Jump to content

On the Nature of the Spiritual Realm and its Interactions


Shaggai

Recommended Posts

The Spiritual Realm is quite a mysterious place. It's the Realm of connections and ideals, and is the source of Investiture. The soul is also known as the spiritweb. But other than that, very little is known. What does it look like? Why is Hoid Spiritually blind? What exists within it, other than Investiture? What is Investiture, really? I don't know the answers to all of those questions, but I hope that my theory can help shed a little light on some of them - either by providing answers, or by highlighting how much we don't know. Be warned: I am unlikely to use many quotes or WoBs, as they have provided little information on this subject. If I'm lucky, I will at least raise the right sorts of questions so that we can learn more.

So the first thing we need to do is examine the basic consequences of the things we know. The word "spiritweb", combined with the knowledge that the Spiritual Realm is the Realm of connections, provides an image of a tangle of connections. Each Spiritual entity is connected to certain others, and the amalgamation forms a being. Your spiritweb is composed of the connections between the entity which is essentially you, and the things around it - your relationships with other people, your connections to ideals, etc.

But then things get more complicated. For example, consider Identity. What is it? Is it a separate Spiritual entity, some sort of identifier which marks the person as that person? That would be a bit contrived. It can't be the central element of the Spiritweb, because it can be stored Feruchemically. Is it an ideal, generated for each person? That seems unlikely. I think the most likely idea is that it represents the connection to the Cognitive entity for that person. And then we get into interactions with different Realms.

The Cognitive and Spiritual Realms seem to interact quite a lot, but we know very little. Cognitive entities can apparently influence the Spiritual Realm to repair the Spiritweb, if given the right type of Investiture. This is how Feruchemical gold and Regrowth work. But Cognitive entities can also be modified by the Spiritual Realm and Investiture, especially through Hemalurgy. So things get more complicated. Plus, the Spiritual interacts with the Physical - this is how the laws of physics apparently work, and of course there are spiritwebs and so on.

To go off on an apparently unrelated tangent, consider Allomantic steel. It uses Investiture to form an almost certainly Spiritual connection to nearby sources of metal, then makes the connection visible. It then allows for the modification of that connection, resulting in the Pushing of said metal. So you have to wonder, does this allow someone to see through the world into the realm beyond? Or does it simply make visible what was there all along? Is the Spiritual Realm a separate world in the same way as the Cognitive, or is it simply a different type of interaction, something embedded into the other worlds, able to go between them freely. Something in them, but not necessarily of them, without being a whole new world. What would the practical consequences be?

First of all, there might not be such things are Spiritual entities. The Spiritual Realm could be composed entirely of connections. Instead of connecting the Spiritual entities associated with various parts of the person to the Spiritual entity associated with the person and the Cognitive entity associated with the person, it connects the Physical and Cognitive entities. This explains some apparent contradictions with ideals - for example, the ideal of beauty varies from place to place and from time to time, making it Cognitive. However, in this view, ideals are simply cognitive entities endowed with a higher level of Spiritual connection (or a higher level of Investiture). Spren represent this quite well, being ideals with enough Investiture to become sentient. 

 

Investiture, of course, is the basic substance of the Spiritual Realm, which presumably forms the connections. This is how magic works. Awakening involves binding an object to a Cognitive entity representing the desired behavior. Allomancy provides a connection to the metal which allows the user to draw on Preservation's Investiture, and then connects to something else - an external piece of metal, another person's mind, the senses, etc. Feruchemy draws off the connection to an attribute, then restores it with greater strength. Surgebinding forms a connection to the spren and the Surges - the laws of physics as endowed with extra Investiture and connected to Cognitive entities. All magic is based off of this connection.

 

Having sufficient Innate Investiture also grants sentience, probably by forming a stronger connection with the associated Cognitive entity. This is how Hemalurgy grants Mistwraiths sentience - their Cognitive entity is quite similar to a human's, so Hemalurgy allows a strong enough connection to that for them to become kandra. It's also how spren become sentient - in the Cognitive Realm, everything has some degree of sentience, from ropes to rocks to sticks. Investiture allows for a stronger connection to the Physical aspect, granting sentience. When Nahel spren bond, that binds them even closer to the Physical Realm, making them fully sentient in both Realms. 

 

So. There you have it. My insane ravings on the Spiritual realm. What do you think?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There are Spiritual Entities, per a question my friend asked on the Words of Radiance tour.

 

"Spren are native to the Cognitive Realm. Are there entities and factions native to the Spiritual Realm?"

"Yes, but not the ones you think."

 

This addendum confused us, since we didn't yet have any preconceptions and thus were not thinking of anything specific. Included for completeness of the quote.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There are Spiritual Entities, per a question my friend asked on the Words of Radiance tour.

 

"Spren are native to the Cognitive Realm. Are there entities and factions native to the Spiritual Realm?"

"Yes, but not the ones you think."

 

This addendum confused us, since we didn't yet have any preconceptions and thus were not thinking of anything specific. Included for completeness of the quote.

Well, that basically disproves the actual theorizing that I did. I could try and find a loophole, but it would get too contrived, and there's no way that factions could exist according to my theory. Well. This was kind of pointless then.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nice Spiritual Steel Theory! I like it a lot. 

 

 

Full quote here:

 

 

Q:  Are there factions in the Spiritual Realm?  Like there are different stories about the Tranquiline Halls and the Iridescent Tomes.
A:  Yes...there are actual factions but they're not what you're thinking of.
Q:  Are there lifeforms that are native to the Spiritual Realm like the spren are native to the Cognitive Realm?
A:  Yes, but they're not what you're thinking.

 

I would maintain that the Spiritual Entities are Spiritual Ideals, each strongly attached to a certain planet. These Ideals permeate the entire Spritual Realm, but they are specifically tied to planets. Each Ideal or concept would become the focus for the magic systems, or "manifestations of Investiture" on each planet. 

 

Investiture is basically bits of Adonalsium. It seems as though it has the power to affect reality in all three Realms, but Investiture comes with Intent, which is... well, Intent. A purpose or objective, a way to filter all of a mind's actions. A mind is always affected by Intent, but the amount of Investiture determines the magnitude of effect the Intent has. If the mind controlling Investiture forms spontaneously, it is most likely going to be much more affected the Intent of its Investiture, like spren or Seons. Divine Breaths probably have Intent, but the Investiture is given to an already sentient entity, so Returned have much more of a way of controlling their actions. Returned are a fascinating case of this... How does Intent interact with Identity? And where are memories stored?

 

Intent also seems to be a subdivision of whatever Intent gave birth to the Shard, Splinter, or Innate Investiture, like we see in the Splintering of Honor. We have different aspects of honor: morality, justice, etc. (Side note: All of these things, unless combined together, don't really make good character. You have to have the entirety of the Intent of Adonalsium, I think, before you have a good character, but then again, I don't know what the other Shards' Intents were, so I don't know if Adonalsium is respectable or not.) The size of a chunk of Investiture probably determines the "class of the Intent", so a Splinter can be "the desire to eat lots of food", but a Shard has to be "Enjoyment" or something like that. The smaller the Investiture size, the more specific the Intent. Hmmm...

 

Two Principles of Intent: 

1. Intent grows more powerful with the size of the sample of Investiture. (Quantitative)

2. Intent grows more general with the size of the sample of Investiture. (Qualitative)

 

As to "Investiture is the substance of the Spiritual Realm"... 

 

 

 

Q:  What is the realmatic composition of Investiture?
A:  Investure is intended to be the building blocks of the Cosmere so I would say for the most part it transcends the different realms. Probably more of the spiritual if anything but more accurately it transcends them.

 

In light of that, I would say that the Spiritual affects Investiture more than any other Realm, but Investiture is not specifically of the Spiritual Realm. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nice Spiritual Steel Theory! I like it a lot. 

 

 

Full quote here:

 

I would maintain that the Spiritual Entities are Spiritual Ideals, each strongly attached to a certain planet. These Ideals permeate the entire Spritual Realm, but they are specifically tied to planets. Each Ideal or concept would become the focus for the magic systems, or "manifestations of Investiture" on each planet. 

 

Investiture is basically bits of Adonalsium. It seems as though it has the power to affect reality in all three Realms, but Investiture comes with Intent, which is... well, Intent. A purpose or objective, a way to filter all of a mind's actions. A mind is always affected by Intent, but the amount of Investiture determines the magnitude of effect the Intent has. If the mind controlling Investiture forms spontaneously, it is most likely going to be much more affected the Intent of its Investiture, like spren or Seons. Divine Breaths probably have Intent, but the Investiture is given to an already sentient entity, so Returned have much more of a way of controlling their actions. Returned are a fascinating case of this... How does Intent interact with Identity? And where are memories stored?

 

Intent also seems to be a subdivision of whatever Intent gave birth to the Shard, Splinter, or Innate Investiture, like we see in the Splintering of Honor. We have different aspects of honor: morality, justice, etc. (Side note: All of these things, unless combined together, don't really make good character. You have to have the entirety of the Intent of Adonalsium, I think, before you have a good character, but then again, I don't know what the other Shards' Intents were, so I don't know if Adonalsium is respectable or not.) The size of a chunk of Investiture probably determines the "class of the Intent", so a Splinter can be "the desire to eat lots of food", but a Shard has to be "Enjoyment" or something like that. The smaller the Investiture size, the more specific the Intent. Hmmm...

 

Two Principles of Intent:

1. Intent grows more powerful with the size of the sample of Investiture. (Quantitative)

2. Intent grows more general with the size of the sample of Investiture. (Qualitative)

 

As to "Investiture is the substance of the Spiritual Realm"... 

 

 

In light of that, I would say that the Spiritual affects Investiture more than any other Realm, but Investiture is not specifically of the Spiritual Realm. 

About Ideals, I don't think that they're necessarily bound to planets. Some probably are bound strongly to planets, and those form the basis of the magic systems, but there are probably some that are bound to units of Investiture (thereby forming Intents). Some Ideals probably vary from location to location - for example, between different societies with different concepts of beauty. That variance is likely the basis of the regional magic systems of Sel. Anyway, hopefully Stones Unhallowed (with flashbacks of Jasnah in the Cognitive! Woo!) will clear up more about the Cognitive, and things will get easier to figure out.

 

The interactions between Intent, Identity, and the mind are probably one of the most interesting and most terrifying processes in the Cosmere. Seriously, they're scarier than Hemalurgy. At least you can protect yourself from Hemalurgy by not getting stabbed. Re: memory, I would expect it to be stored either in the Cognitive or the Spiritual or even in the interactions between the three Realms - it's not entirely clear where the mind and the related bits and bobs are stored. That was one of the reasons I theorized that the Spiritual Realm was composed entirely of connections, because it cleared up a lot of things, even if it did so wrongly.

 

I'm not sure about the second Principle of Intent - if you took up 16 large splinters, each equal to 1/16th of a Shard, you wouldn't have a single general Intent, you would have 16 conflicting specific ones. I think that a better way to phrase that would be "as Intent-associated* Investiture splits, the Intent splits with it". In practice, this tends to work out to roughly the same solution, but is more precise.

 

As for the nature of Investiture, whether it's Spiritual or not: Even if the substance of Investiture is wholly Spiritual, it still transcends Realms. Intent is Cognitive, and it all affects the Physical.. Hell, maybe Investiture is just a term for "Spiritual energy imbued with an Intent", and there's non-Intent-based Spiritual energy somewhere. Or maybe we're looking at it all wrong.  Things get really complicated, really quickly, and then we pray that Brandon will write faster. 

 

*That bit might be irrelevant. Does "Intent-associated" describe all Investiture? Actually, it probably does, since all Investiture is originally of Adonalsium. So the "Intent-associated" bit can be ignored.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...

We have to wait 3th mistborn trilogy. By Alloy of law's apendix.

At its core, Hemalurgy deals with removing abilities—or attributes—from one person and bestowing them on another. It is primarily concerned with things of the Spiritual realm, and is of the greatest interest to me. If one of these three arts is of great interest to the Cosmere, it is this one. I think there are great possibilities for its use.

Hmm, someone going spike crazy like spearing shard bearers to steal a shard and giving it to sazed/harmony/someone to recreate adonalsium, and this would need lots of talk on spiritual realm?

Right now all spiritual parts in novels are probably not required, more of flavor (Shallans lightweawing having some spiritual component unlike version of ilusion making ability that hoid uses), used as easter eggs but not enough to complete puzzle on spiritual realm?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think the spiritual element to lightweaving is that drawing something makes a connection to something. The connection is used as a channel to send the structure of the object. The connection weakens over time so when Shallen lightweaves something a day later, the connection is weak so the image gets corrupted. 

 

I think identity might be the central node of a spirit web, feurchemy doesn't get rid of things, it only weakens and strengthens them (apart from copper as is an exception). Storing identity could weaken the connections to the parts of your spirit web, making you less you.

 

Also this thread reminded me of something which is a slight tangent, does each realm have a fundamental substance it is made of. Like the Physical is made of energy which makes matter, the cognitive is made of thoughts which makes memories, and the spiritual is made of connections which makes nodes

Edited by Fallen Rope
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Chaos locked this topic
Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...