul or not, shouldn't be altered imo via this.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

It should be a standard for all living beings to have souls unless there's context in fictional works; otherwise, why even have soul manipulation as a legit hax ability in the first place? Plus verse equalization is important as mentioned above.

 

[Wokistan]

The thread's more on the subject of the irl files default state rn.

I also don't really think we should really be equalizing things to real life that kust aren't there.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

Hmm, I see. But still, I think it should still be a standard for real world profiles to at least have basic generic souls. Obviously not the very special kind of soul portrayed in certain religions, or being "Fragments of a Tier 0 character living inside their body". But at the same time, I don't think it's fair to give "Immunity to Soul Manipulation" on every real world profile; sounds like the definition of NLF; especially if real world normal humans have no reason to be immune to soul manipulation.

Just my thoughts to keep up with the main standards.

 

[Andytrenom]

It's not NLF but it's still wrong.

 

[Wokistan]

I think that due to there not being conclusive evidence in favor or against but in favor being the positive claim, I don't thin we should assume souls as a default since going by actual proof standards would set no as the scientific default.

I did suggest above making equalizing the real world a "OP decides" type deal, based on ideas by Iap, but Cal didnt like that.

 

[Wokistan]

If one can say that "irl humans have never shown soil resistance", why can I not day "irl humans have never shown proof of having a soul"? Proof standards reauire the one making the positive claim to provide evidence for their part, the person arguing otherwise isn't forced to prove a negative.

 

[The_Wright_Way]

"irl humans have never shown soil resistance"

I wasn't aware humans were weak to dirt.

In all seriousness, gonna go neutral. There are sound arguments both ways and I really don't care enough to refute either way. The existence and nature of souls are such a subjective thing that I am completely fine with whatever choice is made here. Like Sera above, I also say this as someone who fully believes in souls irl.

 

[Paulo.junior.969]

We're not using real proof standards, we're talking about the standards of the versus matches on this wiki when we don't know if the character has a soul or not.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

We did give an exception to the calc stacking rule for real world profiles, but giving them resistance or immunities to certain haxes solely because some people "religiously believe" there are no such thing as souls. I should note that there legit miracles that happen IRL that should be scientifically possible. Such a sniper rifle getting deflected by a Bible, or people dying and raising from the dead; which apparently did happen before. Been on the news someone was burned to ashes one day, and alive the next. Maybe souls do or don't exist, but we shouldn't blindly slap immunity to soul or life force manipulation on every animal or human's real world profile either.

 

[Agnaa]

If one can say that "irl humans have never shown soil resistance", why can I not day "irl humans have never shown proof of having a soul"? Proof standards reauire the one making the positive claim to provide evidence for their part, the person arguing otherwise isn't forced to prove a negative.

This exact argument can be used for giving many characters soulhax immunity. Remember the Medaka Box thread?

 

[Wokistan]

I am talking about real proof standards though.

As for the "miracles", bullets and their guns can have defects, angle matters a lot, and depending on the bullet it takes surprisingly little to throw it off course. People can also just he incorrectly declared dead. Neither of these prove the existence of a soul.

These abilities should not work on things lacking that which they work off of. If we cannot conclusively say that these concept exist, we should default to them not, as to to otherwise is to demand the proof of a negative be given.

 

[Hellbeast1]

I agree with the souls for real world crowd. I'm a pretty big atheist who believe sit doesn't exist but for verse equalization it just makes sense to actually use it.

 

[Podonklos]

I should note that there legit miracles that happen IRL that should be scientifically possible. Such a sniper rifle getting deflected by a Bible, or people dying and raising from the dead; which apparently did happen before.

If it happened in real life then it's scientifically possible, by definition. There may be people who were declared medically dead and then rose again, but there are no cases of something truly miraculous (like someone reviving from their heart being torn out) occurring in reality. At least, no plausible ones.

 

[Wokistan]

I was fine with the MB thing and as you know don't really like it as the default for fiction either but dropped it cause it wasn't gonna go anywhere @agnaa

 

[Andytrenom]

@Wok Already addressed this in my comment, we assume it because it gives a better representation of their strengths and weaknesses in a vs thread than if we just gave someone outright immunity for souls simply not being confirmed.

 

[Paulo.junior.969]

If you're talking about real proof standards, then you really shouldn't, since it isn't relevant to this at all, since we're talking about what assumption should be made in a versus thread, and therefore, we should talk about the standards of a versus thread.

 

[Callsign_Castle]

If a soul isn't defined or presented in one verse, it doesn't exist and verse equalization creates headcanon by illegitimately modifying another work.

It's that simple, verses threads really don't matter that much.

 

[AguilaR101]

Versus threads are the priority of the site.

 

[Wokistan]

Files designed to represent real things can be judged by actual proof standards due to actually existing, and what the files have is what defines the vs threads. Even then, the standard is to not equalize to people who just don't have souls. What I am saying is this is how irl would be considered by our standards, since an inconclusive defaults to the negative due to positive claims needing positive proof.

A weakness of thr ability is that it doesn't work on something that doesn't have the object it affects though.

 

[Andytrenom]

Versus threads are the priority of the site.

Actually it's not, but that's irrelevant here.

 

[Wokistan]

Anyways, I gotta do some last homework and sleep in a bit, so I can't stay on forever.

 

[Dargoo_Faust]

I'll restate what I said above.

For fictional verses the verse that has actually adressed the existence and mechanics behind souls takes precedent over the verse that has not touched on the topic of souls. It's fair to say "Real Life" has not touched on the topic of souls otherwise there wouldn't be any debate on this thread.

If we want to be this asenine about verse mechanics the magic users on the site would shimmy around their hands before they get rammed by a Rhino, since magic in the traditional sense can't really be proven to exist.

Just save everyone a headache and equalize unless the other verse has specifically adressed the hax in question.

 

[Paulo.junior.969]

Again, just because it is real, it doesn't mean it doesn't follow any standard, and the standard is that they have souls until proven not to. It is true that an inconclusive defaults to the negative in most discussions, because most discussions can't end with an inconclusive as the final answer, however, in this case, it can, with us not knowing whether the verse has souls or not (since it was never shown to have), and in versus threads, when the verse was never shown to have souls, we just assume they have.

 

[Wokistan]

Quite clearly the topic has been touched on, with the huge amount of philosophies and religion.

Also dargoo I have been saying this the entire thread but irl characters dont just bring over all the laws of the real world with them, they'd keep characteristics intrinsic to themselves such as whether or not they have souls. Magic shit is covered by the whole "neutral unvierse" clause of SBA, but the neutral universe thing doesn't change intrinsic character properties.

 

[Podonklos]

Let's try a different perspective.

What if we assume real life has souls for the purposes of a thread unless we can prove that real life does not have the kind of soul a verse in question uses?

So, for example, if a verse's conception of a soul is "an intangible, insensible object that neither causes nor reacts to anything"... we can't prove that either way, so we assume a real life human would have a soul for that thread.

But if a verse's conception of a soul is "some weird orange juice your body is made out of" like in Evangelion, then we say that kind of hax would not work on real humans, as real humans are objectively not made out of orange juice.

I feel like this would avoid stepping on religious toes whilst also being somewhat scientific.

 

[A_Stoned_Orc]

I'll restate what I said above.
For fictional verses the verse that has actually adressed the existence and mechanics behind souls takes precedent over the verse that has not touched on the topic of souls. It's fair to say "Real Life" has not touched on the topic of souls otherwise there wouldn't be any debate on this thread.

If we want to be this asenine about verse mechanics the magic users on the site would shimmy around their hands before they get rammed by a Rhino, since magic in the traditional sense can't really be proven to exist.

Just save everyone a headache and equalize unless the other verse has specifically adressed the hax in question.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

[TacticalNuke002]

I personally think soulhax should work on Real Life characters. Those who disagree are just calling themselves soulless creatures.

 

[Dargoo_Faust]

Quite clearly the topic has been touched on, with the huge amount of philosophies and religion.

That's a poor analogy. Philosophy and religion has "touched on" practically everything. It doesn't mean that the elements discussed therein do or do not exist.

My point is that there is no definitive answer and therefore no precedent to go off of.

This is being overly complicated.

 

[Anttron224]

I'll restate what I said above.
For fictional verses the verse that has actually adressed the existence and mechanics behind souls takes precedent over the verse that has not touched on the topic of souls. It's fair to say "Real Life" has not touched on the topic of souls otherwise there wouldn't be any debate on this thread.

If we want to be this asenine about verse mechanics the magic users on the site would shimmy around their hands before they get rammed by a Rhino, since magic in the traditional sense can't really be proven to exist.

Just save everyone a headache and equalize unless the other verse has specifically adressed the hax in question.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

This makes the most sense considering the purpose of this site

 

[Antvasima]

I agree with DontTalkDT and others about that if we use verse equalisation for lots of unrealistic powers and abilities, we cannot make an exception for souls.

I also agree with Dragonmasterxyz that this is turning too controversial for our community, as it inevitably creates a schism between the religious and non-religious. Remember that people from all over the world with very different personal ideals gather here. We should probably close this thread and keep our current standards.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

I agree that the thread is controversial and closing it and keeping verse equalization is the best option.

 

[Crzer07]

Eh, I've even delved into this way back that should we give everything in the real life verse immunity to soul manipulation due to lack of one, and that we derived most of what we know about "real life verse mechanics" is via the scientific method. We don't have real life equivalent of authors, statements, narration and "guidebooks" telling us about this verse although even that could be debatable via believing in a God or a "real life TOAA" with religions. So it's really all up in the air, but then again Reality - Fiction Interaction should have resolved all this in the first place instead.