Superreality (aka Megareality) is the answer to the curiosity of "what if everything here is just the work of a group of authors?"
It is and is its own category. It is not a space, not a location, not anything, not nothing. But to call it something is a must, for otherwise, we cannot refer to it except by name. So let's just say it is a thing.
Nature[]
Its nature is heavily debated, but one thing that is undisputed is the domain of transfiction within it.
Transfictionalism, a brief introduction[]
Transfictionalism is a domain of study that refers to phenomena that some things are like fictional characters with respect to some other things (authors), such that the authors have control over how these fictional characters behave. There are even things that are authors of themselves and their surroundings, termed author authority, and there are also things which are fictional relatively speaking, but nevertheless can alter things nonfictional (transfictionals or TFAs).
Obviously, this can be generalized indefinitely, thus say there is a fictional character within a fiction (i.e. a ffictional) that can grab an apple in rreality and eat it. Then this character will be a 2nd order transfictional author authority (2TFA). Generalizing further, you can have nTFAs for every number n. At the maximal limit of this, there is Authorlock, which is something that no transfictionals can reach.
An illustration[]
A nice real life experiment you can do to get an intuition on what fiction and reality is, is to go to some website which prevent you from doing screen caps. Yet you can just photograph your monitor to effectively screen cap the contents. In this example, you are more real than whatever is in your monitor, as the computer failed to stop you from taking photos as it cannot reach out to the camera.
Now, consider another website where it somehow have access to your webcam when you browse it. You then once again trying to photograph it, but this time, the website can detect your camera is nearby via your webcam, so it successfully close itself the moment the camera is moved into position, thwarting you. Such a website is thus like a TFA as it can detect what you are doing outside the confines of the computer.
Internal structure[]
Very little is known about its overall structure, if any and if the notion is still applicable. It is safe to treat its overall as if it is the deep Imaginarium. However, there are a few postulates on its possible structure, that treats it like a layered version of the Imaginarium.
Realness (Real/Unreal or more commonly Reality/Fiction)[]
Schematics showing the layers and their numbering
Superreality can be considered to be layered, beginning with reality, rreality, r(3)eality,... all the way up to r(max)eality, which some argued to be equivalent to the Realium. Similarly in the opposite vein, unreality, uunreality, u(3)nreality,... all the way down to u(max)nreality. These numbers in the brackets are known as realness levels, or R-level for short. To illustrate, given an apple in reality, it will look unreal in rreality. The same relationship holds between any layers. An alternate way to label the layers is to note that r(n)eality = u(-n)nreality for any number n except zero. The same layering scheme also applies to substructures (dreams, imagination, hallucinations etc.) of Superreality, as detailed below in their corresponding sections.
Authorlock and Authorkey[]
Superreality also has two special layers. Authorlock which controls all realness layers, and Authorkey which is controlled by all realness layers. Their nature is still heavily disputed.
Local and Global scale[]
Schematics showing local scales and the global scale for each layer. R(max)eality is Authorlock and Authorkey in deep blue. Red indicates the local layer. Note how the independence of local scale of Authorlock allows Authorlocks to define a global scale across Superreality, and how Authorkey only aware of itself and not any other layers.
Every layer has their own labeling of the layers in Superreality. By default, each layer understood themselves as reality, hence they mark themselves as 1 and then the scale goes up and down as ..., -3,-2,-1,1,2,3, ... (assuming there is no r(0)eality). In addition, any local scale will top off at r(max)eality as "max+1" is not greater than max.
Authorlock is special in that all realness layers are marked with negative R-levels (though this is actually controversial as would be clear in the specific layers subchapter). Authorlock is generally ignored in any local scales except itself because lower layers often do not aware there is Authorlock. This makes the local scale used by inhabitants in Authorlock (the authorlockers) a global and absolute scale that uniquely labels every layer in Superreality. As for Authorkey, it is so far below that it is only aware of itself, hence the only number in its local scale is 1.
How realness works[]
Authoring and control relationships within Superreality in general, as well the form the layers can take
Realness is really a measure of fiction and reality. This effectively make Superreality to be a stack of fictions, with lower layers more fictional than those above. In that vein, authors resides in higher layers and write fictions in lower layers, where fictional characters and settings lived. To authors, they have more freedom to alter the settings in a lower layer. For example, if the author's home layer only has trees with red apples, then they can write a fiction where there are green apples.
At the same time however, unless said authors have knowledge of everything at an Authorlock level hence Authorlock creativity, what they decided to write and what ideas and imaginations they have will heavily depending on the surrounding environment they are exposed to, said environments being fictions written by authors at higher layers. An author can in theory wrote about something they don't know (say a cube), but only accidentally, and the result is that said thing will become less real and convincing. Less pointed out though is that in those cases, the author also gained the knowledge of what a concept of a cube is. More precisely, with the concept you can make bad cubes, wrong cubes, normal cubes, changed cubes, deformed cubes, variations on a cube, etc but without it you cannot make any of those unless as variations on other close concepts that you do have or by accident, by putting nonsense that ends up being close enough that a cube happens.
At the scope of realness layers, these layers can be said to be authors themselves, setting the lower layers while at the same time maybe limited in their scope of setting by higher layers. This ensures that authoring becomes more free and more limited at the same time as the layers are traveled down, establishing a largely downwards directing control structure of authorship. Many do understand Superreality that way as a complex of fictions.
It is even suggested that realness layers are even more complicated, with each layer consists of multiple parallel realities that do not affect each other, as well isolated realities that are not under any authorship nor are fictional works. Within each of these parallel realities can be a substructure or just fictions, or something more exotic.
Specific layers[]
Authorlock[]
Authorlock is a special level in Superreality as it is the only level that controls all layers. It is so named because everyone here are definitely authors and cannot be challenged of their authorship status from lower layers. Because of this, Authorlock provide an absolute reference to R-levels, and hence define a universal layout of Superreality independent of all other layers. Like MPR, Authorlock contains any layers that are labelled as higher than it, thus technically there is no limit on how vast Authorlock is. Authorlock's controlling status compared to all other layers also means it is the most stable of the layers. More controversially, Authorlock is said to be inaccessible to MPR as well, though this is still heavily disputed, including how to establish or refute this. Some even claimed that Authorlock is not really a R-level and is its own thing, labelled with a special numeral thing called the Authornumber, while others argued that Authorlock is R(max)eality.
R(max)eality[]
This is the highest layer in Superreality that can be indexed. Here R(max)eality enjoys many traits like in Authorlock including resistance from transfictional invasion from below, making it very stable. It is usually confused as Authorlock for those below it, as the knowledge that there is Authorlock is uncommon in Superreality.
R(CAI)eality[]
R(CAI)eality is special as this is often the level where some local scales except Authorlock have trouble to notate R-levels properly. Near R(CAI)eality, layers become chaotic to completely nebulous, making it difficult to figure out layers. For example, it is common to have R(CAI+1)eality = R(CAI)eality. Some argued that this in fact applies to all local scales including Authorlock, and hence representing a highly nonstructural part of Superreality. Some even argued that R(CAI)eality = R(max)eality if a Rreal flower is no different from a real flower in terms of how more flowery they are.
Fractional, complex and surreal number layers[]
It is currently unknown if there are fractional, complex and surreal number layers.
R(0)eality[]
Nothing is known about this layer, or whether there is such a layer. There are reasons to expect there is no such layer as lying between reality and unreality will mean it is outside the notion of layers completely and becomes independent of Superreality and hence not part of Superreality. It is also not expected to be Nothing, as that lacks even realness, while this hypothetical layer will have zero realness. Some also suspects R(0)eality is something analogous to a great barrier separating globally real from the globally unreal across Superreality.
Authorkey[]
The inverse of Authorlock. It is a special level where everyone here are fictional characters. There are no authors here and hence fiction is impossible. Authorkey is also so far below the R-levels that inhabitants think they are the only reality. Like Authorlock, there are claims that it is identical to R(-max)eality.
Beyond Authorlock and metamaximals[]
Rumors told of layers superior to Authorlock, layers greater than it to the point that it cannot be described. These "non-numbers" are known as metamaximals. Whether there are such r(a)eality layers are heavily disputed, as proving that there is at least one metamaximal requires mBoxes (themselves already heavily disputed) and assumptions analogous to large cardinal axioms. Currently, it is not clear whether there are ways to establish there are metamaximals without those assumptions. In addition, it is not known if there is a upper limit to all metamaximals, known as the Storynumber. Metamaximal layers, if they are indeed there, will probably be operating in manners not understood in terms of realness on authorlockers and such phenomena will be virtually indistinguishable from miracles, or in ways not expected for what is understood as control, such as reinterpreting the story that is written so it behaves differently from what the authors intended. More importantly, there will be no global scale if there are metamaximal, because then e.g. "a > Authorlock" will correspond to a metamaximal, thus no scales containing only one type of number as their indices.
Hierarchies[]
Between every layer (and sublayers whenever applicable), there are hierarchies spanning across them, indicating the more detailed relationships of control. These can be illustrated by any ordered structure for convenience purpose such as well orders, graphs, posets, trees, loops, bubbles and so on, but in theory, there are more exotic types of hierarchies which cannot be presented. Besides hierarchies, like The Box, Superreality exhibits some degree of nesting. It is currently unclear what the nestings are like though.
Fractalness[]
It is unclear if there are always structures regardless of scale, and whether "scale" make sense in Superreality, hence whether it is a fractal-verse is currently an open question. It is however possible, for a fiction, to contain a copy of Superreality.
Substructures[]
Substructures are convenient notions assigned to portions of realness to comprehend Superreality. Under some notions of substructures, they are sublayers within each realness layer, while others, they pervade over Superreality. To be very clear, any substructure are real or fictional, it is just a convenient way to reason about the realness layers in portions of Superreality in different contexts.
Narrative (Fiction/Nonfiction, Empirical/Imagination, Theorising)[]
Illustrating some possible kinds of hierarchies in transfiction: A: A chain of authors writing each other B: Authors are written by more than one team of authors higher up and across many layers C: A chain of authors eventually writing a TFA D: A character that is an author of itself E: An author authority
This is the most well known of the substructures and the arena of transfiction. Hierarchies spans across many realness layers, and can get very complicated here. Some examples include:
- A chain of authors writing the life of each other
- A tree, illustrating how different chain of authors write each other, sometimes in collaboration so that a fictional depends on the actions of more than one authors.
- Loops, where some authors are transfictionals and hence can affect things at a higher layer of reality
- Author authority, which writes about the current layer they inhabited
- Self-authoring, writing themselves thus like a self-caused thing that writes the actions they do. Often makes them quite independent of what other authors and transfictionals are doing
- The layers themselves have nontrivial relations, such as strange loops in recursive realities, thus allowing some fictional characters to write about their authors under certain conditions despite not being themselves transfictionals
- Fictions written turned out to be nonfiction, or layers where fiction and nonfiction are indistinguishable. Such can happen in delusions
- There can be different degrees of resilience when moving between one narrative layer to another, globally or locally or some other notions. One can also understood that as if there is some Great Barrier separating the layers with varying thickness. Such degrees explains how fiction influences nonfiction via the thoughts of their authors, or nonfiction influences fiction by constraining the theme of the fiction
- Nonlinear fiction, which jumps between layers in some unpredictable ways
- Narrative soup, where the control relationships are chaotic, complex, amorphous or indescribable
Therefore, due to the presence of authoring loops, it is in general not always the case that flow of control is always from a higher realness layer to a lower layer. Higher levels of nonfiction are often highly resistant to modifications and tend to heal themselves after being modified. Layers of this substructure follow the naming scheme f(n)iction, n(n)onfiction.
Narratives can get even more complicated, such as the observation on how there are many transfictional settings, and yet none of the transfictional or TFA characters written seemly has any effect on our reality. It also explains the possibility that the objective reality as we knew it could be an idea of something greater.
For example, imagination is always fictional even when it matches reality exactly. The orange you are imagining is not the same material orange. That is easily provable: if you stop imagining it the material one will not disappear and if the material one is destroyed you can still imagine it so they are different things, one is imaginary and one is real.
Another context is that in the case where transfiction B affects an author A, it is a fictional version of the nonfiction author A that is affected. That is possible if the layers were arranged as follows: transfiction B < fiction A < nonfiction A. Alternately, nonfiction A and fiction A are in the same layer, with transfiction B end up attacking only fiction A despite it intended to attack nonfiction A. This can occur for all realness level that is not Authorlock, in which case there is no fiction A and transfiction is hard to impossible.
These kinds of narratives thus have hierarchies in the form of very high dimensional graphs. Rigid parts of layers devoid of fictional characters are analogous to imaginatas with thick great barriers and malleable parts of layers are where great barriers are thin. Now, all of this may be interpenetrated with dreams hence this whole objectivity substructure may be dreamier in one context and less dreamy in another context, so arbitrarily complicated structures can result.
Another situation where narratives can arise is theory. Theorising in Superreality is a spontaneous form of generalisation from some given input. In that process, the result may or may not correspond to what the given input is expected to behave, and hence leading to difference in realness compared to the input. For example, given an orange with its sweet aroma, a theorising can be its sweetness, but whether said orange is really sweet, is not certain.
Surreality (Awakeness/Dream)[]
Rough schematics of surreality, illustrating its complexity compared to other substructures of superreality
This is the domain where dreams operate, the mental activity experienced during sleep. In more spiritual cultures, dreams are the gateway between the spiritual and physical realms.
This substructure is a lot less structural compared to most, and most hierarchies here cannot be presented, thus reminds of the shallow Imaginarium. Layers are also less well defined here as awakeness and dreams sometimes interpenetrate and merge, confusing the person on whether they are truly awake, and also happens in surrealism artworks. Author authority that operates here is known as lucid dreaming, which is the ability to consciously control dreams. When author authority goes awry here, lucid nightmares results instead. Nested dreams such as dream within a dream can be understood as ddreams, and false awakening transverses the dream layers.
Some common traits of awakeness include clarity, lack of distraction from unimportant things, and seeing things as they objectively are. As a result, there is some interplay between awakeness and objectivity, but not always. For spiritual context, awakeness can also include enlightenment. Layers of this substructure if defined, follow the naming scheme d(n)ream, a(n)wakeness.
Mindfulness (Mindful/Dissociation)[]
The domain that explains the eerie alien feeling of absurd when a person is emotionally overwhelmed. It is responsible for the sense of familiarity. Very little is known about this substructure except for common reports of glazed vision and involuntary body movements as well as unresponsiveness. Even little is known whether this substructure has any effect to non-sentient things as well as cosmic beings that are omnipotent.
Materiality (Material/Augmented/Virtual/Simulated)[]
Illustration of the 4 types of materiality and their relationships. Note a virtual thing can also happen without any layer immersions.
This substructure is quite complex, it is the result when some layers "dived" into each other, called layer immersions, leading to overlapping notions of Realness. Material is when it is in a sense, complete, that is, there is no missing, nor it is easily altered within the layer via non author authority means. Augmented makes a higher layer to take the rules of some lower layer (hence a fooling to live in a less real reality). Virtual is when something is sort of real but incomplete and finally, simulated is when a lower layer interprets itself as a higher one.
Layer immersions are often artificially produced for various purposes. One example is an augmented reality where the unreal element is a portion of the lower layer. This allows highly detailed experimentation in a virtual environment to be done without upsetting the lower layer.
Hallucinations, illusions, etc.[]
The apparent perception of something that is not there, or in a more generalized context beyond sentience, things where there are no things. One of the most poorly understood phenomena in Superreality. Various explanations are put forward including disturbances in surreality, a combination of dreams and dissociation, and other disturbances. Its status is currently open and unknown and requires further investigation. There are also anecdotes of people or cosmic beings being forced into some repeating histories by some other beings unseen, and then each of these lifelike illusions are broken when they escaped. Some of these illusions are reported to be nested.
Deep Superreality[]
A name given for the "deepest, most profound" part of Superreality. It includes the not well understood deep unreality for each layer, where there are rumors of its extremely otherworldly unknown nature that whatever exposed to, lost their identity, their histories and even their "thingness".
It's counterpart, deep reality, is also not very well understood and frequently get mistaken as a cosmic being of power comparable to The True God.
Exterior[]
Only little is known about its exterior if any, or even if such notions make sense.
Inhabitants[]
Little is known about the inhabitants, except maybe in the narrative substructure. Some of them may be indistinguishable from any entities in The Box and blend among them.
Relationship with other cosmological objects[]
Relationship with Nothing[]
The relationship of Superreality with Nothing is very ambiguous and maybe interpenetrating in a way that does not involve containment notions. There is nothing in Nothing and hence nothing can be said about Nothing, thus Nothing is very indeterminate and debates between them are not going to have any conclusions.
It is, however, possible that Nothing and Superreality interpenetrate each other to some extent, for there are things in Superreality hence the removal of things easily makes Nothing as it is expected to be done by transfictionals.
Relationship with the Omniumverse[]
The entirety of the Imaginarium is part of Superreality, mostly contained in u(n)reality and may also be found in between the realness layers, thus including those of the Realium that interpenetrates with these parts of the Imaginarium.
Realium however is special, it is where anything within is perceived as real from any point of view, making it to have no counterpart within all of Superreality. The result is that Realium is not in Superreality, while Superreality is well within the imaginarium, making Superreality an imaginarium equivalent.
In such a case, Superreality can thus be said to be a more structural view of the Omniumverse. Thus studying the Omniumverse and Superreality often give insights to each other.
Relationship with The Box[]
Their relationship is heavily disputed. It can be argued that The Box is beyond the notion of realness altogether and hence will contain Superreality nevertheless.
Schematic of a possible metaboxial cosmology, where The Box (light yellow) is found among other Box equivalents (dark yellow) and an sBox (blue) that penetrates through realness layers.
However, it can also be argued that since The Box only contains one or a few realness levels, Superreality may be truly beyond The Box to the point that The Box simply does not contain it, as for example, there can be realness layers missing in The Box, for example Authorlock.
There is also another argument that The Box has only one realness level, namely that of Realium, and hence independent from Superreality. In these latter interpretations, other Box equivalents may be found, at least one for each layer of Superreality, equally ultimate but otherwise incomparable.