Rhapsody (paraphrased)
If I took a fabrial to Shadesmar, would it work and what would happen to the spren trapped in it?
Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)
RAFO.
#251
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#251
#252
Dopetruffles
Does the message that Dalinar continues to receive about "uniting them" refer to more than simply Roshar? Or is it...
Brandon Sanderson
That is a RAFO.
#253
Askhundel
Can you interact with Shadesmar's beads ? Like crush or split them ? What would be the consequences in the Physical Realm ?
Brandon Sanderson
RAFO! :)
#254
Questioner
You know how the whole group goes into Shadesmar. What would happen if they accidentally eat a bead, and then leave Shadesmar?
Brandon Sanderson
That would not be good for them.
Questioner
Would they just explode with whatever the object was?
Brandon Sanderson
That's not exactly how it works. Fortunately. But I wouldn't recommend ingesting any beads.
#255
R'Shara
Is the vision that Dalinar of the Recreance; is that how it actually happened?
Brandon Sanderson
You can assume that even though it was a recreation, that it is accurate.
#256
darkanimereal1 (paraphrased)
So, the Purelake in Shadesmar is mountainous. Does this in any way have to do with the fact that the Purelake is so shallow?
Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)
No. I haven't yet discussed the nature of the relationship between Shadesmar and the Physical world.
darkanimereal1 (paraphrased)
So, when Dalinar has his vision in what he assumes in the Purelake, he sees an obsidian fortress. Is that fortress in any way related to the fact that the Purelake in Shadesmar is mountainous?
Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)
No.
#257
Questioner
Could a Threnody Shade survive on another world?
Brandon Sanderson
Theoretically, yes. But they are highly Invested, and leaving a world where you're highly Invested behind when you have that Investiture is difficult, as Kelsier discovered, and as most spren discover.
#258
Questioner
One that's probably for Peter. Shadesmar appears to be flat. And you talk about people walking between worlds. But worlds are spherical. What's up with that?
Brandon Sanderson
This has given him a bit of a headache. It works in my brain, and I'm pretty sure we can make it on the world. Remember, things people think about manifest in Shadesmar, so I've been able to work out a map where places that just aren't inhabited are shrunk in Shadesmar.
Questioner
And they turn into points, so you can just walk off them?
Brandon Sanderson
Yeah.
#259
Questioner
Why do spren appear on Roshar and nowhere else?
Brandon Sanderson
They do, but they're in different shapes. Seons are the same thing that spren are, for instance. So there are places where you will see them, it just is going to depend on how the worldbuilding is built and how the magic is channeled and things like that.
#260
Mac
If [Vin] burns mist-assisted gold, would she have experienced something that felt like one of Dalinar's visions?
Brandon Sanderson
Plausibly, yes.
#261
Questioner
<>?
Brandon Sanderson
In Shadesmar there are some animals, but it's not exactly what you think. Third book will give you some clues.
#262
Glamdring804
If you had a spanreed, and you took one half into Shadesmar, would it still be able to write with the conjoined one in the Physical Realm?
Brandon Sanderson
RAFO.
#263
Pagerunner
If you need to bring food into Shadesmar, why don't you need to bring air?
Brandon Sanderson
Y'know, we actually talked and thought about this. There are certain things I just decided for narrative reasons... I wanted Shadesmar to be travelable and I wanted it to be a real place, and so I just made air, I came up with kind of my own hacks. There are times I do this for narrative reasons.
Let me give you an easier example. In the Mistborn books, and I've told people this before, I was working on speed bubbles. Slowing down time, speeding up time in a small little bubble around you, right? I went to Peter and I'm like, "This is what I'm going to do, what are the problems with this?" And he's like, "Well, redshift." Which means that basically you would be irradiating everyone with the light coming from inside the speed bubble. I'm like, "alright, we're just going to say that doesn't happen." This is where the line between for me science fiction and fantasy exists. When I'm building my story, I do try to have one foot in science with things like this. But I tend to work backward... A lot of science fiction starts with what we have now and extrapolates forward to [an] interesting, plausible premise. For my fantasy works, I start with some cool idea. And then I work backward in plausibility, trying to justify it. And we kind of meet in the center, but at the end of the day I am breaking the laws of thermodynamics, right? Just straight-up breaking laws-- I mean, we have our whole Realmatic Theory and stuff like that, but at the end of the day, I am trying to tell stories where certain extreme situations exist. Like, I bent over backwards to make the science of Roshar work with the greatshells, but at the end of the day, we still have to have a magical solution, right. To get beasties as big as we want to do, it doesn't matter how high your oxygen content is, if you've got .7 gravity or not, all these concessions we've made: the square-cube law says those things crush themselves. You just can't have things this big. And so we built in a magical solution. The spren creating this symbiotic bond is making it so these things don't crush themselves.
And when I was looking at Shadesmar, there are a couple things-- what I want for the narrative is this place. I am going to work backward and try to make as many concessions and nods toward science as I can. But the air one, I just said "You know what? There's just gonna be air in Shadesmar. I am just gonna make it so that you can." I want you to be able to walk between the planets on Shadesmar, I don't want people to have to worry about bringing a Windrunner with them and plants or whatever to get oxygen. I'm just gonna make that the case. Your in-world answers, I'm like "Well, air kind of permeates and has escaped through and things," but really do we have an oxygen cycle there? We've got plants, but are they really--
The answer is, there is air in Shadesmar because I want there to be air in Shadesmar.
#264
Blightsong
Could Kelsier theoretically bond with someone on Roshar?
Brandon Sanderson
Yes.
#265
Questioner
So someone, I can't remember who it was, told me you said something about the pools in Elantris being related to worldhopping.
Brandon Sanderson
Yes.
Questioner
Is that right?
Brandon Sanderson
That is correct.
Questioner
So when the Elantrians go in the pool do they die or do they go to a different world?
Brandon Sanderson
Well you're making those mutually exclusive.
Questioner
Oh so it can do more than one thing--
Brandon Sanderson
One thing you gotta remember is in Elantris Shadesmar, the place that we call Shadesmar, is full of a raging, powerful source of energy called the Dor. It's very, very dangerous. Nobody goes there. So, just keep that in mind.
#266
italia06823834
Yeah a shared vision with Navani would be pretty helpful. I assume the mechanism messing with the Radiants in the Tower would also mess with bringing someone into the vision. But then again, the pure Honor Surge Adhesion still works for Kaladin and aren't the vision tied directly with Honor?
Brandon Sanderson
It would have messed with such a vision, yes.
#267
Kurkistan
Are flamespren, are they all doing their own thing, or is there some Ideal of "Fire" sitting in the Spiritual Realm that they're all based on?
Brandon Sanderson
Each spren is based on the Ideal of Fire.
Kurkistan
And is that sitting in the Spiritual Realm?
Brandon Sanderson
Yes, we're using sort of a Platonic Ideal, and that concept is in force, so *sounds hesitant* "yes", but [spren] are manifestations of it.
Kurkistan
So these Ideals in the Spiritual Realm: Divine Breath, does that heal by accessing some Ideal of Human Health: so a guy who had never had a tongue and doesn't know how to speak all the sudden has a tongue and can speak?
Brandon Sanderson
You are... *LONG pause* You are, um, on the right track.
Kurkistan
Okay.
Brandon Sanderson
Because the Breath is... eh. How can I explain this? You are, yeah... So... So each Breath is a shade of deity, right?
Kurkistan
Yeah.
Brandon Sanderson
And each Breath incorporates into it this sort of idea of being endowed by the deity Endowment, correct?
Kurkistan
Yes.
Brandon Sanderson
And so each Breath you hold brings you one step closer to becoming like that, and so what you're saying is... is "yes", kind of true, yes.
Kurkistan
But it's like within the Breath, not sitting off by itself-
Brandon Sanderson
Yes, yes yes exactly.
#268
FirstSelector
You have claimed that the Shardworlds had their names prior to the settlement of people and Shards. However, Ruin and Preservation created Scadrial (presumably post-Shattering). Where, then, did that planet get its name, and how did the rest of the cosmere learn of it?
Brandon Sanderson
While many of them were named, not all of them were. And the presence of a Shard warps Shadesmar much as large objects warp the physical realm (gravitation.) So if you know how to look, it's not hard to find them.
#269
Questioner
I just got done with Elantris the other day. Are all of the planets--is Shadesmar the same place? Can you access all planets from Shadesmar?
Brandon Sanderson
You can walk through Shadesmar between the planets. Yes. A little bit of bending of space/time in that, but yes.
#270
Narkac
At the end of TWoK, in the last Dalinar's vision, he stands "in a place of smoke. He turned about, wary. The sky was dark and he stood on a field of dull, bone-white rock, jagged and rough, extending in all directions. Off into eternity". Is this place Damnation/Braize ?
Brandon Sanderson
That will be explained in Oathbringer. So RAFO.
#271
Questioner
Are the people from Dalinar's visions, the ones he has the vision through, related to one another?
Brandon Sanderson
No. It's not a Wheel of Time thing where you are going through generations. Good question.
#272
ROSHtafARian
There's been enough speculation that an Elantrian world hopper appears in Way of Kings and that an Elantrian world hopper wrote the Ars Arcanum in Alloy of Law to make it likely that by the time of both books, at least some Elantrians can world hop. So my question is, at the time of Way of Kings, does Sel have the most cosmere-awareness out of any of your Shardworlds (including ones we have not seen yet), or is there another Shardworld that's more aware of the greater cosmere at this time?
Brandon Sanderson
Sel is very cosmere aware at this point, but getting to and through Shadesmar (that's not the local term, by the way) is very difficult on Sel. That stunted them for a long while. They're still fairly far ahead.
#273
Questioner: (paraphrased)
When it is said that Honor started to go crazy towards the end of the Knights Radiant, were those Knights seeing Honor as he was slowly dying, or were they interacting with a Cognitive Shadow of Honor, like how Preservation left Fuzz behind?
Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)
RAFO
#274
Questioner
Is it very difficult to travel, to worldhop from Sel because most of the world in its Cognitive Realm version is ocean?
Brandon Sanderson
No, that is not the reason. Good question.
#275
BlackYeti
With regards to the Dor, whereabouts is it located exactly, with regards to the Realms.
Brandon Sanderson
Oh, you're the first to ask this one. It is in the Cognitive Realm... I think you might be the first one to crack that one. So, that's something that I've been dancing around for a while, waiting 'til people started to figure that one out. Now, that's not where most of them are.
#276
Argent
Can somebody travel to the Spiritual Realm, the same as the Cognitive?
Brandon Sanderson
Yes, but it's a very different experience. It is possible… You may have seen people do it...
Argent
As in you're not sure, or you're being obnoxiously vague?
Brandon Sanderson
No...
Questioner #1
As in, you probably have but he's having trouble remembering it.
Brandon Sanderson
No no no... For instance, Elend burning atium and duralumin pulled most of him into the Spiritual Realm.
Argent
Oh, that's what happens there.
Brandon Sanderson
Yeah. He kind of got yanked into- You also have seen people Ascend with the powers and dip into the Spiritual Realm for a little bit.
Argent
So, Vin?
Brandon Sanderson
Yeah. But they could be on both, or either, or both at the same time. But you have seen Vin stick into the Spiritual Realm. And it happened to Sazed/Harmony...
Questioner #2
Oh! So is that where the gods live? Kinda?
Brandon Sanderson
Most of the bulk of the Shard's energy of being is contained in the Spiritual Realm, yes. Except for one notable exception!
Questioner #2
The <mists? mistwraith?>?
Brandon Sanderson
No.
#277
Questioner
I have a question about the cosmere, and Hoid specifically. The way that he is worldhopping, is he using Cognitive and *inaudible* Realms?
Brandon Sanderson
The times you have seen him worldhop, it has involved shardpools, or perpendicularities, as we call them. He is using primarily the Cognitive Realm.
Questioner
Because, from what I understood from Secret History, that he's going through the shardpool, from the Cognitive to the normal Realm.
Brandon Sanderson
Yeah, he's traveling through the Cognitive Realm, and then jumping back to the Physical one, once he's where he wants to go.
Questioner
So, I'm guessing what's going on, though, is that he's travelling between planets using the Cognitive and coming out from the shardpool to the Physical Realm?
Brandon Sanderson
Yes, that is exactly right.
#278
Comatose
Kind of a similar question about the Midnight Essence, now that we have seen that crop up in Tress as well as in Stormlight Archive. Is something similar happening with the Midnight Essence? We have also the nightmares, in Yumi, that appear similar, they're also mimicking things.
Brandon Sanderson
So, there's a couple of things getting interwoven here. The actual idea of Midnight Essence is a concept like Lightweaving that predates the Shattering of Adonalsium, that various magic systems are basically "borrowing" a law of the cosmere and creating a parallel effect from the same basis, if that makes any sense.
Yumi is a little distinct from that. It's feeling similar; I would not call it true Midnight Essence. It's an awful lot more like a Lightweaving that has--because Lightweavings can have mass to them, because investiture can have mass to it--so you're looking a little bit more like... imagine a bunch of Stormlight becoming tangible, you can touch it, because of a powerful Lightweaving or something like that. Of course, these things all bleed together because I'm using the same fundamental principles to make them. But, for me, Midnight Essence has this personality that comes prefixed. What the Midnight Mother is making, what you're seeing in the Midnight Sea and things like this, you're gonna get some similar personalities to these things, and not necessarily the same with the nightmares.
Comatose
So it's more of a autonomous-- a Lightweaving that's become autonomous and has kind of broken down a bit?
Brandon Sanderson
Yeah... the problem is it's also got the Cognitive Shadow, right? It's a really invested Cognitive Shadow that is borrowing this Investiture to interact with the world. Because these are their shadows; these are their Cognitive Shadows, all of these people's Cognitive Shadows. But the power is not themselves. Remember, a Cognitive Shadow is a little bit like a fossil, like Vasher describes it. You've got this pattern there, and then the power kind of makes it manifest and be able to interact, and things like that. And, when that personality asserts itself with that power in the right place, you end up with a person that is the shadow running it. But at the same time, you've got this mass of power and energy that the machine is kind of controlling, which pulls back and overrides the personality sometimes. You've got a very weird set of circumstances going on here.
But it was very fun to figure out all the backstory and the behind on it, and get it all working. This one was a little complex, to get these things all working behind the scenes. I like how they turned out. Yumi, if you dig into it, it has both pluses and minuses. The minuses is - from the beta readers and the alpha readers - the ending for non-arcanists was really overwhelming, which is why we have those Hoid scenes where he's like, "Okay, let me explain." It seems pretty obvious, I would expect that this is, like, "Alright, Brandon needs to do better explanations, Hoid's just gonna do it." But, because of all the work I did behind the scenes on Yumi, Yumi matches kind of cosmerological magic system stuff in ways that a lot of the side projects that I do just don't. Yumi is very deeply intertwined and following all of these processes in a way that works really well for me. But it also gets you into where you start to need a master's degree in the cosmere to figure it all out, which is why to make it easier, we have Hoid just spell it out for people. It is a little clunky; I prefer the clunkiness to the previous version where you needed a master's degree in the cosmere to understand even what was going on.
#279
hoiditthroughthegrapevine
You've said that the Cognitive Realm is an infinite plane that expands in regions with high concentrations of thought and contracts in regions with little or no thought, and also that it would be possible to circumnavigate the Rosharan Cognitive Realm. It seems to me that the seeming inherent contradiction between the possibility of circumnavigation and the plane being infinite could be resolved if the plane of the Cognitive Realm is a topology and experience localized distortions but is continuous. Like if the Cognitive Realm for the whole Cosmere were like the the inside surface of a balloon where the high concentrations of (thought) of a planet stretch and warp the local surface, but the whole system still remains bound and continous, and therefore is infinite in its continuity. Is this how you see the Cognitive Realm working? And could you elaborate if this is close or more importantly if it's way of the mark?
Brandon Sanderson
I imagine it as an infinite plane with distortions that are planets. So kind of.
#280
Questioner
Well you answered my question about Allomancers being able to burn metals in other realms. Is that because the Shards are sort of… My impression from the book was that the Shards were, in the Mistborn books, specifically in that area but is it because the universe is formed across all of them that that is why the metals...
Brandon Sanderson
So, most of the magics are not region-dependent, because the Spiritual Realm-- in the Spiritual Realm space doesn’t exist. All things are the same distance from one another.
Questioner
Okay, so when Kelsier is in the-- Which Realm is he in?
Brandon Sanderson
He’s in the Cognitive Realm.
Questioner
Is he seeing people from other worlds or is he--
Brandon Sanderson
No, he meets some people who are traveling but Cognitive Realm is location dependent. He is on the Cognitive Realm on Scadrial and the people he runs into there-- until he kind of travels off into space, which is where he finds the fortress.
Questioner
So even though he’s tied to Scadrial could he go to the Cognitive Realm of other worlds?
Brandon Sanderson
He would have trouble getting to another planet, being a Cognitive shadow like he was.
Questioner
So is there some particular thing that somebody would need to have to be able to move between the realms?
Brandon Sanderson
A body is helpful. Depends on what their ties are and things like that. Not always, but yeah.
#281
Illuminarrator (paraphrased)
Is there an Awakening Command that could stick a Cognitive Shadow to a corpse?
Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)
Yes, but that would be a bad way to do it. You'd need something more.
Illuminarrator (paraphrased)
More Investiture?
Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)
Not necessarily. The body at that point died because something happened to it, plus it started decomposing. You'd need to do something to it to really get the Cognitive Shadow to stick.
Illuminarrator (paraphrased)
like a Hemalurgic spike?
Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)
That's one way to do it.
Illuminarrator (paraphrased)
Oh! To follow up... because Regrowth is Spiritual... if a Cognitive Shadow was Awakened into a corpse, then healed with Regrowth, would the body be healed to appear like the Cognitive Shadow's body?
Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)
No, it would heal... wait, yes, Regrowth would heal based on the Identity of the Cognitive Shadow attached to it.
#282
KiManiak
Do some Surges have a stronger cognitive aspect--or cognitive influence, if aspect is too general--do some have a stronger cognitive aspect than others? For instance does Illumination tend to have more of a stronger cognitive--
Brandon Sanderson
Yeah you could say that some do. I think that that is a legitimate-- Though I'd say it is the subject of debate.
#283
Questioner
Given Sanderson's Laws about limitations...
Brandon Sanderson
Yes.
Questioner
What would you say are any spiritual, cognitive, and or physical limitations to a Returned's healing ability?
Brandon Sanderson
That they can do it once.
Questioner
That they can do it once, and that's it?
Brandon Sanderson
Yeah, right? The Returned get one heal and then they die. That's a pretty big limitation. Like you have to choose really well. However, what they can heal is bounded by cosmere limitations on healing, but it is a supercharged version.
Questioner
Okay. Could you define more cosmere limitations on healing?
Brandon Sanderson
Cosmere limitations on healing can be affected by your own perception.
Questioner
Okay. Cognitive stuff.
Brandon Sanderson
Cognitive stuff. And so there's a part of that, and... But that's really-- cognitive interferes. And if your spirit is gone? Right? Cosmere healing, you know, if your spirit is passed on you just get a dead body even though you've healed it.
Questioner
So potentially Vasher, having a much greater cosmere knowledge than others could potentially have a much greater usage of that healing than regular--
Brandon Sanderson
Well the healing-- What I mean by that is yourself. You impose limits. So the person being healed can impose some limits on the healing working. It doesn't happen as often as I'm making it sound. But, you know-- why Kaladin's scars have not healed, right? So Kaladin being hit by a Returned would still not heal his scars. He's got a major hangup about those scars.
#284
Kurkistan
So, could you give us some examples of how the ideals that spren represent work in other magic systems, like we have Forging where you get plausibility, or Returned how they're beautiful or any other systems?
Brandon Sanderson
Okay, one more time on that.
Kurkistan
Okay, so you know the ideals the spren are manifestations--
Brandon Sanderson
Yes.
Kurkistan
How-- Do those have impacts on other magic systems?
Brandon Sanderson
Yes, yes, in the same way the Returned- that's the exact same system at work there.
Kurkistan
Is it the same reason why the Lord Ruler has to die of old age, and why you can't heal yourself into being an octopus or something?
Brandon Sanderson
Um... Yes, that is all connected in the exact same way.
Kurkistan
Okay, so it's all like these highfalutin Spiritual ideals?
Brandon Sanderson
Yes.
Kurkistan
And are there like, median Cognitive ideals that gradually kind of influence these, or--
Brandon Sanderson
Yeah, they transcend between the three. I mean the original concept for the Three Realms is Platonic philosophy.
Kurkistan
So it goes up *makes absurd reverse-waterfall hand gesture*
Brandon Sanderson
Yeah, it goes up and it comes back down. A lot of the Cognitive is-- So like, the Cognitive has a bigger effect on how you can heal and things like that. Does that make sense?
Kurkistan
Yeah.
Brandon Sanderson
But the power to heal is a actually a Spiritual thing.
Kurkistan
So it's like the Spiritual says "I want to be like this" and the Cognitive is like "Okay I'll try really hard to be like that, but I have a limit."
Brandon Sanderson
Right. Right. Filtered through how you see yourself, yeah.
#285
Questioner
What would a kandra look like in Shadesmar, and do they have any special abilities in the Cognitive or Spiritual Realm?
Brandon Sanderson
Not sure if I want to canonize what they would look like. I will RAFO what they look like. There is nothing that they would have as a special power over a human being in the Cognitive Realm, except for the fact that they are trained to think of themselves in certain ways. They have mental training, someone else could learn this, but they have over many centuries, this ability. And your ability to perceive yourself in certain ways is very powerful in the cosmere, and the kandra are very good at this.
Questioner
So it would less limiting than in the Physical Realm, where they have to adopt the bones and persona?
Brandon Sanderson
Here's the thing, if they went to the Cognitive Realm, they'd go there Physically, so they'd be under the same rules. There's a theoretical whatever out there that maybe, if they got killed, and their soul, and things like this, but in most cases, a kandra would go like a human would, and they'd be following the same rules. So if you got a kandra who somehow persisted as a Cognitive Shadow, they would have certain advantages over people who had not trained in perception the way they have.
#286
Questioner
In your books, you have some pretty powerful healing magics, and we've also seen some characters sustain some pretty traumatic brain injuries. The human brain stores information as electrical connections, right? So if you blew a part of it out, you could grow it all back, but those connections wouldn't really be there. Have you considered that?
Brandon Sanderson
I have. This is why you will see memory... So, Cognitive Shadows maintain a person's memory. And your Cognitive aspect, your Invested self, maintains your memory in the cosmere. This is why you will also see people's memory being edited by accessing some of the Investiture. You'll see this in Warbreaker; you saw this in the end of Rhythm of War. Your Cognitive self, your Invested self, keeps a duplicate of all your memories. So this allows very significant trauma to the Physical sense; as long as the Cognitive sense is still attached to that body, those memories will be reimplanted in the Physical self, or will be accessed. And this was just necessary for me to even have things like what happened with Raoden in the beginning of Elantris, and for ghosts to exist, and things like that. It actually works pretty well, because it lets me use it to edit people's memories by accessing their Investiture.
And one of the other things that's going on here is: if you have more Investiture, you can remember more, and better. But then that's dangerous, because it's a lot easier to access that Investiture. And it's a lot harder to notice when it has been edited. Hmm.
#287
dark-winter-knight
What is the difference between a person's Spiritweb and their spiritual DNA? Is there a difference?
Brandon Sanderson
Soul, generally used in the cosmere, is a spiritual or philosophical term. It refers to the part of a person that continues to exist after death, or to the "being" of the person in a philosophical term.
A Spiritweb is a measurable, quantifiable thing in the cosmere. (Granted, it's not easy to do either to one, but it can be done.) It is a scientific term, though because the cosmere hasn't reached modern scientific understandings yet, there is a lot of overlap between science, philosophy, and spirituality.
This way, acknowledging that a person has a Spiritweb does not require an atheist/humanist to affirm religious ideas or concepts--like acknowledging that the Vessels/Shards exist does not require also affirming that a capital G God exists.
The separation of the two is necessary to allow people like Jasnah to not be undermined by the text. It wouldn't be right of me to work for having representatives of viewpoints contrary to my own if the very foundation of the magic systems and physics proved them wrong.
So, in short, you can measure a Spiritweb. Whether a person actually has a soul or not (even in the cosmere) is subject to your own personal philosophy on the idea. Even ghosts and other persisting personalities after death, like certain individuals who shall remain unnamed, have a very real and rational magic system explanation for their existence.
aravar27
Is a Cognitive Shadow essentially Investiture filling in the molded pattern of a Spiritweb to the point where it resembles the initial person?
I'm interested in the implications with respect to personal identity--the "soul" would be one of the competing answers for the question "what am I," but some argue for psychological continuity and others for biological continuity. A Cognitive Shadow seems like it might better fit the Psychological Criterion, since it seems like Investiture replaces the biological body as the source of living and experiencing things.
Brandon Sanderson
You're getting into things that are subject to debate among people in the cosmere. Most shadows would insist that they're the same person. Others would dispute this, saying they're essentially a spren--a bit of the power that came alive like you said, taking on the personality of the person when the person themselves died.
BipedSnowman
Like uploading a brain to a computer. Made of Investiture.
Brandon Sanderson
A fitting analogy.
Aurora_Fatalis
Does it matter what kind of power it was that filled the gaps? Like, if you were a normal human and made a Cognitive Shadow fueled by AonDor, would you be more able to "possess" a modern computer than if you were made a Cognitive Shadow by - say - Odium?
Brandon Sanderson
This can matter. Shades from Threnody, for example, work differently from Returned, who are different from Heralds. But all are Shadows.
#288
Weiry Writer
Why are Seons stuck as floating balls of light in the Cognitive Realm, while true spren get to be people shaped? I feel that is unfair.
Brandon Sanderson
That is a little unfair isn't it. Boy, Sel has all sorts of unfair things going on. But they can leave Sel, so there's some sort of clue there. But lots of unfairness to everybody from Sel in various ways. But the thing that is not unfair is: they're able to get places.
Chaos
Just gotta escape the deadly plasma, you know. No big deal.
Brandon Sanderson
If they can escape the deadly Investiture plasma covering the Cognitive Realm... not even covering, like... suffusing the Cognitive Realm where they are, the Expanse of Densities. If they can escape that they can go places.
I'll be honest. I couldn't decided if I should use a seon there at the end or a Tamu Kek. In one draft it was a Tamu Kek, and then I thought, "Eh, seons are way more interesting because they have volition. Tamu Kek is just a bone." It was a Tamu Kek originally, and then it was a seon, then back to a Tamu Kek, and then I released it as a seon.
#289
Questioner
*inaudible*
Brandon Sanderson
Yeah the Divine Breath is a gift of Investiture directly to the...basically they are being given a large Splinter of Endowment.
Questioner
But is it the size?
Brandon Sanderson
The size is important, to make that happen, yeah.
Questioner
To make it happen?
Brandon Sanderson
To make it happen, yeah. To make them come back and to do the things but...there is obviously some leakage there when they basically taking a Cognitive Sh...they have to create a Cognitive Shadow of the spirit, right. Which requires some work, and then to push that back into the body and get it to stick requires some work as well. You'll see that with Szeth it isn't sticking very well.
Questioner
*inaudible*
Brandon Sanderson
Yeah Szeth is not a Cognitive Shadow, he actually got stuck back in but the soul is not sticking very well to the body
Questioner
*inaudible*
Brandon Sanderson
That's what she's saying.
#290
Mr. Suit
Can spren - like Syl - be pierced by hemalurgic spike? Will it give some effect?
Brandon Sanderson
Yes. A spren can be pierced by Invested metal…
Oversleep
Could it be spiked?
Brandon Sanderson
Could a spike be used to give abilities to spren? That’s not going to work really well.
Oversleep
Could you steal from a spren?
Brandon Sanderson
Yes, you could steal the Investiture of a spren. Any Investiture can be used in a spike if you know what you’re doing. It’s actually not that hard to use one on a spren.
Oversleep
Because I thought you said Hemalurgy needs moving blood.
Brandon Sanderson
It needs, uh, yeah… there are places where spren have more physical form, more tangible form.
Questioner
Roshar?
Brandon Sanderson
No, no, no, not Roshar.
Questioner
The Cognitive Realm on Roshar?
Brandon Sanderson
Yeah, if you go to the Cognitive Realm on Roshar the spren act differently than they do.
Oversleep
So you could spike in the Cognitive Realm?
Brandon Sanderson
Yeah I’ll leave a RAFO with you on that. That’s your fifth one. So there are ways to get any Investiture into Hemalurgy if you know what you’re doing. But yeah this is not something that would be a common use for Hemalurgy. Let’s just say that.
Oversleep
We do not concern ourselves with common uses.
Brandon Sanderson
Yes, I know you don’t. But yeah Hemalurgy, when you’re spiking into somebody you… you’ll see when we get around to it.
#291
Questioner
So we know that you can't just have someone-- If someone were to do something similar to Hoid, he can't just pop and go "Oh look, I can now do Allomancy or I can now do Surgebinding". What about Breath? If someone could somebody get Breath-- Maybe not *audio obscured* Could they still get the benefits of--
Brandon Sanderson
Oh, good question... Yes you can, actually. Breath is-- Once it is given to you, it is being keyed to you. Your Identity. So that transfer makes it yours to use however you want.
Questioner
So you could Awaken?
Brandon Sanderson
You could Awaken. If you-- If you were to somehow make it there, you would be able to Awaken. It's the easiest of magic systems to get the magic from, and then to manipulate. Because it has keyed into it Identity.
Questioner
*audio obscured*
Brandon Sanderson
Yes, you can take Breath onto another world. In fact, you've seen characters do this.
Questioner
*audio obscured*
Brandon Sanderson
It would work, yes.
Questioner
*audio obscured*
Brandon Sanderson
Yes, it would work the same way.
The only magic that is location-dependent-- The ones who aren't interested in this, just hum to yourself, okay? *laughter* You don't need to know any of this stuff to enjoy the books, okay? I write them so that you could just-- each series can be read independently, and enjoyed. There is behind the scenes stuff, and if you want to dig, it goes pretty deep.
So on Sel, we have AonDor. AonDor is based on the fact that the Dor, which is an amalgamation of Dominion and Devotion, has been pressed together and stuffed into the Cognitive Realm by Odium who didn't want it to gain sentience, as Investiture will do if it is left alone. It will either seek someone to be its Vessel or it will gain sentience. He pressed it in there; he pressed it together, which creates the violent reaction, because those two intents are opposed. And that is the foundation of the magic. Because it's stuck in the Cognitive Realm rather than the Spiritual Realm (the Spiritual Realm is location-independent; Cognitive Realm is location-dependent), it makes the magic on Sel only work in close proximity to what is keyed through there to the location they're keyed to. This has to do with Identity and Connection. Mostly Connection. So that means you can't do AonDor on another planet, but you can do other magics works anywhere, because they're drawing the magics specifically through either the place, or they're end-neutral, like Breath is, and you don't need any extra power.
#292
Questioner
Lightweaving on Roshar, is it more of a Physical thing or Cognitive Realm thing?
Brandon Sanderson
Lightweaving? I would say it's a hybrid between the two.
Questioner
So there's a Physical effect, but also a Cognitive component to that?
Brandon Sanderson
Yes, and then even a little bit of a Spiritual component. Lightweaving tends to involve, I'd say it's mostly Physical. Mostly you're not changing what someone's mind is, but you're actually changing light. Mostly Physical, but Lightweaving in particular has a lot like- you'll see weird things happening with Lightweaving on occasion, that are kind of a little bit of Cognitive and Spiritual influence that's happening. So keep your eyes on that. Yeah, I would say, if you're asking is light actually being changed yes, it is.
#293
Doom-Slayer
So how do the exact mechanics of Feruchemy in relation to Compounding work?
This confusion is primarily around how [the Lord Ruler] gets his near infinite age.
Okay. So first off, I understand the concept of how they work. Feruchemy is net zero, Allomancy is net positive, combine them and you end with a net positive Feruchemy ability.
So how Feruchemy normally works... you take say weight, store half your normal weight and then you can access it whenever you want. So you (originally X weight) are taking A weight, storing it, and then you are at (X-A) weight, with access to A. So we have a metalmind that store magnitude with the efficiency of how its received based on how quickly or slowly it is drawn upon.
All the metalminds except atium seem to act this way. Atium seems to work as storing magnitude/time rather than just magnitude. The way I understand it is that say a 30 year old person becomes 50 years old for 1 day, this would give access to 20 years difference for a 1 day period.
The Lord Ruler then exploits this by gaining access to say 20 years difference over 10 days (magnification by Compounding) which he then slowly feeds into himself to lower his age.
Why this difference? I'm assuming its to maintain a neutral "body age" because with just magnitude a person could permanently make themselves younger by Compounding.
With just magnitude of "20 years of youth" being stored, if the Lord Ruler magnified it, he could turn it into "200 years of youth" and then he would never need the constant stream off youth (and wouldn't have died without the bracelets)
Hope this makes sense.
Brandon Sanderson
All right, so there are a few things you have to understand about cosmere magics to grok all of this.
First, is that magics can be hacked together. You'll see more of this in the future of the cosmere, but an early one is the hack here--where you're essentially powering Feruchemy with Allomancy. (A little more complex than that, but it seems like you get the idea.)
The piece you're missing is the nature of a person's Spiritual aspect. This is similar to a Platonic idea--the idea that there's a perfect version of everyone somewhere. It's a mix of their connections to places, people, and times with raw Investiture. The soul, you might say.
(Note that over time, a person's perception of themselves shapes their Cognitive aspect as well, and the Cognitive aspect can interfere with the Spiritual aspect trying to make the Physical aspect repair itself.) Healing in the cosmere often works by aligning your Physical self with your Spiritual self--making the Physical regrow. More powerful forms of Investiture can repair the soul as well.
However, your age is part of your Connection to places, people, and times. Your soul "knows" things, like where you were born, what Investiture you are aligned with, and--yes--how old you are. When you're healing yourself, you're restoring yourself to a perfect state--when you're done, everything is good. When you're changing your age, however, you are transforming yourself to something unnatural. Against what your soul understands to be true.
So the Spiritual aspect will push for a restoration to the way you should be. With this Compounding hack, you're not changing connection; it's a purely Physical Realm change.
This dichotomy cannot remain for long. And the greater the disparity, the more pressure the spirit will exert. Ten or twenty years won't matter much. A thousand will matter a lot. So the only way to use Compounding to change your age is to store up all this extra youth in a metalmind, then be constantly tapping it to counteract the soul's attempt to restore you to how you should be.
Yes, all of this means there are FAR more efficient means of counteracting aging than the one used by the Lord Ruler. It's a hack, and not meant to be terribly efficient. Eventually, he wouldn't have been able to maintain himself this way at all. Changing Connection (or even involving ones Cognitive Aspect a little more) would have been far more efficient, though actively more difficult.
Though this is the point where I ping [Peter Ahlstrom] and get him to double-check all this. Once in a while, my fingers still type the wrong term in places. (See silvereye vs tineye.)
#294
Kurkistan
Do Breaths inherently possess the ability to interpret and carry out commands, or does the Awakener need to impart that decision making ability on Awakened objects?
If the Awakener does need to impart the decision-making ability, then does Awakening consist of an Awakener copying a portion of his/her Cognitive aspect (as determined by his/her visualization and verbal Command) onto the Cognitive aspect of the object being Awakened, with Breath then providing the "juice" for the object to actually follow its Command: powering both physical motion and "cogitation" based upon the copied Cognitive aspect?
If so, is that copying what drains color?
Brandon Sanderson
You're very close here.
#295
WeiryWriter
The Nightwatcher is described as having an amorphous, vague, humanoid form of dark green mist with a smooth, defined face. This is similar to how the mistpren are described (faces like porcelain masks and bodies of swirling fog). Did the Nightwatcher serve as the progenitor of the mistspren similar to how Honor, and later the Stormfather, were progenitors of honorspren like Syl.
Brandon Sanderson
One more time.
WeiryWriter
...Did the Nightwatcher serve as the progenitor of the mistspren similar to how Honor, and later the Stormfather, were the progenitors of the honorspren like Syl.
Brandon Sanderson
...Are you talking about author inspirations or in-world sort of things?
WeiryWriter
Either.
Brandon Sanderson
No, not in-world. And out of world, it's the reverse. Mist spirits came before. I ended up doing--
WeiryWriter
No, mistspren.
Brandon Sanderson
Oh, mistspren. So you're saying the ones in Shadesmar... You're using terms for things, because I haven't given you other terms.
WeiryWriter
They are named mistpren in the books.
Brandon Sanderson
Yeah. So ask me one more time.
WeiryWriter
Did the Nightwatcher serve as the progenitor of the mistspren similar to how Honor and later the Stormfather were the progenitors of the honorspren like Syl.
Brandon Sanderson
Okay, I see what you're asking now. I was thinking mist spirit the whole time. We'll RAFO that. More because-- yeah we're just going to RAFO it.
#296
Questioner
So I take it that a spren exists simultaneously in both the Physical and Cognitive Realms...
Brandon Sanderson
They do.
Questioner
But are they conscious simultaneously of what's happening in both.
Brandon Sanderson
No, they do have to transition.
Questioner
They have to transition. And does a spren's intelligence affect its ability to transition? So like a more intelligent type of spren finds it more difficult to move over--
Brandon Sanderson
Yep-- But the moving over creates a lot of-- Yeah, like some of the ones you'll sometimes see, you'll think that they are-- Some of the spren that aren't intelligent are actually mostly in the Cognitive Realm and you're seeing a manifestation here, but they're not really conscious of what's going on here, they're responding to stuff in the Cognitive Realm.
Questioner
Ok so they could be pretty damn clever but there's no one to talk to?
Brandon Sanderson
Yeah.
#297
Walin
If you had a metal plate, and you inscribed into it--with a living Shardblade--the description of a spren, so it's kind of like an Aon for a spren, in a way; if you had an Elsecaller in the Cognitive Realm force Stormlight through the bead for that plate, would it act as a fabrial for that spren? So like, if you drew a spren, like a flamespren onto a metal plate, so you'd make a heat fabrial?
Brandon Sanderson
So you're trying to trap the spren in the [plate]?
Walin
There's not a spren, it's just a drawing of a spren.
Brandon Sanderson
So you're trying to Invest a drawing of a spren, and turn that Investiture into an actual spren, and make it work...I don't think this is going to work. I can see an argument that it would; I would err on "I don't think this is gonna work." But, you know, stranger things have happened, right?
Walin
My purpose for that question was asking whether Sel is the only one that can have Cognitive Investing--er, the one that's best at doing Cognitive Investing.
Brandon Sanderson
Yes, it is definitely best; it is nothing to do with the Shards themselves, and everything to do with what happened to them.
#298
Oversleep
I have a philosophy question that could actually be answered in cosmere:
Ship of Theseus in cosmere. If I went and replaced every part of the ship, would it still - Cognitively - be the same thing?
What if I replaced everything and made a second ship out of the parts from the first one? What could somebody watching all of that from Shadesmar tell me?
Brandon Sanderson
You're right, part of the design of the cosmere (which has some deep roots in classical philosophy) was an attempt to answer the Ship of Theseus question.
In the cosmere, part of the Cognitive--and even spiritual--aspect of a thing (particularly if it isn't sentient) is delineated by the way that thinking beings define it. Per the old joke about the axe, if you replace your axe head and think of the new axe as "Your Axe," then the cognitive and spiritual aspects of that thing will grow to reflect that.
If you replaced every part of your ship, and gave the sailors time to sail it, thinking of it as the same ship--it would become the same ship.
#299
Questioner
Does Silverlight have a permanent Perpendicularity on it?
Brandon Sanderson
Silverlight has weird. So I'm gonna give a RAFO to that.
Questioner
It's got a physical constellation map. So they've gotta go to the Physical somehow right?
Brandon Sanderson
No, no, no. That can be in the Cognitive Realm.
Argent
The constellation map can be a picture from the Cognitive?
Brandon Sanderson
Well, yeah, I mean, it can be a picture in the Cognitive. That is a picture that exists in Silverlight.
Argent
Right, sure, but they need to be somewhere to view those things.
Brandon Sanderson
Right, I didn't say that that’s from the perspective Silverlight, but what we say is the picture is hanging there.
Questioner
So that was a mis-interpretation on our part.
Brandon Sanderson
Yeah, the picture is hanging there in Silverlight. Okay?
FirstSelector
Is there actually anything on the Physical end of Silverlight?
Brandon Sanderson
That is-- That's the RAFO part... That's what I'm not answering. If there's anything Physical. There can't be a Perpen--well, there could be a Perpendicularity, but then you'd have to go someplace in the Physical, and it gets all-- Silverlight is really weird.
#300
Questioner
Once upon a time I asked you about the magic system as described in Elantris and The Emperor's Soul, how in The Emperor's Soul [Shai] describes it as, she talks about the Spiritual Realm as the, like, the wall wanting to be beautiful. And how in Elantris they describe the Dor as what makes a river want to flow. And I assumed that meant that they were connected. But according to that [Arcanum Unbounded] it says that the Investiture is housed in the Cognitive Realm and how unlike most of the other magic systems its magic comes from the Cognitive. And so now I am confused.
Brandon Sanderson
Okay, they are related but there's an overarching theory, er, kind of philosophy of what Investiture is and it imbuing things with desires that in our world may not actually have desires. And that is connected. The fact that the Dor is the Cognitive Realm is not the way it's supposed to be. That is a prob-- well, in some ways it's a feature, but it's also very much a bug.