Conceptual Manipulation: Not all Concepts are Created (or destroyed) Equal

NOTE: AS REQUESTED BY ANT, STAFF ONLY

Man, another big post, huh? Well this one isn't a far-reaching, and really doesn't impact that many profiles. However, it does have a very significant effect on how we treat the profiles that have this power, though I know DontTalk, Executor, and Ever agree with at least some of the points here.

Introductio
Arceus via concept hax

If asked "what is the strongest power off the top of your head?" many of you very well may answer with Conceptual Manipulation, and this would be a very good answer! Or would it?

Is Conceptual Manipulation really the brokeback overpowered ability we make it out to be? I want to answer you today and tell you: It is, but only some of the time. The fact of the matter is that Conceptual Manipulation is a power that can be incredibly powerful to the point of being a Top-Tier power or utterly worthless. This comes from the fact that conceptual manipulation varies in power and applicatio.

In fact, Conceptual Manipulation can vary wildly based off of three key principles.

1. The Object of the Concept

2. The Manipulation of the Concept

3. The Level of the Concept

Depending on these principles, you can make the power completely useless or overwhelmingly powerful, and as of now we have them lumped into each other with no differentiation between them. Right now, concept manip is concept manip with only a couple differences.

The Conceptual Differences

1. Object of the Concept
By far the most identifiable and currently acknowledged limitation of concept manipulation, the object of the concept is the specific idea or object that the concept is bound to. For example, being able to use the concept of evil does not mean that a character can just win "via concept hax". How does the object of the concept allow for a victory? What can it accomplish? This does, in part, play into the other two pieces of the puzzle, but it is very important to identify what the character can manipulate conceptually, or else you'll run into a NLF that ends with an unjustifiably overpowered character.

While the object of the concept can range from almost anything, it is important to note that certain objects will inherently be more devastating in application than others if the object has the same Level and Manipulation type. Someone who can manipulate the concept of toilets will lose to someone who can manipulate the concept of reality so long as the former concept does not have a special quality that makes it more powerful.

For those of you thinking "this seems obvious" hang on, I'm getting to the good stuff, but this needed to be gotten out of the way.

2. Manipulation of the Concept
As as preface to this, DontTalk wrote a good blog about this section of conceptual manipulation, and it serves as a good read going into this CRT.

This essentially means "how can the character manipulate the concept?" This is a very important question to ask, as there is a massive difference between creating, changing, destroying, or embodying a concept a concept. Sorry, Cal, but I'm taking shots at the Lake Trio for an example here.

We currently treat the Lake Trio to have conceptual level manipulation of willpower, emotion, and knowledge, respectively. Only the thing is, they never demonstrate this. They embody it, sure, but they have not shown the ability to manipulate the very essence of their respective conceptual object. I am made out of flesh and bone. I cannot alter the concept of flesh and bone. Similarly, those who Lucemo create concepts cannot do anything but that unless they have shown otherwise. We can't assume that, just because you created something, that you can destroy it when it comes to hax. This isn't AP and the transition of creation to destruction or manipulation to destruction cannot be made without evidence. Similarly, destroying a concept does not indicate that you can create or embody it, unless otherwise shown. So yes, this would hit everyone who has made a concept, yet never destroyed it, hard.

Speaking of destroying concepts, that leads me into the final significant point.

3. Level of the Concept
Though it is not as common sense-based as the previous two points, there are multiple levels of possible concepts and their interpretations. This Wiki has a very odd habit of kinda making an amalgamation of two types of concepts and we shift back and forth between what it constitutes. It is time to leave that behind and get concrete.

There are multiple levels of concepts. What do I mean by that? Well, that is simple: some showings of concepts in fiction are not nearly as impressive as others because concept manipulation is not across-the-board in similarity, even with point 1 and 2 holding constant. There are levels of concepts that vary wildly in power. The highest level cannot be achieved even by most god figures, while the other can be achieved by a human. And both of these are in the same category without any distinction, as is. That's a pretty serious issue.

The majority of the following deals with an issue known as the Problem of Universals, so if you want to read up on some sources for the ideas being presented here, you are free to do so.

In fiction, the Level of the concept completely depends on what is presented. The presentation of concepts can be wildly varying for different verses, so the acknowledgement and understanding of a difference in paramount in establishing a notion of power for a character's conceptual manipulation. The following are 5 levels that can be generally outlined by a philosophical school of thought. The following list the levels in descending order, from strongest to weakest.

Type 1: Platonic Realism: Platonic Realism holds that concepts (or forms) are abstract in nature and are utterly transcendent of reality. Everything about reality merely "participates", or takes from, these concepts. These concepts, if manipulated, must be manipulated to the point that the abstract concept itself, independent of the universe, is manipulated. These forms must predate the universe, as they came before and are independent of its existence. To manipulate such forms is to manipulate something utterly beyond reality that shapes it from the outside.

Type 2: Aristotelian Realism: Aristotelian Realism holds that concepts are abstract in nature, yet bound to the object of their concept in reality. An Aristotelian Concept will exist and remain so long as its object does as well. If one was to manipulate this, every object that is a part of the concept would change with it. These have to come after the universe's birth, and are dependent on the current existence of the object of the concept (if "circles" were eliminated from the universe, so would the concept of "circle-ness").

Type 3: Lesser Realism: Lesser Realism, while not an outright term, holds that concepts are abstract in nature, yet are bound to and change with the waking population. The framework for these abstracts is built by the population and is held in and changed by the collective belief about the concept itself. To manipulate this concept entails only manipulating the conceptual framework of every individual, thus changing the concept itself in the process. That said, directly manipulating this abstract concept would change the framework of the object of the concept for all individuals, yet the fundamental object of the concept "circle-ness" would remain unchanged in the material universe.

Type 4: Idealism: Idealism holds that concepts are not truly abstract, but rather are a framework of accepted ideas among a group of beholders. All concepts that exist within this level are created with facets naturally imbued with the rational mind, with the concept of "circular" not being an abstract concept, but rather just a fact of the logical mind. In this framework, all things are mentally constructed and thus mentally manipulated. This is very similar to Type 5, although not quite as frail, and thus will be indirectly elaborated on below.

Type 5: Nominalism: Nominalism holds that concepts are not truly abstract, but rather there are only particulars and individuals. That way this form of conceptual manipulation only manipulate the concepts held by particulars, and thus can be achieved with far more minor means than conventional conceptual manipulation, such as mind manipulation. That said, this is still an answer to the Problem of Universes that uses concepts, and as such should still hold under Conceptual manipulation, as lack-luster as it is (for example, one's concepts of guns could be altered simply by observing a school shooting).

Finishing Up
TLDR: Not all concepts are equal. They can vary wildly in the object of the concept, manipulation of the concept, and level of the concept. There is a big difference from slightly altering the concept of band-aids on a Nominalistic level and destroying the concept of existence on an Platonic level.

I agree with everything here, but what are you trying to revise? Making different types of conceptual manipulation?

Spinosaurus75DinosaurFan said:

I agree with everything here, but what are you trying to revise? Making different types of conceptual manipulation?

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Exactly. Break it into types. The Levels section is the most important here, and the other two are more self-explanatory.

Theglassman12 said:

There's also the fact that not every character uses concept hax right off the bat.

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I agree, but that's another thread.

I am too tired at the moment to immerse myself in the subject, but DontTalk and Executor usually know what they are talking about.

If you wish to rewrite a powers & abilities page, it is usually good to ask Reppuzan to give input though.

Anyway, again, policy change discussions should always be staff only. Please respect this principle in the future. Thank you.

@Ant

That's fine, I'm currently writing to them to request their approval and input right now, as well as Reppuzan.

Following, but going to bed.

I asked Reppuzan.

Antvasima said:

Anyway, again, policy change discussions should always be staff only. Please respect this principle in the future. Thank you.

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I always see non-staff people in staff threads, and when I was a newbie I was confused about the definition of "staff only" because of that.

Antvasima said:

Anyway, again, policy change discussions should always be staff only. Please respect this principle in the future. Thank you.

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Very well then. Though I greatly dislike doing that, I will do it as per your request.

@Spino

Well, it reduces the sheer amount of chaotic replies at least.

@Assaltwaffle

Thank you. I gave a considerably more indepth explanation of the reasons for this in the tier 2 thread.

Well, I'll let this thread simmer overnight, because I'm heading to bed. Hopefully Executor and DT can chime in, but there's no rush for that.

I agree in principle, however in practice I would want to make two distinctions:

1. Nominalism, Idealism and, I think, also Lesser Realism should not qualify as conceptual manipulation for our purposes (meaning cases where concepts are manipulated in that sense should be listed as something different). That has a few reasons:

First, historically conceptual manipulation in vs-debates was always referred to as a kind where changing the concepts also changes reality. I think keeping it as being fundamentally the same ability is easiest and would cause the least confusion on who can do what.

Second, manipulating concepts in the above mentioned senses just seems like a completely different ability, which is closer to a form of mind manipulation than it is to the rest of concept manipulation. For indexing purposes it makes more sense to list them separated than throwing them together in one vague term.

Third, if something like manipulating a concept in the sense of Nominalism would be listed as concept manipulation, that would mean one type isn't even a superpower and basically everyone with some large public influence could have it. And I think we all know that people will use the fact that it technically applies to a lot of characters in order to just vaguely write "concept manipulation" on the profile to make them seem powerful.


The latter relates to the second distinction I would want to make out of practicality. For Aristotelian Realism creating/destroying concepts by creating the first/destroying the last object of the concept should likely not be listed as conceptual manipulation either. (which is just something that should be mentioned on the page, when it is rewritten) Again, it just seems more healthy to not have actions that could be performed by normal humans justify the addition of an otherwise supernatural power to the profiles.

I think that DontTalk seems to make sense.

I also think that DT makes solid logical sense here.

My problem with these definitions is 99% of Users won't be able to distinguish between them because they don't have an in-depth knowledge of philosophy or metaphysics.

I certainly have trouble wrapping my head around them at a glance and it's difficult to expect a casual user to know the difference between Idealism and Nominalism.

I feel like they need to be simplified and given examples.

That's why explanations exist.

Agreed with Reppu here. I for one read all of this and understood none of it.

Before you delete my comment.

It would be nice if you...yeah know, give us examples on which characters have which types.

Also, couldn't there be a Type 6 as well via Objectivism?

Some concepts, according to some philisophers have objective truth to them because we can observe them as such.

In other words, what concepts you see are what concepts you get. IE: Time, Space, Ground, the Elements etc.

I am also probably using the wrong philisophical word (I got a C in the class.), but basically the embodiment of concepts we can see/observe are the only concepts that 'matter'.

This seems really close to Type 5, but it doesn't entail any abstraction what so ever.

But yeah, I love it when the wiki seperates the types of powers for us knucklehead users. I am tired of going 'well concept manipulation...sounds like an NLF.'

In principle, I am for.

Nobody needs an in depth knowledge of physics and metaphysics to understand Platonic forms. Assalt has a good explanation in the OP, although there are a few things I'll get into,

I agree with DontTalk and Repuzzan.

Interesting topic. I will think about the subject and reply here again. Consider this post a placeholder.

I also think that Reppuzan and DontTalk make good points. We need to keep the explanations reasonably easy to understand, and also relate the concept to actual superhuman powers.

I'm not sure what people are not understanding. Assalt explained it well.

Anyway, I'll have to go out now. I'll be back in a few hours.

It's not that, it's that:

1. Half of these don't even fit our definition of Concept Manipulation, and what we understand them to be.

2. We are concerned that people won't understand them, and confuse things.

However, I think we should expand the page and explain that not all Concepts are equal, both philosophically, and in scale. That would avoid confusions like people thinking that "Destroying the concept of time", automatically means you destroyed time on all possible levels and is thus High 1-B.

@Matthew

That seems fine.

Adding on to Matthew's point, I do think that we need not only "levels" of conceptual manipulation, but also "scales" on which those levels work.

For example, there could be a verse where Platonic Forms exist, but the main part of the verse is only 2-A in scale. This would make the Forms in this case High 2-A.

Similarly, to extrapolate from the last part of Matthew's comment, an Aristotlean concept of time can entail a concept that will exist for as long as time itself does in some form, and it can be High 1-B via the existence of infinitely many temporal dimensions.

KingPin does seem to have a point.

So would killing someone who embodies an abstract concept be conceptual erasure?

I'll address all your points soon; I'm at lunch atm.

I'll also address a similar issue that Kaltias has asked me to cover.

@KingPin, Ant

I think that this will cause more confusion than what is necessary. Platonic Forms are conceptually aspatial and atemporal as part of their essential nature, and so relating them to dimensionality is exceptionally redundant, as they would be unbound by its concepts, being abstract and metaphysical. This is essentially the essence of 1-A, and I refuse to have any more confusion regarding such a high tier, as there is more than enough already.

According to Wikipedia:

A Form is aspatial (transcendent to space) and atemporal (transcendent to time). Atemporal means that it does not exist within any time period, rather it provides the formal basis for time. It therefore formally grounds beginning, persisting and ending. It is neither eternal in the sense of existing forever, nor mortal, of limited duration. It exists transcendent to time altogether. Forms are aspatial in that they have no spatial dimensions, and thus no orientation in space, nor do they even (like the point) have a location. They are non-physical, but they are not in the mind. Forms are extra-mental (i.e. real in the strictest sense of the word).

@Aeyu: That is true in theory, just like in theory the "laws of nature" are per definition those laws that hold for everything that exists.

However, in fiction the laws of nature talked about are frequently local laws of natures, like for example multiverses which have different "laws of nature" in each universe.

Similarly concepts in fiction are quite usually local, irregardless of what some proper definition suggests.

So concept manipulation indeed comes in different degrees of influence.


Of course, if one wants to be strict, one could simply say all that are not 1-A are not really Aristotelian, but just, in all but one way, the same and be done with it that way.

@DontTalk

I'm not arguing that conceptual manipulation doesn't come in degrees (sorry if my post seems to imply that; I'm actually for this, by the way), I'm arguing that by definitio something cannot be Platonic (Type 1) without being aspatial and atemporal on a conceptual level, which is exactly what constitutes 1-A. This applies to ALL Platonic Ideals, and not just some of them. I would not consider Aristotle's universals or any of the other levels to necessarily have these parameters, but this is true under all suggestions of Platonic Idealism, and should be considered such unless directly contradicted by the author/work.

@Aeyu & DontTalk

Thank you for the clarifications.

Aeyu said:

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As long as that doesn't mean that conceptual manipulation is defaulted to 1-A extent, that is ok with me.

(Would mean we need more types, though, as we also need "pseudo-Aristotelian for those that are local)

Depends on the type. I believe Platonic universals would fit under 1-A.

It's important to be clear that while philosophically speaking, Platonic Ideals would be 1-A, just having the terms "Platonic Ideal Forms" or any variation of the sort, should not make something immediately 1-A in fiction.