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The commoners thread: Discussing Ultima's "On the Many, Many Incoherences of the Tiering System"

Nothing wrong with a lil silliness 82 pages in tbh. I honestly would wonder what a "High 2" tier would be without making the other tiers above it needlessly verbose.
 
If anyone's missed it, I've edited my most recent post to include two more sections.
Agnaa said:
EDIT: After reading over the thread, and having a quick talk to Ultima off-site, I have a few more thoughts.

Is This Taking a Religious Stance?​

I do also find it a bit prickly that, while our previous systems could've claimed that we were largely lowballing religious claims due to relying on concrete demonstrations, rather than larger descriptions that have to be taken on faith, from a discussion with Ultima off-site, having these sorts of tiers starts to involve us taking definitive stances on arguments for the existence of God, which some people take as the sole justification of their beliefs, such as the Cosmological Argument and the Ontological Argument, since the justification for this tier's superiority is intertwined with the logic of those arguments.

I do think either presuming that one or both of these are true or false, rather than saying they're matters of faith that lie outside of demonstrated feats and thus aren't relevant, is a modestly worse state of affairs. And while I ultimately don't find this too important myself, I see why stuff like it can rile others up. And for clarity, I don't think Ultima's comment about any approach being a theological one is actually true.

Other Statistics​

While this may belong in another thread, since people mentioned here, I'd want to take a lot of care with our definitions of Tier 0 ratings for other stats. DarkGrath's definition for Irrelevant intelligence, for example, seems like something that people would argue non-0 characters as having.

I could not care less about whether we call such statistics "Irrelevant", "Unbound", or anything else not horribly offensive.
Click to expand...
@DontTalkDT Since I've added more stuff to a post you've liked.
 
Da3ggman said:
Unless literally every SCP writer came together and united to just make ONE "Ultimate Being", I doubt there will ever be a Monad for longer than a handful of months, maybe a year at best.
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I suppose a specific canon can have a Monad, but a site wide Monad would require pretty much every admin teaming up to make an SCP specifically designed to be the strongest... which would be lame.
 
Tyranno223 said:
To be precise, Ultima says "Monad like", aka not Monads but similar at first glance.
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I think that's essentially what I said, yet Idiosyncratic still wanted examples of that.

I never claimed that there was a true monad above the verse. Just that writers had created characters in that style, but which no longer count due to other writers adding to it, or adding characters that encompass it.
 
If Divine Simplicity works on tier 0
I could see why not for SCP.

Though disregarding Divine Simplicity might have problems due to how it is related to and defended by the use of Apophatic theology
 
Agnaa said:
I think that's essentially what I said, yet Idiosyncratic still wanted examples of that.

I never claimed that there was a true monad above the verse. Just that writers had created characters in that style, but which no longer count due to other writers adding to it, or adding characters that encompass it.
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Ah, I see. I thought you were pointing them out as monad monads.

Though I'm not sure about the examples Ultima gave since they're pretty explicitly just the top of hierarchies.

Then again, I suppose that's the point he's making.
 
TheGreatJedi13 said:
Though disregarding Divine Simplicity might have problems due to how it is related to and defended by the use of Apophatic theology
Click to expand...
The two are not entirely inseparable. You can have one without the other. Apophaticism sort of helps alleviate the ways in which DS comes into conflict with reason. Linguistically we are not equipped to discuss something which is considered "identical" to its attributes rather than simply having them, so you get bizarre unmeaningful sentences like "God is his goodness" or "God is Being Itself." It runs contrary to the grammatical format we use to discuss things, so we must go on discussing the divine in a way that ignores this (by necessity, due to it being incoherent) but keep an "asterisk" behind otherwise normal descriptions. Even in the face of blatantly composite elements like the trinity, some sophistry is conducted to insist that the three "persons" of the divine are not a separation or composition. They are all perfectly identical. Even as the Son cried out for the Father and asked him for answers, we must maintain that there is no real distinction between the Son and the Father. There's some kind of distinction, but it's not "real" (good luck figuring that one out). This is because God must remain simple for the classical theists, as they largely co-opted Aristotelian notions of the prime mover to attempt to prove their religion, while also resolving the inherent dissonance between the conception of God that Aristotle actually provided, and the various ways in which an Abrahamic God contradicts those notions.

Apophaticism comes into play by noting that nothing we say about God captures his infinitude, and is thus just an "analogy" or "equivocation." This, again, comes into conflict with reason, so in practice it's takes the place of a similar "asterisk" to divine simplicity. We will go on discussing God as a normal thing, but maybe stop every 100 pages or so to remind the readers that when we say "God is good" we are making an analogy between the limited finite understanding of "goodness" that we see reflected in nature, and the infinite goodness that God is. We can only speak of God so far as our limited human intellect is capable of understanding him.

Of course, this too is largely meaningless. It does not provide any information about God nor is it capable of explaining what our words are failing to capture about him, but the assertion assists in portraying God as something supreme transcendent, and the self-rejection of our own language and reason allows us to swallow the pill of Divine Simplicity a bit more comfortably, since both language and reason would tell us it's nonsensical. Well, don't you see, it's just because we can't capture Gods infinite (but not exactly) essence (but not exactly). As DT points out, this violates the law of excluded middle.

So, we can reject one without the other, but my preference is to reject both. I don't think there's anything about them that places them above the more sensible and coherent conceptions of divinity.
 
Deagonx said:
So, we can reject one without the other, but my preference is to reject both. I don't think there's anything about them that places them above the more sensible and coherent conceptions of divinity.
Click to expand...
Just like I said how it relates or used to defend you can flesh out DS without Apopathic but of course to use it in actual literature of entertainment one would require to give it reason hence Apopathic may become necessary to make it coherent.
But yeah in it's very nature it is something not coherent and tierable in our standard. On its own that is true.
But often case it is not when portrayed alongside other things.

But then again tier 0 is already incoherent and we're just attempting to make them coherent with the use of Monad which then begs the question why this and not why this. Which may be answered at a later time when the standards is accepted. So I guess disallowing it would be making a stance and at the same time ensuring coherence which are fickle road

There is an Athanasian Creed for the whole Son Cried to the Father but this one is irrelevant for the main purpose of this thread.
 
Tdjwo said:
No need to beat around the bush. Divine Simplicity is a subset of Apophatic Theology.
Click to expand...
It is not. Refer to Section 4 of the SEP article on Divine Simplicity titled:

4. Preserving Divine Transcendence While Avoiding Negative Theology​

So far we have explored how God can be (i) identical to his nature,(ii) identical to his existence, and (iii) such that his omni-attributes are identical to one another. But a very serious problem remains, a problem that arises when we consider properties insome sense shared by God and creatures. It is obvious that the divine perfections cannot be shared with creatures: only God is perfectly powerful, wise, good, and so on. Socrates is at best imperfectly powerful, wise, good, and so on. But there must be some properties that God and creatures share if God is not to be a wholly other than creatures and out of all relation to them. These shared properties,however, pose a threat to DDS as we shall see in a moment. The problem in a nutshell is to reconcile the divine transcendence, of which DDS is an expression, with the need for some commensurability between God and creatures. The problem, in other words, is to find a way of preserving transcendence while avoiding a self-vitiating negative theology according to which nothing can be positively affirmed of God, not even that he exists.
Click to expand...
Now, regardless of whether or not one agrees with these arguments, the fact remains that theologians have taken great lengths to avoid involving negative theology in their conception of divine simplicity (due to it being viewed as largely self-destructive). There is a relationship between the two, but they are by no means mutually inclusive.

Tdjwo said:
So if Divine simplicity qualifies for tier 0, then Apophatic Theology automatically qualifies.
Click to expand...
[X] is a subset of [Y] therefore if [X] is Tier 0 then [Y] is too, is fallacious reasoning no matter what [X] and [Y] happen to be. And to quote Ultima:
Apophatic theology in its pure glory (And therefore as the "debunk" in this thread pertains to it), in my view, is incoherent and shouldn't really be tiered on that basis
Click to expand...

So, no, the current Tier 0 revisions in their current form do not grant a path to Tier 0 for negative theology. It is a path to Tier 0 for Monads, some but not all of which are conceptualized through the lens of Negative Theology.
 
Deagonx said:
It is not. Refer to Section 4 of the SEP article on Divine Simplicity titled:

4. Preserving Divine Transcendence While Avoiding Negative Theology​


Now, regardless of whether or not one agrees with these arguments, the fact remains that theologians have taken great lengths to avoid involving negative theology in their conception of divine simplicity (due to it being viewed as largely self-destructive). There is a relationship between the two, but they are by no means mutually inclusive.
Click to expand...
I don't care to discuss this with you tbh. I will just wait for the thread to concluded. Your arguments doesn't even follow Divine Simplicity. You are talking about Divine Transcendence.
Deagonx said:
[X] is a subset of [Y] therefore if [X] is Tier 0 then [Y] is too, is fallacious reasoning no matter what [X] and [Y] happen to be.
Click to expand...
Funny you day this cuz Ultima already mentioned multiple subsets that qualify under Divine simplicity.
Deagonx said:
So, no, the current Tier 0 revisions in their current form do not grant a path to Tier 0 for negative theology. It is a path to Tier 0 for Monads, some but not all of which are conceptualized through the lens of Negative Theology.
Click to expand...
I don't agree with your logic but I don't want to argue with you.
 
Tdjwo said:
You are talking about Divine Transcendence.
Click to expand...
Please actually read the article, instead of just scanning for key words with which to offer a paltry objection.

Tdjwo said:
Funny you day this cuz Ultima already mentioned multiple subsets that qualify under Divine simplicity.
Click to expand...
None of which are Negative Theology unto itself serving as a sufficient basis for Tier 0.
 
So, only slightly relevant discussion for a topic at hand, but still.

In fiction there are things commonly used in cosmologies. More specifically, Plato’s and Jung’s ideas being real, dreams being reality, collective unconscious, etc.

Would it be possible to make a sort of reference sheet? A pages for such things in their generic form for a better understanding of their standing in our system?

Not religion ones though, naturally.
 
I have a question:

"Due to the nature of how it works, High 1-A+ has similar properties to Tier 0, in a way. For instance, all characters in that tier are exactly equal. You can't really be above the collection of all possibilities and yet be, yourself, one of those possibilities, as that'd be an obvious contradiction. So ultimately, transcending a High 1-A+ means you're Tier 0, and if you supposedly do that while also displaying traits very unlike those of a Tier 0, then the thing you transcended was just never High 1-A+ to begin with.

Furthermore, a character "blowing up all possibilities," or something to that effect, is likewise incoherent. That is because a High 1-A+ space would be, in effect, the collection of all possible contingencies: All the things that aren't necessarily true, but aren't necessarily false, either. For example, your existence is a contingency, because it could have been that you never came into existence."

Two things:

1. With abilities like Acausality and just "fiction can do whatever it wants" in general, why would destroying all possibilities be incoherent? It seems like demanding a specific flow of logic, for something that is inherently nonsensical (aka the existence of metaphysical things)

2. What about the destruction of the source of all possibilities?
 
  1. Because if we allow things like that, then High 1-A+/0 could be transcended, which Ultima doesn't want.
  2. The "source of all possibilities" is Tier 0, so that would be considered a contradiction as well.
 
Agnaa said:
  1. Because if we allow things like that, then High 1-A+/0 could be transcended, which Ultima doesn't want.
  2. The "source of all possibilities" is Tier 0, so that would be considered a contradiction as well.
Click to expand...
So it’s just an arbitrary stop gap?

But things in fiction can very well be the source all possibilities and not be a monad. Where do they fall without the wiki invalidating source material?
 
Iamunanimousinthat said:
So it’s just an arbitrary stop gap?

But things in fiction can very well be the source all possibilities and not be a monad. Where do they fall without the wiki invalidating source material?
Click to expand...
Ultima and co. would argue that it isn't arbitrary.

Wherever their cosmology otherwise establishes them at.
 
I have a question, now that this topic has been accepted, will the profiles of existing r>f characters be updated automatically or is there a special thread for each of them?

Also, are any of you interested in magi? I mean, there are countless r>f transcendences in the Magi universe. Countles layer from 1-A?
 
Agnaa said:
Ultima and co. would argue that it isn't arbitrary.

Wherever their cosmology otherwise establishes them at.
Click to expand...
Well it is arbitrary. a monad cannot be trancended or destroyed is a site rule, not a fiction rule.

And if being the source of all possibilities but not a monad isn’t tierable, then why is being the source of possibilities part of the definition of a monad?
 
Iamunanimousinthat said:
Well it is arbitrary. a monad cannot be trancended or destroyed is a site rule, not a fiction rule.
Click to expand...
The detractors of the thread have made that point. Yet the thread has more admins supporting it than not.

Go talk to those people.
Iamunanimousinthat said:
And if being the source of all possibilities but not a monad isn’t tierable, then why is being the source of possibilities part of the definition of a monad?
Click to expand...
idk, ask Ultima
 
Iamunanimousinthat said:
Well it is arbitrary. a monad cannot be trancended or destroyed is a site rule, not a fiction rule.

And if being the source of all possibilities but not a monad isn’t tierable, then why is being the source of possibilities part of the definition of a monad?
Click to expand...
The Monad as described in the revisions is the combination of many different attributes, none of which -- together or independently -- we would currently recognize as having any reason to supercede the concept of R>F.

I've made this point that indeed all this revision would accomplish is instituting a special exception for this specific version of divinity for reasoning that would fail when applied to anything else on the site, even those that share commonalities with the version of Monism currently presented (we do not, for instance, find it destructive to the idea of platonic concepts to place them below an R>F layer despite being unchanging and absolute in most Platonist views).

I strongly disagree with this, hence my objections, but I don't have a vote and as it stands all admins who've participated in the revision aside from Agnaa and DT have voted in favor of doing this. There's really not much else to be said or done in that regard.
 
Well if you guys can't stop it or change course, what can I do, I am just a commoner.

Spectra_Schiffer said:
I have a question, now that this topic has been accepted, will the profiles of existing r>f characters be updated automatically or is there a special thread for each of them?

Also, are any of you interested in magi? I mean, there are countless r>f transcendences in the Magi universe. Countles layer from 1-A?
Click to expand...
I actually am interested in Magi, since there is clearly a scene where one of the higher gods creates a lower world that is clearly a quantizable size in comparison to itself. Would it still qualify for R>F?
 
Iamunanimousinthat said:
I actually am interested in Magi, since there is clearly a scene where one of the higher gods creates a lower world that is clearly a quantizable size in comparison to itself. Would it still qualify for R>F?
Click to expand...
No. I think Ultima's specifically argued against the applicability of a fair few things from Magi.

EDIT: I just checked, and can't find this claim from Ultima, so I could be hallucinating. Still, I think lower R>F layers having a quantizable size would fail these standards.
 
Last edited:
Oh wow. I know Narnia is a poster child of R>F, but in the story, the cast hiked through the "more real" layers of Narnia. So the layers aren't not separate or discontinued.
 
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