Unresolved Problems in Metaphysics

Conjecture about certain metaphysical mysteries. In magic there are no absolute truths, the answers that you’re looking for are not here.

Content warning: Memory loss, mind control / manipulation, coerced consent.

Metaphysical illusions require a trained sensitivity to see, and viewers can simply choose not to see them (relegating their use to entertainment, mostly.) Physical illusions can be created metaphysically, by bending light, gases, etc., but these fool the senses, not the mind.
It is unclear if there is a distinction between manipulation of the metaphysical mind and metaphysical manipulation of the physical mind.
The threshold for fatigue/blackout is different for different individuals, and can change circumstantially. Some people have a higher “pain tolerance” for bleeding out than others, which is typically acquired from repeat injuries.
Just as psychological stress can induce physical illness, it can induce metaphysical weakness, too. Physical injury also influences metaphysical injury.
Metaphysical injuries to the head interfere with cognition and can knock out non-mages instantly.

Metaphysical bleedout / exsacrenation causes those with normal metaphysical signatures to black out. This includes metaphysically blocked individuals, who cannot use magic. There is a well-known interaction between the integrity of the metaphysical body and consciousness.
It is impossible for someone without a metaphysical signature to bleed out, because there is nothing to bleed.
The metaphysical body can be altered through magic, usually violently but sometimes benignly. Magic cannot be used to manipulate the mind directly (e.g. to fabricate memories, assume motor control) without consent.

Bleedout interferes with cognition for the same reason that gods’ blood is perceptible by sight: it’s “sensed” by the physical brain on its way out, and this sensory overload scrambles the brain. Acquiring a higher tolerance might be like staring at the sun— damaging it to the point of losing function.

Why is it not possible to obtain full immunity, or lose sensitivity entirely? Why do even veteran mages bleed out? Is bleeding out a bodily threshold, in the same way that thermoception becomes pain or physical shock when the body is exposed to extreme cold/heat?

The metaphysical body is intrinsically tied to the “higher functions” of the mind.

Does this mean the metaphysical body is an extension of the mind?
Why are those without a metaphysical body not comatose? Why are those without a physical body not… the way they are, I guess.
Why does the mind lose only “higher functions” but not habitual ones like breathing, thermoregulation, etc.? Some organs function worse when metaphysically bled, but they do not fail, even when the metaphysical body is annihilated.
Why are gods, who are metaphysical bodies without physical bodies, not more sensitive to metaphysical injuries and loss of form/consciousness?

It is likely that the ancestral Sarikote contrived some mechanism for destroying the memories of others without their consent, as the New Guard don’t remember their previous lives.

Manipulation without consent is impossible, but brute-force destruction is possible?
Consent is coerced? E.g. the memory (or its context) is made too painful to retain? It is “easier” to submit to the ritual and forget, than resist and remember?
This forgetting wasn’t intentionally induced, but was an unintentional consequence of the Endling conversion process?
As the ancestral Sarikote didn’t have magic as we know it today, there was something fundamentally different about the bones of reality that allowed this?

Teleportation is mostly impossible. Matter can be sped up very very very fast and catapult through space, but it cannot “blink” from one location to another, except through the use of black holes / snakeskeins, which link two locations in space-time together.

Time dilation can be counteracted by magic, even though the passage of time cannot be directly manipulated by magic.
Possible mechanism: this is manipulating the “infinite massiveness” of an object that is so large it skews time, maybe analogous to digging a hole or chipping away at it. This would imply that the reverse could be true, magic could create an object so big it dilates time. perhaps this is just too costly for anybody to attempt.
Ashahel’s logic may apply: It is a wound in the world that everything orbits. Breaking free is a matter of metaphysics and not just physics.
Sinuk can also teleport because Sinuk is something like a black hole.

Divinity cannot be manufactured. it is attained randomly, usually through trauma but not always. It is thought of as a separation of the metaphysical and physical body, but for most people this would just result in exsacrenation or death.

Once again the ancestral Sarikote are thought to have discovered some way of creating artificial divinity, but this is speculative. It would have been like gambling with one’s life, anyway.
The Endlings, though long-lived and metaphysically “exposed,” are not like gods. There is a bond between the metaphysical and physical parts of their bodies, and they can die.

Humans do not have a monopoly on the ability to do magic. Some tool-using animals, such as mocking-owls, will use magic as a foraging tool. Additionally, all things appear to have a metaphysical body (or at least the capacity to have one.)

Certain sects once thought that only “living things” could have a metaphysical body. However, metaphysical injuries have been observed in living, non-living, animate, and inanimate beings, by any definition. It is difficult to reproduce these observations because certain aspects of metaphysical violence hinge on deeply-held beliefs. For example, if a mage believes that they are harming an animate being, they may indeed injure it (or appear to injure it.) If a mage attempts to harm a being, but does not believe that it is animate, aware, or capable of being metaphysically harmed, their attempt may fail.
Some dispute these observations as the raw proliferation of life in microbial form. That is, the “inanimate” parts of the world appear to have metaphysical bodies, but in reality, they are suffused with the metaphysical traces of countless microbes.
Some posit that a metaphysical body is easier to interact with if it is “like-minded” or perceived to be like-minded. That is, if the interaction occurs with mutual intent, communication, or recognition.

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