#speculative metaphysics

[eclecticoccult]

If we're to believe that Spirits, Deities, and other paranatural entities have access to realms or universes and sensory information that mortal human bodies cannot perceive, then we can only really describe those entities as intelligent and understandably more intelligent than us. So logic serves that obviously it would not be difficult for them to avoid detection. We can't capture evidence to prove their existence because they don't want us to, or alternatively, a human body could not conceive a vital part of their essence in a reliable, repeatable, and measurable fashion.

[shadowdarkee]

Giratina&Distortion/Reverse World Headcanon

As background, lets start with what's already known to us: The Distortion/Reverse world is a parallel world reflecting the normal world where space and time behave abnormally, gravity changes massively with location, and all that good stuff. When spacetime gets damaged in the normal world, this place gets polluted. When stuff in the Reverse World gets damaged, explosions happen in the normal world. It's home to the Legendary Pokémon Giratina, the third part of the trio of Dialga (representing Time), and Palkia (representing space). Logically, what Giratina represents should be orthogonal to the two. Word of God says that Giratina and its world represent antimatter. What the fuck? What do antiparticles have to do with time and space? As a brief aside, 106 years ago the mathematician Emmy Noether proved (in laymens terms) that every symmetry in how a physical system works implies a conservation law. For instance, if the physics of a system doesn't change with time (time invariance), then energy is conserved. symmetry under translation (physics works the same in a system no matter where one sets the origin. Ex:physics works the same if 3 meters to your left as it does where you are currently standing) implies conservation of [linear] momentum. Rotational symmetry (physics works the same in all directions) implies conservation of angular momentum. And so on. Now, as far as we can tell physics in the pokémon world obeys all these symmetries. However, it doesn't take much thought to notice that the conservation laws are broken routinely. Pokémon evolution draws energy/mass from nowhere. So do all sorts of attacks. Beam attacks like water gun or hyper beam that don't send the user backwards blatantly violate conservation of momentum. The mass from food that Pokémon eat vanishes entirely. What's going on here? Why does Pokémon seem to contradict Noether's theorem? You may be asking what this has to do with anything, or be about to reply 'Shadaki, you're looking way too much into this', but bare with me. Back to the main topic: Giratina, its world, and antimatter. Now, while we're used to the idea of antimatter as simply being particles of opposite charge, that wasn't the original conception. When Paul Dirac was working on relativistic quantum mechanics, his Dirac Equation for spin 1/2 particles (i.e. electrons) allowed for negative energy solutions - which is a problem, as particles are assumed to have positive energy. His explanation for the negative solutions (and why positive energy particles don't decay into them) was that below the ground state is a ‘sea’ (yes, that Dirac Sea) of filled negative energy states (by Pauli's Exclusion Principle, only one spin 1/2 particle can exist in a specific state at a time). If the correct amount of energy is given, a particle from a negative state can be kicked up to a positive state, leaving a 'hole' in the sea. By all intents and purposes the 'hole' behaves like a particle with opposite charge. That is: Antimatter.

Headcanon: Giratina is more broadly the Dragon of Antimatter and Symmetries, and the '-' in 'space-time'. The Distortion/Reverse World is in turn a generalized version of the Dirac Sea as well as possibly serving as a way of mapping points in space to points in time. Anytime a Pokémon is doing something that seems to be violating a conservation law, its actually moving the 'violating' quantity to or from the Distortion/Reverse World. If one were to measure the space-time curvature of the otherworld in a specific location, one would find that it also changes depending on whether a Pokemon (or human?) is located in the corresponding sidereal location - except opposite from normal. Destroying something in the Reverse World causes its sidereal counterparts to try to fall to fill in energy state in the hole. The 'Pollution' comes from the world having trouble mapping points or genuine conservation law violations and figuratively raising its arms and saying 'fuck if I know, its supposed to be loosely like this or something'

[eclecticoccult]

the only reason science understands sight is because humans have eyes.

hypothetically if humans hadn't evolved to have eyes (but somehow still experienced the qualia of vision), biology would discover organisms with eyeballs and ocular nerves and would only be able to guess the purpose of the organ.

western science accepts that dogs and fish experience vision because they have eyes, and so humans can relate. their ocular and nervous system is similar to human biology and so its recognizable. we know they see because they have eyes, so we expect the science to reflect this.

when science inspects the eyeball and brain and ocular nerves of a mammal, they understand that a physical and chemical change occurs and that energy is transmitted. objectively on the surface, this is the only quantitative change that is observable. we only recognize that this chemical change produces the qualia of sight because we subjectively understand as individuals that we see using our eyes.

plants do not have a nervous system that is comparable to a mammal's, however studies show that, chemically, plants absorb and utilize light photons and light energy. there are now studies that evidence plants having unique personalities and making decisions, reacting intentionally to their environment, and can be anesthetized just like animals with all the same chemicals. plants react almost identically to people, appearing "asleep," for a time. the study even described venus fly traps as behaving, "groggy," during the first stages of waking up.

so its obvious this is confirmation bias. its shameful the lengths science with resort to in efforts to uphold the anthropocentric assumption that no other consciousness exists. it is a guilty-until-proven-innocent mindset that can only ever resort in dead-ends. consciousness cannot be reliably observed, only experienced. it is by definition unfalsifiable. a truly objective understanding from within human subjectivity is impossible and science as long as it is looking through a human's eyes. after everything science has uncovered, its ridiculous that nobody will acknowledge the possibility of consciousness elsewhere, beginning with plants and likely even more.

[shadowdarkee]

Batman and DC metaphysics, a proposal (or: where Grant Morrison may have taken Batman if not for Flashpoint)

Consider the following:

Bruce designed the Batman persona to feed into people's superstitions and terrify criminals (See Riddler's "Do not let him scare you. He uses a simple collection of theatrical tricks and pantomime effects to strike terror into your tiny, lizard brains."), and actively makes the effort to play up/into aspects of the persona's urban legend to keep the superstitions going . That is: the design of the suit, what technology is embedded in it, how he publicly performs in the role (that is, outside of the cave), and what tactics he uses, are all to cultivate "Batman the Myth". We've seen portrayals of how the public sees him, and the urban legends about the persona. 'He's ten-feet tall with giant bat ears that can hear anything!'/'He's a vengeful bat-demon!'/'He's a bat-human hybrid!'/etc. IIRC, there's been claims that ('I heard that...'?) The Batman can turn invisible or turn into smoke or swarms of bats or teleport between shadows or standard claims of immortality or being bulletproof (EX: Batman: Gotham Knight). By the time of the [post Crisis] 'present', Bruce has been operating for, what? fifteen-twenty years? That's probably enough time for these urban legends to settle into the City's collective consciousness. But consider, Gotham City seems to be covered in some level of ambient magic.

What if the more prominent beliefs about Batman's abilities have gradually, subtly, without Bruce's notice, started being true? Maybe the Batman starts to blend into the shadows more. The cowl allows him to see or hear more than it's built in equipment should allow. Maybe Injuries that would permanently stop him or reduce his effectiveness (totally hypothetical example: a broken back) just become temporary maladies just requiring a rest period. Not that he really takes it seriously if he overhears others making observations about this. 'Of course they think that, I'm continually improving my suit and my skills, and trying to put on the illusion that these superstitions are true.' 'Of course I'm fine, Alfred is a brilliant surgeon.' Over time, effects may become more pronounced, and Bruce finally becomes aware that things are off and has to investigate.

For more weirdness, start with the Final Crisis and play with its metaphysics. Fourth World is gone, and Earth is turning into Fifth world (or perhaps the changes have started much earlier...). If that means some humans will start turning into new New Gods, Batman is an obvious choice depending on how soon it starts happening (as New God/living personification of 'the concept of Batman'?). With Bruce gone, Dick takes on the persona and slowly he (rather than Bruce) starts noticing things are off when in the suit. Eventually, Bruce comes back, notes are compared between them and other JL members (what Clark learned about reality during the crisis, presence of enhanced abilities, seeing their own New God 'true form' out of the corner of their eye in mirrors?), and they start to figure out whats going on. IIRC, a background detail in Morrison's Batman run which was never went anywhere was that there's something in Gotham's mirrors which is driving (crazy?) people (even more?) mad. And if you were to choose a DC human that would become the New God of the concept of Madness, well...

[artist-tyrant]

Where did words like “matter”, “object”, or “the external” come from? Was it sheer, delusional madness as most Western idealists would have it? Or could they be a representation of truth trying to become whole by representing the beyond? When what is within our minds isn’t reconciled with what is beyond, a fundamental, systematic error will present itself in any set of beliefs. One needs to be able to account for what they cause, but also the fact that there are other causes effecting them.