Unsong Introduction Thread (Sorta)

[QuasiYuri]

Heard from a trusted friend that what was brought up was super iffy and/or OOT.

However I know absolutely about this verse and it doesn't interrest me enough to research, so I'm just not gonna involve myself with this.

 

[Antvasima]

Okay. That is unfortunate. Further input from your friend would be appreciated though.

 

[KingPin0422]

After painfully reading through the entire thread, I'm inclined to agree with High 1-A for Ein Sof/God and 0 for Atzmus. My stance is subject to change, though.

 

[Elizhaa]

I am still fine with the tiers update in the OP, from what I read in the new posts.

 

[Agnaa]

Ultima asked me to respond so.

I think after his latest post, we've both presented our arguments in their entirety, so all that's left is to count up everyone's opinions.

I think I already started a count earlier, but I don't have the time right this second to update it.

 

[Agnaa]

I'll move it over to a new post.

These are rough tallies of opinions, as far as I can tell:

High 1-A God & 0 Atzmus: 7 (Ultima Reality, Holyhotsauce, Tllmbrg, DarkDragonMedeus, Matthew Schroeder, Elizhaa, KingPin0422)

High 1-A God, High 1-A Atzmus: 2 (InfiniteDay, Ned_the_outer_god) [Thinks 0 Atzmus is iffy, but not completely unacceptable]

1-A God & N/A or 1-A Atzmus: 7 (Agnaa, Ovy7, DontTalkDT, Sera EX*, Rikimarox2, AKM Sama*, Planck69)

Neutral: 1 (Antvasima)

*Leaning/less-enthusiastic support

 

[Ultima_Reality]

Heard from a trusted friend that what was brought up was super iffy and/or OOT.

If you're willing to voice their issues, then that'd be nice. I'd much rather have my side of the argument be completely understood by everyone in here, even those who disagree. Would avoid a lot of potential headaches.

 

[Planck69]

After trying to read through this a bit, I'm inclined towards 1-A God and Atzmus.

 

[Ultima_Reality]

If you're willing to voice their issues, then that'd be nice. I'd much rather have my side of the argument be completely understood by everyone in here, even those who disagree. Would avoid a lot of potential headaches.

This thread is old enough as is, so I figured it'd be better to lay out the updated summary of each argument anyway:

Agnaa's Argument: There is no real proof that the hierarchy of cardinal numbers physically exists in Unsong, and thus, God wouldn't be able to scale to it. Furthermore, the evidence for it being above High 1-B relies on mathematical concepts that aren't established in the text, only referenced, which I don't think is sufficient to accept. Leaving the hierarchy as 1-A otherwise.

My response: Whether or not the hierarchy itself exists is irrelevant, since God is already explained to hold all possible attributes and characteristics at their maximum possible degrees, and to also contain the potential for any structure or number of dimensions to exist, which, given how cardinal numbers are mentioned in Unsong, would imply He transcends the potential for higher-dimensional spaces of an 1-A+ scale, even if they don't physically exist.

Aside from that, the hierarchy would also have to be 1-A+ by necessity, as the set of all real numbers is included in it according to the story itself (Meaning the factor that allows it to reach this tier is indeed present in the text, and is not something external to it), and exceeded by an infinite number of different cardinalities. Since everything from 11-B to High 1-B falls under the cardinality of the reals, surpassing it would be Low 1-A by default, and the cardinals following that would correspond to levels of 1-A each. All of which leaves the hierarchy of all cardinals being High 1-B as an impossibility. If it is accepted as 1-A+, then God would be High 1-A too, for reasons outlined above.

 

[Antvasima]

Hmm. The problem here is that both sides make very good arguments and have some of our most knowledgeable people supporting them, so it is hard to reach a conclusion here.

I am currently neutral btw, but have over 6 years of experience regarding that DontTalk almost always tends to have an extremely good common sense.

 

[Agnaa]

Ah, so I should remove you from supporting 1-A and put you at neutral, then?

 

[Antvasima]

Neutral is probably fine for me, but as it is, its does not seem like we will reach a conclusion here, which is very unfortunate.

 

[Antvasima]

That is unless you (Agnaa) and Ultima are able to reach a solution.

 

[Matthew_Schroeder]

Please elaborate regarding what you think should be done here.

High 1-A God / Tier 0 Atzmus is 100% justified having read the story.

This is the one story where directly using real world theology is, in my eyes, completely justifiable. Because Unsong is a book about Theology (And Theodicy more specifically) where Jewish Kabbalah Mysticism is 100% literally true, many characters in the book are studied Kabbalists who quote scripture, reference specific Rabbis and their theories, and discuss theological theories with each other. There are entire chapters dedicated to the narrator Aaron explaining Kabbalistic concepts in detail, including the structure of the world and the Sephirot Tree and how it all connects.

For example, the Rabbi Isaac Luria is literally stated in-universe to be "One of the Four Kabbalists who had seen Adam Kadmon bare", and his particular theory of Kabbalah is discussed in length and proven to be literally true in the Unsong-world. Meaning that Isaac Luria's conception of Kabbalah and God is 100% literally applicable to Unsong.

Same with Georg Cantor and his concept of Absolute Infinity, which is also discussed at length in the book in a chapter entirely dedicated to discussing the concept of infinity, which cites him and his theories in detail. And when Unsong isn't discussing theology in detail, it's talking about mathematics and computer science in detail because the conceit of the novel is that Kabbalah = Computer Programming but for the universe. So the book talks about God in numbers and bytes just as often as it talks about Adam Kadmon and Secret Names.

And if that wasn't enough inter-spaced with the chapters are Ten Author's Notes where Scott Alexander, the author of the book, literally links the readers to Wikipedia Articles and Books from the Bible and University Papers and Website Articles on the various concepts the novel brings up "for further reading". And these go from him literally linking the Wikipedia Page for Lurianic Kabbalah after its discussed in length in some chapters, to him linking funny blog posts about the Book of Job or explaining his references to real life events, people and locations. Shortly after the chapter where the Atzmus is mentioned and explained, the very next Author's Note links to the Wikipedia Page for Atzmus.

So yes, this is a case where "You're extrapolating to outside-work information" isn't really a thing imo. Because the book is the outside information.

 

[Ultima_Reality]

Adding to Matt's post up there: It should be noted that pretty much the main theme of Unsong as a whole is that absolutely everything in the universe is connected in some way, as every concept and structure and idea within it has its root in God, and likewise, everything is a metaphor for God that informs an aspect of Him. Uriel says as much when explaining the fractal structure of the universe: Every single part contains the whole, and regardless of how distorted or rearranged a given system is from its original version, it still carries the exact same meaning and information:

“RABBI AKIVA PROPOSED THAT THE VERSE HAS BEEN MISINTERPRETED. ‘GOD MADE MAN IN HIS IMAGE’ MEANS ‘GOD MADE MAN ACCORDING TO AN IMAGE BELONGING TO GOD’. IN OTHER WORDS, MAN WAS BUILT TO A SPECIFIC CELESTIAL BLUEPRINT. WE CALL THAT BLUEPRINT ADAM KADMON, MEANING ‘ORIGINAL MAN’. ADAM KADMON IS THE BLUEPRINT NOT ONLY FOR MAN, BUT FOR THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THIS BLUEPRINT AND THE UNIVERSE ITSELF IS THE BASIS OF KABBALAH.”

Sohu cut through a scale, and was rewarded with a spurt of blood for her efforts. She shrieked and almost fell off the cloud.

“Aaak!” she said. Then: “Sorry. I was listening. Really.”

“NOVICES IN KABBALAH EXPECT THERE TO BE A SIMPLE CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN ASPECTS OF ADAM KADMON AND OBJECTS IN THE UNIVERSE. FOR EXAMPLE, ONE PART OF ADAM KADMON MIGHT DESCRIBE HUMANS, ANOTHER MIGHT DESCRIBE TREES, AND ANOTHER MIGHT DESCRIBE THE STARS. THEY BELIEVE YOU CAN CARVE UP THE DIFFERENT FEATURES OF THE UNIVERSE, MUCH LIKE CARVING A FISH, AND SIMPLY…”

“No,” said Sohu, who was still trying to wipe blood off herself. “No fish-carving metaphors.”

“THEY BELIEVE YOU CAN CARVE UP THE DIFFERENT FEATURES OF THE UNIVERSE, ENTIRELY UNLIKE CARVING A FISH,” the angel corrected himself. “BUT IN FACT EVERY PART OF THE BLUEPRINT IS CONTAINED IN EVERY OBJECT AS WELL AS IN THE ENTIRETY OF THE UNIVERSE. THINK OF IT AS A FRACTAL, IN WHICH EVERY PART CONTAINS THE WHOLE. IT MAY BE TRANSFORMED ALMOST BEYOND RECOGNITION. BUT THE WHOLE IS THERE. THUS, STUDYING ANY OBJECT GIVES US CERTAIN DOMAIN-GENERAL KNOWLEDGE WHICH APPLIES TO EVERY OTHER OBJECT. HOWEVER, BECAUSE ADAM KADMON IS ARRANGED IN A WAY DRAMATICALLY DIFFERENTLY FROM HOW OUR OWN MINDS ARRANGE INFORMATION, THIS KNOWLEDGE IS FIENDISHLY DIFFICULT TO DETECT AND APPLY. YOU MUST FIRST CUT THROUGH THE THICK SKIN OF CONTINGENT APPEARANCES BEFORE REACHING THE HEART OF -”

“No. Cutting. Metaphors,” Sohu told the archangel. She had finally made a good incision and was slowly pulling things out of the fish, sorting them by apparent edibility.

“THE BIBLE IS AN ESPECIALLY CLEAR EXAMPLE OF A SYSTEM WHICH IS ISOMORPHIC TO ADAM KADMON. SO ARE ALL HUMAN LANGUAGES. SO IS THE HUMAN BODY. SO IS THE TAROT. SO ARE THE WORKS OF WILLIAM BLAKE. SO IS THE SKY AND CONSTELLATIONS.”

“Of course it’s a metaphor! Kabbalah says that everything is a metaphor for God, the only thing that’s not a metaphor for God is God Himself. That doesn’t mean you can just dismiss things as metaphors and fail to explain how they correspond.”

And indeed, a good chunk of the book consists of Aaron, the protagonist, tracing together connections between the smallest minutia in the most schizophrenic ways possible, and it's repeatedly stated that his method is right by various different sources. So, following this, Set Theory as a whole (At least the scope of it detailed in the book, obviously, I don't want to skyrocket God to Tier 0++++++ or anything like that) would be another system that's isomorphic to God and the Adam Kadmon. In fact, even before he converted the universe into a mathematical structure, Uriel says that the equations and theorems which he discovered and invented contained far more of God than any praise that the other angels could possibly give him:

Uriel pushed him away. “Since the creation of the universe, you have shown me no kindness. When we sung songs of praise, you would mock my voice. When the war began, you ignored me, saying I was too weak and foolish to be of any help. I tried to tell you. Tried to tell you that the equations and correspondences held more of God than all of your songs and swords and shields combined. But you would not listen. You called me a fool. Now you come here, demanding I give up my home to you. Yes. You too will become metaphor. So be it. What were the words you used? I will feel no guilt.”

And, likewise, God is explicitly described as being above basic theorems of formal logic that provide the basis for set theory, such as Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems:

She had never spoken a kabbalistic Name like this before. Before they had just been letters, the appellation of a distant and transcendant deity. Now God was with her and beside her. John of Patmos had said that there would be no Temple in the New Jerusalem, because God would dwell there everywhere alike.

Last of all the winds came her own wind, the Santa Ana.

She danced in the wind, maniacally, singing, laughing. “Holy, holy, holy!” she sang, and the wind carried the word to the four quarters. For a brief moment, she passed beyond time. “Transcendent joy!” she shouted at all the poor people trapped in the sublunary world, but they didn’t hear.

Someone grabbed her body, the part of her that was stuck on the tower, the part of her that meant nothing. “Stop!” he told her, in a man’s voice. “You’ve got to come back!”

Ana soared. She circled the Transamerica Pyramid, and the giant lidless eye watched her course impassively.

“Listen!” said the man. “One plus one is two. If you don’t eat, you die. P implies not not P. Prices are controlled by the law of supply and demand, and are the only fair way of managing scarcity.”

Ana began to lose altitude.

“Organisms evolve according to the laws of natural selection. Reproductively fit organisms pass their genes on to the next generation. Uh. The wages of sin are death. Everybody dies. In a closed system, entropy always increases.”

Ana flapped her arms vigorously, trying to regain altitude, but her flight had never come from wings to begin with, and she fell further.

“Matter can’t be created or destroyed. Uh, calculus. Taxing a product disincentivizes its production. The light speed limit. No mathematical system can prove itself consistent, or else it would be inconsistent.”

Ana gently landed somewhere. She wasn’t in the tower. She was on a wharf. There were people all around her, dousing her with water, holding her hands, saying things to her.

“Prisoner’s dilemma! Can’t square the circle! Nothing exists but atoms and empty space, all else is opinion! Bad money drives out…no, look guys! She’s awake!”

“That’s why you never drink the water in San Francisco,” John told Ana. “It’s not some mystical blessing upon the city. It’s just a couple milligrams of LSD per liter of drinking water. A single swallow and you end up partaking of the beatific vision as mediated through Neil Armstrong. They keep the LSD around to maintain the trance and induct anybody else who comes in. I’ve been here half a dozen times and it still creeps me out.”

“Okay,” said Ana. She looked out the window again. The iridescent sphere was starting to pulsate.

“John’s too humble to say so,” said James. “But he saved your life. We saw that thing you did with the winds, and went up to investigate, but by the time we got up there you were way gone. He was the one who brought you down.”

“Dragged you out of the Ein Sof and into the created world,” said John. “That’s the only way to do it, remind you of all the dichotomies and tradeoffs and things that don’t apply up there.”

So, yes, coupling this together with what Matt said: Saying that anything whatsoever is unrelated to (Or doesn't scale to) God is already missing the whole point of the book.

 

[Antvasima]

Okay. That makes sense to me, although I would prefer to see what @DontTalkDT and @Agnaa think first.

The part that I am uneasy with is that mortals using the names of God should somehow scale to his full power via this method.

 

[Matthew_Schroeder]

The part that I am uneasy with is that mortals using the names of God should somehow scale to his full power via this method.

The Shem HaMephorash explicitly has the full power of God and using it necessarily destroys and recreates the entire structure of Adam Kadmon.

 

[Antvasima]

Hmm, and what is Adam Kadmon's established tier?

 

[Agnaa]

I'd like to clarify that only one Name of God scales to God, the explicit Name of God, the Shem haMephorash.

• It captures God's full essence and bestows near-omnipotence upon the speaker.
• It has the power to remake worlds.
• It was the name God has spoken during the Creation, and the Name that would blare from the Last Trumpet. A Name which could defeat Hell.
  • As an aside, the Devil is a part of God and is kept alive due to that. Comet King used it to make the Devil no longer a facet of God.
• Speaking it shatters the world and rebuilds it according to the desires of the speaker.

But there are some caveats.

• Most people who try to use it burn up or go mad halfway through.
• No-one but The Comet King and Albion can speak it, because no-one before them could see the whole universe at once and figure out how it needed to be broken and remade.
• On top of that, Metatron, the Voice of God, removes knowledge of the Shem haMephorash of anyone who isn't pure enough.

Adam Kadmon doesn't have much of an established tier, it's mostly explained as the seed of the universe. At lowest you could argue it's 1-C, since it's above a series of 4 higher worlds, each of which is a metaphor for the one before it. Moderately, you could argue it's 1-A, since their universe seems to have its own space beyond dimensions, beyond those higher worlds. At highest you could argue it scales to God, since the highest of those 4 worlds if one where the unfiltered light of God exists unified with His infinity, lacking any separate existence from God.

I think the text has enough backing for that Name to scale to God, personally.

 

[Ned_the_outer_god]

This seems to make sense to me, tier 0 is a little iffy though

 

[Ultima_Reality]

For the record: I elaborated on why I believe the Atzmus should be Tier 0 in here. To sum it up, it's really just a matter of it transcending even the system defined by God and the Absolute Nothingness, to the point that it can't even be placed in a linear hierarchy alongside them, because it does not "exist" even in the way they do. It's the exact same reasoning for why The Creator and The Amaranth are 0, or for why The Root is 1-A, or for why the purple sea is High 1-A

 

[Antvasima]

Okay. What do you think that we should do here @Agnaa and @DontTalkDT ?

 

[Antvasima]

Also, can somebody explain who Albion and The Comet King are in this story context?

 

[Matthew_Schroeder]

Also, can somebody explain who Albion and The Comet King are in this story context?

"Albion" is the being formed at the very end of the story, when the souls of a bunch of other characters fuse with the mind of protagonist Aaron Smith-Teller. In William Blake's mythology, Albion is the name given to the perfect entity that existed in the beginning of creation and whose spirit was split into the various Gods / Zoas - All of whom represent different aspects of the human soul. At the end, these entities merge together and Albion is reborn. Plenty of Unsong characters are analogue to William Blake's Zoas in name, role and personality, so when all of these merge together with Aaron they become the perfectly enlightened being who comprehends the whole universe, and then he is able to use the Shem HaMephorash to recreate the universe.

The Comet King is Jalaketu West, the Jewish Messiah. A Half-Archangel / Half-Human flawless being who is leages more powerful than any other character in the book who isn't God or Metatron. He's the only normal being who can use the Shem HaMephorash without going insane and burning to a crisp because he's just that good.

Albion only exists for a few paragraphs so it'd only be a key in Aaron's profile. Him and the Comet King are the only ones who can and who use the Shem HaMephorash (The Comet King uses it to destroy Hell and all demonkind and to free the souls trapped in Hell from their eternal torture, Albion uses it to remake the broken universe into something brighter and more equitable and beautiful at the end).

 

[Antvasima]

Okay. Those are sympathetic themes, although the following problem is of course that once billions of souls of murderers, torturers, rapists, and tyrants, driven further unhinged from prolonged torture, are let loose upon everything and everyone else, reality would all be completely screwed. Was that dilemma ever touched upon?

 

[Matthew_Schroeder]

Okay. Those are sympathetic themes, although the following problem is of course that once billions of souls of murderers, torturers, rapists, and tyrants, driven further unhinged from prolonged torture, are let loose upon everything and everyone else, reality would all be completely screwed. Was that dilemma ever touched upon?

He... Didn't want to pull people from hell and revive them. He wanted to destroy hell, to end the eternal torture of everyone trapped there and so that nobody would go through what they did ever again.

 

[Antvasima]

Okay. That is good then. I just wonder how one should deal with rehabilitating all of the souls trapped there to start with. Oh well.

 

[Agnaa]

Okay. What do you think that we should do here @Agnaa and @DontTalkDT ?

The only thing I can think of is bring in more people to evaluate.

But I guess the evaluations could stop here, since 9 people support High 1-A in one form or another, and out of the 7 who support 1-A, 2 don't support it very strongly.

 

[Agnaa]

Okay. Those are sympathetic themes, although the following problem is of course that once billions of souls of murderers, torturers, rapists, and tyrants, driven further unhinged from prolonged torture, are let loose upon everything and everyone else, reality would all be completely screwed. Was that dilemma ever touched upon?

Like Matthew said, I'm pretty sure they would have just gotten eternal salvation instead of being sent to hell.

Also, fwiw, hell is essentially presented as an evil so bad that it overwrites any good that could happen in reality. It's not as simple as "Murderers, torturers, rapists, and tyrants are tortured forever," in fact, the worst sinners get lavish villas, staffed with slaves comprised of people that they oppressed.

“Some of the demons have nicknamed this place Brimstone Acres,” Thagirion was saying. “It’s the nice part of Hell – relatively speaking, of course. We reserve it for the worst sinners. Hitler has a villa here. So do Beria and LaLaurie. It’s basic incentive theory. If the worst sinners got the worst parts of Hell, then people who were pretty sure they were hellbound might still hold back a little bit in order to make their punishment a little more tolerable. We try to encourage the opposite. If you know you’re going to Hell, you should try to sin more, much more, as much as possible, in the hopes of winning one of these coveted spots. And that’s just the beginning. There were some bad people who died in Stalinist Russia, and I like making sure every one of them knows that Beria is having a great time right now. Food, drink, and of course all the slaves he could possibly need for whatever purposes he likes. Whatever purposes. All the people selected to be his slaves being the people who hate him the most, naturally, which is the icing on the cake. These places pay for themselves, evil-wise. I just give everyone who died in the Holocaust a little magic stone that lets them know what Hitler’s doing at any given moment, and you wouldn’t believe how they howl.”

 

[Antvasima]

Okay. My concern is more that I have considered the idea of abolishing hell in my more theological philosophical moments, as I am firmly opposed to torture, but simply releasing the souls of billions of absolutely horrible people in practice would also allow them to run amok on everyone else, so I am not sure how the dilemma could be solved in practice. If you let everybody into heaven, it wouldn't be a safe place anymore. So I was just interested if the author had figured out a solution to the dilemma.

 

[Antvasima]

The only thing I can think of is bring in more people to evaluate.

But I guess the evaluations could stop here, since 9 people support High 1-A in one form or another, and out of the 7 who support 1-A, 2 don't support it very strongly.

Okay. I do not know who else that I should call here though.

 

[Agnaa]

Well, if you think we have all the votes we'll ever get, it's 7-2-7, 4-0-4 if we only count staff/ex-staff/proposed staff. And that's ignoring how multiple people only supporting 1-A are merely leaning in that direction.

I think votes-wise, the best way to resolve this gridlock into ratings is a High 1-A God, and a High 1-A, possibly 0 Atzmus.

 

[InfiniteDay]

Seems good.

 

[Ovy7]

Hmm, Agnaa's proposal above seems like a good middle-ground, I think.

 

[Ultima_Reality]

I personally don't see much point in slapping a "possibly" in there, considering that the Atzmus' reasoning lines up with what we deem enough to qualify for tier-jumping, and it's identical to what many other characters who are currently rated at solid 0 have. The only possible issue, I believe, is how brief its mentions in the story are, but the fact that the author himself literally directs the reader to the Wikipedia page for the Atzmus as a plot-relevant link for further reading nullifies that, in my opinion.

 

[Agnaa]

Not in my, and seemingly others', opinions.

Also, as I said earlier in that thread, the only statement about Atzmus is pretty much just explicit type 2 NEP, I don't feel like such a tier jump is a sure thing from that.

 

[Ultima_Reality]

Type 2 NEP can indeed serve as a basis for a higher tier (Or rather, statements that lead to Type 2 NEP can also lead to higher tiers), though, especially if the statement itself is in reference to how transcendent the character in question is. I'd agree with you if this was a case of something lacking certain ontological factors, while not necessarily being superior to them, but it's evidently not what's happening, as I explained in the post I linked above.

 

[Agnaa]

I mean yeah but that's out-of-work stuff. Even if it does serve for further reading, we need not necessarily take every single line we find on those pages as something incorporated into the story. But that's where our views differ.

The text itself only talks about simplicity, which I'd say is more a case of "lacking certain ontological factors" than being superior to them.

 

[Ultima_Reality]

I mean yeah but that's out-of-work stuff. Even if it does serve for further reading, we need not necessarily take every single line we find on those pages as something incorporated into the story. But that's where our views differ.

Of course, hence why I'm not proposing the Atzmus to be 10 layers above baseline Tier 0, or anything of the sort, but I do believe the overall concept can be used due to that. Not to mention that the Author's Notes themselves are relevant for the overall structure of the story (The author even explains that there being 10 of them is a reference to the Sephirot, even, just like the 72 chapters represent the haMephorash), and they often involve Scott Alexander giving clarifications for certain concepts in the novel, be it by linking reddit posts with theories and observations that got things right, or, like I said, linking Wikipedia articles for the reader to familiarize themselves with the concepts that the story brings up. It's still usable, in my opinion.

The text itself only talks about simplicity, which I'd say is more a case of "lacking certain ontological factors" than being superior to them.

Not really, since "simplicity" is how the hierarchy of worlds is structured in Unsong to begin with, where higher worlds are simpler in nature, and thus transcendent over lower ones, and with God and the Absolute Nothingness transcending the entire cosmology by virtue of being the simplest possible states out of which everything else emerges. Then the Atzmus is just absolute nothingness that can't even be placed in this hierarchy, because it's not a "thing" to be evaluated as "simple" to begin with.

 

[Agnaa]

Not to mention that the Author's Notes themselves are relevant for the overall structure of the story (The author even explains that there being 10 of them is a reference to the Sephirot, even, just like the 72 chapters represent the haMephorash)

I find that more to be a cute joke. Notice how the eleventh author's note was called "postscript 1" to keep the structure of there only being 10 author's notes:

It’s kabbalistically important that there only be ten author’s notes, so this is a postscript even though the book isn’t technically finished yet.

Not really, since "simplicity" is how the hierarchy of worlds is structured in Unsong to begin with, where higher worlds are simpler in nature, and thus transcendent over lower ones, with God and the Absolute Nothingness transcending the entire cosmology by virtue of being the simplest possible states out of which everything else emerges. Then the Atzmus is just absolute nothingness that can't even be placed in this hierarchy, because it's not a "thing" to be evaluated as "simple" to begin with.

That is not how the hierarchy of worlds is described. To check if I was remembering this correctly, I searched through your cosmology blog, the only places where simplicity was mentioned were:

• Various uses of it unrelated to the cosmology.
• Discussion of this one chapter where they talked about divine simplicity.
• A statement that God created a garden of universes, from the center where everything is perfect and simple to the more bizarre edges.

None of these are talking about the higher worlds being simpler. I also ctrl+f'd through my set of notes and found nothing of note. When searching the pages on the site for all instances of "simple" using a search engine, I also found nothing.

To my recollection, higher worlds are described as a sequence of metaphors. There isn't a mention of simplicity = transcendent. In fact, "these worlds are more simple" is only used when talking about parallel seeds that have no reason to be transcendent.