Tiering System Revisions: Tier 0

[Antvasima]

Effectively, yes. That's why I've exemplified God from DeMatteis' Seekers into the Mystery as a premier case of something that would be Tier 0 under these proposals. "Nondual existence without any differentiation in its substance" is pretty much what Tier 0 is, here.

Thank you. This seems good to me then. And what about using the term "Unbound" instead of "Irrelevant"?

 

[Ultima_Reality]

Thank you. This seems good to me then. And what about using the term "Unbound" instead of "Irrelevant"?

Honestly? I'd rather use "Inapplicable." Since asking "How hard can a Tier 0 punch?", for example, is not something that makes very much sense. The concept itself doesn't apply to it, is the point.

 

[Antvasima]

Bruv. This is fiction. We're a battleboarding wiki, not a war crimes tribunal, so I'd appreciate it if you didn't resort to saying such absurd things.

It is not remotely absurd. It is the actual type of mentality that we currently encourage as a combination of the sum total media that we channel/feature in our wiki and our system itself.

All forms of media have effects on the people exposed to it, usually highly negative ones, and we are not an exception. As such, I would personally prefer if we minimise the harm that we cause to human consciousness as a whole.

Also, please stop continuously trying to be subversive and create hostile dissent within this community. This is far from the first time that you have done this sort of thing.

 

[Antvasima]

Honestly? I'd rather use "Inapplicable." Since asking "How hard can a Tier 0 punch?", for example, is not something that makes very much sense. The concept itself doesn't apply to it, is the point.

"Inapplicable" seems like a better term than "Irrelevant", but I think that "Unbound" works both in terms of freedom from restrictions and definitions.

Also, both the terms "Irrelevant" and "Inapplicable" are easily confused with much lesser concepts.

 

[Ultima_Reality]

"Inapplicable" seems like a better term, but I think that "Unbound" works both in terms of freedom from restrictions and definitions.

Also, both the terms "Irrelevant" and "Inapplicable" are easily confused with much lesser concepts.

I suppose that makes sense, yes. Tier 0s aren't exactly simply exempt from these things but altogether above them, so, might be a bit better to emphasize this. Topic of interest for the end of the discussion.

Regardless: I am going away to do stuff right now, so my reply to the above will come a bit later. But all-in-all: I sincerely hope that, when I come back, we can discuss this civilly and rationally. I don't want this thread to escalate into hostility (Direct or indirect) when such a thing is really unneeded.

 

[Antvasima]

Yes, agreed. Let's all (including myself) try to stick to the main topic here please.

 

[DontTalkDT]

I want to chime in here on this point. I would ask you to walk this back. I agree with you on many of your points, but any stance we take on this -- for or against -- is ultimately a theological position that we will be enshrining in our wiki. I don't think it's fair to moralize this. It makes the atmosphere hostile and pointed when it doesn't need to be. I do believe Ultima is proposing this in good faith based on his opinions on metaphysics, and if we are to oppose that we should do it on wholly rational grounds.

Drawing from the above.

DontTalk, realize the following: Whether you agree with this proposal, or don't agree with this proposal, you will be making a stance on a theological concept, which we will then institute. We, unfortunately, cannot have nondual opinions, and being neutral on something like this is plainly impossible. So it's completely pointless to moralize this decision, because whatever result follows from here will ultimately apply to us both, following your logic.

So, going forwards, I ask you to completely drop that point. I will not be entertaining anything related to it.

I would disagree on that.
If we say that we keep our system to things operating within logic and direct feats, and by that reject the proposition, we are not taking a stance on the theological concept. The concept can be true, it's just non-applicable to our analysis as we are using more limited reasoning. If you call that a stance, it is of a very different quality than to say that all other forms of omnipotence are weaker than being beyond all qualities.
To be clear, I am not saying you are suggesting this in bad faith or are against anyone's beliefs, but it's a consequence of the proposal and should be considered as a factor in the decision.
I will also repeat that the proposal would be fine in this regard if it operated within logic, as logical reasoning is not so subjective.

 

[DontTalkDT]

To add to that (sorry for the double post, but for quoting reasons I figured it's better): I think, at minimum, we should add characters that are truly omnipotent (in the "can do truly anything" sense), while still having well-defined properties, as an alternative option to Tier 0. There is really no reason to consider those weaker to begin with.
Given, that doesn't fix the other issues and I'm in total against the proposal with or without doing that, but it would help with this specific issue IMO.

 

[Deagonx]

I generally share the opinion that if we do insist on a fixed end point beyond R>F layers it should be bona fide omnipotence. Whether or not such a character is a monad or divinely simple or apophatic is, in my opinion, entirely secondary.

 

[Ultima_Reality]

This is more or less dependent on how you word something, rather than a concrete difference in the inherent nature of the ability. The Monist holds that there is one "basic" concrete object, and all other concrete objects are derivative. Similarly, I would hold that the only things that are derivative of a fictional verse's monad is that which is within the verse itself. Whenever we place a character underneath an R>F layer relative to another, when we make a comparison, we are automatically adding a "fictional" prefix to its abilities and attributes.

If a character can "destroy the universe -- that which is all that exists" we diminutize that to a fictional universe. Thus, if something "transcends differentiation" then it transcends a diminutive fictional form of differentiation. If we attempt to reject the possibility of a "fictional differentiation" we would have to take the approach that anything that transcends a concept must do so even across infinite R>F layers, because concepts can't be relegated to fiction, which is obviously not logical.

Moreover, I don't think the concept of "transcending differentiation" is coherent. If there are multiple characters within a verse, then the monad is different than them. Those characters may be derivative of the Monad, which serves as the fundamental ground for reality within the verse, but it is in fact different from them. Even the philosophers who pioneered Monism and Divine Simplicity did not seem to reject the notion of differentiating between God and other things, just that he was the cause of them. So in any case I don't see how this notion of "transcending differentiation" helps us here, because it would not be an inherent attribute of a divinely simple monad even if we did assume that differentiation can't be relegated to fiction.

1. We would not have to, no. For example, the phenomenon of "dimensions" existing in a lower R>F layer is different from the phenomenon of "dimensions" existing in a higher R>F layer. This follows from the very fact that the two sets of dimensions aren't the same, and one is greater than the other. The two are discontinuous, and the layers aren't related through them.

In that sense, you can say that, yeah, 1-As are already beyond composition in a sense, but only material composition (Not talking about matter as in atoms and stuff, btw, just the general principle of "Stuff is made up of smaller stuff," pretty much). Meanwhile, the very phenomenon of differentiation of qualities is not discontinuous between layers. They're all part of the same framework of differences and inequalities and etc, in that regard.

2. The manner in which the Monad is different from everything else is, obviously, not the same as the manner in which lesser things differ from each other (Since it doesn't transcend them merely in degree). In which case, I don't see a problem with the concept. It's like how we can say "The Monad transcends everything!" while not claiming that it transcends itself, or something.

 

[Ultima_Reality]

I would disagree on that.
If we say that we keep our system to things operating within logic and direct feats, and by that reject the proposition, we are not taking a stance on the theological concept. The concept can be true, it's just non-applicable to our analysis as we are using more limited reasoning. If you call that a stance, it is of a very different quality than to say that all other forms of omnipotence are weaker than being beyond all qualities.
To be clear, I am not saying you are suggesting this in bad faith or are against anyone's beliefs, but it's a consequence of the proposal and should be considered as a factor in the decision.
I will also repeat that the proposal would be fine in this regard if it operated within logic, as logical reasoning is not so subjective.

As said: I won't entertain any further developments of this, because quite frankly saying these revisions are immoral is literally an insult, if an indirect one.

As long as you don't use these flimsy moral grounds as reason veto this thread, or something, and keep the roots of your arguments wholly based on reason, we're golden.

1. Using it for Tiering is against the conception of it: It is, as Ultima might say, a category error to use this concept for tiering. If you assume the character truly has this attribute then you can not declare it "more powerful" than anything, as that is a quality. Likewise, being Tier 0 (or fulfilling its definition) is a quality. If you believe these characters truly have this attribute then you can not tier them this way. You can only tier characters if you do not consider them to actually have this attribute. Same goes with this character defeating anything or doing any action at all. It would all be contradictory to its nature, so there really is no valid reason to call its stronger than anything. Absolute incomparability negates any superiority there may ever have been.
Heck, there being any evidence of the character's existence is a contradiction to the principle of its nature.

In the OP, I said this:

Given that any predicate that we may try to apply to it, to denote an attribute, is in fact identical to the subject here, the Monad could technically be said to have one single quality [itself], but since that one quality is completely devoid of any differentiation (And our minds inherently operate using the notion of parts/composition), it can hardly be classified as a "quality" in the way we'd understand the term.

And earlier on, I said this:

The point is really just that a Tier 0 would be the singular source and endpoint of all the disparate attributes that are in reality, and thus analogously referred to as "having" them. It's like how a 0-dimensional point, technically, is the endpoint of both a series of ever-shorter lines and a series of circles with increasingly smaller radius, and thus sometimes called a "degenerate circle" or a "degenerate line," for example.

Obviously, in neither case are we saying that a line is a circle, or that a circle is a line. Just that they both converge into one thing past a certain point. That's not really incoherent, and nor does it result in the same language games pure negative theology leads to.

So, yeah, no. It's not saying "The Monad has no qualities, even the quality of having no qualities...", since that'd be obviously incoherent, and neither does this follow from the premises of the concept. This kind of argumentation is like if you heard someone say "I don't know anything about him..." and then replied with "That's wrong. You do know something about him. You know that you know nothing about him!", or if someone said "I'm blind. I can't see anything" and you replied with "That's wrong. You do see something: Nothing."

Which are correct under an extreme technicality (At least the latter), but... Really? Are you actually this pedantic?

Other arguments here seem to all spring forth from this point, so, yeah.

2. It's paradoxical: And I mean this in the most formal conception of it. On the wiki we reason using classical logic and no other logic system. As such it immediately runs into the law of excluded middle, which stays that for any proposition it or its opposite is true. I.e. anything either has the quality of being red or it does not have the quality of being red. Hence, we are dealing with a formal logical paradox, which disallows us any reasoning based on this property. Additionally (and consequentally), thanks to the principle of explosion anything can be proven if one takes the existence of such a character as an assumption.
Like, I can actually make a formal logical proof that we should not use it for tiering: Let P(X) be an arbitrary proposition about the character. Let Q be the proposition "Ultima's Tier 0 proposal should not be used."
¬(P(X) v ¬P(X)) => (¬P(X) ∧ ¬¬P(X)) => (¬P(X) ∧ P(X)) => (P(X) v Q) => Q
This formal logical proof is valid (under the assumption that such a Tier 0 exists) and can not be disproven within classical logic.
You would have to straight-up reinvent logic itself for this concept to be usable, which is not an acceptable approach for a general standpoint.

It doesn't go against the Law of Excluded Middle, no. Because propositions about the Monad aren't false or "neither true and false," or anything. They're, at best, analogical, which isn't the same as falsehood. You're not going to say that "Outside spacetime" is a necessarily false statement just because something is never "outside" of space itself in the same way that, say, a trashcan is outside a house.

4. It's artificially limiting: Ultima's disqualifiers are essentially limiting human creativity for the sake of creating an artificial true endpoint. As he already admits himself, there are verses experimenting with the defeat of creatures that are supposed to have the properties he describes.
Problem here is that anything that would defeat such a creature is an illogical force in itself. It would be something beyond logic defeating something else beyond logic. As such the objection that the character defeating it is a contradiction holds no weight.
Or, to be clear, it technically does hold weight, but only if you agree with my 2nd point. If we restrain us to arguments valid in classical logic (as we should) then this qualifies the character, but then the same restrain to logic applies to all proposed Tier 0 making their tier invalid by 2nd point.
Heck, by which argument is one to hold that a logic manipulator can not be more powerful? Regardless of which argument one may bring up against this point, a logic manipulator can just manipulate logic to make the argument invalid.

As you said so yourself: We, as a wiki, abide by classical logic. We can allow "mild" contradictions like "This character is simultaneously alive and dead" (And even then, since those are inherently meaningless, we only index them as what they're shown to result in), sure, but not extreme contradictions. A Monad being defeated is one such extreme contradiction. So the points about logic manipulators and "artificially limiting creativity" are ultimately moot.

5. R>F has no limit: Weird argument, but any character you read about in a book can for obvious reasons be part of a book. As such a Tier 0 character as proposed could exist within a R>F hierarchy. The exact same description as that of what we would classify as Tier 0 could be found in a book in some verse, with the contents of the book existing as a lower layer of fiction. You could argue that is a contradiction to their nature, but then the same would apply in real life. I.e. the same contradiction would apply because in reality they're fiction and this is not a nature can truly have even from a fictional perspective.
Additionally, based on what would you justify that a character with that nature that is not in a lower part of a R>F hierarchy, would be more powerful than one that is? It is not that you actually know for certain that the former is not part of such a thing, you just assume that's not the case from a lack of information.

That approach only works if you place Reality-Fiction Transcendence as the end-all-be-all. Which is to say: Treat Reality-Fiction Transcendence "as it is in real life." That's not even what the Tiering System is doing, and not what its new treatment of R>F is based on. You concluding that "this is not a nature you can truly have even from a fictional perspective" because of that is non-sequitur.

The character lacking any qualitative distinctions whatsoever is, itself, the proof of that, also. 1-As and High 1-As still have that. Tier 0s don't.

6. It goes against our feat based approach: Our wiki has a feat-based approach. We tier characters by what we see them able of doing. This is the exact opposite. It tiers characters that we do not see do anything at all entirely on assumptions. It would be assuming, without evidence, that literally everything any person ever could possibly think up was considered in the statement of the character's nature. It is truly no better than arguing that we should give a character with Complete Arsenal every ability on the wiki. I have seen verses dabble in concepts like omnipotence beyond omnipotence. There is no basis to assume stuff like that was considered.

That contradicts Point 5. You can't argue based on the concept of R>F as the end-all-be-all and yet go "Feats-only" in that manner (Especially given the logical endpoint of this philosophy is to cap the Tiering System at 3-A and disallow infinity tiers). And if you were trying to do a reductio ad absurdum using my own position on R>F, you very much failed, since that was never my position.

Anyway: All the tiers below Tier 0, under these proposals, operate on qualitative distinctions (Inequalities), so transcending that wholesale does indeed include transcending all of them, yeah. Really no different from how existing above dimensionality lets you transcend even dimensions that don't actually exist in your verse.

 

[Qawsedf234]

Do you have an example for Low 1-A to High 1-A of qualifying characters?

Also I'm not sure how well I feel about High 1-A+. Idk just feel weird.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

Do you have an example for Low 1-A to High 1-A of qualifying characters?

Also I'm not sure how well I feel about High 1-A+. Idk just feel weird.

I heard something about High 1-B+ is the new tier for what was originally Low 1-A, with Low 1-A replacing our old 1-A statements. High 1-A+ if I understand correctly is similar to the difference between Countable Infinity and Uncountable Infinity.

 

[Qawsedf234]

I heard something about High 1-B+ is the new tier for what was originally Low 1-A, with Low 1-A replacing our old 1-A statements. High 1-A+ if I understand correctly is similar to the difference between Countable Infinity and Uncountable Infinity.

I understand that part (though Low 1-A sounds closer to that than High 1-B+) but I also wanted an actual example to work off of since I'm often asked to comment on Tier 1 threads a lot.

 

[Everything12]

High 1-A+ reads to me like the culmination of all possibilities, as a Tier 0 would be able to realise, and as a Tier 0 under this new system would be able to realise any and every possibility with no limitations such a thing would truly be all possible possibilities with no restrictions. it would be like an IV multiverse, but not bound to simply mathematics but all forms of possibilities, ontological included. Though as Ultima has mentioned the Self-Reference ENGINE is respect to High 1-A+ I believe this means you don't necessarily need a Tier 0 to prove this.

Low 1-A meanwhile, would be the equivalent to this, but without touching upon greater ontology, the likes of every mathematical possibility or all possible dimensions.

High 1-A just sounds like what we have now, but because 1-A is changing it changes somewhat in turn.

At least this is my understanding.

 

[Ultima_Reality]

Do you have an example for Low 1-A to High 1-A of qualifying characters?

Also I'm not sure how well I feel about High 1-A+. Idk just feel weird.

The Giant Corpora of Knowledge are examples of Low 1-As.

Good examples of 1-As are SMT characters, I'd say. Seeing the world as an illusion to which you are "reality" is a staple of a lot of things in that tier. Aslan is a good example of a 1-A, too. As is The Leviathan from The Unwritten (This scan in specific is something I used as a prime example of a legitimate R>F scan, in the previous thread)

Type 2 BDE statements can honestly qualify for either, depending on the context, so that can be hashed out as things progress. For example, The Elder Scrolls treats the "untime" and "unplace" of the higher realms as transcending physical composition/distinction entirely, so in that case it'd be flat 1-A. But there can be statements of "Above dimensionality" that aren't so clear about that particular aspect, but also aren't so vague that they get booted out, either, which would be Low 1-A.

As for High 1-As: Something like the Void from Marvel would be it. Since the omniverse functions on a hierarchy of dreams-within-dreams, while the Void transcends reality and dream themselves and functions on its own, separate, higher hierarchy. Overall, High 1-A in the new system and the previous High 1-A are basically identical in concept, save for the fact one was conflated with a math thing and the other isn't. I imagine most of what previously qualified as High 1-A without math reasons still qualifies now.

 

[Deagonx]

1. We would not have to, no. For example, the phenomenon of "dimensions" existing in a lower R>F layer is different from the phenomenon of "dimensions" existing in a higher R>F layer. This follows from the very fact that the two sets of dimensions aren't the same, and one is greater than the other. The two are discontinuous, and the layers aren't related through them.

In that sense, you can say that, yeah, 1-As are already beyond composition in a sense, but only material composition (Not talking about matter as in atoms and stuff, btw, just the general principle of "Stuff is made up of smaller stuff," pretty much). Meanwhile, the very phenomenon of differentiation of qualities is not discontinuous between layers. They're all part of the same framework of differences and inequalities and etc, in that regard.

If a character transcends dimensionality, we'd still limit them in a R>F hierarchy, even though "by definition" they should also transcend the spatial dimensions an R>F layer above them. Similarly, we should treat a Monad the same way. Even if "by definition" they should "constitute the framework of differences and inequalities," it would only be at their fictional level. The "existence" that the Monad composes/grounds would lack continuity with the "existence" of a layer above it. Trying to say that all existence must be grounded in this Monad would be no different than saying all forms of dimensions must be transcended by the Dimension Transcender.

2. The manner in which the Monad is different from everything else is, obviously, not the same as the manner in which lesser things differ from each other (Since it doesn't transcend them merely in degree). In which case, I don't see a problem with the concept. It's like how we can say "The Monad transcends everything!" while not claiming that it transcends itself, or something.

My point was more that it does not "transcend differentiation" in the standard conception of the idea of a Monad.

------------------------------------------

I'd be remiss to gunk up the discussion you're going to have with DontTalk. I think our opposing positions are clear enough for onlookers. I do not agree with making Monism an exception to the fictionalization of abilities and characteristics that we assign to beings based on an R>F hierarchy. Moreover, while I don't share the moralizing perspective on it that DontTalk has, I do see an issue with prioritizing one specific conception of God over others.

This pill would be easier to swallow if these concepts were relatively uncontroversial or widely accepted. No theological perspective has complete acceptance, but even despite the "Problem of Evil" or "Omnipotence Paradox," the conception of a tri-omni deity is relatively easy to accept for understanding a fictional character.

That isn't the case with things like Divine Simplicity. I'd like to refer to the first line of the Divine Simplicity article in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy that comes after the introduction paragraph:

What could motivate such a strange and seemingly incoherent doctrine?

The second section of the article after the "motivation" that explains why such a doctrine would even be created is titled "The Question of Coherence."

The point that I am making is not that DS is definitively incoherent (though, that is my personal opinion) or that its coherence should be the deciding factor here. The point that I am making is that we are discussing a doctrine which is -- on its face -- strange and incoherent. It takes significant argumentation just to attempt to establish that it isn't completely nonsensical. Many do not accept it, far fewer actually understand it. I don't believe it should be enshrined as the pinnacle of our tiering system, and I do not believe the arguments for it being an exception to R>F are convincing.

 

[Ultima_Reality]

If a character transcends dimensionality, we'd still limit them in a R>F hierarchy, even though "by definition" they should also transcend the spatial dimensions an R>F layer above them. Similarly, we should treat a Monad the same way. Even if "by definition" they should "constitute the framework of differences and inequalities," it would only be at their fictional level. The "existence" that the Monad composes/grounds would lack continuity with the "existence" of a layer above it. Trying to say that all existence must be grounded in this Monad would be no different than saying all forms of dimensions must be transcended by the Dimension Transcender.

I already pointed out that this argument is flawed (Because "dimension" is a phenomenon internal to single R>F layers, while qualitative distinction isn't, and permeates all them externally). If the sizes of the two R>F layers were somehow related to each other through some notion of dimensionality, you would have a point, though. (But then this would be just an anti-feat to them being R>F layers at all, in like 99,999999% of cases, really)

My point was more that it does not "transcend differentiation" in the standard conception of the idea of a Monad.

It does transcend differentiation with regards to "intrinsic" properties (As in, properties you have yourself), even if not necessarily with regards to extrinsic properties (Properties you have from others. Like "Being an uncle," or, in God's case, "being worshipped" or something). And the Tiering System from 1-A and upwards already accepts intrinsic properties as existing (Hence *quali*tative superiority), so, yeah.

I'd be remiss to gunk up the discussion you're going to have with DontTalk. I think our opposing positions are clear enough for onlookers. I do not agree with making Monism an exception to the fictionalization of abilities and characteristics that we assign to beings based on an R>F hierarchy. Moreover, while I don't share the moralizing perspective on it that DontTalk has, I do see an issue with prioritizing one specific conception of God over others.

This pill would be easier to swallow if these concepts were relatively uncontroversial or widely accepted. No theological perspective has complete acceptance, but even despite the "Problem of Evil" or "Omnipotence Paradox," the conception of a tri-omni deity is relatively easy to accept for understanding a fictional character.

That isn't the case with things like Divine Simplicity. I'd like to refer to the first line of the Divine Simplicity article in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy that comes after the introduction paragraph:
The second section of the article after the "motivation" that explains why such a doctrine would even be created is titled "The Question of Coherence."

The point that I am making is not that DS is definitively incoherent (though, that is my personal opinion) or that its coherence should be the deciding factor here. The point that I am making is that we are discussing a doctrine which is -- on its face -- strange and incoherent. It takes significant argumentation just to attempt to establish that it isn't completely nonsensical. Many do not accept it, far fewer actually understand it. I don't believe it should be enshrined as the pinnacle of our tiering system, and I do not believe the arguments for it being an exception to R>F are convincing.

I know you don't intend to bloat the forthcoming discussion, but I'll just say this to clear waters on my end: Something seeming incoherent is a moot point if you can define it correctly, and in a way that makes it cogent, and I am in the process of doing exactly that. So, yeah, I think the "It takes significant argumentation to establish it isn't nonsensical" is a weird thing to bring up here.

I might note, also, that the idea of the Monad is controversial among philosophers and et al, but in large part for reasons that, quite frankly, are just completely alien to our sensibilities as battleboarders. For example, one of the most often cited arguments against it is "If God is identical to his properties, then God is a property, so He is abstract, and so He can't actually do anything!". That's an actual concern for philosophers, because the idea that abstract objects are causally inert and can't do anything at all is very widely-accepted, but not for us. Under such thinking we'd only look at a monadic character and say "It has Type 1 Abstract Existence ez" and call it a day.

And then, of course, there is stuff like "Does the Monad have free will?" or "Do we have free will if the Monad exists?", which are also among the strongest objections to the concept. Which, likewise, are irrelevant to us.

The other reasons are, of course, things I'm already discussing right now.

So, yeah. Keep the concerns of philosophers to philosophers, and the concerns of battleboarders to battleboarders. Never shall the two worlds mingle for more than a moment.

 

[Deagonx]

I already pointed out that this argument is flawed (Because "dimension" is a phenomenon internal to single R>F layers, while qualitative distinction isn't, and permeates all them externally). If the sizes of the two R>F layers were somehow related to each other through some notion of dimensionality, you would have a point, though. (But then this would be just an anti-feat to them being R>F layers at all, in line 99,999999% of cases, really)

This is not inherent to the concepts we are working with, it is contingent upon what assumptions we are making. There's no rule that says "dimensionality" must be considered distinct between R>F layers but that "qualitative distinction" cannot or should not. This is very blatant special pleading. Any argument along the lines of "qualitative distinction exists through all R>F layers" will just be met with "dimensionality exists through all R>F layers" (not necessarily the case in certain stories but that isn't important for the analogy). The response that "dimensionality is not continuous through these layers" will just be met with "qualitative distinction is not continuous through these layers."

We can choose to make an exception for qualitative distinction, but that isn't automatic, it is our arbitrary whim. I am opposing such a decision. You may say "the R>F layer is a form of qualitative distinction and therefore falls under the Monad" but similarly, the dimensions in higher layers are a part of dimensionality and thus should fall under the Dimension Transcender.

Either we assume a break in continuity for concepts when passing through R>F layers, or we don't. "Qualitative distinction" doesn't get a pass and arguably shouldn't as Monads are still distinct from other beings or in some cases their creations itself. They just lack internal distinction. If a God can be distinct from his creation, he can be distinct from an R>F layer above him.

Something seeming incoherent is a moot point if you can define it correctly, and in a way that makes it cogent, and I am in the process of doing exactly that. So, yeah, I think the "It takes significant argumentation to establish it isn't nonsensical" is a weird thing to bring up here.

I do not think it's strange to bring it up. I think the fact that the proposed cornerstone of our system is prima facie nonsense is an important consideration. Even if you define it in a way that you consider cogent, it will not be so to everyone or even most people.

I might note, also, that the idea of the Monad is controversial among philosophers and et al, but in large part for reasons that, quite frankly, are just completely alien to our sensibilities as battleboarders. For example, one of the most often cited arguments against it is "If God is identical to his properties, then God is a property, so He is abstract, and so He can't actually do anything!". That's an actual concern for philosophers, because the idea that abstract objects are causally inert and can't do anything at all is very widely-accepted, but not for us. Under such thinking we'd only look at a monadic character and say "It has Type 1 Abstract Existence ez" and call it a day.

And then, of course, there is stuff like "Does the Monad have free will?" or "Do we have free will if the Monad exists?", which are also among the strongest objections to the concept. Which, likewise, are irrelevant to us.

The other reasons are, of course, things I'm already discussing right now.

So, yeah. Keep the concerns of philosophers to philosophers, and the concerns of battleboarders to battleboarders. Never shall the two worlds mingle for more than a moment.

Those aren't the objections I am referring to, or in certain cases the emphasis is misplaced. Abstracta may be considered causally inert (by some) but "God is a property" is a sufficient objection by itself without referring to causal inertia. Insofar as "God is a property" is incoherent nonsense to me. I'm fine with handwaving certain philosophical issues, not fine with handwaving what I consider to be overt nonsense.

 

[Ultima_Reality]

This is not inherent to the concepts we are working with, it is contingent upon what assumptions we are making. There's no rule that says "dimensionality" must be considered distinct between R>F layers but that "qualitative distinction" cannot or should not. This is very blatant special pleading. Any argument along the lines of "qualitative distinction exists through all R>F layers" will just be met with "dimensionality exists through all R>F layers" (not necessarily the case in certain stories but that isn't important for the analogy). The response that "dimensionality is not continuous through these layers" will just be met with "qualitative distinction is not continuous through these layers."

We can choose to make an exception for qualitative distinction, but that isn't automatic, it is our arbitrary whim. I am opposing such a decision. You may say "the R>F layer is a form of qualitative distinction and therefore falls under the Monad" but similarly, the dimensions in higher layers are a part of dimensionality and thus should fall under the Dimension Transcender.

Either we assume a break in continuity for concepts when passing through R>F layers, or we don't. "Qualitative distinction" doesn't get a pass and arguably shouldn't as Monads are still distinct from other beings or in some cases their creations itself. They just lack internal distinction. If a God can be distinct from his creation, he can be distinct from an R>F layer above him.

It is intrinsic, though. Quite literally, one of the qualifiers for a genuine Reality-Fiction Transcendence at the moment is that whatever dimensions exist in higher layers completely transcend all the dimensions existing in lower layers, and that already marks discontinuity. Qualitative inequalities are continuous through any such layers because the layers themselves, not just things inside them, are differentiated through them in the first place.

The other stuff is already answered up there (Monad even if only internally indistinct, has no degrees. R>F would be imparting a degree on it, ergo, etc), so, yeah, best cut off this branch, as it's evidently already started to get circular.

I do not think it's strange to bring it up. I think it is very significant that the proposed cornerstone of our system is prima facie nonsense is an important consideration. Even if you define it in a way that you consider cogent, it will not be so to everyone or even most people.

It's not an important consideration at all, no. "It doesn't make much sense on a strictly surface reading" is a pretty bad reason to hold against it.

Those aren't the objections I am referring to, or in certain cases the emphasis is misplaced. Abstracta may be considered causally inert (by some) but "God is a property" is a sufficient objection by itself without referring to causal inertia. Insofar as "God is a property" is incoherent nonsense to me. I'm fine with handwaving certain philosophical issues, not fine with handwaving what I consider to be overt nonsense.

If "This character is a disembodied property" is incoherent nonsense to you, then the idea of Type 1 Abstract Existence is also incoherent nonsense by that same token, and, yeah, I don't think this is really a very fruitful line of argumentation whatsoever. The bar for "X is nonsense" is "X is a true contradiction" (i.e. It goes against one of the laws of thought), and a character being a property isn't one such thing.

 

[Deagonx]

Qualitative inequalities are continuous through any such layers because the layers themselves, not just things inside them, are differentiated through them in the first place.

The other stuff is already answered up there (Monad even if only internally indistinct, has no degrees. R>F would be imparting a degree on it, ergo, etc)

There is a "degree" between the Monad and the things below it. There may not be a "higher" degree (because this is a way of understanding God and philosophy largely doesn't concern itself with the idea of nested levels of fiction above God) but that distinction does exist.

The other issue I have with this is imposing your idea of a Monad onto all forms of Monism represented in fiction. A lot of what you are saying is not necessarily true of all forms of Monism or isn't iterated in the way it would need to be for your proposals to be true. For instance, what readings are you referring to when you talk about "degrees" in this way? Or "transcending qualitative distinction?"

It's not an important consideration at all, no

It is, indeed. We should proceed with great caution when considering something that is seemingly incoherent nonsense, even if some are of the opinion that it can be made coherent through complex philosophical arguments. I would consider the Ontological Argument similarly perilous in this regard, even if some people attempt to argue it into validity.

If "This character is a disembodied property" is incoherent nonsense to you, then the idea of Type 1 Abstract Existence is also incoherent nonsense by that same token

Not at all. Embodying a concept of representing a concept, or even being a concept, isn't the same as being a "property." Dream of the Endless may be a concept, but he also has many properties.

The bar for "X is nonsense" is "X is a true contradiction" (i.e. It goes against one of the laws of thought), and a character being a property isn't one such thing.

I disagree. Characters have properties, they aren't properties themselves. Concepts =/= Properties. The Concept of "Chaos" is not the property of "Chaotic" it is an abstract object that governs the property, as well as any other manifestations.

 

[Ultima_Reality]

There is a "degree" between the Monad and the things below it. There may not be a "higher" degree (because this is a way of understanding God and philosophy largely doesn't concern itself with the idea of nested levels of fiction above God) but that distinction does exist.

The other issue I have with this is imposing your idea of a Monad onto all forms of Monism represented in fiction. A lot of what you are saying is not necessarily true of all forms of Monism or isn't iterated in the way it would need to be for your proposals to be true. For instance, what readings are you referring to when you talk about "degrees" in this way?

"X is different from Y in degree" just means "These things share of the same generic attribute, but in different magnitudes." That alone is a sufficient definition to serve as the foundation of this argument. A distinction existing between the Monad and things below it is irrelevant when the single quality that it is, is distinct from the attributes held by lower things (Even if the two are related)

Second issue is really irrelevant, since I'm speaking strictly about forms of Monism that would include the concept of the Monad, anyway, and those, indeed, largely follow the principles I speak of. "Monism" is broad label encompassing a ton of unrelated things, so appealing to that label is pretty odd here.

It is, indeed. We should proceed with great caution when considering something that is seemingly incoherent nonsense, even if some are of the opinion that it can be made coherent through complex philosophical arguments. I would consider the Ontological Argument similarly perilous in this regard, even if some people attempt to argue it into validity.

In that, we don't disagree, so I don't know why you take such pains to emphasize it. I am confident in my points, but that doesn't mean I am moving wholly without caution.

Not at all. Embodying a concept of representing a concept, or even being a concept, isn't the same as being a "property." Dream of the Endless may be a concept, but he also has many properties.

I disagree. Characters have properties, they aren't properties themselves. Concepts =/= Properties. The Concept of "Chaos" is not the property of "Chaotic" it is an abstract object that governs the property, as well as any other manifestations.

Dream of the Endless is honestly a bad example, since he's explicitly an aspect of his true self, who is a pure concept, but that aside: Concepts are properties, yes, and that's literally the definition of what a "Universal" is, in philosophy. So a character with Type 1 Abstract Existence can be, and indeed often is, a property.

 

[Deagonx]

"X is different from Y in degree" just means "These things share of the same generic attribute, but in different magnitudes." That alone is a sufficient definition to serve as the foundation of this argument. A distinction existing between the Monad and things below it is irrelevant when the single quality that it is, is distinct from the attributes held by lower things (Even if the two are related)

If "degree" is being used to mean "different magnitudes of the same attribute" then I'd say that's a pretty compelling argument in favor of R>F layers applying to the Monad. If there is an R>F layer above the Monad, it has the attribute "fictional" and the beings above it have the attribute "real." There is no degree there unless you choose to liken R>F layers to a "spectrum" of "more and less real" things which is not an accurate characterization of the difference in their natures, because that would make the difference between them quantitative and not qualitative.

Second issue is really irrelevant, since I'm speaking strictly about forms of Monism that would include the concept of the Monad, anyway, and those, indeed, largely follow the principles I speak of. "Monism" is broad label encompassing a ton of unrelated things, so appealing to those that label is pretty odd here.

I am contesting the claim that they largely follow the principles you speak of, or that those principles are characterized in the same way. That is something I would expect more concrete evidence for if we are to say that sufficient evidence of something being a philosophical "Monad" will be characterized in this way.

Concepts are properties, yes, and that's literally the definition of what a "Universal" is, in philosophy. So a character with Type 1 Abstract Existence can be, and indeed often is, a property.

This is a far more complicated notion than you are making it out to be. See: Frege's "concept correlate." The instantiation of a concept (what one would typically consider an "attribute") is often considered distinct from the universalist object that embodies it. From that viewpoint, it is nonsensical that an attribute is something one could "be." This isn't an issue for the separate consideration that something is a conceptual universal, which is not an attribute that things have.

 

[Ultima_Reality]

If "degree" is being used to mean "different magnitudes of the same attribute" then I'd say that's a pretty compelling argument in favor of R>F layers applying to the Monad. If there is an R>F layer above the Monad, it has the attribute "fictional" and the beings above it have the attribute "real." There is no degree there unless you choose to liken R>F layers to a "spectrum" of "more and less real" things which is not an accurate characterization of the difference in their natures, because that would make the difference between them quantitative and not qualitative.

It would not make the difference between the two quantitative, no, as they wouldn't be interrelated through any kind of shared physical composition (In the way that, say, a cube is the union of a bunch of squares), and nor would there be some "numerical" measure of their realness, as if you could say "This layer is 1% real and that layer is 30% real."

I am contesting the claim that they largely follow the principles you speak of, or that those principles are characterized in the same way. That is something I would expect more concrete evidence for if we are to say that sufficient evidence of something being a philosophical "Monad" will be characterized in this way.

You made the positive claim that "A lot of what you are saying is not necessarily true of all forms of Monism or isn't iterated in the way it would need to be for your proposals to be true." Since I'm already in the process of elaborating my position, I think it's fair to say the burden of proof lies on you to speak of direct counter-examples to the things I talk about.

This is a far more complicated notion than you are making it out to be. See: Frege's "concept correlate." The instantiation of a concept (what one would typically consider an "attribute") is often considered distinct from the universalist object that embodies it. From that viewpoint, it is nonsensical that an attribute is something one could "be." This isn't an issue for the separate consideration that something is a conceptual universal, which is not an attribute that things have.

Frege's thing was basically that "Concepts," being properties, are not things that exist in-and-of-themselves and thus can only be said to "exist" insofar as they're instantiated in an object. So he isn't exactly the example you want to use here. This just goes back to the whole thing of "X isn't incoherent in-and-of-itself, it just implies the verse functions on a particular type of cosmology." A character being a property is coherent in verses where properties actually exist (As Universals and such).

Which is why I say that the bar for "X is nonsensical" really is just "X defies one/all of the laws of thought" (Identity, Non-Contradiction and Excluded Middle). Something that's weird but doesn't defy any logic to speak of is just that: Weird. Unintuitive. Not really incoherent.

 

[Deagonx]

It would not make the difference between the two quantitative, no, as they wouldn't be interrelated through any kind of shared physical composition (In the way that, say, a cube is the union of a bunch of squares), and nor would there be some "numerical" measure of their realness, as if you could say "This layer is 1% real and that layer is 30% real."

It needn't be numerical to be a degree, if they share the same "quality" (real) then the transcendence is not qualitative by definition. It would be a higher amount (quantity) of that quality.

Two layers of fiction below oneself is not "even less real" than a single layer. Before reality equalization is applied (the natural state of any given story) there is only "real" and "fictional" which is a binary, not a spectrum. There is no issue with a fictional Monad.

Frege's thing was basically that "Concepts," being properties, are not things that exist in-and-of-themselves and thus can only be said to "exist" insofar as they're instantiated in an object. So he isn't exactly the example you want to use here.

That appears to be incorrect, based on what I have read. For instance, Britannica: Nevertheless, many modern and contemporary philosophers, including Gottlob Frege, the early Bertrand Russell, Alonzo Church, and George Bealer are properly called “Platonic” realists because they believed in universals that are abstract or transcendent and that do not depend upon the existence of their instances.

This just goes back to the whole thing of "X isn't incoherent in-and-of-itself, it just implies the verse functions on a particular type of cosmology." A character being a property is coherent in verses where properties actually exist (As Universals and such).

My point is that you are conflating two different understandings of "property" which is not a conflation shared by the whole of philosophy, where in "X" and "X-ness" are not the same kind of thing. I maintain that something being "X-ness" is perfectly understandable and it isn't especially challenging to think of "X-ness" as an object of some kind, but being "X" is. Moreover, two distinct attributes "X" and "Y" being identical is nonsensical. One's wisdom and one's love cannot be identical.

Which is why I say that the bar for "X is nonsensical" really is just "X defies one/all of the laws of thought" (Identity, Non-Contradiction and Excluded Middle). Something that's weird but doesn't defy those is just that: Weird. Unintuitive. Not really incoherent.

Divine Simplicity does violate these laws, according to many philosophers. Even many of the defenses of it seem to affirm this, with the pitiful workaround being "We just can't comprehend the nature of God in a way that allows us to see how these two contradictory things can be true at the same time."

However, that is not the only way something can be nonsensical. Something can be nonsensical due to simply not communicating anything meaningful. For instance, these responses to the claim that "God is Being itself."

Christopher Hughes speaks for many in calling it “perhaps the single most baffling claim Aquinas makes about God” (1989, 4). Anthony Kenny’s analysis concludes in even stronger terms by calling the position “nothing but sophistry and illusion” (2002, 194). A. N. Prior criticizes the view as simply ill-formed, that it “is just bad grammar, a combining of words that fails to make them mean—like ‘cat no six’” (1955, 5).

And that really is about the whole of it. It's sophistry, bad grammar, it's baffling. It requires us to abandon all forms of common sense to accept propositions that have no real meaning, that can only have meaning through our acceptance of them in spite of the clear contradictions. Contradictions which we must accept are true and that it is merely our human cognitive limitations that prevent us from seeing the truth of it.

This is not something I think we should endorse. It's largely meaningless gobbledygook. Omniscience and Omnipresence and Omnipotence do not mean the same things, these cannot be identical properties, and God cannot be all of these properties, he can have these attributes.

There is a particular irony in accepting the notion that all attributes can be identical to each other and the person who has them on a website where we explicitly divide attributes, and to make the assumption that this kooky notion should automatically supercede R>F layers where no other ability is allowed to do so.

 

[Ultima_Reality]

That appears to be incorrect, based on what I have read. For instance, Britannica: Nevertheless, many modern and contemporary philosophers, including Gottlob Frege, the early Bertrand Russell, Alonzo Church, and George Bealer are properly called “Platonic” realists because they believed in universals that are abstract or transcendent and that do not depend upon the existence of their instances.

Interesting. I guess I should read up more on him. Though, not really relevant for this debate, of course.

My point is that you are conflating two different understandings of "property" which is not a conflation shared by the whole of philosophy, where in "X" and "X-ness" are not the same kind of thing. I maintain that something being "X-ness" is perfectly understandable and it isn't especially challenging to think of "X-ness" as an object of some kind, but being "X" is.

You say this, and yet "X-ness" is literally just "The quality (property) of being X." If you say that something being "X-ness" is understandable, then you're already accepting that characters being personified properties is not incoherent. Not sure what the issue is here, at that point.

Moreover, two distinct attributes "X" and "Y" being identical is nonsensical. One's wisdom and one's love cannot be identical.
(...)
Divine Simplicity does violate these laws, according to many philosophers. Even many of the defenses of it seem to affirm this, with the pitiful workaround being "We just can't comprehend the nature of God in a way that allows us to see how these two contradictory things can be true at the same time."

However, that is not the only way something can be nonsensical. Something can be nonsensical due to simply not communicating anything meaningful. For instance, these responses to the claim that "God is Being itself."

And that really is about the whole of it. It's sophistry, bad grammar, it's baffling. It requires us to abandon all forms of common sense to accept propositions that have no real meaning, that can only have meaning through our acceptance of them in spite of the clear contradictions. Contradictions which we must accept are true and that it is merely our human cognitive limitations that prevent us from seeing the truth of it.

This is not something I think we should endorse. It's largely meaningless gobbledygook. Omniscience and Omnipresence and Omnipotence do not mean the same things, these cannot be identical properties, and God cannot be all of these properties, he can have these attributes.

It doesn't inherently violate the Law of Identity, since the Monad, obviously, is identical to itself. It doesn't inherently violate the Law of Excluded Middle, either, since ultimately it's still compatible with two-valued logic at the end of the say (For example, some verses say that God = truth, not-God = falsehood. God = good. not-God = evil, etc).

The only thing left, of course, is the Law of Non-Contradiction, which seemingly is defied by it, due to the claim that the Monad has properties that are seemingly very much separate in other things, and yet are one thing in it (E.g Power and Wisdom, Power and Nature, Love and Wisdom, etc). I already replied, to that, though:

The point is really just that a Tier 0 would be the singular source and endpoint of all the disparate attributes that are in reality, and thus analogously referred to as "having" them. It's like how a 0-dimensional point, technically, is the endpoint of both a series of ever-shorter lines and a series of circles with increasingly smaller radius, and thus sometimes called a "degenerate circle" or a "degenerate line," for example.

Obviously, in neither case are we saying that a line is a circle, or that a circle is a line. Just that they both converge into one thing past a certain point. That's not really incoherent, and nor does it result in the same language games pure negative theology leads to.

That's not really any more incoherent than something like an abstract entity having emotions and thoughts despite, for instance, having none of the brain circuitry allowing for those things. Or, really, any number of things we already accept as being fine. "Qualitative superiority" as a concept is already something that operates on the idea of your power and the nature of your existence being identical, for example.

Your only response to that, meanwhile, was:

I can certainly accept the idea that things can be made up of physical parts (or that we can assign a name and identity to an assembly of parts, rather), but I see no reason to think of a quark, for instance, as being divisible into its "metaphysical parts" insofar as we could say it's charge, mass, and location are different "things."

Rather, I'd say any non composite object shares an identical nature and existence, such that we can't draw an actual distinction, rather than just a linguistic/mind dependent one, between the fact that something exists and the attributes that it's existence entails.

These distinctions are academic and mind dependent, they are not actual. I am not rejecting metaphysics, I am rejecting the reification of a specific metaphysical notion as our Tier 0.

Which isn't something that fits with the general philosophy of the wiki's Tiering System. As said before, we already reject this nominalist approach the exact moment we say "qualitative" superiorities are a thing. Because we're already saying qualities exist as real, mind-independent things for the upper ends of Tier 1. And we would have to reject it to tier verses with Monads in it, simply because they're already saying they're not nominalist (At least with respect to the highest level. The "physical world" of the verse could lack Universals, I guess)

It needn't be numerical to be a degree, if they share the same "quality" (real) then the transcendence is not qualitative by definition. It would be a higher amount (quantity) of that quality.

Two layers of fiction below oneself is not "even less real" than a single layer. Before reality equalization is applied (the natural state of any given story) there is only "real" and "fictional" which is a binary, not a spectrum. There is no issue with a fictional Monad.

The definition of "qualitative superiority" is just "Superiority based on a gap in quality, not quantity," or in other words, "Has no continuity of composition with lesser things," which doesn't prevent two layers from being in the same overall framework. Just like 500 m³ and 1000m³ are different quantities, and yet still lie in the same framework of quantity.

If you call this an "amount" and yet say it isn't numerical whatsoever, then I'd say that's a bit of a weird definition of "amount," but ultimately one that doesn't put you at odds with what I'm saying at all. So, it's whatever.

 

[Ultima_Reality]

@Deagonx

Bleh. This back-and-forth's become pointless, either way. We are clearly not going to convince each other, and I feel we've already said all we need to say, and some of these points are starting to get circular on both ends. So I say we just call it a day on this one, you and I.

 

[Deagonx]

You say this, and yet "X-ness" is literally just "The quality (property) of being X." If you say that something being "X-ness" is understandable, then you're already accepting that characters being personified properties is not incoherent. Not sure what the issue is here, at that point.

In the mode of thinking I'm referring to, "X" is "the quality (property) of having X-ness" and "X-ness" is the independent universal abstract object.

The only thing left, of course, is the Law of Non-Contradiction, which seemingly is defied by it, due to the claim that the Monad has properties that are seemingly very much separate in other things, and yet are one thing in it (E.g Power and Wisdom, Power and Nature, Love and Wisdom, etc). I already replied, to that, though:

And yet, your analogy to lines and points reaching the same point of convergence if modeled in an infinite regress isn't comparable to Power and Wisdom being identical. Or for either Wisdom and Power to, themselves, be God. I am not even convinced that the analogy holds (that an infinite regress of smaller circles and lines ever become a 0-dimensional point rather than simply approach it, akin to how a function can approach infinity but never "reach it." As a 0-dimensional point is neither a line nor a circle, and thus is not present in either regression.)

Or the other logical issues with such a conception, such as that people can have both power and wisdom but not be God, and in them those attributes are not God. The response to which is the largely handwavey "power and wisdom mean something different when we use it for God than when we use it for humans" which ultimately circles back to the largely self-destructive Negative Theology/limited human cognition point.

The simplest solution is, of course, to abandon Divine Simplicity due to its many issues. I can think of few reasons to accept it nor to make it an official policy of our site.

The definition of "qualitative superiority" is just "Superiority based on a gap in quality, not quantity," or in other words, "Has no continuity of composition with lesser things," which doesn't prevent two layers from being in the same overall framework. Just like 500 m³ and 1000m³ are different quantities, and yet still lie in the same framework of quantity.

That's precisely the objection that I am taking. You take the stance that the Monad cannot permit "degrees" of its own quality, and that this prevents R>F layers from transcending it. Yet this assumes that the gap is not based on quality, it takes the stance that these are all quantitative degrees of the same quality (more real, less real) and not that they have different qualities altogether (one is real, one is fictional).

 

[Deagonx]

So I say we just call it a day on this one, you and I.

Very well. I know Agnaa intends to participate here as well, and you have much to discuss with DT, so we can table this.

 

[Agnaa]

As per your other tiering revisions, this gets a "myeh" (neutral leaning towards disagreeing) from me. It doesn't hold internal consistencies or objective issues (due to the rigid disqualifiers outlined), it's one of many plausible tiering systems, but takes quite a few steps from what I'd prefer to have in one.

Differentiation of Monad-like Descriptions​

It's a bit weird for omnipotence (the ability to do anything logically possible) and a Type IV multiverse (a multiverse containing everything mathematically describable) to be given such vastly different tiers. Since by default, omnipotence would be constrained by one form of logic, one set of underlying rules for reality, while Type IV multiverses can greatly vary in those. Similarly, I'm concerned that there's multiple similar ways of reaching these tiers which imply different qualities, but which you'd all just equalise to being a monad (omnipotence, holding all truth values, not being describable, being absolutely simple)

High Interpretation, and Proof by a Lack of Anti-Feats​

My general discontent comes with how this takes a very high interpretation of these concepts (in fact, the highest one possible, by not letting anything else reach these), one that less so needs to be proven, and more needs to not be disproven. I always took our system's lack of something like that as a point of pride; Rather than just saying "If they say these 5 words, we'll take them as being stronger than anything else, unless they're contradicted," we looked at the cosmologies established, and gave cosmologies that were established as containing more things to have higher tiers.

Enshrinement of Monads, Despite Cosmology & Quality​

I also find it a bit dissatisfying that it enshrines monads over all other forms of supreme beings. Such as two equal and opposite forces who come together to create the world as it is; I don't like how that sort of thing would be inaccessibly far below monads (as even with a description of their creation which fits High 1-A+, them not being monads would put them and their cosmology to High 1-A at best). Especially with how monads can make jumps (i.e. from a 3-A cosmology to tier 0) which these other types of supreme beings can't.

---

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.

 

[Ultima_Reality]

As per your other tiering revisions, this gets a "myeh" (neutral leaning towards disagreeing) from me. It doesn't hold internal consistencies or objective issues (due to the rigid disqualifiers outlined), it's one of many plausible tiering systems, but takes quite a few steps from what I'd prefer to have in one.

A significant step-up. Although, by that, I assume it doesn't have internal *in*consistencies.

Differentiation of Monad-like Descriptions​

It's a bit weird for omnipotence (the ability to do anything logically possible) and a Type IV multiverse (a multiverse containing everything mathematically describable) to be given such vastly different tiers. Since by default, omnipotence would be constrained by one form of logic, one set of underlying rules for reality, while Type IV multiverses can greatly vary in those. Similarly, I'm concerned that there's multiple similar ways of reaching these tiers which imply different qualities, but which you'd all just equalise to being a monad (omnipotence, holding all truth values, not being describable, being absolutely simple)

I think this is pretty succinctly explained by the fact that "All classically possible worlds + Non-classical worlds" doesn't really have a different cardinality or any metric by which we might say it's bigger than "All classically possible worlds." Overall, Tier 0 is less focused on the "Able to do anything" bit and more on the 'physiology' aspect. Hence the space of all things a Tier 0 can create is lower than Tier 0 itself.

Similarly, I see those (Save "holding all truth values" [which I don't see as particularly impressive, tbh?] and "Not being describable," which I don't see as inherently tier-based) as just synonymous with each other.

My general discontent comes with how this takes a very high interpretation of these concepts (in fact, the highest one possible, by not letting anything else reach these), one that less so needs to be proven, and more needs to not be disproven. I always took our system's lack of something like that as a point of pride; Rather than just saying "If they say these 5 words, we'll take them as being stronger than anything else, unless they're contradicted," we looked at the cosmologies established, and gave cosmologies that were established as containing more things to have higher tiers.

I suppose that's where our personal views diverge, since I don't see it as "A lack of anti-feats," really. So much as those things are, themselves, the relevant feats.

I also find it a bit dissatisfying that it enshrines monads over all other forms of supreme beings. Such as two equal and opposite forces who come together to create the world as it is; I don't like how that sort of thing would be inaccessibly far below monads (as even with a description of their creation which fits High 1-A+, them not being monads would put them and their cosmology to High 1-A at best). Especially with how monads can make jumps (i.e. from a 3-A cosmology to tier 0) which these other types of supreme beings can't.

That's pretty much a generalization of the issues you had with the previous tiering revisions, as I see it (As is the above point). It's not exactly much different from how, in the wake of the new Tiering System, Reality-Fiction Transcendences ultimately are allowed to leap past all dimensional differences. I really just go wherever the argumentation leads me.

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.

I wouldn't say either the Cosmological Argument or the Ontological Argument are very material to the actual coherence of the concept of Tier 0. You could well accept that a Monad, in principle, could result in either of those, depending on the sensibilities of the verse, without really saying anything about the validity of them or the presuppositions behind them. (Worth to note that the off-site discussion you mentioned is also something we left unfinished, since it's rather late to me right now, so I don't think taking it as a point of reference to comment on here is very wise).

I'd in principle disagree with the concept that those things "Have to be taken on faith." It's not any more "faith"-based than saying that transcending dimensionality lets you transcend dimensions that don't actually exist in your verse, and etc.

But, honestly? I don't think this point is very strong or important overall. The way I see it, these concerns are ultimately optics-based, and even the claim of "We're just lowballing these concepts to demonstrable feats..." has implications that are just as prickly as any other claim about anything that touches the topic, whether you say it's a "theological stance" or not. So it's at best a side-issue that I see little point in focusing on.

 

[Agnaa]

For everything I didn't respond to, imagine I said "Yeah fair, let's agree to disagree."

I think this is pretty succinctly explained by the fact that "All classically possible worlds + Non-classical worlds" doesn't really have a different cardinality or any metric by which we might say it's bigger than "All classically possible worlds." Overall, Tier 0 is less focused on the "Able to do anything" bit and more on the 'physiology' aspect. Hence the space of all things a Tier 0 can create is lower than Tier 0 itself.

I think, regardless of whether you view that as referring to 0 or High 1-A+, it presents an interesting wrinkle.

Similarly, I see those (Save "holding all truth values" [which I don't see as particularly impressive, tbh?] and "Not being describable," which I don't see as inherently tier-based) as just synonymous with each other.

Funny. I see "omnipotence" and "holding all truth values" as closest to synonymous (omnipotence is the ability to do anything, holding all truth values is holding every quality/potentiality; for every "thing" such a being's state of "ability to do {thing}" is "true").

"Not being describable" is more gesturing at negative theology. And since omnipotence, divine simplicity, etc. can be described, it would be beyond that. But I believe that you've said above that such an idea is above the scope of how you're interpreting it for Tier 0, in a previous thread...

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. Granted, a milder form of it is incorporated into my proposals for Tier 0, so, in that sense this thread's existence is made a bit awkward by that. I suggest we close this until discussion of the Tiering System revisions is finished.

Which ig is fine, dismissing it as a way of extending the system due to being contradictory, but I think it adds a bit of weirdness to this whole enterprise. I only see such negative theology as being a few more steps away from acceptance (among philosophers, and in terms of logical coherence) than this view of a monad is, and that the view of monads put forward isn't immune to similar arguments.

I wouldn't say either the Cosmological Argument or the Ontological Argument are very material to the actual coherence of the concept of Tier 0. You could well accept that a Monad, in principle, could result in either of those, depending on the sensibilities of the verse, without really saying anything about the validity of them or the presuppositions behind them. (Worth to note that the off-site discussion you mentioned is also something we left unfinished, since it's rather late to me right now, so I don't think taking it as a point of reference to comment on here is very wise).

I think that is an issue, since if we treat monads as you're suggesting, extending logic in those ways, and we say that such a thing is logically consistent, I think we'd also inherently be saying that those arguments are true. If they're false, it's because their premises aren't necessarily true (and so, other pieces of fiction could extend above them, due to those limits not being broadly applicable, so tier 0 shouldn't operate the way you suggest), or because part of the argument is inherently contradictory (and so, it's an incoherent thing to enshrine as a tier).

ofc, we haven't fully pursued this chain of argument to see whether they do actually entail each other, but so far, I find that risk concerning.

 

[Ultima_Reality]

Funny. I see "omnipotence" and "holding all truth values" as closest to synonymous (omnipotence is the ability to do anything, holding all truth values is holding every quality/potentiality; for every "thing" its state of "ability to do {thing}" is "true").

Truth be told, that's not really what I had in mind when you said "All truth values." I thought of it moreso as "For every characteristic of this being, it's both true, false, both, neither, and infinite other things," which doesn't seem inherently quantifiable, in my eyes. What you say seems more aligned to High 1-A+ than anything.

"Not being describable" is more gesturing at negative theology. And since omnipotence, divine simplicity, etc. can be described, it would be beyond that. But I believe that you've said above that such an idea is above the scope of how you're interpreting it for Tier 0, in a previous thread...

Which ig is fine, dismissing it as a way of extending the system due to being contradictory, but I think it adds a bit of weirdness to this whole enterprise. I only see such negative theology as being a few more steps away from acceptance (among philosophers, and in terms of logical coherence) than this view of a monad is, and that the view of monads put forward isn't immune to similar arguments.

It's a sufficient amount of steps away from such things, as I'd argue (And as I've done so, above).

I think that is an issue, since if we treat monads as you're suggesting, extending logic in those ways, and we say that such a thing is logically consistent, I think we'd also inherently be saying that those arguments are true. If they're false, it's because their premises aren't necessarily true (and so, other pieces of fiction could extend above them, due to those limits not being real), or because part of the argument is inherently contradictory (and so, it's an incoherent thing to enshrine as a tier).

ofc, we haven't fully pursued this chain of argument to see whether they do actually entail each other, but so far, I find that risk concerning.

I wouldn't say this entailment is really a consequence. The Cosmological Argument, for instance, doesn't even necessarily result in a Monad, and the Ontological Argument likewise is fairly nebulous in how it relates to that. So I don't think any of the "proofs for God" arguments really impact the discussion. (At best, it's the other way around: Those arguments try to work backwards to reach conclusions about specific attributes, and those attributes do impact the conclusion)

 

[Agnaa]

I wouldn't say this entailment is really a consequence. The Cosmological Argument, for instance, doesn't even necessarily result in a Monad, and the Ontological Argument likewise is fairly nebulous in how it relates to that. So I don't think any of the "proofs for God" arguments really impact the discussion. (At best, it's the other way around: Those arguments try to work backwards to reach conclusions about specific attributes, and those attributes do impact the conclusion)

I'd say the causality kinda works the other way; rather than the Cosmological/Ontological arguments implying a monad as you describe it, a monad as you describe it requires the same premises and logical inferences as those arguments.

The similarities I see come from places like this quote of yours you quoted in the OP, for why omnipotents are monads:

You'll notice that this is quite literally just a variation of Russell's Paradox, also. The fact that the actualizer of all categories and possibilities cannot be within any category or possibility

Which I think has an eerie similarity to part of the cosmological argument:

Contingent beings alone are insufficient to cause the existence of a contingent being.

The ontological argument, on the other hand, highlights a tension. Such a monad, as you describe for tier 0, would have to be above all cosmologies; if there was a cosmology it was not above, that cosmology would be higher than tier 0, a notion which you reject. And within those cosmologies it's above, it must exist. But such reasoning, of beings definitionally required to exist in all worlds actually needing to exist in those worlds, isn't widely accepted as true.

Relating more to a battleboarding context, you can flip such arguments to logically deny the possibility of a monad existing. This is exactly as valid as logically proving the necessity of one existing. And the idea that a setting with a cosmology lower than tier 0 could have it be fundamentally impossible for a tier 0 being to preside over it is... strange.

 

[DontTalkDT]

I'd be remiss to gunk up the discussion you're going to have with DontTalk.

Don't mind that. I'm not interested in having another long debate. Too tired of that. This may or may not be my final reply. Best to operate on the assumption it is. (Unless Ultima does formal logic, then I'm definitely in)

As said: I won't entertain any further developments of this, because quite frankly saying these revisions are immoral is literally an insult, if an indirect one.

As long as you don't use these flimsy moral grounds as reason veto this thread, or something, and keep the roots of your arguments wholly based on reason, we're golden.

If you feel insulted by that, imagine how it is for people who you just told that their omnipotent god would lose to your omnipotent god.

Quite frankly, we have a rule not to make profiles for religious entities or generally talk about hypothetical placements of them. If we do this we may as well remove the rule, as we take a pretty clear stance on certain versions of the Abrahamic four letter god losing to Buddah and others being equal anyway.
I'm strongly in favor of a separation of church in state.

And, as said, if not that the absolute minimum we should do is put true omnipotence on the same tier. By its very idea and nature it can't be lesser.

In the OP, I said this:



And earlier on, I said this:



So, yeah, no. It's not saying "The Monad has no qualities, even the quality of having no qualities...", since that'd be obviously incoherent, and neither does this follow from the premises of the concept. This kind of argumentation is like if you heard someone say "I don't know anything about him..." and then replied with "That's wrong. You do know something about him. You know that you know nothing about him!", or if someone said "I'm blind. I can't see anything" and you replied with "That's wrong. You do see something: Nothing."

Which are correct under an extreme technicality (At least the latter), but... Really? Are you actually this pedantic?

Other arguments here seem to all spring forth from this point, so, yeah.

I don't really think it's pedantic to point out that the idea is inherently contradictory - a contradiction which you seemingly only resolve by handwaving it and saying you don't care about it. You might as well say Russell's antinomy is pedantic for pointing out an obscure contradiction.
You're ultimately saying that everyone should believe in something that doesn't really make sense.

You also seemed to skip over a part of my point there. "Heck, there being any evidence of the character's existence is a contradiction to the principle of its nature."
In order to make a profile for a character we require evidence that it exists, but any such evidence in the work will be contradictory to the principle of its existence. Even a partial or abridged experience of the character or an indirect indication of its existence would bestow it an additional quality, beyond just the quality of having no qualities.

And every attempt to rank it in a profile would involve giving the character abilities, attack potency, speed etc. which would all be against its nature. Basically, you can believe such a character exists, but once you provide evidence of it or present any information about it you are saying something that shouldn't apply to it (or contradicts the assumption of it being a Monad).
Basically, they are in nature incompatible with a tiering approach. The only accurate way to have a profile for such a character, if we are to buy into the theory, is to not have a profile at all. They are, in the most literal sense, untierable.

It doesn't go against the Law of Excluded Middle, no. Because propositions about the Monad aren't false or "neither true and false," or anything. They're, at best, analogical, which isn't the same as falsehood. You're not going to say that "Outside spacetime" is a necessarily false statement just because something is never "outside" of space itself in the same way that, say, a trashcan is outside a house.

But that is the problem. I'm not sure if maybe you confuse the law of excluded middle with the law of non-contradiction here.
The law of excluded middle says that either A or not A is true for any statement A. In formal logic: The formula A∨¬A always evaluates to true. That also must be the case for A = "The Monad is red". If you claim this is non-contradicted then "the monad is red or the monad is not red" is a true statement. Anything else is a contradicts the law. If it is a true statement, however, we have just found a quality that the monad has.

Your trashcan example appears irrelevant to the argument: Regardless of which definition of the word "outside" I decide to use, either "X is outside spacetime" is true or "X is not outside spacetime" is true. Meaning that it is in line with the law of excluded middle.

Since we can formulate the issue in formal logic, I challenge you to prove your point by means of formal logic. (Or at least use truth table evaluation to show where you think the error in my formal reasoning is)
That cuts out all the rhetoric fat and lets us determine truth with precision.

As you said so yourself: We, as a wiki, abide by classical logic. We can allow "mild" contradictions like "This character is simultaneously alive and dead" (And even then, since those are inherently meaningless, we only index them as what they're shown to result in), sure, but not extreme contradictions. A Monad being defeated is one such extreme contradiction. So the points about logic manipulators and "artificially limiting creativity" are ultimately moot.

It contradicts one law of thought (the law of contradiction), while Monads contradict... at least as many. If you don't invent additional truth values not sure how you avoid the law of contradiction and the law of identity by rigorous definition of the subject should be contradicted, as it states the applicability of a quality.
So, for one, I don't see it a worse contradiction.

Second, as you pointed out, we index logical paradoxes within what the verse has shown them to do (strictly limited by feats, no extrapolation). We do not by principle deny the existence of logic manipulation powers. A logic manipulator defeating a monad is an allowed ability, we just don't stretch it to anything beyond that feat.
That is to say, the power is contradictory, but the contradiction would not lie by the definition of the monad but by the nature of the superpower. There is nothing logically wrong with a monad being defeated by something illogical, there is just something logically wrong with the existence of something illogical. So by our current standard the illogical thing, the logic manipulation power, would be strictly restricted to feats. Meanwhile, there is no particular reason to doubt the monad's described nature (well, beyond the general reasons applying to all monads).
I mean, really, if an author gives a perfect description of a monad and then says "but via a logic manipulation power it was defeated. That seems to contradict its nature, but it actually had the nature, it's just that the power allowed for this contradiction to happen", do you then say "the author is wrong. They may not explore that idea. Since they are stupid we ignore how they explain it and just say the character was actually not a monad"? That would amount to overruling the author's ideas with your own.

That approach only works if you place Reality-Fiction Transcendence as the end-all-be-all. Which is to say: Treat Reality-Fiction Transcendence "as it is in real life." That's not even what the Tiering System is doing, and not what its new treatment of R>F is based on. You concluding that "this is not a nature you can truly have even from a fictional perspective" because of that is non-sequitur.

The character lacking any qualitative distinctions whatsoever is, itself, the proof of that, also. 1-As and High 1-As still have that. Tier 0s don't.

For a start, you actually require no evidence of R>F transcendence for the Tier 0 state. I doubt such things would be included in statements about the nature of them in a verse that has no metafictional approach.

Second, you forget that when we talk about how the Tiering System is treating R>F that has, up to now, always been in the context of the lowest possible assumption on R>F. We do not, in general, take away the license from authors to have it function as something greater. I.e. if you wish to claim there can not be a R>F above a monad then you have to argue against the greatest possible interpretation of R>F, not the smallest one.
If you view R>F as your platoistic analogy of the higher world being similar to universals you might have a point that being below that would not be possible for a monad beyond universals. However, in general R>F jumps can incorporate things like jumping over universals or even logic itself. And then I don't see a reason why a monad in fiction can not be fictional in fiction.

That contradicts Point 5. You can't argue based on the concept of R>F as the end-all-be-all and yet go "Feats-only" in that manner (Especially given the logical endpoint of this philosophy is to cap the Tiering System at 3-A and disallow infinity tiers). And if you were trying to do a reductio ad absurdum using my own position on R>F, you very much failed, since that was never my position.

Anyway: All the tiers below Tier 0, under these proposals, operate on qualitative distinctions (Inequalities), so transcending that wholesale does indeed include transcending all of them, yeah. Really no different from how existing above dimensionality lets you transcend even dimensions that don't actually exist in your verse.

Don't strawman my arguments, please. A feat-based approach has no cap at 3-A. You can have feats of there actually being a multiverse which a character actually destroys.
I never said the concept of R>F is the end-all-be-all. It is merely a useful example to illustrate how there can always be a bigger fish. In a feat-based approach, R>F as well can be defeated by anything with better feats than the R>F in question. So no, there is no contradiction to 5.

In your system the R>F jumps below monads don't have the same quality as R>F above it would have. It's the above-mentioned mistake of smallest interpretation of R>F vs biggest interpretation again. So no, you're committing to equalizing two things of different quality.

Not to mention the complete lack of proper evidence requirements. Like, really, even if we go by your reasoning, the assumption that standard statements regarding qualities cover meta-qualities is a huge stretch. Those characters should really at minimum have independent evidence of transcending meta-qualities before such are assumed to be included.

 

[Antvasima]

If you feel insulted by that, imagine how it is for people who you just told that their omnipotent god would lose to your omnipotent god.

Quite frankly, we have a rule not to make profiles for religious entities or generally talk about hypothetical placements of them. If we do this we may as well remove the rule, as we take a pretty clear stance on certain versions of the Abrahamic four letter god losing to Buddah and others being equal anyway.
I'm strongly in favor of a separation of church in state.

As far as I have been told, both the Parabrahman/Parashiva of Hinduism, true Buddhahood of Buddhism, and the more scholarly theological interpretation of the Abrahamic God would all qualify for tier 0, so that should likely not be a problem.

Also, our old system likely has the same problems that you describe or worse, given its dependency on an established hierarchy. For example, see how low we currently rank Eru Iúvatar, who is based on the Abrahamic God.

As long as we do not actually list the theological entities themselves within our wiki, it should probably be fine.

And as I have stated earlier, I personally find a system based on neverending comparative supremacist social Darwinian competition more morally offensive than one that end in oneness and unity for everybody at the top of the scale, so there are moral problems with what we are currently doing as well.

 

[Ultima_Reality]

I'd say the causality kinda works the other way; rather than the Cosmological/Ontological arguments implying a monad as you describe it, a monad as you describe it requires the same premises and logical inferences as those arguments.

The similarities I see come from places like this quote of yours you quoted in the OP, for why omnipotents are monads:

Which I think has an eerie similarity to part of the cosmological argument:

There is a fundamental difference there. Since the Cosmological Argument tries to conclude the existence of an omnipotent creator from facts about causation and contingency and etc. I'm already assuming the existence of an omnipotent from the start, and then inferring what properties it should have for that omnipotence to remain self-consistent.

The ontological argument, on the other hand, highlights a tension. Such a monad, as you describe for tier 0, would have to be above all cosmologies; if there was a cosmology it was not above, that cosmology would be higher than tier 0, a notion which you reject. And within those cosmologies it's above, it must exist. But such reasoning, of beings definitionally required to exist in all worlds actually needing to exist in those worlds, isn't widely accepted as true.

Relating more to a battleboarding context, you can flip such arguments to logically deny the possibility of a monad existing. This is exactly as valid as logically proving the necessity of one existing. And the idea that a setting with a cosmology lower than tier 0 could have it be fundamentally impossible for a tier 0 being to preside over it is... strange.

That's founded on mistaken assumptions. It seems to be trying to point out strangeness by saying "A Monad necessarily exists in all possible worlds, and yet we can clearly consistently conceive of it not existing and fiction often has many such cases, so therefore there is a possible world where the being that exists in all possible worlds exists in no possible world, which is a contradiction."

That's not really a contradiction, though, because possible worlds ultimately are still given by whatever axioms and presuppositions that you make within your framework, and so we can talk about things ranging over all possible worlds without circumscribing those things to single possible worlds. You can consistently accept either the validity or the invalidity of something that'd result in a thing that ranges over all possible worlds, without going "Then there's a possible world where the validity is true and another possible word where the validity is false" or something.

---

Now: Correct me if I'm wrong on my assessment of what your point is. But whether or not I am, I, like you, think those matters aren't very important. They're so inaccessible and far detached from the matter of practical hashing-out of these things that I find it a bit of a trivial endeavor to discuss them in-depth. While "Philosophy of the Tiering System" is a funny thing to think of as a subject of study, it really doesn't have much of a place in discussions like this, so I'll say this is probably going to be my last reply on this specific thing.

 

[Ultima_Reality]

If you feel insulted by that, imagine how it is for people who you just told that their omnipotent god would lose to your omnipotent god.

Quite frankly, we have a rule not to make profiles for religious entities or generally talk about hypothetical placements of them. If we do this we may as well remove the rule, as we take a pretty clear stance on certain versions of the Abrahamic four letter god losing to Buddah and others being equal anyway.
I'm strongly in favor of a separation of church in state.

And, as said, if not that the absolute minimum we should do is put true omnipotence on the same tier. By its very idea and nature it can't be lesser.

I am not advocating for us to start tiering actual religious figures whatsoever and nor does that follow from anything here, especially since you can find the basic concept underlying the Tier 0 proposal in plenty of secular philosophy, too, so it's not even specifically a religious thing. At this point we might as well start refusing to tier anything related to metaphysics, since all ideas in it have been incorporated into a religion at some point or another. I find this silly. We just do as we always did: We don't tier religious figures, even if they happen to fit the mold for a concept used in the system.

Really, my point is "The concept is not any more incoherent than a number of things we already abide, it's featured in fiction, and it has specific mechanisms that allow it to be picked and placed in a specific spot of the Tiering System."

So I'd much rather focus on the "Is it coherent?" part of the argument. You, yourself, said "the proposal would be fine in this regard if it operated within logic", so, preferably, let's stay on that lane of discussion. There was hardly a reason to bring morality into this to begin with.

But that is the problem. I'm not sure if maybe you confuse the law of excluded middle with the law of non-contradiction here.
The law of excluded middle says that either A or not A is true for any statement A. In formal logic: The formula A∨¬A always evaluates to true. That also must be the case for A = "The Monad is red". If you claim this is non-contradicted then "the monad is red or the monad is not red" is true statement. Anything else is a contradicts the law. If it is a true statement, however, we have just found a quality that the monad has.

Your trashcan example appears irrelevant to the argument: Regardless of which definition of the word "outside" I decide to use, either "X is outside spacetime" is true or "X is not outside spacetime" is true. Meaning that it is in line with the law of excluded middle.

Since we can formulate the issue in formal logic, I challenge you to prove your point by means of formal logic. (Or at least use truth table evaluation to show where you think the error in my formal reasoning is)
That cuts out all the rhetoric fat and lets us determine truth with precision.

It contradicts one law of thought (the law of contradiction), while Monads contradict... at least as many. If you don't invent additional truth values not sure how you avoid the law of contradiction and the law of identity by rigorous definition of the subject should be contradicted, as it states the applicability of a quality.
So, for one, I don't see it a worse contradiction.

Real?

Anyway: That seems to have its root in the (Ironically exaggerated) view of what a "quality" or "property" is, in this case. By "quality," I just mean "A term that picks up something that exists within a substance as its referent," so essentially a realist (Rather than nominalist) account of what properties are (Which is needed, since I'm talking about a being who's necessarily abstract in nature). The lack of a property (e.g. Aspatiality) is not itself a property under such lenses.

So, is the proposition "The Monad is aspatial and atemporal" true? Yeah. Is "Aspatial and atemporal" a quality in the aforementioned sense, though? Not really, since it has no reference. The terms don't pick out anything in its substance, but a lack of something (Space and time, in this case). So a more accurate descriptor would be moreso "The Monad is beyond differentiated qualities," keeping the above definition in mind. Hence I said that technically it has one quality: Itself.

So, I'll pass on that challenge.

I don't really think it's pedantic to point out that the idea is inherently contradictory - a contradiction which you seemingly only resolve by handwaving it and saying you don't care about it. You might as well say Russell's antinomy is pedantic for pointing out an obscure contradiction.
You're ultimately saying that everyone should believe in something that doesn't really make sense.

You also seemed to skip over a part of my point there. "Heck, there being any evidence of the character's existence is a contradiction to the principle of its nature."
In order to make a profile for a character we require evidence that it exists, but any such evidence in the work will be contradictory to the principle of its existence. Even a partial or abridged experience of the character or an indirect indication of its existence would bestow it an additional quality, beyond just the quality of having no qualities.

And every attempt to rank it in a profile would involve giving the character abilities, attack potency, speed etc. which would all be against its nature. Basically, you can believe such a character exists, but once you provide evidence of it or present any information about it you are saying something that shouldn't apply to it (or contradicts the assumption of it being a Monad).
Basically, they are in nature incompatible with a tiering approach. The only accurate way to have a profile for such a character, if we are to buy into the theory, is to not have a profile at all. They are, in the most literal sense, untierable.

Ontop of the above: Like I said earlier, when you talk about "properties," you can have both intrinsic properties and extrinsic properties. The former are properties you have yourself, and the latter are properties you have from others. So, if my sister had a kid, I'd have gained the extrinsic property of being an uncle, for example.

In that sense, I don't have any issue with saying the Monad has extrinsic properties (E.g. "Is known about by someone"), since those don't actually have any impact on ontology whatsoever (If someone grows taller than me, I gained the extrinsic property of being shorter than them, but that didn't actually involve any change in my existence whatsoever). Intrinsic properties is what it has only one of, since it completely lacks composition.

In that case, the Monad does have a property in a sense, but it's just the "absolute" version of everything that exists in lower beings. Does it have power? Of course it has. But that power is one and the same with its nature ("Power = Nature" is already the basic concept of qualitative superiority, by the way, so no reason to chastise it here), and isn't part of any hierarchy of degree.

You'll probably accuse that of being handwaving, but compare and contrast it with the following statements:

"This character has no volume whatsoever, they don't exist in space or dimensions, nor have physical constituents. But... they are still bigger than dimensioned realms. How? Can't tell you, but evidently they just are."

"This character is "bigger" than this realm. Not in the sense of 'size', though. They're just "more real" than it..."

Both of those are, by nature, pretty handwavey. We don't actually have any precise definition of the notion of "size" by which a realm above dimensionality and physical composition is bigger than a dimensioned realm, for example. Yet it's not really contradictory thing, and fiction features it, and it has sufficiently clear connotations to be picked out and put in a specific place. So we tier it. What I described above is no different.

Second, as you pointed out, we index logical paradoxes within what the verse has shown them to do (strictly limited by feats, no extrapolation). We do not by principle deny the existence of logic manipulation powers. A logic manipulator defeating a monad is an allowed ability, we just don't stretch it to anything beyond that feat.
That is to say, the power is contradictory, but the contradiction would not lie by the definition of the monad but by the nature of the superpower. There is nothing logically wrong with a monad being defeated by something illogical, there is just something logically wrong with the existence of something illogical. So by our current standard the illogical thing, the logic manipulation power, would be strictly restricted to feats. Meanwhile, there is no particular reason to doubt the monad's described nature (well, beyond the general reasons applying to all monads).
I mean, really, if an author gives a perfect description of a monad and then says "but via a logic manipulation power it was defeated. That seems to contradict its nature, but it actually had the nature, it's just that the power allowed for this contradiction to happen", do you then say "the author is wrong. They may not explore that idea. Since they are stupid we ignore how they explain it and just say the character was actually not a monad"? That would amount to overruling the author's ideas with your own.

You put it pretty well: There is no reason to doubt the Monad's nature, beyond the general reasons applying to all Monads. I'm not really baking-in the unassailable nature of the Monad as part of its definition, I am concluding it based on that definition. So, yeah, I would indeed say that such a thing happening to a Monad is incoherent. Just as incoherent as the things I objected about the old Tiering System, in the previous thread.

It's really just yet another manifestation of the principle of "If something claims to have that property but evidently doesn't, we don't tier it as if it had that property," which I don't believe is controversial.

For a start, you actually require no evidence of R>F transcendence for the Tier 0 state. I doubt such things would be included in statements about the nature of them in a verse that has no metafictional approach.

Second, you forget that when we talk about how the Tiering System is treating R>F that has, up to now, always been in the context of the lowest possible assumption on R>F. We do not, in general, take away the license from authors to have it function as something greater. I.e. if you wish to claim there can not be a R>F above a monad then you have to argue against the greatest possible interpretation of R>F, not the smallest one.
If you view R>F as your platoistic analogy of the higher world being similar to universals you might have a point that being below that would not be possible for a monad beyond universals. However, in general R>F jumps can incorporate things like jumping over universals or even logic itself. And then I don't see a reason why a monad in fiction can not be fictional in fiction.

I don't have to argue against "the greatest possible interpretation of R>F," no, because "Reality-Fiction Transcendence as it is in real life" (Which you're arguing for) is something that was already disavowed in the previous thread. For the specific reason that Reality-Fiction Transcendence doesn't... exist IRL, so it's not actually a valid interpretation of R>F to begin with under our lenses. I'll pass that too.

Don't strawman my arguments, please. A feat-based approach has no cap at 3-A. You can have feats of there actually being a multiverse which a character actually destroys.
I never said the concept of R>F is the end-all-be-all. It is merely a useful example to illustrate how there can always be a bigger fish. In a feat-based approach, R>F as well can be defeated by anything with better feats than the R>F in question. So no, there is no contradiction to 5.

In your system the R>F jumps below monads don't have the same quality as R>F above it would have. It's the above-mentioned mistake of smallest interpretation of R>F vs biggest interpretation again. So no, you're committing to equalizing two things of different quality.

I didn't strawman your point. I pointed out a consequence of it. Ultimately, everything infinite needs to rely on statements and not feats (In the sense of, I assume, "Direct demonstrations of transcendence over this particular object") since infinity is, by its very nature, impossible to demonstrate. So the thing destroyed being infinite to begin with relies on statements over feats.

So a character whose nature demands it be above certain things will be rated as above those things.

Furthermore, Point 5 was:

5. R>F has no limit: Weird argument, but any character you read about in a book can for obvious reasons be part of a book. As such a Tier 0 character as proposed could exist within a R>F hierarchy. The exact same description as that of what we would classify as Tier 0 could be found in a book in some verse, with the contents of the book existing as a lower layer of fiction. You could argue that is a contradiction to their nature, but then the same would apply in real life. I.e. the same contradiction would apply because in reality they're fiction and this is not a nature can truly have even from a fictional perspective.

Basically saying "You say that there can be no R>F layers above the Monad, and yet we, the literal, actual, flesh-and-blood humans in real life, see it as fiction." Invalidity of the notion itself put aside: That contradicts Point 6 because by bringing up R>F at all you're already talking about something that bypasses "feats" and gets a high tier solely by its nature. Yet later you say that this proposal is bad because it... Does exactly that.

Not to mention the complete lack of proper evidence requirements. Like, really, even if we go by your reasoning, the assumption that standard statements regarding qualities cover meta-qualities is a huge stretch. Those characters should really at minimum have independent evidence of transcending meta-qualities before such are assumed to be included.

Hardly a stretch. Since, at the end of the day, even High 1-A (Meta-qualities) is just something you obtain by introducing more differentiation, which the Monad lacks. And since this lack of qualitative distinction is the cause of its superiority, it likewise is superior to anything with qualitative distinctions in it (And the jump from 1-A to High 1-A is still something operating in that same basic framework in that regard, which I suppose you could say is just the Identity of Indiscernibles, ultimately)

 

[Agnaa]

There is a fundamental difference there. Since the Cosmological Argument tries to conclude the existence of an omnipotent creator from facts about causation and contingency and etc. I'm already assuming the existence of an omnipotent from the start, and then inferring what properties it should have for that omnipotence to remain self-consistent.

Yeah, there is a different starting point and goal, my concern is about which bits of reasoning we accept.

You said that the actualizer of all categories/possibilities cannot be in a category/possibility, yet many who reject the Cosmological Argument do so by rejecting a similar reason (that everything natural could not have been created by something natural). With one somewhat relevant response being that it could've arisen without an external cause.

That's founded on mistaken assumptions. It seems to be trying to point out strangeness by saying "A Monad necessarily exists in all possible worlds, and yet we can clearly consistently conceive of it not existing and fiction often has many such cases, so therefore there is a possible world where the being that exists in all possible worlds exists in no possible world, which is a contradiction."

That's not really a contradiction, though, because possible worlds ultimately are still given by whatever axioms and presuppositions that you make within your framework, and so we can talk about things ranging over all possible worlds without circumscribing those things to single possible worlds. You can consistently accept either the validity or the invalidity of something that'd result in a thing that ranges over all possible worlds, without going "Then there's a possible world where the validity is true and another possible word where the validity is false" or something.

This is kind of the issue I pointed out in my first post. You retreat to "Oh this only applies with one set of axioms and presuppositions", but place these beings above all axioms and presuppositions. Given by how you don't let characters who manifest "all possible worlds possible under all sets of axioms and presuppositions" at a High 0 tier or something.

Feels like a motte (the monad only exists under certain axioms) and bailey (the monad encompasses all possible axioms).

Now: Correct me if I'm wrong on my assessment of what your point is. But whether or not I am, I, like you, think those matters aren't very important. They're so inaccessible and far detached from the matter of practical hashing-out of these things that I find it a bit of a trivial endeavor to discuss them in-depth. While "Philosophy of the Tiering System" is a funny thing to think of as a subject of study, it really doesn't have much of a place in discussions like this, so I'll say this is probably going to be my last reply on this specific thing.

Myeah we can probably drop the Cosmological Argument stuff, but I think the confinement to a particular set of axioms is relevant.

 

[Ultima_Reality]

Myeah we can probably drop the Cosmological Argument stuff, but I think the confinement to a particular set of axioms is relevant.

I can see that needing some hashing out, yeah. The discussion on it will probably be pretty short, but I'd rather not clutter the thread with parallel conversations and am about to tab out, anyway, so that's for a bit later.