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“Who can tell me the three core laws of noematurgy?”
The professor turned as he spoke. He had to: it was the only way to address every student in the panopticon classroom. He himself was in the centre of an immense amphitheatre, his motorised chalkboard spinning lazily so that every student could see what he was scribbling. A conveyor belt of knowledge.
Nobody raised their hands.
“No need to get excited”, The Professor said to himself. “Don’t all call out at once.”

“The first law is the rule of reveritic relativity”, a student said.

The professor waddled to the chalkboard. Here he wrote down a long equation, his fingers flashing as if he had committed it to motor memory.

“And what”, the professor said. “Is reveretic relativity?”

“The fact that the number of thoughts generated increases the likelihood of a phenomenon forming in the material universe”, the student said.

“Correct”, the professor smiled and pulled out a sheet of sugar paper. “If we imagine that thoughts build ‘mass’ within the World Of The Forms, and this mass allows them to pass through into our world…”

Here he held out the paper and spun around so that every student could see it had a label on one side ‘material universe’ and another on the other: ‘the world of the forms’.
He dripped a tiny drop of water from a pipette onto the paper. It floated atop it.

“As can be seen”, the professor continued. “When less thoughts are present in a given area, they do not come through to our world”.

But then his fist clenched the pipette. The water dissolved the barrier between the two sides of the sheet of sugar paper.

“But when lots of thoughts are condensed in an area, the barrier between both planes is disturbed. The thoughts become reality.”

He turned dramatically to the other side of the classroom.

“Now! We all wish our lives to be better, do we not? Some of you may even wish to leave this lecture, but still we are stuck here. Our thoughts, though they may be the same, are not changing the world. So, what is the second law of Neurmotological physics?”

Another student suggested: “The law of synaptic synchronicity. Even though people may have similiar thoughts, if they are not exactly the same they will not gain mass in the World Of The Forms. We might, for example, all be thinking of leaving the class: but because how we all picture this is different, it does not occur.”

The professor scribbled down the students words, chalk flicking from his fingers as it flew across the whiteboard.
“Correct”, the professor replied. “Though this hamperment can be superseded by Gestalt triplets or the use of neurostimulants, the average person’s thoughts will not have enough convergence to create phenomena. Now tell me: if we all could think of leaving the classroom in the exact same way, what would be the law that governs the likelihood of this phenomenon occurring be?”

There was a longer wait. This had not been covered yet. The professor walked in a circle around his whiteboard, then answered his own question:
“That… now that would be the law of concentrated conception”, the professor said. “Ideas more that are agreed upon are harder to distort: facts cannot be altered by thought as easily as less concrete ideas. So if something is already highly likely to happen…”
Here he trailed off, as if waiting for something. His eyes looked to the bell on the wall which chimed.
“Then its occurrence through mass thoughts makes it almost certain”.

The students began to pack up their bags. They all wore the same clothes, the brown jumpsuits of Watch citizenship, they all had their head’s buzzed. The barcodes identifying their citizenship winked by as they walked out.

“And remember, your exam on this is the day after the next Unwatched Night. Spend your time studying!”

The words fell futile from his lips. He knew they would all be out at the qualia bars or the pleasure domes or in each others houses. He knew Noemuturgy wasn’t why any of them were on the course: the ideas he was explaining would never come in handy to them. It was highly unlikely B.E.N.T.H.A.M would allocate them any sort of role that required them to use their brains in any capacity at all. That wasn’t what The Watch was about.

On the way home the city flew through a cloud. The professor had forgotten it was water farming day despite the tannoy announcements: as the fog settled in the streets, slowly being sucked up by The Watch’s immense hydrofarms, he huddled his coat about himself. He scowled miserably as the artillery on the side of the city fired warning shots at a nearby flock of birds; he hated water farming day. It was loud, it was cold closer to the void, and the rapid drop in altitude the city took gave him hives. He pulled the coat about himself a little tighter.
“Steven is that you?” A voice said from his left.
He turned. There was a man standing in the fog beside him, barely an inch away.

“Fritz?” He said. “I haven’t seen you since… well since…”

“Since I was shipped off to war?” Fritz said. “That’ll cut ties like nobodies business.”

“But that was nearly ten years ago”, Professor Steven said. “What are you doing here?”
The word that came next was not something he was expecting.

“Investigating”, Fritz said. And then: “Something big.”

Steven looked at his friend stare up at one of B.E.N.T.H.A.M’s eyes. An Abaki was using a long brush to clean the camera’s lense.
“What are you investigating?”

The question was obvious, the answer less so.
“I can’t say here.”

Fritz turned and walked away into the fog and Professor Steven, somewhat shocked by the encounter, began to follow him.
“What do you mean? What are you…” Steven said and then stopped. Something and just caught the corner of his eye, twisting in the fog.

“Fritz did you see that?”, Steven said.

“See what?”

The two men stopped. Fritz turned and looked into the fog. They were both looking now.

“I thought… I could’ve sworn I saw something”, Steven said.

Fritz peered into the fog.

“You’re going nuts”, Fritz said: “There is nothing there.”

“No no, look”, Steven said, jumping back. “I’m certain of it: right there!”

They were both thinking they had seen something now, the thought multiplied in their minds: a cognitional cancer.

“You’re right… there’s something in the fog”, Fritz agreed, slowly creeping forward. The ex-soldier’s brow was furrowed now. He slowly disappeared out of sight.

There was a nasty, wet, crunch. It was followed by the sound of chattering teeth and liquid falling flatly onto the metal streets of the city.

“Fritz?” Steven said. “Are you alright?”

He had a strange feeling he should be running very quickly away from here. The fog crept round him

“Fritz?”

There was definitely something in the fog that was not his friend. He was sure of that now. It was a fact.

“Who’s there?”

It was bigger than a person would be, disturbing the fog about it. He heard the sound of teeth grinding to his right. Steven stepped backwards, his voice shaking, and started to run. He was screaming into the cold air now, his coat flying behind him as he dashed away. He could hardly hear himself over the sound of the sucking, warbling, sound of the hydrofarms. But he could hear the thing in the fog. It was laughing. Coming at him with leaps and bounds. Shaking the very metal of the street as it moved. He fell down and turned in terror, his arms flailing in fear, his mouth opened in an ‘o’ of suprise, he anticipated the thing turning him inside out, tearing through him, breaking his bones in its jaw. He waited. Nothing came.

He opened his eyes and saw the fog had cleared. He was surrounded by people, all looking at him strangely. He stated back at them, and then at where the thing had gone.

But now, there was nothing there.

Hey there! This seemed like a pretty interesting passage so I thought I'd give it a read. Normally people post stuff here looking for feedback so I'm just gonna assume that and jot some of my thoughts down.

1. Noematurgy seems like an interesting concept relating to the manifestation of thoughts. A world built around such a concept would be quite an intriguing one. I also like how grounded the system seems to be as well with clearly defined rules. Just one thing, you should probably decide on how you want to spell Noematurgy. Pretty sure I also saw Noemuturgy and Neurmotological (which would imply that the root word was Neurmotology).

2. There's a bit of a dissonance when the professor assumes that the students wouldn't study. From what I could tell, they were pretty responsive when he asked them questions and even gave correct answers. If you wanted to make the students seem like they didn't care, it would've been better for them to have them not answer the professor/answer incorrectly.

3. I like the subtle implication that the class made the bell ring. That was very neatly done.

4. The hydro farming floating city once again is quite intriguing but at this point the story starts throwing a bunch of words without much context to define them. B.E.N.T.H.A.M I'm assuming is some sort of AI overlord governing this city known as The Watch? I have no idea what an Abaki is though.

5. I'm not really sure what the ending was about. It didn't seem very related to the story's beginning.

Hi! Thank you for your advice. If I’m honest I just wanted to post something small from a worldbuilding project I’m creating.

1) I’ll bare that in mind! That makes total sense linguistically

2) Hmm I agree. Perhaps I will cut this bit in future editions

3) Thanks!

4) I want to introduce the readers to these concepts early on and explain them later, but perhaps they could use further explanation here. What B.E.N.T.H.A.M is and their purpose is a core mystery in the world I m making

5) The idea of the story was that the first section was the lesson and the second part was the application. The monster in the mist is meant to have been created through the paranoia of something being there, but perhaps I have not made this clear enough. Any ideas of how I can improve this?

If this is part of a larger work then a little mystery is fine. I would just say that a description of what B.E.N.T.H.A.M looks like when you are describing something cleaning its eyes should suffice. I just found it hard to visualize the scene without knowing the appearance and size of what it was.

As for the monster being born of paranoia... I considered it but then dismissed the idea since by my understanding of the rules of Noematurgy, both Steven and Fritz would've had to imagine the same thing for the monster to be able to materialize properly. Maybe if both Steven and Fritz had a common experience in the past with some similar fog monster or if Fritz showed Steven a picture of the monster, it would help bolster the idea that they were both paranoid about the same thing.

That makes complete sense. Perhaps I should write something about B.E.N.T.H.A.M next :)

That’s a good idea! I’m going to write that in now actually, I think the paranoia monster (or Schema as I’ve been calling monsters formed by thoughts in this world) could use a better explanation as the end is a bit rushed :)

I couldn't resist the temptation of making a quick riff on this. It would probably get better with some editing, but it is what it is, so with apologies ...

The Manifestation of Mass

"Hyperstition is a concept coined by the Collective Culture Research Unit," Professor Mass waved his arms in front of the expanse of the blackboard. "It captures the idea that imaginations can become reality through collective belief."

Vernon glanced at his phone. Another 20 minutes of this. Shit. Around him the three hundred something other students in the lecture theatre stared as blankly as he felt.

"The space of imagination is an empty slate, a void where ideas can live." The professor gestured at the blackboard.

It was still very clean today, empty and black. This far into the lecture the professor hadn't written anything; it had been talk, talk, talk.

"Once an idea is born it can spread from person to person like a parasite. And if enough people have the same idea, the vision can manifest and become a reality."

'An example, please an example,' Vernon thought. He remembered that old movie, where the World Trade Center was destroyed by an alien laser beam. Was that made before the 9/11 attacks? Must be, right? But had it inspired the attacks, caused them? Bullshit.

"Sattelites, the moon landing, the internet! Every advance was imagined, first and foremost, in the realm of fiction!"

Vernon had read that SciFi stories of satellites had inspired the engineers that eventually made them a reality. That at least made sense. He imagined a satellite tumbling across the expanse of the blackboard to pass the time. He wished aliens would come out of the board to abduct Prof. Mass --- it did not manifest.

"Of course not every idea will do that. Enough people must have the exact same vision at the same time to give it sufficient weight." He drew a circle on the board. It looked like a planet, or a star, or...

"Every person believing in the same vision adds a little bit of weight." He added arrows pointing toward the circle. "This weight bends the fabric of reality. And if this weight is great enough, then BANG!!" He stabbed at the center of the circle with his index finger. The impact rang through the class like thunder, a sonic boom played in reverse. Air rushed. Loose paper, pens and the odd phone were flung to the front as a strong wind tore through the lecture hall.

Professor Mass left a brief afterimage as he was sucked into the black hole that gaped in the center of the circle. It closed as quickly as it had opened and the blackboard returned to its normal matte black self. Throughout the classroom debris clattered to the floor.

Nobody talked as they left the hall, and many guilty glances were exchanged. Was it possible, Vernon wondered, that in that moment they had all had the exact same thought?

I love this! I know it’s a spoof but that’s exactly how I picture the magic system working. The idea here is what I’m calling perfect notional acts (PNA) where a group or person somehow have the exact same thought in sync with each other purely by chance. Of course, PNA happens more frequently when it’s people who know each other very well (such as close family members, twins etc) or when they are genetically modified to produce PNA (Such as with Geshtalt triplets etc).

"Hyperstition" is actually a real term.