Since I was young, I was interested in the notion of non-physical beings and places, regardless of the truth of their existence. However as I looked into the information people had, I would find many people giving what is essentially a string of pseudo-scientific pseudo-poetic words. This is my attempt to take as close as possible to the idea of metaphysical planes of reality, and try to with intuition, rational inference, and the three laws of logic understand to our best ability what combat on each plane would be like. The three laws of logic for future reference
Law of Identity: A=A
Law of Non-Contradiction: A=/= Not-A
Law of Excluded Middle: A = True or Not-A = True
I will also be using a form of the Axiom Schema of Replacement, used to define the relation of planes to other planes by way of intermediate planes.
Let me be clear, this is not my saying all fiction has to function in this way. This is my best guess as to how this would work in reality and if agreed too at most what could be seen as a safe assumption if the fictional work does not explain itself.
The basic idea of planes of reality is that different things exist at different levels of fundamentality, that different things are more "real" in some sense then others. Some states of being are viewed as perhaps more transient or temporary. If you are a material then by definition you view reality as having one plane of reality, that being the physical. However fiction is filled with many worlds where this is evidently not the case.
The degree to which something is real, is generally broken up in "planes" of some number, 7 being most common. We can view this as a spectrum, and just like the visible light spectrum we can see a clear progression, even if we can not see the whole of the spectrum, and even if there is no clear borders. A form of reality is said to be more fundamental if it "informs" or "moves" (in other words determines the qualities and determines the actions respectively the lesser form of reality demonstrates). There are two views that by Law of Excluded Middle must apply to the higher realities. Either these higher realities are interdependent on their lower equivalents, or they are not interdependent, which most often means transcendent of them. This is the sole difference between the Aristolean and the Platonic concepts; the concept that is a pattern of every instance of itself, vs the concept that is transcendent and that each instance is merely "participating in".
I'm going to be using three powers on different levels of fundamentality to help illustrate the nature of the different fundamental-ities. These are fire projection, forcefield creation, and teleportation.
Let's begin on the humble physical plane. In a battle on the physical plane, two beings made out of matter-energy engage each other. While fights in higher planes in fiction are often shown as two beings attempting to erase each other from existence, on the physical plane actually we do not try to erase each others physical bodies as a means to win generally. In a fight to the death, victory is usually attained by...well....death. Death in this case would be the unlinking of one combatants from that which is on a higher plane associated with it. To kill someone is to cause their soul to leave their body, hypothetically speaking. This may mean that to "kill" a being of a higher plane is to sever their link from the higher planes.
On the physical plane fire projection is creating by some supernatural or chemical means of mixture of heat, fuel, and oxygen to project fire. Fire uses heat to burn at an enemy's body, threatening to damage the vital organs of the body needed to sustain life. Forcefield creation on the physical plane conjures some form of barrier of indeterminate material to protect from some forms of matter-energy from reaching one's physical body and harming it. Teleportation is used to move to one points of physical space to another without going through the intermediate points.
I am unsure what to make of the "etheric" the supposed physical plane of reality that connects the physical to the non-physical given that it's description is functionally the same as the spiritual, even using the same words to describe both in some cases, such as the breath of life.
Let's move on then to the astral. The astral plane is the hypothetical plane of the soul. The soul's definition is that it is the non-physical component of a person, and is used as a general grab bag of all parts of a person that are not physical. This is a rather unhelpful definition to intuit what combat on such a plane would be like. However we can use prior definition of planes and the limitation of the next plane up, the mental plane to determine the limits of the astral plane specifically.
A plane informs and moves the plane below it. What informs the physical plane? Well chiefly the laws of nature but if they are a physical phenomena what informs them? This seems undefined. The other path to explore is what moves the physical plane, what moves the physical body? the answer seems to be the will of the person, the will being defined thus: "The faculty of the mind that selects, at the moment of the decision, a desire among the various desires present". This then would be moved by the passions or desires. Thus we can say this is the level of the emotions, moods, and other states of mind that are not thoughts, which is clearly stated to be the next plane.
The astral plane is the plane consciousnesses go after death supposedly. So let us say two souls are battling, their astral bodies made of their disembodied will or desires/emotions. This is consistent with descriptions of the astral plane. If their bodies were made of desires/emotions or will to reduce them to nothing would be to induce complete apathy. If the goal is to cut the astral body off from higher planes, as it is for physical combat, then the goal would be to sever the mental plane of thoughts from emotions. Thus in a battle between two astral beings the goal would be to reduce an enemy's will to nothing with your superior passion and desire. Their battlefield, the astral plane would be the world of the heart, it would be the domain of the emotional states of consciousness.
An astral fire projection would be to use one's passions as a flame to burn away an enemy's will. astral forcefield creation would create an emotional barrier between one's emotions and someone else's. Astral teleportation would be to teleport from the world of anger to the world of happiness.
Axiom of Replacement dictates you could have a further astral plane that views the first astral plane as the physical plane. If you have astral bodies, these astral bodies could have their own souls, non-physical components which could have their own emotions and desires and will. To the perspective of the physical plane, these would be the emotions of emotions, the meta-emotion. The meta-astral beings would be made out of desires of desires, be the wills of wills. This can be particularly helpful if you are thinking of an astral body with it's own full personality. Then it's emotions and passions would be the meta-astral.
Axiom of Replacement that meta-astral could have it's own astral plane, having it's own will and passions and desires and emotions. Thus we can have a potential infinity of astral planes.
But what lies beyond this? What informs and moves the passions and desires? Thoughts, Ideas, Opinions. This is the hypothetical Mental Plane made of "thoughtstuff". The bodies of people here would be made of thoughts and ideas. So a fight between them would be a fight to render each other without thought, turning them unaware. If the goal is to cut off an the being from the next highest plane, the consciousness plane, then the goal would be to render the consciousness without thoughts, wiping away every thought comprising them. Their battle would be a battle of thoughts and ideas, trying to break down the ideas comprising each others forms. Their battlefield would be the range of thoughts currently being thought.
A mental fire projection would be to create an idea so damaging to the thoughts making up the enemy, that it evaporates the ideas to nothing. A mental forcefield creation would be to creating an additional mental layer of complication or contingency so that even if it is rid, the thoughts making up the being are still coherent. Mental teleportation would be able to teleport from field of scientific thought to the field of artistic thought.
Axiom of Replacement applies here too. These mental bodies can be imagined having their own equivalents of astral planes (though most mystics claim they are eternal and desireless) with wills, desires and emotions which view the mental plane as the astral plane views the physical plane. The desires and emotions of thoughts. The mental bodies could also have their own mental plane, a meta-mental plane which views the mental plane as the mental plane views the physical plane. These would be respectively the thoughts of thoughts, the ideas of ideas. In this way we can get infinite mental planes.
What informs and moves thoughts? Thoughts emerge as bubbles, from an ocean, from consciousness, awareness, perception. It's our awareness that moves and informs our thoughts. The bodies of people on the consciousness plane would be made of their awareness, the more they sensed and were aware of, the larger and more complex their consciousness bodies would be. The negation of this would be is the lack of awareness, unconsciousness. To these beings a KO would be equal to a death sentence. Their goal would be to reduce each others awareness to nothing. Their battlefield would be the awareness of all beings.
A consciousness fire projection would be to shape one's awareness such that it's edges burned away at an opponent's perception. A consciousness forcefield creation would be to sharpen the edge of one's perception so that it's hard to penetrate though. A consciousness teleportation would be able to teleport from the intuition world to the sensory world of smell.
Axiom of Replacement: A consciousness plane being can hypothetically be presented as having their own equivalents of astral, mental or consciousness plane beings that view the consciousness plane as the the astral, mental or consciousness plane view the physical plane being. I think you get the idea.
What informs and moves consciousness? There is no known scientific definition of where consciousness originates outside the assumption it is an emergent property of the various functions of the brain. The answer under the basis of planes of reality would be the awareness of a being is related to it's nature and for living beings it's nature as a living being. This is supposedly where the spiritual plane is. The spirit is according to traditional definition the 'breath of life", that which separates the living things from the non-living things. The idea is this was linked to consciousness because the spirit of life causes awareness to move towards the function of life; self-sustenance and self-replication. However spirit can also have broader definition; spirit refers to the general presence of a thing, which is why we speak of someone's spirit being with us after they are gone. It would be equivalent to the scientific notion of information, the resolution of uncertainty, thus, as such is the ultimate presence of a being, the sum of their impact on the cosmos. This definition does a very good job of showing how it informs and moves awareness, as where one's presence is, would define what one would be aware off. Spirit is also sometimes used to refer to the meaning, purpose or essence of a thing such as the expression "spirit of the law".
These different definitions can make the spiritual plane a bit more contentious or complex to talk about. Is a spiritual entity made of lifeforce, an essence, or an invisible intangible presence? I try and preserve this ambiguity when thinking about it unless the verse specifies further. The spirit of someone is the force animating them and making them a living being, that is their essence and their presence across the cosmos, the information that is derived from them, their purpose and meaning. I think the clearest idea of spirit is the idea of chi, the idea of a spiritual energy field around the person whose presence is made manifest farther and farther away the stronger it is, and the nature of the chi is related to the essence of the person. A spiritual being is thus a being of pure chi.
Possibly due to their inherent connection to purpose and meaning, spiritual plane things in fiction are often associated explicitly with morality. Things bearing the presence or "spirit" of Gods are "Holy". Things bearing the presence or "spirit" of Devils are "Unholy". Purification and Corruption spiritually are related thus.
So what would a spiritual battle be like? A spiritual battle is a battle between two presences made of information, the resolution of uncertainties, each having their own nature, the essence. The goal would be to effectively rid the universe of all presence of one's opponent throughout space and time or perhaps otherwise convert that presence to one's own essence, making it more of one's own nature. A spiritual fire is a the essence of fire, it is the fire that burns in one's passions, the fire in one's drive, the fire that was the sun and the big bang and that lights up one's home in the winter. It burns away impurity, it burns away cold, it burns away darkness metaphysical and physical. Perhaps it's heavenly flame whose light spirits of darkness can not even get close too. Perhaps it's hellfire that burn away the virtue of the soul as fuel. A spiritual barrier is a barrier of one's lifeforce, a barrier keeping the continuity of the universe, it is the continuum of existence, the solidity of the sequence of cause and effect keeping one from being removed from the past. It is a spiritual ward so that no demons or angels or gods can change one's nature. Spiritual teleportation is teleporting one's essence to be vital to a different part of the universe, it's teleporting one's meaning to the universe to somewhere else, so that one is remembered elsewhere.
The spiritual plane can have it's own equivalents of the planes, even meta-spiritual planes which view the spiritual plane as the spiritual plane views the physical plane.
What informs and moves the spirit? Most mystic accounts say it's the "Divine Plane" the plane on which deities reside, but this is unhelpful vague. However if we consider Spirit as the essence or nature of something it should seem clear what informs it; that being the thing's nature or concept. These would be the Ancient Greek Forms. What one's nature is the properties or identity of the thing and this determines what it's essence is and moves it. The most common of these are the Aristolean Concepts, which are essentially the patterns of being and depend on their instances for their continued existence, and the Platonic Concepts which are independent of lower existence which act as shadows or reflections of it. Both have their supporters and appear in fiction but for the sake of argument this will be about two concepts fighting each other, without bearing to any restriction they have to the lower realities.
Concepts are the forms of things. All patterns of reality are either these concepts or they are reflections and shadows of them. The forms are perfect eternal ideals transcending space and time according to Plato. Their interactions couldn't be properly described as a "fight" as that would imply time, which proper concepts do not recognize. Though let's say in some part of reality that we on Earth recognize as a time, these Eternal Concepts were humoring us mortals and pretending to fight...what would that look like. A conceptual fight is a fight of metaphors and analogies. Two concepts fighting is a reflection of some higher interaction between the nature of the two things. Water may douse fire, and fire may evaporate water, but this is a reflection of the deeper reality of the interaction between the concept of fire and the concept of water. The conceptual fire is the fire from which all other fires are merely instances of at best and shadows/reflections at worst. It's presence (spirit) is coterminous with the presences (spirits) burning, blazing, crackling, sizzling. If this fire burns on the conceptual plane then it is burning the ideal of a thing, burning all instances of what it reflects. The conceptual forcefield creation creates the very concept of barriers, the eternal ideal of protection, the perfect defense. The conceptual teleportation may seem paradoxical as concepts are outside space and time but involves teleportation inside conceptual space, which is not space itself but the concept of space, moving for instance the concept of medium sized from between the conceptual space between small and large to the conceptual space between tiny and small.
Concepts can have their own equivalents by Axiom of Replacement down to Concepts governing Concepts, Meta-Concepts. Meta-Concepts see normal concepts as normal concepts see humans. They live in a world more eternal and meaningful. You can stack the Meta to get infinitely further more meta concepts.
Is it possible to go above? What could inform and move the properties or identities of a thing? The ultimate plate is called the Monadic from Monad: Totality, Singularity, Oneness. The thing from which all things are derived, the ultimately real which I refer to as the Absolute, though is also known as Being with a capital B. The Absolute is defined as that which is maximally real, from which all things are given their nature by relation. In my blog about metafiction I argued that as Being for fiction was inherently and by definition fiction, then inherently the Absolute would be metafictional manipulation, however verses can have multiple metafictional planes going downwards from the Absolute.
It is relatively rare to see an absolute being in fiction is contrast to the amount of lower plane beings with fourth wall breaking and absolute abilities. This is relevant because fights between the two would be incredibly different with the latter being far more common but because the two beings are not absolute, the tactics of the fight are very different.
In general in a battle between two high end metafictional manipulators, the goal is to metafictionally remove the other. A meta-fire will melt away the game code in a video game. A meta-forcefield field creation can create a forcefield that protects a comic book character even if their panel gets erased. A meta teleporter can in a book can teleport between chapters of a book. This is inherently above conceptuals who are still made out of Being with a capital B.
Two absolute beings fighting is different. Absolute Beings by definition transcend all concepts and meta-concepts; including power, death, destruction, infinity, numbers, duality, erasure and so forth. An absolute being is hard to imagine just in general; they're metafictional constructs in general where they can't be fully analyzed as characters alone.
However, and this may be a controversial stance, even the strongest characters in fiction, are still fiction and thus should be hypothetically susceptible to potent enough metafictional manipulation. Trying to guess who wins between two absolute beings should, I believe be a measure of finding what limitations they do have (and all characters WILL have some; simply by their nature as being fictional), and finding which would be more limiting.
Axiom of Replacement does not work here. This is because if there is a plane higher then Absolute, then it is not Absolute. Absolute is by definition the highest plane and Law of Non-Contradiction holds that it can not be highest and not highest planes at once.
You CAN use Axiom of Replacement to make lower planes if you wish while being logically consistent. In fiction for instance there is often fiction within fiction that the baseline fiction views as fiction. This is the same difference as a physical plane entity would have to a metafictional but inverted. It's fairly imagine to imagine inverse planes for other relationships, planes that view the physical as the physical views astral/mental/consciousness/spirit/concept. Obviously the particulars of these planes depend on their nature though Buddhism holds that there are 31 planes, 4 of which are lower then the human plane.
The lowest of these is Naraka, often translated to Hell, though unlike Christian Hell one only remains in Naraka for a finite, if unimaginably long (as long as sextillions of years) time. That said I couldn't find information quickly as to what beings in Naraka are made of.
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