Talk:Q2593744

New description or a more specified one

I copy and paste from [1]:

According to the descriptions, a fictional creature is an organism not more specified and a fictional humanoid, which refers to a humanoid, is something that has an appearance resembling a human without actually being one in works of fiction. So why are Klingons, Tolkien's elves, fairies... fictional humanoids? In my view, they are not things (something), but beings. On the other hand, and assuming that they really are fictional humanoids, why is fictional humanoid a subclass of fictional creature? I don't think they are organisms not more specified. Thanks and regards. --Fantastoria (talk) 09:27, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Hi Fantastoria! I changed the description of humanoid (Q502931) a bit: 'something' should not imply that all humanoids are things, but that it could be any entity, including living beings, but also robots. See also en:Mythic_humanoids which features dwarfs or elves. In my opinion the description organism not more specified should not not imply that an entity only qualifies as a creature if it does not have any distinct features, but rather that there are no clear "conditions" for an entity to be an instance of this class. So as I read this description every fictional organism is an instance of the class of fictional creatures. Kind regards, - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 14:03, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

Makes sense to me; Research Unix (Q2666693) is a Unix-like operating system (Q14656) despite being more specified. Arlo Barnes (talk) 15:04, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

I think I miss the point (although it wasn't the doubt I had).

• Valentina.Anitnelav. According to your explanation (as I understand it), "A" is "B" because there is nothing that makes it more specific (there is nothing that differentiates them). That there are no clear conditions is like saying nothing. Two items must have something that justifies their separate existence. If an entity needs no clear conditions (there are none) to be an instance of a class, then any entity can be an instance of that class. This doesn't make any sense (negation doesn't).
• Arlo Barnes. The affirmative form does make sense: if something is more specific (even though it is the same entity), it is clear that it will be a subclass of the more general one. It doesn't matter how trivial that more specific something is.

I therefore think that the description of fictional creature is ambiguous, inaccurate or incomplete and that it should be more specific to the entity it wants to describe. On the other hand, and this is what I doubt, with a more accurate description, a fictional humanoid could be a subclass of a fictional creature; without that, a fictional creature and a fictional organism are the same (my doubt is dispelled).

--Fantastoria (talk) 09:09, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

Fantastoria, unfortunately, "creature" is a vague concept (see the descriptions/articles at creature (Q1274979)) and the term is not part of a scientific or scholarly vocabulary (as far as I'm aware of). To me it seems that creature (Q1274979) is already kind of synonymous to organism (Q7239); but it comes from a different worldview with a different conceptualization of things, before the development of modern biological taxonomy and classification. We should think about how we want to use this item besides the one about fictional organisms. I tend to think of fictional creature (Q2593744) as a class that excludes characters that are of a biological species and only includes mythical, legendary, fabulous etc. creatures in fiction, but this is my personal idea of this class (that does not conform to the way it is currently used). I guess that many people would not think of plants (like Telperion (Q10379325)) as creatures and fictional plants are currently not a subclass of fictional creature - so this could be a start :) - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 10:18, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

I also believe that fictional creature and fictional organism are different, but with the current descriptions it is very difficult for me to see differences. Although fictional creature is an analog of creature, the description pairs it with organism (not fictional organism!). And the alias is "fictional monster". I think maybe some more class is needed in the classification.

• Currently: fictional creature (Q2593744) >> fictional entity (Q14897293).
• “Currently Analog”: creature (Q1274979) >> anatomical entity (Q27043950) >> natural object (Q29651224) >> object (Q488383) >> entity (Q35120) or creature (Q1274979) >> ... >> individual entity (Q23958946) >> entity (Q35120).

Yes, I agree that fictional organism has rather scientific connotations while fictional creature lacks them. However, the analogue (creature) seems to also have scientific connotations from the classification, although the description has tried to avoid them. So it doesn't help.

I believe that a fictional creature is a creature that only appears in works of fiction (I exclude mythology, fables, legends and the like unless they themselves only appear in works of fiction). It is a poor description, because it refers to a creature, but the point is what it excludes. From there, I'd say Telperion (Q10379325) wouldn't be a fictional creature instance, but Treebeard (Q754477) would. Did I get your point?

--Fantastoria (talk) 11:07, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

I just found fictional android (Q22074483) (e.g. Data (Q22983), C-3PO (Q51787)). I guess these could be considered creatures that are not organisms (at least they are not organic). If others agree that they are creatures but not organisms we would need to change the description of fictional creature (use "being" or "character" instead of "organism") and we would also need to delete the fictional-organism superclass from fictional humanoid (Q28020127). Unfortunately this does not make the description more precise - but we found another difference between the concepts of fictional organism and fictional creature. Would you say that creatures should possess the capacity of sentience? - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 11:16, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

If we make a first recapitulation of ideas:

• There are fictional entities that are creatures, but may not be organisms (eg. fictional android).
• There are fictional entities that are organisms, but may not be creatures (eg. fictional plant).
• There are fictional entities that are organisms and creatures.

I agree that an android is not an organism. Would we say that they are not alive (that word is part of the description of organism)? Perhaps the description of fictional organism should specify that it refers to fictional organic entities. Organic entity (if it is a possible concept) does not even appear as an alias. That would fit with the previous points. What about fictional entities that have organic parts (eg. fictional cyborg, so RoboCop (Q1033152))? I would say that they are still not strictly fictional organisms, but there could be exceptions.

Regarding sentience, at a basic level, I would say that a creature should have the capacity of sentience or at least show it. Would that exclude fictional plants? In any case, a fictional creature could not have the idea of ​​a (fictional) organism in its description.

--Fantastoria (talk) 12:29, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for your recapitulation! As a first attempt I think of this description: "individual sentient being in fiction, can be organic or an artifact". What about angel in a work of fiction (Q42092139). Would people consider them organisms or like organisms? I agree with your thoughts about cyborg - we would need to decide this on a case by case basis. I think that the description of fictional organism is actually fine. - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 08:37, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

Taking the description of fictional organism and the proposal for fictional creature, a fictional angel fits both. p.e. Amenadiel (Q58203056) is a fictional angel, he has the capacity of sentience, he is organic and he is alive. However, we could consider that, strictly speaking with the descriptions in hand, it is neither a fictional organism nor a fictional creature, but a fictional supernatural being (of what is already a subclass). We could consider that fictional organism, fictional creature and fictional supernatural being (and we may discover some more) are classes that are on the same level, partially coinciding with each other, but not overlapping. All three would be direct subclasses of fictional character. Perhaps a metaclass could be created for these classes. See ghost in a work of fiction (Q30061299) for another similar example to fictional angel. --Fantastoria (talk) 09:10, 1 July 2022 (UTC)