The world of Omnia bridges together thought with the materiality of the world by the power of The Eight Aeons. Through acts of will, man can stretch the images of his mind to the shores of the physical realm. This, however, is not something that can be achieved by every man. The users common to this practice in Omnian grounds are called Philosophers, and the realization of this magic is called Philosophy.
Philosophy is, by most standards of craft, a difficult magic. In its simplest form, it involves the superposition of a strong will over a weak will. ‘Will’, in this instance, refers to a sort of force produced by a thinking subject. Taken to more complex extremes, ‘Will’ is a mechanical function in the quantum mesh of the world—where it can be minimal and tame exchanges or dynamic pluralities that are interconnected. In that sense, no ‘will’ is permanently weak as no will is permanently strong.
As a primary point to the craft, it mostly targets ambient will. By ‘ambient will’ it is meant a will of the surroundings, unfixed to a thinking being. That is to say that the environment produces ‘Will’ and that it ‘thinks’ in one way or another, but not in the same fashion of the thinking-being itself. The production of thought for the environment is one of weak emission, resulting from the collective exchange for thought. Given this, the individual manipulation of collective thought meets little resistance. This, however, does not mean that there is no resistance at all; the collective always pulls back.
The crux for the exchange of wills hinges in their differences of strength. This does not mean that, from the offset, both clashing wills participate in the same plane. By principle, ‘Will’ exists in the plurality of quantum exchanges, so the challenge for the practitioner is to successfully align the clash between both wills. The world of Omnia hosts different variations of philosophy based on the patron Aeon that has nurtured the region of practice in question, yet the mechanic principle behind the craft which rules the exchange of wills stays the same: the practitioner’s will, in one way or another, must elevate to ‘meet’ the ambient will. This rising of ‘will’ is called a Gnostic State.
Achieving the Gnostic State will either be an easy or difficult process. To members of the Albridge family, for example, entering the Gnostic State is practically second nature—given their historic bond as Heirs of the Aeon Nous. For thinking beings born to the Aeon Anthropos, however, becoming Gnostic is considerably more difficult given their proximity to the collective or ambient will. Citizens of the Aeon Anthropos, however, are not excluded from practicing philosophy; the process is just more arduous. To circumvent this obstacle, many opt for joining the Empire of the Aeon Ekklesia. Through this Aeon, the Bythian can elevate an individual will to the Gnostic State, though the effort for this was not their own. A user that chooses this method will perform basic feats of philosophy, but by no means will they manipulate the nature of concepts to the extent of a philosopher.
Something that must be stated about the product of an overpowered will is the creation of a concept. Philosophy is creation of concepts, and in this case a concept differs from an idea. Everyone has ideas, notions and mental images—but they do not possess concepts. Concepts verge on the public, whilst ideas are encounters of the private. In this sense, the philosopher is targeting an idea exposed to others while reconstructing it in a seemingly harmless way. Sometimes, the reconstruction is simply a manipulation of the physical vector in a specific context. Suppose, for example, that time flows with a specific speed in a location; a philosopher can very subtly manipulate that speed by targeting a collective conception that is not being ‘guarded’. That is also another important way to understand this magic: it is a targeting of the unguarded.
By unguarded it is meant unthought. Individuals are not necessarily thinking about the passage of time, nor are they defining it as they live. The philosopher takes advantage of this ‘slip’ by coercing its unprotected nature. Something must be stressed about this manipulation, however: the more complicated the concept in question, the more difficult it is to maintain the manipulation. If the changes are extreme, the ambient will eventually snaps back to the default values of the collective concept.
Likewise, the tension between collective and individual wills is necessary for proper manipulation. The philosopher’s mind relies on the existence of default values for the success of a subtle change—otherwise, the manipulation would have to encompass more areas than the designated values. Although this is possible, the amount of resources that must be invested for the change are not practical for most philosophers. There are times when this degree of manipulation is vital; for example, when creating wells for impoverished villages, a philosopher must consider the collective concept of ‘water’ in order to create a sustainable—physical crystallization of the concept.
This pairing of the collective concept with the individual will is called Representation. Once the concept is represented, it could be said the philosopher has achieved manipulation. To this end, philosophers hold the maxim that the World is their ‘Will’ and ‘Representation’. It must be understood that for the collective, representation can be acquired passively; the emergence of a symbol, for example, will elevate a collective will to collectively ‘represent’ a concept. By this it is meant that concepts are re-presented—one knows of a concept in a twofold manner. The first meeting of such is done so irreflexively, whereas the injection of will requires awareness of the concept; this marks the importance of the Gnostic State for Representation.
Additionally, philosophers don’t always manipulate concepts in some foreign context. Some concepts are local to the awareness of the philosopher; these can range from vector values in the body or personal artifacts. In a similar way, the manipulation of concepts is not always performed from the ground up as a pure calculus. The philosopher has tools, which in this case are called Stones of the Philosopher, or Philosopher’s Stones.
A philosopher’s stone is, as the name implies, an instrument. In the very instinctive sense of the word, ‘stone’ is understood as a tool for work. This means that the philosopher, in one way or another, manipulates concepts through existing concepts. Most typically, the stones used are related to the concepts they target; if one were to manipulate a localized concept of time, a watch or a clock would serve as philosopher’s stones. In order to manipulate fire, a philosopher could use a cigarette lighter. Of course, this doesn’t mean that the philosopher’s stone will always match a related concept, but it does mean that the act of manipulation becomes easier.
Some philosophers dedicate their lives to tuning/programming philosopher’s stones for others; these are called Alchemists. Alchemists in Omnia, in that sense, create philosopher’s stones. Likewise, those that practice the philosophy of the Aeon Logos become adept at programming complex logic-designs for stones. The more complicated the design, the more open the Stone for a variety of manipulations outside of localized concepts. When a philosopher’s stone has a rich history of concept manipulation and a long line of users, it is called a Regalia. Regalia are not singular-concept driven, and they can be modified in infinite ways. This flexibility makes them rare and powerful.
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